Of Pranks & Princes

Emily passed through the platform to where the Hogwarts Express was waiting and smiled at the sight of the nervous, new first years. It was almost unbelievable that only five years ago, she had been in their place. A lot had changed since then.

With her trolley dropped off to the conductor, she approached the kiosk at the platform that sold The Daily Prophet and traded the clerk two knuts for a single copy. When she was at school, she could mooch off Violet's subscription, but during holiday and school breaks, the kiosk at 9 ¾ was her only chance for updates on the wizarding world. Her mother never much liked being involved in that "magic absurdité," and when Emily had brought home a copy of the Prophet to show her during the Christmas holiday in her first year, Noelle promptly tore it to shreds without even a fleeting glance.

Her trunk slammed to the ground when she saw the headline, big and bold and sensationalist – the Prophet's standard. Terror At The Quidditch World Cup, it read. Though it was written by Rita Skeeter, known for her lack of journalistic integrity, and therefore easily written off as fiction, the title still nagged at Emily. She didn't know much about the Quidditch World Cup, herself, never having had the chance to go, but Fred and George and their family did. They had told Emily at the end of last term, bragging that they would get to go and root for Ireland. They were there. And maybe Violet had gone with her brother, now old enough to attend. Which led her to fear what the word "terror" meant. And she scanned the article, scouring – though certainly not hoping – to find any familiar names. The world seemed to melt away around her as she dug deeper and further into the paper, the sound of her own pulse muffling her ears. The thin newspaper shook in her trembling hands.

What if? she asked herself. What if?

Upon reaching the end of the article, which offered no legitimate information or conclusions, Emily forced herself to take three deep, long breaths. It wouldn't be any good to freak out now, she decided, as if the words alone could steady her blood pressure and heartrate, both of which were likely far too high to be healthy. With one last extended inhale and exhale, she folded the paper back up, clenching it in her fist.

Do. Not. Panic.

As always on the first of September, Platform 9 ¾ was brimming with Hogwarts students, old and new – too many to count. She scanned the crowd for familiar faces – Lee, Violet, the twins, Amina, Duncan, anyone. The air around her was hot, more so than usual on the first of September, and she brushed away an auburn curl that had stuck to her sweaty face.

When she finally did catch sight of them – red hair all aflame and towering above the nervous first years – she ran to them, grabbing each into a bone-breaking embrace and laying a kiss on each cheek.

"Oh, thank God!" she said, and they seemed confused by her greeting.

"What's this all about?"

They stood there, longer and lankier than she remembered them being when she left them at Kings Cross last summer. Their hair had gotten longer too and shaggier, running almost to their shoulders. But beyond that, beyond the physical, they hadn't much changed at all, it seemed. Not like she had – with her thick hair finally settling into its waves and her shining prefect pin, freshly shined, and her list of O.W.L.s. And they looked at her, this version of her, with intrigue and perplexity coating their every feature, from brown eyes to freckly nose.

"You almost died," she explained to them, shoving the paper against Fred's chest. Now in retrospect, it seemed ridiculous for her to have been so worried.

He took it but didn't glance at it even in passing, instead turning with a mischievous grin to his brother. "We should go off and almost die more often then, eh, George?"

"Yeah, if this is the kind of greeting we come back to," George replied with a chuckle. "Nice to feel appreciated."

Emily pouted, raising an eyebrow at the two of them. "Well, maybe next time I'll just resign myself to the fact that you're dead."

Fred folded his arms across his chest. He shot her a challenging look, accompanied by a passing smirk and a wiggle of his brow. "You'd miss me."

"Like hell."

Her palms were still sweaty from residual nerves, but her blood pressure had returned to normal levels, and she was grateful just to be able to breathe. Then her face bent into a smile, and she looked between the two of them with chuckling bubbling within her throat. They soon joined her, each boy draping an arm over her shoulder as they moved to the train.

"Where'd you leave your stuff anyway?" George asked.

Emily broke from them to return to her trunk, which still sat where she had left it by the paper kiosk. She shot the clerk an appreciative smile and lifted the heavy thing into her arms.

The twins rushed over to her, and George took her trunk from her, dragging it behind them. "Oh no, you don't."

"You know," she began, walking in line with them back toward the train, "if you keep this up, you'll trick me into believing that you're actually nice."

"We're plenty nice."

"Oh, sure," she said in retort. Her hands clicked into place against her hips as she turned to them. "But if you're plenty nice, then there surely must be a reason why I'm only your school friend, eh?"

"Well, yeah," said Fred, looking suddenly dumbstruck. The two boys stopped in place, George still holding Emily's weighty luggage in his arms.

George clarified, "You never accept our invitation home for holiday."

"We've tried." Fred shuffled his feet against the ground, and Emily looked dodgedly out of the corner of her eye, avoiding George's freshly-intensified look. They had asked; that was a fair point.

