A Generation of Professors

Madness in Genius

Fred and George

It could be said— unanimously— that the students were excited about Potions. 

They were excited about all the classes after the huge announcement on the first night; there were new, young and familiar witches and wizards teaching Hogwarts classes. Everyone, no matter who you asked, would tell you a different answer for which they were most excited. Minerva had a rather enjoyable time passing out the timetables to students in the morning as they sat for breakfast in the Great Hall. 

Angelina and Neville had offered their help that morning as neither had classes to immediately prepare for. Between the three of them, as they smiled politely or stifled laughter, they had students in every year enthuse to them about their first class of the day before rushing off.

Angelina, on more than one occasion, had to fake a cough into her arm to hide her snorting laughter when a young (and a lot of the time, older) student slumped and groaned when they saw they did not have Potions right away.

It would seem the twin brothers Weasley were a rather hot commodity.

When the charm went off to signal to the students a five-minute warning before the beginning of class, Minerva found herself calmly drifting towards the Transfiguration classroom, wondering what sorts of stories she would be receiving after the first day of classes.

-~-~-~-

It had been weird stepping back into the dark dungeon-dwelling Potions room again.

When George and Fred had taken the job from Minnie, they’d come to the realization (after brainstorming for a full twenty hours on what in the world they could possibly teach in Potions) — that they were filling some rather large shoes.

Sure, Severus Snape was a tyrant— he was a Death Eater, a traitor, and a bigot. Not to mention just a well-rounded jerk. But Snape was also a renowned Potions Master, no matter what else he was. And he’d been teaching at Hogwarts (again, with mixed results) since he himself had graduated from the school.

Fred and George had never been his favourite students (but truly, who had been? Malfoy?) but they’d chosen Potions as one of their NEWT level classes to attend for a reason.

Let it be known that the Weasley twins; Forge and Gred, FredandGeorge, George and Fred— were very clever wizards. Their entire business was run on cleverness and imagination. Nothing they created and sold would be possible if they hadn’t paid some sort of attention in classes.

Potions, Transfiguration, Charms— those were the important parts of school for them. The classes most integral to their success and the only ones they’d deemed important enough to pay attention to, and eventually master. Though Herbology was a close runner-up, they had Neville for that when they had questions.

Exams and final marks had never been recorded for either of them due to their rather splendiferous departure from Hogwarts. But missing records of their brilliance didn’t mean it wasn’t there. And apparently, Minerva McGonagall had taken notice of that.

Filling those large Potions Master shoes (as hooked nose and greasy as they had been) would be a feat (Ha).

But never let it be said that the Weasley twins turned down a challenge.

It wasn’t that they were nervous to have to teach Potions— George would boast to anyone that he was a crack at Potions, any day of the week. But it was actually Fred who had taken the Advanced Potions class, while George had taken the Advanced one for Charms. Though, they were known to fill in for one another’s classes some days, so really they could both boast of having rather full knowledge of each. It was how they’d managed to fill so much of their stock throughout their last (partial) year at Hogwarts, after all.

They were more nervous to teach. In general. Fred and George, for as loud and proud as they always tried to be— were never the ones in their family others would assume to be the most… professional? No… they’d proven that… qualified, maybe?

Either way, they were about to be faced with hundreds of young minds every day, looking at their two new professors who had more than enough experience in Potion making, but also a rather impressive reputation as pranksters, to teach them and help them grow.

So how to show their students they were to be thought of as serious, respectable teachers while also wanting to remain their fun, prank-loving selves?

Well, as it turned out, the difference between learning and fun wasn’t that thick of a line to step over. 

The morning before their first class was set to arrive in the dungeons at 8:30 am, Fred and George put the finishing touches on the workstations around the room, ensuring each space had the proper personal safety equipment (something Snape had never seemed to care for too much) as well as containers of various ingredients they had compiled personally for the first day of classes. It seemed only right for this… particular first lesson to be done without their students worrying about using (or overusing) their own ingredients. 

