Four Brooms, Three Owls
Later that same night Anna, Fred, and George skipped dinner, though Anna didn’t do it on purpose.
They had devised a plan during the Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts. The twins would go ahead of her and nick broomsticks from the Quidditch locker room while Anna tracked down Cedric and snuck down out to the pitch where they'd meet Fred and George.
Unfortunately, Anna had gotten a little too caught up in her potions essay and missed half of dinner. By the time she ran up to the Great Hall she was out of breath and thoroughly stressed as her mind played out the millions of ways in which they could be caught and punished.
"Ced!" Anna skidded to a halt behind him at the Hufflepuff table. She grabbed his shoulders for leverage to keep from toppling over.
"Blimey, where’ve you been? You've missed most of dinner—"
"Never-mind that, come on." She tugged his arm insistently.
Cedric glanced at his other friends as he climbed off the bench, but they only shook their heads in confusion. “What's the matter—"
"You'll see, come on!"
Anna pulled him out of the Great Hall at what she hoped was an inconspicuous pace, but glancing back over her shoulder she spotted Headmaster Dumbledore smiling at her over his spectacles.
"Anna, that’s breakfast and dinner you’ve missed. Are you sure—”
“I’m fine, I swear. Now keep your head down and keep quiet," she told Cedric as they ran down a side stairwell. "I don't even want to know what kind of punishment we'll get if we're caught."
"Caught—punishment? Anna what in Merlin's beard is happening?"
“Hush!” she reprimanded him in a hiss. She hated to speak so tersely to Cedric, particularly on his birthday, but they needed to get out of the castle without being seen.
Cedric, sensing the seriousness of Anna’s mood, stayed silent as he followed her tugging hand through the castle, out the great front doors, and onto the grounds.
The sun was starting to set. The grounds were alight with a reddish glow that would’ve been beautiful, had either of them stopped to admire it. Anna pulled Cedric along quickly down the same path they’d taken that morning.
“Are we going back to the Quidditch stands?” Cedric asked.
“Yes.”
“Why—”
“Hide!”
Just as they were rounding the corner of the castle, the school’s gamekeeper, Hagrid, came into view on the path ahead. Anna quickly threw open a small, decaying wooden door built into the side of the castle, and yanked Cedric inside with her.
They both held their breath, partly to hide their presence from Hagrid and partly to avoid breathing the stale, musty air inside the dark room they were now in, which also smelled faintly of rancid wine. Cedric, unable to hold his breath very long, gagged quietly somewhere behind her. Anna, meanwhile, had her ear pressed to the rotting door, listening.
Hagrid’s whistling grew steadily louder, until it was right upon them. Anna pressed back in the darkness, bumping into Cedric and making the both of them stumble back a few paces. But thankfully the door stayed closed and the whistling grew faint as Hagrid moved towards the castle.
After a long moment, Anna finally released her breath. Cedric was gagging quietly into the sleeve of his robes.
“C’mon,” she muttered and pushed the door open.
Peering out first to make sure the coast is clear, Anna grabbed Cedric’s hand, tugged him out the the musty room, and the both of them broke into a run down the path to the Quidditch stadium.
“What—” Cedric panted as they ran. “Is going—on?”
“You’ll see!” Anna laughed. The enormous Quidditch stadium had finally come into view and the first trickles of relief begun to flood her system.
“Anna, this is mad!”
“All the best fun is. Hurry!”
The sun was sinking quickly below the horizon. The red glow it had cast over the grounds was hardly more than a glimmer now. Instead of taking them through the entrance to the stands, which was now closed and locked shut, Anna led them to the Quidditch team changing rooms, just like she, Fred, and George had planned.
“Where’ve you been!” the twins cried as Anna and Cedric burst through the changing room door, both panting heavily.
“I lost track of time doing the potions essay,” Anna explained.
Fred tutted and shook his head disapprovingly. “Potions essay,” he scoffed. “What will we do with her, Georgie.”
“Dunno. Might be a lost cause. But between you and me I reckon we can train her up a bit. Hi Cedric.”