But, in her defence, she had her mum. And, more importantly, her mum only had her. It was the least she could do for her mum to spend time with her over holiday, to visit whatever destination her mother chose to visit – the past year it was Cannes, though they had spent a week of the summer with her mother's family in Nantes – just the two of them.

She sighed. "You know I can't, though. It's just me and –"

"Your mum; we know."

Emily pressed her lips into a hard line, her eyes passing between the two boys. A large group of students in muggle t-shirts headed around them towards the train, and though the three of them had stopped for a moment, caught in the heat of their conversation, Emily began moving again. Once the twins started up behind her, with her trunk in tow, she turned over her shoulder to say, "Well, the least you can do is write."

"We don't do homework on holiday, Princey," Fred argued playfully as his shoulders softened ever so slightly.

"Homework?" she parroted. "It's a letter. To me."

"It's work."

"At home."

Emily let out a frustrated sigh as she shook her head, her loose waves shuffling with the motion against her shoulders and back. "I suppose then I'll just have to wait until we all get to the train to make sure you're both okay."

"Are we special, or did you worry this much about Lee and Violet too?" George asked as he readjusted the weight of the two trunks in his grip. Hers was much, much heavier than his, causing him to hold his body at a contorted angle.

"Where is Indigo, anyhow?" asked Fred, paying his brother's struggle little mind as he looked around the platform. "We caught Lee in passing on our way over, but we didn't see her yet at all."

At their height, towering above most of the students near the train, they had a much better chance of spotting Violet than she'd have had. Violet, whom she hadn't seen since they parted ways at Kings Cross at the end of last term. Violet who wrote her three letters every week over summer holiday, though she only ever got one in return from Emily. But Violet still had Amina, whom they had met in first year, and Patty, whose pureblood family lived next-door to Violet's. They were all pleasant girls, almost tooth-decayingly sweet to Emily, whose prefect status came with the burden of nightwatch shifts in the castle and mandatory seating in the prefects' compartment of the Hogwarts Express. Knowing Violet, she and the other girls had already found a picturesque compartment near-ish the front of the train with ideal access to the restrooms and changing cabins. Violet was smart like that.

When Emily and the twins arrived at the Hogwarts Express, the prefects had already begun convening near the locomotive's front. They had an assigned compartment, so there had never been much rush to reach the train before the first years.

"I can take my trunk back now, George," Emily said, shooting the slightly shorter twin a smile as he passed her stuff to her. "Thanks a bunch."

"That's Fred," the other corrected before adding, off-hand, "But that's fine…"

And suddenly Emily was completely mortified, her dewy complexion draining from her face and refilling with a bright red flush. Had she really mixed them up? Had that much time really passed over the summer that she already forgot which twin was which? She had always prided herself on being able to sense the subtle differences between them, but doubt and embarrassment and confusion swallowed her now. "Ohmygosh, Fred, I'm so sorry!"

"He's taking the mickey, Em. I'm George."

"Thank goodness." Emily felt relief wash over her, and everything fell back into place. "You made me think I'd lost my touch over holiday."

"Maybe not this time." Fred shot her a playful wink.

"We'll see you, though. We're gonna go find Lee in this mess."

She smiled over her shoulder at them as they walked toward the far end of the train. "Good luck!"

Then she turned back to the prefects and felt a sudden twinge of anxiety. It was Emily's second year as a prefect, so by all counts, she shouldn't be this nervous and it shouldn't be any harder this go around. And after the Dementors on the train last year, anything else should be a piece of cake, truly. She shuddered just at the thought of it, the coldness that spread through her bones, the paralysis she felt as the hooded creatures floated past her, too close for comfort, the absence of sound where the memory of her father's voice had once been…

Emily shook it from her head. Anything would be better than that.

But still, she was tentative. Penny Clearwater, who taught Emily the ropes as a fifth year prefect, had graduated last term as Head Girl, Allison Alden was doing the same level of double-duty as seventh year prefect and Head Girl this year, and Emily hadn't met the fifth year prefects yet. Rather than suffer through extensive introductions on the platform, she headed into the train where she could sit in silence and read.

The prefects' compartment was larger than normal ones by a hair and segregated by House, so Emily's compartment would soon be filled with the other Ravenclaw prefects, save for the Head Boy and Girl. For now, book in hand, she appreciated the quiet.

A few chapters in, the compartment door slid open, and in walked Roger Davies. For a moment, Emily had almost forgotten that he was the other prefect in her year; they hadn't really talked enough last term for it to have made a difference.

Unlike the twins, who seemed not to have changed all that much over summer, Roger had filled out in himself, grown out his hair a bit. His sixth-year Chaser muscles were cut clear beneath the thin fabric of his t-shirt, and Emily blushed when she realized she had been staring.