Once everything looked put together (as much as the Weasley twins could make something look both cohesive and messy) and the warning charm was echoing outside the door, Fred and George prepared for their first class as Potions Professors the same way they’d first opened their shop in Diagon Alley.

One nod and identical mischievous grins, and, “Ready Fred?”

“Ready George.”

And when the first stream of fourth-year Ravenclaw and Slytherin students trickled into the Potions room, wide-eyed and eager, both men broke their internal debate to act seriously and cracked large grins.

“Four to a table today,”  George says as the students begin gathering randomly around the room, unsure how things worked just yet.

“You’ll be working with your tablemates, so choose wisely!” Fred calls as he spots a Ravenclaw girl giving the three boys (two Slytherins and a Ravenclaw) she was about to join a dubious look. Fred winks at the boys when the girl turns tail and joins another table, making them slump, “Sorry, boys.”

“Store bags and books beneath the tables or at least out of your way. You won’t be needing your own equipment today.” George also calls out once most of the students have decided on their groups and tables.

“Nor books, if you please Miss…” Fred says as he spots another Ravenclaw girl pulling out the two textbooks the twins had decided on together (because one was cheaper than the regular standard text choice but actually much more helpful, and the other held a myriad of open-ended options and lessons for Potion making that was more conducive to the twin’s form of teaching).

The girl looks up, blinking at Fred for a moment before telling him, “Charleson, sir. Jamie Charleson.”

Fred scrunched his nose up into an overly dramatic curled face, “Eugh, no ‘sir’, thanks. No books today, Miss Charleson, if you please.”

Jamie Charleson puts her books back into her bag slowly like she didn’t trust Fred telling her they wouldn’t be necessary. Especially in Potions of all things. 

George, as he walks between the tables to the front of the room, taps his wand on the top of one table filled with Ravenclaw girls. A couple of bottles of what looked like love potions from the twins’ WonderWitch line whizzed out of their pockets and into his hand.

“Sorry ladies, but any potions or Wheezes pranks that come into the classroom, will be leaving the classroom in the same form they arrived.”

Fred grins at the baffled looks on a couple of Slytherin boys' faces next to him when he does the same, this time collecting a couple of treats from Skiving Snackboxes, “We’re much too good anyway to fall for our own tricks in our classroom.”

“Besides,” George grins, also collecting a Whizbang from one last girl he passes before joining Fred at the front of the class next to the one lonely window in the room, “anything you create in this room that is neither deadly nor dangerous—”

“— though we can’t commit to promising there won’t be anything of the sort at some point—”

“Is technically your property. And we’d be loathed to keep aspiring Potioneers from testing or keeping their own products on their person—”

“So long as they’re tested and or vetted by myself or George here before leaving the room.”

Silence and wide eyes were all that met the twins' announcement. Keeping potions? Unheard of.

Fred claps his hands together, “Right! First things first,” he points at George, “This’is George. Not Professor Weasley.”

“And this is Fred.” George points back at his twin, “Not Professor Weasley.”

“We find, to remove any confusion for anyone, it’s best for everyone to refer to us by our names rather than our surname.”

“There’ll be enough of us running around the castle, it’ll only get more confusing with two of your teachers looking the same.”

“Course, if you spot Professor McGonagall or Professor Granger around,” Fred warns with as serious a look as he can manage, “You call us ‘Professor’. Got it?”

There was a mixture of amusement and confused fear, but it was enough for the twins. 

“Wicked,” they said together, then George separately, “Any questions so far?”

One brave little Slytherin raised their hand. Fred pointed to him, “Yes, Mr…”

“Burke, si— Fred?” Fred nods, grinning, “Steven Burke. Er, not to sound… disrespectful, but how do we tell you apart?” Poor Steven Burke frowns, speaking a bit quicker to explain himself better, “I mean, it’s all right now, but once you start moving around…”

Fred and George snicker, but George says kindly, “Honestly, we’ll both answer to either name. If it makes you feel better, ‘Mr. Weasley’ does the trick as well.”

