The Sneakout Special
Fred grabbed Hermione’s hand and led her to the stairway, ignoring his younger brother’s stuttering protests. It had become clear very quickly that Ron was not on board with “Operation Liberation”, and Fred had named it (just now). He wasn’t going to waste any time fighting with Ron about it. Ron followed them to the hallway, clearly believing the fight was not over.
“This is crazy, ‘Mione! Since when are you friend with them anyway?!” He yelled from the doorway.
“Keep your voice down, Ronald!” She hissed, as George pushed him back into his room.
“Since now.” Fred said mulishly crossing his arms.
“Granger’s cool.” George snapped, shoving his brother again. “Who wouldn't want to be her friend? Now act like a real one and if you aren't going to help stay out of the way.” He jabbed his thumb at the bed Ron had previously been lounging on.
Ron sulked and jammed his hands into his pockets roughly.
“You’ve never - uhg, this is too much.” He flopped down on the bed and crossed his arms, glaring at the trio. “Mum’s going to have a bird and the whole order is going to be pissed.”
“Since when do you have such a problem breaking the rules, Ronald? Because it’s my idea, not Harry’s?” Hermione snapped furiously. She realized every time Harry proposed something insane that could lead to their detention, expulsion or even death, Ron was all for it, but her ideas were always shot down. Especially when she was the voice of reason.
“This isn’t school ‘Mione.” He grumbled.
“Don’t call me that! I’m done, Ronald. Just…stay out of the way.” With that declaration she flipped her volumous hair over her shoulder and stomped from the room. Fred and George lingered a moment longer to hover ominously over their brother.
“Keep your mouth shut-” Fred cracked his knuckles.
“If you know what’s good for you.” George finished, slapping Ron rather hard on the shoulder. A genture that could have been friendly, but definatly wasn’t. Finding him suitably cowed, they had followed Hermione out.
The twin’s room was far larger than hers, and they had already gone to some effort making it their own. Two large four poster beds sat at the far end, spaced about two feet apart with an ornate cherry end table sandwiched between. The one on the right featured velvet curtains in a brilliant purple, with matching sheets a shade darker, and on the left, a dark sunset orange, with sheets in a deep red. Scattered on both beds were quills, parchment and sweets wrappers. Books and a small pile of gears and screws sat atop the bedside table.
On the other side of the room was a huge bay window, with a plush looking black cushion and black velvet curtains tied back with red and gold rope that glittered faintly in the sunlight. More books sat in a neat pile by the window seat, and Hermione had to agree that it looked like the perfect spot to curl up with a book. Two scroll top writing desks sat pushed together near the towering black armor, both covered in notebooks and stacks of sketches and notes. A table sat near a door on the right, with bottles and boxes neatly lining one side, the other a jumbled mix of things she recognized as the twin’s trick sweets and wands, and several things she didn’t. It was clean, not a hint of dust or smell of decay and mildew that permeated most of the house.
“When did you guys have time to do all this?” She marveled.
Fred preened at her tone. Giving her a cocky smirk her said,
“We work fast, ‘Mione.” Finishing it off with a cheeky wink.
“Uhg, please don’t call me that. It drives me mad when Ron does, I’m worried it will catch on.” She groaned.
“Noted.” Fred and George said together, making her chuckle.
They sat down on the beds to plot, Hermione seated on the purple one, while the twins sat across on the orange. Hermione had a moment of disappointment that they choose to sit across rather than beside her, and scolded herself for it. Why would they sit next to me? I’m just their kid brother’s friend. This is about Harry anyway, this isn’t the time for…fraternization. Not that she was thinking about fraternizing with one of the twins. Or either. Or both. BOTH? She internally shrieked. What on earth was going on inside her head? She mentally shook herself, determined to focus on the real issue, not her sudden insane libido.
She laid out the plans she had gone over and abandoned that morning, and the twins agreed with her that they needed something new. Surry was too far to apparate in one go, so they poured over a map George had found in the library and chose a midway point. Hermione, unable to help herself, had found parchment and a quill and was taking down notes as they spoke, striking out lines when an idea was proposed and rejected. After an hour, they had what the three of them decided was the best course of action.
“So, we act normally today, wait until the order meeting starts, sneak out through the back garden-”
“Avoiding Kreature-” George interrupted.
“Who might be a snitch, nasty little beast-”Fred muttered.