"Oh, hi," he said as he lobbed his trunk on the overhead shelf. "You must be the new fifth year prefect!"

Emily gently closed her book around her finger, to save her place until she could grab an appropriate bookmarker. She looked up at him, sheepishly. "No, actually."

"Then who…?" He dropped his question as he studied her face. "Oh. I'm so sorry. It's… Amy, right?"

"Emily," she said and realized just how invisible she had been.

"I'm making such an arse of myself." He ran his fingers through his hair, his t-shirt skimming just enough to hint at toned abs. "I'm really sorry."

"It's all right." She wanted to hide back behind her book, escape back into the world it contained and away from Roger's apologetic tone.

He sat down opposite her in the compartment and took another look at her. "I'm rubbish with faces, so if you've… changed your hair?" He paused while Emily shook her head. "Or stopped wearing glasses?" She pursed her lips, and he continued, "No?"

"But I blend in," Emily argued, brushing her auburn curls behind her ear. She dogged-eared the page she was on in her book. "So it's okay, really."

Roger let out a sigh, and his dark brown hair fell across his eyes. "It's really not though. I feel terrible."

She hadn't imagined that he'd have been bothered at all. So what he forgot who she was? So what he called her Amy? So what he still couldn't place her, though they had been prefects together all last term?

Was it all worth it, now that he was talking to her? A little bit…

And it was still worth it even as the new fifth year prefects did come. Because once Roger introduced himself to them, an Irish boy named Iain and a black Scottish girl named Davina, he turned back to Emily and kept talking to her.

Before long, the trolley witch came by with her extensive offering of wizarding candies that Emily hadn't tasted since the train ride home in the summer. The trolley witch's voice was a pleasant hum amidst the louder-than-life conversations that resounded through the train.

"Let me get you something, as an apology," Roger said, reaching into his denims to pull out money. And when Emily shook her head, he tried again. "As a sign of goodwill then."

"Fine." It was hardly a concession; her mouth was practically drooling at the sight of the sweets, though it was even nicer that he had thought her offer at all. "But just a liquorice wand. Then we're good."

He flashed her a smile, bright and white and incredibly charming, as he handed the trolley witch some Sickles, purchasing a liquorice wand each for the other two prefects as well. Looking back at Emily, he asked, "You're sure you don't want anything else?"

Emily could feel the flush burning in her cheeks and she set her book to her side, turning to face him more fully. "This is perfect. Thanks."

Roger purchased a handful of jelly slugs as well, "just in case."

She bit into her liquorice wand, and Roger looked at her expectantly. "So, tell me more about you, Em. Since I obviously need a bit of a refresher."

Nervously, Emily stammered a bit, stumbling on her words before asking the new prefects to talk about themselves a bit first; she hadn't ever really been great with attention on her. Iain and Davina, nervous though they were, seemed slightly more at ease discussing their families and ambitions with Roger's warm brown eyes glancing their way. Though his glance was calming, reassuring, it was also the very thing that made Emily most nervous.

Roger Davies. Quidditch captain. Star student. He should have been far less approachable. At least, that was how it felt last term.

And then his eyes found her again, focused on her.

"Well, um, I, uh…" She paused, running her lip between her teeth. "I'm from Chard in Somerset, and I live with my mum, and… What do you want to know?"

Roger let out a chuckle. "It's not a job interview, Em, just a conversation."

"Sorry."

Iain pulled out a pack of cards and suggested a game of Exploding Snap. While Davina excitedly agreed, Roger politely declined and turned back to Emily.

"What do you do in your free time?" he asked and then pointed at her book. "You like to read?"

Emily nodded and pulled her book back onto her lap, gushing about the story and the characters created by a renowned Muggle author. Her eyes lit up as she described the plot, and Roger grinned. Then they got talking about Wizarding literature and Muggle movies and what Wizard families do during the summer months.

"Believe it or not, I've been planning our Quidditch strategy all summer," Roger said, stretching his arms behind his head. There was a slightly manic twinkle in his eye. "And that Cup is ours this year."

There was a loud snap as the cards in Iain's hand exploded in a puff of smoke, but Emily was so enraptured in conversation that she hardly noticed.

"It's not that I don't have faith in you, Roger, but we've only won once in recent history," she replied with a coy smile.

"Well, Gryffindor lost Wood this year, and Johnson doesn't scare me, so they're an easy takedown"

Emily laughed, the noise shaking her shoulders and bouncing her curls. "If I were you, I'd be more afraid of Angelina."

He had opened his mouth to retort when the compartment door slid open, and Allison Alden stuck her head through to say that the prefects would be starting patrols soon. The prefects' compartment quickly emptied to the changing cabins before each of them agreed on a patrol destination.