It does seem to make a few of the more particular students relax. And it makes the whole class try to hide snickers when Fred then shrugs and says candidly, “I’m also the one with both ears intact— if you feel like getting it right.”

After their class had been sufficiently introduced, George leapt from the front desk he’d been leaning against and Fred hops down from the table he’s been sitting on.

“Right, quick intro to how Potions will be run for the year.”

“As Professor McGonagall said briefly before the meal last night, there will be Workshop periods set aside for Potions on top of your regular Potions class times.”

“Workshops are labelled as such to allow you to use your time wisely and for your best interest. Most times, either Fred or myself will be in those Workshops to help you, but there will be times we are both called away from the school.”

“If there is a Workshop where neither of us are available, another professor or teacher will be there to supervise or answer questions.”

“If it’s a question better answered by the two of us, an owl will be available after Workshop times to send to us should it be time-sensitive. Otherwise, like your other classes, catch us after class.”

“During Potions class, you will be shown instructions for projects you are expected to evaluate, hypothesize, brew and test. All four steps are expected to be handed in as written proof of your brainstorming or extra experimentation you did—” Fred ticked off on his fingers.

“— as well as a finished product… or at least whatever best version you manage.”

Fred nods, gesturing to the one side of the classroom where a large wooden cabinet with what looked like hundreds of tiny cabinets, drawers and sliding doors were clustered in a wall-length apothecary dresser. 

“Each of you will be assigned a drawer to leave your potions and parchment for ongoing or complete potions when you need a space to store them or they are too dangerous to leave the classroom.”

“Students are allowed into the classroom at any time to retrieve your potions on your own, but only when there is a Workshop labelled in your timetables—”

“— Otherwise they are charmed to only open for you or a Professor, should you need help outside of class or Workshop times.’

George then waved his wand, and the ingredients spread in the middle of each table were opening, popping or spinning their tops and clasps off, revealing what they were to each group.

“For today, you’ll be using ingredients gathered by my brother and myself. From here on, please bring all ingredients you have or gather on your own, no matter the lesson content.”

Fred says, “The reason for this, as you will see soon, is that experimentation is our specialty.”

George grins, “And experimentation means occasionally using things not normally thought of or written in your textbooks.”

“When experimenting and you are using something you are unsure of, please, for the love of Merlin and Circe—”

“— Ask first!”

Fred picks up the nearest tables jar of pufferfish eyes as an example, “All the ingredients on your tables right now will have no negative effect on one another, should you decide to chuck them into your cauldron and see what happens.”

“However,” George cautions, “were there, say, Peppermint on the table—” Fred holds his hands together and then spreads them out quickly while making an explosion sound, “no good. Ask Fred. He was on cleaning duty in our workshop at Diagon for a month after that one.”

Fred just grins, which gains him a couple of mischievous but intrigued looks from a couple of Slytherin boys to his right.

“So, your assignment for today—”

“— Handed in by the end of the week, mind—”

“— is to see what happens—”

“— When any number of these ingredients are added together.”

“Record of ingredients included are also necessary for full marks.” George grins and both twins clasp their hands behind their backs in unison.

“Get to it.”

Each group jumps to attention, not one moving slowly or dilly-dallying about it. Fred and George wandered the room, occasionally stopping to answer a student when they asked what would happen between two particular additions to their cauldrons, or what would happen if they stirred counterclockwise rather than the regular?

Most times, they each said, “Dunno. Try it.” and on a few occasions would say something along the lines of:

“Pink smoke for sure.” 

“Probably a nauseating smell. Which, if that’s what you’re going for, all the power to you, mate.”

“Ehh, nothing more than a purple shimmer, I’d expect.”

“It might hop out of the cauldron, actually… Do it.”

By the end of the Double Potions class, the fourth-year Slytherin and Ravenclaw class was so excited and taken in by the learning-by-doing lesson the Weasley twins had set for them, they were all shocked to hear the charm go off to end the class.

