Chapter 4
Fred catches his twin’s eye over his plate of breakfast and raises his brows in question. Without breaking out of the conversation he is engaged in, George gives a decisive nod. Fred quickly scrawls a note on his napkin and murmurs Plica Immitto Autem Terminus Adventus. He can’t help his gleeful smile as the napkin shuffles and folds itself into the origami bird he is picturing. The little critter flies over to Harry and, admittedly, dives at him more harshly than intended. As the younger boy reaches out curiously towards the bird, it shivers and crumples into itself before unrolling into a pristine miniature scroll. After a quick glance, Harry is grinning blindingly over at Fred and shooting him a thumbs-up.
The twins slip out of the Dining Hall without fanfare and split at the Statue of Paracelsus. George settles back into the shadow to wait for Harry to finish up and head their way while his mirror image hurries off to gather supplies and meet them in their favorite abandoned classroom. Harry exits the Great Hall a few minutes later and is glancing about when George steps jovially out of the shadows and waves him over. They chatter idly as Geroge navigates through a dark hallway behind a tapestry, into a storage closet, and straight through the back wall. The hallway they emerge into is bright, yet tinged with a deep sense of disuse. It is eerily silent as they navigate through another small hallway to an unassuming wooden door. With a flourish, the redhead flings the door open with a dramatic bow and accompanying ‘ta-dah!’.
Harry smiles nervously at George and halfheartedly compliments the room “uh, cool?” The bewildered boy jumps as a voice echoes from behind him.
“George, the threshold spell!”
With a facepalm, the young man cries out “Oh, no! How anticlimactic! No wonder you weren’t impressed! Step over the chalk line there, baby brother.” He gently urges Harry into the classroom and is rewarded with an amazed gasp and breathy exclamation. “Much better!” He follows Harry into the classroom, previously disguised as a dusty old storage space stacked with desks, broken shelves, and dented cauldrons. The twins stand by the doorway and quietly watch as the boy walks around in awe, looking (but not touching) as he admires the experiments, shelves of potions, physical manifestations of spells, and countless other half-formed ideas.
After another few minutes, Harry looks over at the brothers with a thousand questions burning in his eyes. “This is so cool!! How long have you had this space? How did you find it? What are those?!” With the last exclamation, he points to a shelf with various-sized vials filled with soft, glowing light.
Fred answers this time as he steps forward magnanimously “well, little brother, we were given this workspace to utilize! Under threat of expulsion if we came past curfew and about half a dozen rather strict stipulations.” He rolls his eyes fondly.
“We’re not allowed to do anything that could end up hurting ourselves or others” chimes in George.
“Or cause any ‘general shenanigans”, Fred finishes with sarcastic air quotes. “Snape, of course. You already know our deal, but nobody else can know! Part of the deal, you see. Needs to keep up his dungeon-bat, most-hated-professor persona.” He scrunches his face at this, but the fondness doesn’t leave his eyes as he flounces over to the glowing vials. “And these! Well, this is why you are here!” He turns happily towards Harry only to find the younger boy looking alarmed and with one hand covering his mouth.
George steps in quickly, “It’s a gift! Not quite as cool as what we originally wanted, but it was the best we could do on short notice.” His voice tapers off as he disappears into a large chalk board and re-emerges a second later holding a simple cloak and a plushie dragon. Curiosity has drawn Harry further into the room again, and George plops down onto the floor and pulls black chalk out of a wooden box and draws two large circles. He pats the ground next to him and Harry sits down with a small frown.
“Nullifying chalk! Erases interfering magic, really very useful in magical households and giant, old castles.” Careful not to touch the circle, he places the items into the center of each circle and empties a glowing potion onto each. “Do you know how to imbue something with your magic signature?”
Harry nods excitedly, “yeah! Light imbuing or strong imbuing?”
The twins share a curious glance at this unexpected question. “Strong, I guess? We want it to last!” The green-eyed boy agrees happily and carefully scooches towards the circle. Starting with the clothing item, he holds his hands over and closes his eyes. His hands start glowing with a soft light, as expected, before he tilts his left palm up and… pulls out a muggle pocketknife?! Before the twins can act on their alarm, the younger boy slices open his palm and drips blood shining like liquid sunlight onto the blanket. After carefully counting 7 drops, he cups his hands closed and the light sinks into the soft fabric and fades.