“He’s suffered for years, of course he’s…um, unwell.” Hermione defended. Truthfully she considered him quite nasty as well, and clearly brainwashed by pure-blood nonsense. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for him though, trapped in this house all these years, raised by evil wizards and then abandoned to isolation by them.
“Can’t let anyone see us. I don’t trust Ron not to snitch.” George grumbled. He flopped onto his back and started tossing a ball from hand to hand. Fred leaned over and deftly caught the ball mid-toss and rolled it in his fingers, making it disappear.
“Ginny either. She’s less likely to snitch, but could let something slip.” Fred said, rubbing his chin.
“Especially if she’s worried about Harry.” Hermione added. “Back to it, after we get to the garden, we apparate to Kingston Upon Thames, then to Surry. We don’t want anyone to hear the apparition if they are watching the house, so we walk from there, disillusioned, sneak in through his bedroom window and apparate him out while the muggles sleep. That only leaves one problem.” Hermione couldn’t believe she had missed such a crucial component. They had been so caught up calculating apparition distance and studying the maps, thinking of avoiding possible death eaters…how would they get him into Number 12, Grimmauld place? The only person who could reveal the location was the secret keeper, and it’s not like they could go to Dumbledore when he was the reason for the stealth mission.
“Uh-oh what’s that face?” Fred jumped off the orange bed, which Hermione had learned was George’s, and joined her on the purple.
“I just- I realized, how will we get him in here? It’s under the Finius charm, we could bring him right to the front door and he wouldn’t see it!” Hermione’s eyes filled with frustrated tears. She felt increasingly anxious with Harry in the muggle word, ignorant and unguarded.
“Hey, don’t cry Curls.” Fred wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her into his side. “We’ll work it out. That’s what the plan session is all about.” He gave her a tight squeeze.
Hermione sniffed once, forcing the tears back. She raised an eyebrow and looked up at Fred.
“Curls?” She asked.
“Testing nicknames. Hermione is a mouthful-” She gave him a mock glare and a swat to the chest. “A lovely mouthful- I mean name, I mean-”
“Uhg, stop!” George said with a groan and a laugh, throwing a well-aimed ball of socks and hitting his twin in the face.
“I just so happen to have the solution to this problem.” He reached over to the bedside table and pulled a black notebook from the drawer. After a moment of thumbing through it , he produced a small sheet of paper and wordlessly handed it to Hermione. There, in spidery cursive was a single sentence that solved the biggest flaw in the plan.
“Where did you-is this Dumbledore's handwriting?” She asked, locking eyes with George.
“Yeah, they gave it to us before the first trip over. We were supposed to incendio it-”
“But no one ever catches a bit of muggle slight of hand.” Fred finished, pulling a coin from behind Hermione’s ear and flipping it over his knuckles. He spread his hand wide to show it had dissaparated.
Hermione laughed, then threw herself at George, nearly knocking him over with the force of her hug.
“You two are Brilliant!” She cried. Suddenly she pulled back, feeling embarrassed at her sudden show of affection. George didn’t seem to mind his mildly violent hug, if the way he was grinning at her was any indication.
George was in fact, ecstatic. Hermione Granger granting him her time and attention was a wish he’d had for well over a year, however since the Yule ball, it was growing increasing hard to ignore the urge to watch her or seek her out. He had spent many hours in his room (or let’s be honest, while zoning out in class) considering ways to draw her attention in a way that didn’t make her angry, but he always fell short of a functional plan (reverting to old habits like teasing Ron in front of her, or doing something ridiculous that annoyed her).Even knowing it was childish, George would often tug one one of Hermione’s curls as he walked past her in the common room, or in the burrow. He did this as often as he could because she would look at him and scowl, but she never actually looked mean. She would just, scrunch her nose a little and try to glare. He’d interrupt her reading every few days, always with the same “Whatcha reading Granger?” and she would always say, “A book, George.” Always George. Whenever she spoke to him she was direct and never hesitated before saying his name. Often people guessed and guessed correctly, but that was hollow in comparison to the thrill of being recognized as yourself.
“Are we hugging again?” Fred cried, jumping onto his twin’s bed.
Hermione laughed. “No, I think we better make ourselves seen this afternoon.”
Fred and George nodded.
“Let’s let little Ronikins think we gave up.”
The trio spent the rest of the evening before dinner helping Sirius and Remus clean the library, an undertaking that would definitely keep them all busy for several days. Ginny and Ron arrived to help at the bequest of their mother, Ron grumbling childishly at being forced to spend his summer break cleaning. Sirius cleaned with a vengeance that was outright hostile, chucking books and trinkets into large garbage bags with relish. Hermione was horrified at the destruction of books, and started fishing them out of the bin bag to sort through the discards.