Fred chuckles and begins levitating the remains of the ingredients up to the front of the class, where he and George would restock them for the next group, “All potions and parchment, no matter what stage, go into your drawers, please. Quick as you like.”

There were a number of groaned stasis charms set on cauldrons before they were put away. But Fred was rather amused to find Miss Charleson, the Ravenclaw girl from before, hand Fred her roll of parchment and tell him with shining eyes that she’d finished hers… and could she do another during the Workshop?

Swallowing down his reaction to call the young girl ‘Miss Granger’ (Hermione wasn’t here to hear his teasing, so he’d pocket it until later), Fred took the parchment and looked it over briefly. Finding Miss Charleson’s work really was completely experimental and not a note of recognizable textbook work, Fred agreed and Miss Charleson went skipping out the door.

-~-~-~-

The next two classes went similarly: After the fourth year Double class, Fred and George gave the second year Hufflepuffs and Slytherins the same intro and project. With a few ingredients removed— there were some things the younger students shouldn’t be handling until better equipped or had better reaction times.

George nearly lost it laughing when one adorable little Hufflepuff walked up to Fred with her cauldron in hand and a tragically adorable pout on her face and promptly told him to “Fix it, please, Mr. Fred.”

‘Mr. Fred’ absolutely caved and waved his wand, telling the girl in calming tones what he was doing to stop the sparking bubbles rising from her cauldron. Crisis averted, the girl skipped back to her spot and dropped in a few more things… you know, in the name of experimentation. 

Their last class of the day— first-year Gryffindor and Ravenclaws— spent their class time getting to know their teachers, Mr. Fred and Mr. George, and just what it meant to brew potions. 

The twins had nearly forgotten their own starry-eyed first introduction to Potions in their first year and delighted in showing the little firsties what to look forward to. By the end of the class, they were waving off the young students who were attempting to stick themselves to their seats to continue playing with their potions. George, on one occasion, had to convince one particularly stubborn Gryffindor boy (go figure) that they’d be doing the same in his next Potions class, so he could continue next time.

George then spent the next five minutes attempting to pry the boy’s cauldron off the sticky table, until he scowled at his laughing twin and made Fred come help him.

That evening, when students were in bed and troublemakers had been sent back to their dorms, Fred caught Hermione around the waist on her way past the Potions classroom and tugged her inside.

“Fred! What—”

“Come’ere, I want to show you some of these.”

Opening a couple of the drawers and cabinets doors his students’ work sat in, Fred giggled over a few tries and cauldrons emitting numerous colours, smells and smoke. Hermione watched him take each one out, enthuse over them or tell her a story about each and how a particular reaction has happened, all with a fond smile on her face.

Fred finally stopped long enough to notice Hermione had stopped asking him about some of the cauldrons he was pulling out to show her and was instead watching with that warm, dopey smile he enjoyed seeing on her face.

“What?”

Hermione bites her lip, looking from him to the cabinet with almost twenty of its doors swung open or disturbed, “You’re really good at this.”

Fred cocks his head to the side, an unsure quirk to his lips lifting them into a quasi-smile, “At what? Potions?”

She shakes her head, “No, I meant kids.”

-~-~-~-

The second day of classes brought in the day's first batch of classes, this morning fifth-year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws for their weekly Double Potions class. And if possible, this group was even more excited for class to begin than the ones the previous day. 

The reason for why was answered quickly after the twins introduced themselves and the class expectations: news had spread. These fifth years, having heard from the fourth, second and first years who had Potions the first day, were almost prepared for what the Weasley twins threw at them. 

Ingredients were chosen with more delicacy, but no less thrill of the unknown. Fred found himself nudging a few unsure students who lingered too long over a pot of Shrivelfigs or vial of salamander blood to just do it; try it. Who cares what happens, as long as you figure out if it is what you want or not. 

By the end of the class, the fifth years were reacting like their classes from the day before: upbeat, excited and putting away much less controlled or prepared potions into their cupboards. 