Harry opens his eyes and, catching sight of the brothers, his smile falls from his face. “Did I do it wrong?” Feeling the heat emanating from the blanket where he is sitting, 4 feet away, Fred gapes like a fish.
“Well, no.”
Harry, bless his heart, tilts his head like a curious crup puppy. “No? But…?”
“Well. WHERE DID YOU LEARN BLOOD MAGIC?!?!”
“Blood? Magic?” Both twins are staring at him with burning curiosity as they try not to alarm him. “It was in a journal I read? Over the summer?” As the tension builds, more and more of Harry’s statements are coming out as a question.
Sharing an intense glance, Fred leans towards Harry. “Did Snape teach you blood magic?”
With wide eyes, Harry waves off the question wildly. “No! I don’t know what that means! It was just in this journal about imbuing potions. And then there was a note about imbuing items with magic vs magical blood.” He looks from one redhead to the other. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Well..” starts Fred.
“You see..” says George.
“It’s kinda illegal. Not explicitly illegal, but generally considered really dark, olde magic.” Fred explains carefully, keeping an eye on their honorary brother. Surprisingly, he looks very calm hearing this.
“Oh! That makes sense! The journal is super old, Professor Snape reckons it’s almost a thousand years old!” He tilts his head again and closes in on himself. “Does that make you uncomfortable? I’m sorry!”
The twins share a look and then grin and attack Harry. Fred throws an arm around his shoulders and George gives him a light noogie. “So, you planning on sharing this imbuing recipe with us?”
Harry laughs and the tension melts from his frame. He bumps shoulders with the older boys and assures them he’ll share the recipe if this mystery glowing potion is as fantastic as promised. Harry seems unaffected by the heat radiating off of the blanket, but both twins are starting to feel a bit flushed and borderline sweaty. Rather than bring attention to it, George pats the ground near the circle containing the plushie dragon. “Go ahead and imbue this one and we’ll show you!”
Another minute later and the heat in the room has intensified beyond tolerability. Fred gathers the two items and they nullify as they pass over the chalk line. George activates the air filtration system meant to remove potion fumes and lower the atmospheric temperature. “Technically speaking, this is actually a gift from Ron!” Fred hands over the plushie first, which Harry eyes with curiosity. “He mentioned that you’ve been feeling a bone-deep chill since the arrival of the Dementors.” Noticing that Harry’s shoulders are starting to hunch in shame, he quickly moves on.
“These are imbued with your magical signature, so they will only react to you. The potion is one of our newest inventions, a liquid spell. For the dragon, you can just say ‘lumos’ and ‘nox’for a soft, calming light. To activate the other properties in both, it’s ‘quies’ and to stop it, it’s ‘confuto’.” Fred and George sit back and watch as Harry tries out his new accessories. He lights up the plushie, nullifies it, and then lights it again. He whispers ‘quies’ and his eyes snap open as his jaw drops.
“Ohhhhh, wow! This is absolutely amazing! Thank you! Ron asked you for this?!”
“Well, he’s not creative like we are. But he said something to help keep you warm and help you sleep at night. We wanted to keep it simple, so they both have the same activation spell. The plushie will glow, as you saw, and the activation word will do the heat, release the smell of lavender, and create a soft humming sound. The cloak will simply emanate heat towards the inside– so you don’t heat everyone around you, but can keep warm nonetheless.”
Harry blinks up at them with big eyes that look suspiciously moist. Generally, the boys would make light but they can tell it’s not the right time for that. Instead, they smile and pull him into a hug. He thanks them profusely and they gift him a small dispenser bottle filled with tiny little colourful squares. “The Glamour Gum?!” He checks out the much improved design and can’t wait to utilize this for every venture into the public eye. “Thank you! I can't wait to try it out!”
With that, the twins bid him adieu and walk him back to the main hallway outside the tapestry. Once behind the security of their hideout, they discuss the day’s findings. Despite the burning curiosity, they decide they are going to have to tell Professor Snape.
+ + +
About a week after giving Harry the Anti-Dementor Cloak, the twins have slowly watched the bags disappear from under his eyes and his cheerful demeanour take back over. That is why, when they catch him pouting in a windowsill near Ravenclaw Tower, they are immediately alarmed. Fred catches his attention first and, to his surprise, the younger boy scowls and turns away. Noticing the burning red on his ears and back of his neck, George figures it out first. He settles onto the ground with his back to the wall. Fred leans casually against the other side of the windowsill, looking intently at the book he is holding. Neither says anything.