“Hermione, this is dark magic. I’m not saving them just because they are books.” He huffed as she pulled the tenth book from his sack.
“Sirius- even Hogwarts has books on the dark arts in the library. Throwing away knowledge leaves us vulnerable to the dark arts, how would we know what’s coming, or rare counter curses? Even the worst books can help sometimes.” She pleaded. True, some of these books were awful “Deadly Duels, curses to kill” or “Keeping blood pure, a detailed genealogy of the Sacred 28”, but she felt that tossing any of them could leave them blind to something the other side would use in a heartbeat. Hermione believed there were hard lines and gray ones, and if left in the hands of people too altruistic to fight a little dirty, the war between good and evil would never be won. Besides, a spell can only be as dark as the wizard casting it. She reasoned. Mostly.
Sirius relented, and stopped throwing away books. Hermione came up with a compromise that the darkest books could be confined to a locked shelf in the back of the library, accessible only with Sirius’s wand. As this added chore was her idea, she took the charge in organizing the new dark arts section, toting books back and forth without complaint.
Ron, having found another nest of spiders behind a stack of maps, had left the library and not returned. Ginny had given up scrubbing shelves and had taken up residence on a window seat to read a book she had found on beauty charms. The twins helped without complaint, banishing pests, scourifing shelves and lugging books back and forth (with and without magic). They were just finishing re-shelving some very interesting looking charms books (The shelf now rat-free, thank you very much) when Molly appeared to call everyone to dinner.
Hermione fidgeted anxiously throughout dinner. She found she couldn’t focus on conversation, and after her third or fourth time answering “Huh?” to a question the others stopped trying to engage her. The twins were much better at feigning nonchalance, talking, laughing, and throwing bits of bread at Ron until he blew up at them (only to get scolded by Molly for raising his voice). As soon as the meal was over, Hermione excused herself to her room. She bolted up the stairs and threw herself on the bed, giving herself a moment to scream into her pillow. This was insane. Was it? Wasn’t it? What was she thinking, traveling across England to get her friend? She fought the growing panic, flipping onto her back and struggling to take deep breaths. What if I just go to Sirius, I bet he’d listen. But even if he listens and agrees, how could he help? He’s trapped here too. Her mind whorled franticly, bouncing between calling everything off and a determination to follow through. Harry needs me. He just survived a terrible ordeal and they want to keep him in the dark, thinking he is safe when the Death Eaters were already on the prowl. What about when we bring him back, what will they do? This was perhaps the biggest anxiety. What would the fallout be? Would they kick her out? Expel her? Could she be expelled for something that happened outside of school? She sat up, twisting her hands. What would she do if they turned her out? She wasn’t related to anyone here. She wasn’t the chosen one with the Golden Ticket out of trouble like Harry.
A loud CRACK startled her out of her spiraling thoughts, as the twins once again appeared in her bedroom. Hermione gave a yelp and jumped back on the bed, quite like a cat.
“For heaven’s sake, KNOCK!” She cried.
“And how, exactly would we sneak around if we went about knocking on doors and alerting people to our destination?” Fred asked.
“Sorry!” George cried, ready for another pillow assault.
“No, it’s fine. I suppose we can’t tramp about on the stairs. Where do they think you are?” Hermione used her nervous hands to pull her curls back into a messy bun.
“Well, we put up a bit of a fight-”
“Said we wanted to join the Order, help out proper-”
“And got sent to our room!”
“So we made a bit of a show about stomping off.”
“Door’s locked and warded-”
“And our “Sneakout Special” will make just enough noise to make anyone passing think we are inside!” Fred finished
“Sneakout Special?” Hermione asked, raising a brow.
“Clever little device ‘Ol Georgie here cooked up-”
“Makes random stomping noises and thumps. Just enough to make it sound like someone is inside.”
“Perfect cover!”
Hermione laughed.
“Sounds brilliant! So…how long do we wait?”
“Figured about a half hour until the order meeting is in full swing…then we duck out the secret passage behind the ugly bust in the hall, and exit out the side door before the Dungeon stairs.” Fred said excitedly.
“And Operation Liberation is a go!” George exclaimed.
“How in the world did you two already find secret passages? How- wait, did you say dungeon?”