The next class wasn’t until after lunch, which gave Fred the time to dash back to the store in Diagon until Double Gryffindor and Slytherins were back in the Potions room after the meal break. 

This time the class was a bit different— as were most seventh/eighth-year classes. Fred and George knew a lot of these students; they’d seen a few of them in younger years in the Great Hall or in their own Gryffindor dorm room. It wasn’t the same as the other years, who could see Fred and George as ‘Mr. Fred’ and ‘Mr. George’ and think nothing else about it. 

Teaching the older students… took more control. And in a way, teaching them to use less of it.

Fred began by, not introducing himself, but more relieving the tension around the room by telling them to call him and George whatever they liked. Weasley, Fred, George, an iteration of both— whatever made them comfortable. 

George introduced the experimental aspect of potions in a more structured and lecture type of way. These students had been through a lot, but they’d also been through enough schooling before the takeover to know more about potions. Snape’s version of potions, at least. They would take more instruction as a positive and be able to move on from there. Eventually, Fred and George would be able to set them up with a basic set of instructions and their students and friends could be able to manage without trouble.

So when they allowed the seventh and eighth-year students to begin experimenting as they had with every other year class— they were met with blank looks and stalled hands.

“What do you mean, try it?” One Slytherin Fred couldn’t recall the name of asked from one of the back tables.

George wrinkled his nose, “Er, it means… put something in your cauldron and see what happens.”

“But… isn’t that incredibly dangerous?”

Fred threw his hands in the air, “We just told you everything on your table won’t react dangerously with one another.”

Another Slytherin asked, “How do you know for sure?”

George fights back an eye roll, “We’ve tried them all.”

A Gryffindor from Ron’s year, Seamus, looked at them with an impressed look, “All of them?”

Fred nods, “Every iteration, every combo, every size, shape and measurement of each. Believe us, nothing here can go wrong.”

“Except for semi-permanent green hair, right Freddie?”

Fred scowls at George, “I got it to wash out!”

“Eventually.”

A particularly bright blonde girl in the front row looked at Fred in horror. Fred ignores her in favour of answering the next question, this one of near awe.

“When did you even have time to test all this?”

Fred shrugs again, “Our seventh year, mostly.” He freezes and glares at a couple of snickering Gryffindors, “Not a word of this gets back to Hermione, clear?”

“Anyways,” George pulls back attention to himself, “we understand this is a lot different from the way we were all taught potions. But we were being taught by someone who had no interest in doing things out of order or differently. Potions as a whole haven’t been adjusted or experimented with since… since…”

Fred shrugs, “Flamel?”

George shakes his head, “He was an alchemist. But anyway, it's been some centuries people!”

Seamus, again, raises his hand cheekily, “I’d say since the two of you, honestly,”

The twins think this over for a second before nodding, agreeing Seamus was probably right.

“Yeah, probably. Find me anyone else who can name the thirty ways to split a Mistletoe berry to achieve different reactions in a love potion, and I’ll change my mind.” George brags for his twin’s benefit, always finding it funny to see Fred when he got in a particular mood about researching potion ingredients. That had all been managed in a twenty-four-hour period. 

After that, the group of older students still managed to put away slightly altered potions into their cupboards, unable to completely deviate from well-known or previous knowledge of some of the ingredients to make completely fresh or unknown elixirs and mixtures. 

By the end of the first week, Professors Fred and George Weasley had officially redesigned the Potions curriculum for Hogwarts. On that Friday, and into the weekend, Fred and George painstakingly went over each student's potions and parchments, making note of what the end product was and what the student had been initially going for. Their family and friends and other colleagues in the school thought they were insane for taking on a task of that size, but by the end of the weekend, both Fred and George would have been able to tell anyone about any of their student's work habits or capabilities.

The second week of classes heralded the first week of Workshops for Potions. Each group of classes during that Monday and Tuesday got to begin their Workshop days on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. Each class would receive a Workshop day two days after their assigned Potions class time. Thursday and Friday would get theirs on Monday and Tuesday. 