“Oh shut it, both of you!” Anna snapped lightheartedly while Cedric gaped at the three of them. “Did you get the brooms?”
“Did we get the brooms?” Fred asked in an exasperated voice. “Really, Anna, have a little more confidence in us.”
Anna grinned when the twins stepped aside to reveal four broomsticks propped against the wall. They were shabby and a bit worn—she suspected they were the ones used for Flying class rather than the ones used by the Quidditch teams—but they would do the job.
“Brilliant! C’mon, Ced, grab a broom.”
Cedric stared at her in awe. “What—what for?”
Anna laughed at the startled look on his face. “For your birthday flight, of course.”
It took a moment, but Cedric finally understood.
“For my…so you—and them—” he pointed to Fred and George.
“Yes, Diggory,” said George, throwing an arm over a startled Cedric’s shoulders. “We helped execute your birthday surprise. It was Anna’s idea though. Now grab a broom and let’s go before we lose the light completely.” George shoved a broomstick into Cedric’s hands and slapped him hard on the back. “Don’t look so surprised. We’re upstanding gents, Fred and I are—”
“When we want to be,” Fred added.
Cedric let out a strained sort of laugh and tightened his grip on the broom.
“C’mon, let’s go before it’s completely dark,” Anna said and grabbed a broom of her own.
Fred and George took the remaining two broomsticks and the four of them walked through the changing rooms then out into the Quidditch pitch. Anna reckoned it would’ve been even more impressive in the daylight.
Of course, she had seen the whole of the stadium and the pitch earlier that same day when she and Cedric had watched the tryouts, but being down on the field made everything seem so much bigger. The metal hoops loomed large at either end of the pitch and glimmered faintly in the last dying rays of light. The stands, which encircled the pitch completely, were draped with massive flags, each one coloured after the Hogwarts houses and decorated with either a lion, raven, serpent, or badger. Staring up at the hundreds of empty seats that dotted the stadium, Anna felt remarkably small.
She was still marvelling at her surroundings when something whooshed past her ear.
“Oy Cedric, catch!”
Fred had just zoomed past her on his broom and tossed a large red ball to Cedric, who caught it just in time to stop it hitting his face, and mounted his own broom. The boys went flying across the pitch, tossing the ball back and forth and rolling in midair to catch it on some of the heavier throws. With a gurgle of anxiety in her stomach, Anna mounted her broom as well and kicked off from the ground.
Her flying tutoring with Cedric had been paying off, and she could almost keep up with the boys without worrying that her broom would toss her off, though she suspected the boys were taking it slow for her sake. Fred, George, and Cedric had been flying broomsticks far longer than she had, so she didn’t bemoan her subpar flying skills.
The boys flew around the pitch with practised ease, whooping and laughing boisterously. She kept up with them best she could and even caught the ball a few times, but when the sun had set fully and only faint moonlight remained, she carefully touched back down on the grass and just watched. And Anna found that she didn’t mind.
Cedric sounded so much happier than he had earlier that day at Quidditch tryouts, and Anna felt incredibly warm and content at having given him this moment. The knowledge that she now owed Fred and George a favour—whatever that could mean—flickered ominously at the back of her mind, but she quickly snuffed it out. They seemed decent enough, albeit a bit meddlesome. But then, Anna could be quite meddlesome in her own right. Besides, upon seeing Cedric’s delighted expression when he caught the ball after a particularly heavy throw from George, Anna felt that owing the twins a favour was a very small price to pay.
The four of them stayed on the pitch for hours. By the time the boys landed, Anna was yawning for what must have been the twelfth time. Dinner had ended long ago and they needed to get back to the castle unseen or risk getting caught by one of the professors, or worse, Filch.
The four of them, exhausted but grinning, put the borrowed broomsticks back into the changing rooms and started up towards the castle. There was no one out on the grounds, seeing as it was well past curfew.
They snuck through the front doors, which were surprisingly quiet, given the ancient iron hinges. Fred and George started off past the Great Hall and up the many staircases that led to Gryffindor tower. Cedric and Anna, who waved goodnight to the twins as they disappeared around a corner, went off down the steps to the right of the Great Hall, towards their own common room.