“I know you’re not reading, that book is upside down.” Harry grumbles, petulantly. The boys continue in silence. Just as Harry takes a deep breath, either to lose his temper or share, footsteps break the spell. The three all look over to see a shy Hermione peeking around the corner. She waves sheepishly and Harry thunks his head backwards into the window. “Yeah, ok. Come on over. I’d rather only tell this once anyways.”
Hermione comes in and scooches into the windowsill space between Harry and Fred. Knowing her best friend, she leads the conversation. “So, you never came to lunch after Flitwick held you back after class.” Harry shrugs, still avoiding eye contact. “I’m assuming something happened with your paper on 4th year charms?” Harry dramatically throws his arm up to cover his eyes and wails out an affirmative. With the absence of more leading questions, he peeks over his arm at the 3 curious friends surrounding him.
“Ok, so” he starts and then pauses. “You two are going to laugh!” He accuses, pointing to the redheads in the group. The two merely nod at him serenely. They know better than to make promises they can’t keep and something about this story has caused Harry grave embarrassment. He sighs in exasperation but continues anyway. “Well, at least you don’t deny it! So, it all started with this Charms book I got over break…”
The green eyed boy continues on to tell them about a rather fascinating yellow Charms book boasting olde intent-based magic pulling from a variety of other languages and cultures. The brothers are each taking mental notes to ensure they can find a copy for themselves! Even Hermione, who has probably read even more books than the Weasley boys, looks utterly enchanted by this mystery textbook. However, all three realize that Harry is stalling by manipulating them with their greatest weaknesses! Hermione clears her throat in warning. The twins each cross their arms. Harry frowns and admits defeat.
“Fine.” He holds up his assignment, a paper he had been quite proud to submit, also his first ever TROLL grade. Splashed in red ink, the paper was only graded for the first paragraph or so before Professor Flitwick merely drew a large X through the rest and wrote out SEE ME AFTER CLASS! Quickly skimming the paper, the three observers see the problem. Hermione, once again, is the first to break the silence.
“Au-fru-fen?” She carefully sounds out the spell. “I don’t recognize this from the 4th Year List of Charms. What is it?” The twins are both shaking their heads.
“It’s not from the 4th year list. I’ve never heard of it, either.” They look over, expectantly, at Harry.
To all of their surprise, he looks more angry than embarrassed now. “List?!” He exclaims. “What list? Why wasn’t I given a list?” All three faces fall at once as they realize, once again, Harry has fallen through the cracks.
“Oh, Harry!” Hermione exclaims tearfully as she throws herself halfway onto Harry and wraps her arms around him. “I am so sorry! I didn’t even realize! The list was provided to Muggleborns. Wizarding families are just assumed to know. And you didn’t have either. Again! This is just like your letter all over again!” She sniffles and looks at Harry with her big, sad eyes and he folds immediately. George takes a mental note to ask about the letter incident as Harry awkwardly pats Hermione on the back.
The bright side of this whole emotional rollercoaster is that Harry seems to be too emotionally exhausted to be angry or embarrassed anymore. “Well, I didn’t know there was a list. Obviously. So I pulled an interesting sounding spell out of my new Charms book! It sounded really interesting, and this was a German spell for summoning. Only, it’s not. Apparently, I wrote an entire paper on some kind of Demon Summoning German dark-ages spell!” Hermione is looking downright distraught as the brothers wait for some kind of elaboration.
“Summoning, in this context, apparently means to conjure.” As understanding dawns, Fred breaks the silence by letting loose a loud snort. That is followed by laughter that only increases as George joins in. “Yeah, yeah. Laugh it off! I have to re-write the paper AND provide an additional 24 inches of parchment on the importance of understanding languages and root word meanings. Harry continues to pout as Hermione pats his arm consolingly.
“Well, it’s probably still a really good lesson, so I would recommend re-writing them anyways.” As Harry frowns and a flush of anger passes over his features, Hermione holds up her hand. “But, I think you should speak to Flitwick nonetheless. It’s not fair that you weren’t provided with the list, and you can’t be the only person in the history of ever to be raised by muggles. Maybe, instead of punishment, he can award extra credit points!” Harry rolls his eyes fondly as she starts chattering about how this new spell could be used in all kinds of unconventional ways, especially when used with runic sequences. George makes a mental note to look further into her theories. And fred gently rubs his honorary little brother’s head and helps direct the conversation towards Quidditch.