Emily had chosen the front of the train, where she knew that Violet sat with Amina and Patty, who greeted her excitedly in the residual post-summer flurry.

"How've you been?" asked Patty, pulling Emily into a quick hug.

"Good," she replied, pulling her hair back off of her face. A large beam spread wide across her face. "Well, great, actually."

"Why so great?"

Emily stepped into their compartment, closing the door behind her and trying to ignore the feeling of claustrophobia that followed. "I was sitting in the prefects' carriage alone, and then Roger Davies came in, but he didn't even remember me!"

The girls waited eagerly for the remainder of the story, met only with silence, before Violet finally said, "… And that's… great?"

"Well, not that, but then we got to talking, and he bought me candy off the trolley, and we were chatting the entire train ride!"

Patty squealed with delight. "That is great, Emmy!"

"You've had eyes on Roger for ages," Amina agreed.

"I mean, he honestly didn't know who I was, but –"

"Make him apologize with a date!"

Emily turned to Amina, rolling her eyes. "I'm not going to blackmail him into going out with me."

"Please just do something about it this year," said Violet finally. Always the voice of reason and resolve. "It's been two whole years."

Smirking, Emily replied, "I promise nothing," before she reminded the girls that they'd arrive at Hogsmeade soon and continued her patrol.



Once Emily had finished her share of compartments in patrol, she took a quick detour to the train's end, knocking twice on the door of the very last, endmost cabin.

"We're already dressed so bugger off," came a voice from inside. Surely one of the twins.

"You don't even know who it is, you oaf!"

Emily slid the door open and smiled at the compartments residents – Fred, George, Lee, and, surprisingly enough, Angelina Johnson. "It's me."

She was greeted by a chorus of "Hey, Em!" and one "Hi, Princey."

On Fred’s lap, in the centre of the compartment, was an open leather briefcase with a painted ‘W’ on its front.

“Oi,” Emily said and pointed at the case filled with sweets, “you know the deal — no testing your pranks on the train.”

“We’re just lookin’ at ‘em,” Fred said.

“Just talkin’ about ‘em,” said George.

“Honest.”

In unison they both turned with beaming grins. “Right, Lee?”

Lee nodded, but when he moved to speak, his tongue rolled from his mouth, twice as long as usual.

Emily’s mouth set into a hard line, a contrast to her newly wrinkled brow as she glared down at the twins, who were both struggling to hold in their laughter. They were red in the face, suffocated, as the hysterics spread to Lee, too, his tongue still a loose ribbon that ran down from his lips. The three boys passed along high-fives, and George made a note in a small book of parchment.

Before she could even get a word out, though, the briefcase was already packed away and stowed beneath their seat. “Yeah, yeah, we know.”

“Prefects are fun-killers,” Fred said with a groan and sulked. He stretched his long legs out on the seat opposite him.

“Be grateful I’m letting you keep it,” she said, setting her arms into hard angles at her hips.

“Why don’t you just go back to your fancy prefects’ compartment, you spoilsport?”

“Maybe I will.”

"What’d you even come down here for?" asked George. "Davies was already here."

A grin crept across Emily’s face. “I had good news to tell you.”

“The Malfoys got eaten by dragons over holiday?” Fred suggested, his eyes wide with hope.

“No… but that would be nice.”

George’s guess came next. “You know how to recover Leprechaun gold?”

“What? No. Lemme just tell you.” Emily took a calming breath, but she couldn't hide the blush that rose into her cheeks. She ran her teeth over her bottom lip and came out with it. "I’ve just been talking to Roger, and we’re really hitting it off this term."

“Davies?” asked Angelina, and when Emily nodded, she added, “Nice.”

"Term's hardly started, and I'll bet he couldn't even pick you out of a crowd," Fred mumbled.

Her brow furrowed, and her jaw clenched, and she could feel her body growing cold with anger and embarrassment at the same time. She felt so suddenly stupid standing in the compartment with them and their judging eyes. Fred's words, surely not meant for her to hear though the whole compartment had, slapped her hard across the face.

"Tough shite coming from an identical twin, really" Angelina said with a flippant wave of her hand, and Emily was so relieved that Angelina had been sitting there with the comeback she'd never have thought of. But the remnants of tears still lingered, burning in her eyes.

"Oi, I think we all better just cool off a bit."

"Yeah, I guess I'll just see you lot later." She pursed her lips as she took a backwards step out of their compartment.

"Hey, Em!" Roger called out from the front end of the last train car. He was waved his arms at her, the fabric of his sleeves – black and blue and bronze – flapping wildly around. But his wide grin was still so charming and infectious. "You coming? We're almost at the station!"

And as Emily said quick goodbyes to the Gryffindors before leaving with Roger, she could hear, though not discern, Fred's indistinct grumbling.