As she and Cedric walked arm in arm down the long flight of stairs, Anna yawned again. The two of them climbed through the fruit bowl painting, tiptoed past the kitchens, where a couple house elves were chatting in front of the fire, and crawled through the tunnel leading to the Hufflepuff common room. They shut the round door behind them and then, simultaneously, broke into massive grins.
“I can’t believe you did all that for me. You’re pretty incredible y’know.” Cedric whispered in the quiet of the common room.
Anna beamed, feeling a satisfied warmth in her chest. “Happy birthday, Ced.” She threw her arms around his neck in a hug and Cedric squeezed her so hard that her toes left the ground for a moment.
“See you tomorrow?” He said, setting her down on her feet and stepping away. His ears were a bright pink, but she didn’t see that in the dark common room.
Anna nodded and whispered, “goodnight.”
The next day Anna found herself wandering aimlessly about the castle. She’d slept through Sunday breakfast, having stayed up so late the night before. But Theo and Patricia begun bickering as soon as they slammed the dorm room door open upon returning from the Great Hall, waking Anna with a start.
She’d chucked a pillow at them and begged them to take their argument outside but they’d both snapped at her to “Stay out of it!”
So Anna had dressed reluctantly and left the room, yawning and bleary eyed. She was just thinking of heading up to the library, where it would no doubt be quiet enough to get some more sleep, when two people came bursting out of a room behind her.
“Run!” one of the Weasley twins shouted at her as the two of them sped past her. The other threw something to her as they streaked by.
Anna squealed but caught the thing George had tossed at her. It was a lumpy brown ball of some kind. “What’s—”
“Throw it and run!” he yelled.
Seeing that the lumpy ball in her hand was beginning to ooze green smoke, Anna hurriedly flung it down the hall and took off after Fred and George. A small explosion echoed through the corridor and clouds of putrid green fog flooded the space.
Anna gagged and stumbled, her eyes burning from the stench.
“I told you to run!” George laughed, suddenly appearing at her elbow and dragging her with him down the corridor.
“What was that thing?” Anna chocked out as they ran.
“Dungbomb! Brilliant, aren’t they,” Fred grinned as Anna and George caught up to him. They’d left the cloud of foul smoke behind them and could finally catch their breath.
“What on earth are you throwing dungbombs for?” Anna said, incredulously, hoping that there hadn’t been actual dung in that thing.
“To get away from Filch, of course.” George rolled his eyes as if it were obvious. “He nearly caught us putting—” George stopped abruptly when Fred jabbed him in the ribs.
The two boys exchanged several looks before turning back to her.
“Say, Anna,” Fred started. “How’s about paying out that favour you owe us?”
Anna narrowed her eyes at the two of them. “Paying out how?”
“Well, we set up a little surprise for Filch in his office—”
“And while we’d love to take credit for it—”
“We’ve already had three owls about us sent home.”
“Mum’s barking mad. She’s threatening to bring us home if we keep up this pace.”
Anna was just about to ask what they’d done to have already gotten three letters sent home, when furious shouting started up somewhere in the corridor behind them.
“And that’ll be Filch going into his office,” George chuckled.
“Shame,” Fred sighed. “I wanted to see his face. Oh well, best be off. You just wait right there, Anna.”
Fred and George took off running down the hall again.
Staggered footsteps in the corridor behind Anna grew suddenly louder. Filch.
Anna sputtered for a moment, but when she heard Filch grunting and gagging within the toxic green cloud still floating in the hall, she took off at a run after the twins.
“You there! Stop!” Filch shouted after her.
She rounded a corner and spotted Fred and George a little ways ahead of her, walking perfectly casually, as if they hadn’t just set her up to take the blame for their mess. Furious, Anna put on a burst of speed to catch up with them.
Hearing her rapid steps, the twins glanced over their shoulders, grinned, and sprinted off through the castle again.
"Get back here, Weasley!" Anna shouted.