To begin the week, Fred and George started off with their fourth-years once again. With a better idea of where this group of fourteen-year-olds was in regards to their proficiency with potions, Fred took the lead for this class while George took to wandering the classroom. 

“After looking over your work from last week, George and I have agreed to start with going over individual uses and properties of the ingredients you used in your potions. Not that we were expecting it, but there was little regard from any of you for what was going into your potions. Which was the point, to be fair.”

Fred picks up one of the cauldrons from the desk behind him, where everyone’s potions were lined up, some still bubbling and some clearly having gone badly.

Holding up one that was steaming a rather vibrant red, Fred grins at a group of boys that elbow one another, sniggering over their buddy’s red face when he recognizes his potion.

“For example, as amazing as we found the colour and odour of this one from Mr. Crawford, the fact that the end product turned out to be shockingly close to the basic form of a Pepper Up potion was rather interesting,” John Crawford perked back up until his friend’s all laughed when Fred had to break it to him, “If it weren’t for the fact that it's instead ended up being a highly contagious liquidized form of mumps instead.”

Fred vanished the contents of the cauldron, winking at the sheepish John Crawford, “Like we said mate, no harm done. We kept a careful eye on it for you. But, that potion and a number of others, showed us you all might need a refresher on ingredients, and where to find them.”

George waved his wand, and a classroom set of textbooks were distributed around the class, “You’ll be given the next twenty minutes to browse these texts, making note of at least five ingredients you are unsure or unaware of at this time.”

Fred then summons empty potions bags, where a potioneer might store or hold ingredients, and distributed them one to each table, “After those twenty minutes, we will be going on a little excursion outside and show you a bit about foraging and collecting. Whatever you do find while we’re out you are allowed to keep for future classes or personal use.”

“It will all be recorded though, so no sneaking off with sprigs of the good stuff, eh?” George teases, making a few students giggle as they all crack open their books and set to reading. 

Twenty minutes later, as promised, Fred and George led their fourth-year Slytherins and Ravenclaws out to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and began showing them how to spot many of the things found in a potions book. 

The twins wouldn’t allow the students further into the Forest, no matter what ingredient they were hoping to find there. Instead, they showed them other ways to find ingredients, plants and flora that may be out of reach. Sometimes, a simple summoning spell worked well enough, so long as you envisioned the exact plant you were summoning. Luckily, the textbook the twins had given their students came with pictures, so this new task turned out to be quite an exciting venture.

Hagrid, at one point coming out of the Forest with Luna Lovegood and their group of seventh-year Hufflepuffs, smiled and waved at the twins, finding it quite funny to see them surrounded by thirty young students all reading studiously and looking quite concentrated while picking flowers and moss from the ground. 

Their class of second-years found it quite funny to get to leave the dungeons and run around in the grass during their Potions class. They were quite content to listen when George wrangled them back in, having them follow him and Fred around the Hogwarts grounds to show them where potions ingredients grew naturally. 

The first-years were confounded that they could find potions ingredients outside, which led to their homework for the week being a roll of parchment labelling each standard ingredient in the Standard Book of Potions Year 1 that could be found either around Hogwarts grounds or nearby their own homes.

Among the older students, their work for the week in Potions ranged a little more hands-on with actual brewing. Only half of their class time was taken by foraging, and the other half with brewing a ‘successful potion’. This left the students to determine which potion they thought they might be able to manage on their own, find and gather what they needed and be able to hand in a complete potion and parchment detailing their work by the end of their first Workshop. 

The lesson had initially been scoffed at by a few of the students, who clearly thought the assignment was too easy. However, as it turned out, once they had to rely completely on foraging for their own ingredients, the task became much more difficult. So difficult, in fact, that on Wednesday’s Workshop, George took a small group of sixth and seventh years out into the Forbidden Forest to tag along with Professor Lovegood on her errands through the Forest. The successful collection of ingredients led to more than a few very successful potions from that week.

But it certainly showed more than a few of the naysayers that perhaps the Weasley twins knew what they were talking about.