Chapter 21: Magic of Music

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Who was waiting for Delphi's revenge on Dumbledore?

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Delphi really did take the twins' suggestion to heart, about staying with them. She could usually be found at their side throughout most of April and early May.
She worked with them in their pranking lab, she explored hogwarts at their sides, she helped them with homework and got them out of trouble.

Two strange things occurred during this time.
The first, was that Fred and George discovered that spending more time with the crazy blond did not ease their craving for her company. Now exploring Hogwarts, or pranking someone was no longer fun without her.
The second strange thing was something all three teens realised. The closer they got, the stronger their friendship and joy in each other's company, the more nervous and more reluctant any of them were to bring up wanting more.

It wasn't uncertainty exactly.
The twins were rarely subtle, it wasn't in their natures, and Delphi matched them in their love of hugs, warm greetings, regular compliments and affectionate teasing/flirting. Seriously, she'd kissed them on their birthday, it was fairly obvious she felt what they did.

It was hard to say what held any of them back.
Delphi's lingering fear of the future she knew too well perhaps. Her many secrets she couldn't allow herself to share.

Or maybe it was the polyamory side of things. Gender was a very fluid thing in a culture where a potion could change it overnight. But pairing was easily the most common form of romantic relationship, either through nature, culture or simplicity, polyamorous relationships weren't common and much scrutinised. Let alone a polyamorous grouping including two siblings.

Possibly the major thing holding back Fred from kissing Delphi senseless was a complete uncertainty about what this 'more' meant. What was a good relationship supposed to look like, what were they meant to do to make sure it was happy and lasted forever like they wanted? None of them had great examples of marital bliss to refer to, and their school fellows seemed to fluctuate between one night standers and offering their 'sweetums' a bouquet of roses every morning.

Most likely, all three factors were involved in keeping their companionship purely friendly. It just...wasn't the right time.
They, all three, needed to grow into themselves, before they actually tried at a romantic relationship they wanted to last.
Instead they turned their attention to easier things. Pranking the headmaster.

Dumbledore had had increasing drunken and clumsy episodes ever since Halloween, he'd actually fallen into the lake after the second task.
The Celestina Warbook prank (as it was dubbed), was actually a precursor to the main event with regards to the headmaster. That was, a singing beard. Well, a beard that sung songs composed by Peeves especially for the occasion.

The trick was a clever slip between grey areas.
Fred and George Weasley would be immediate suspects for any prank.
Spells of any kind could be nullified fairly easily by a range of counter magiks Dumbledore doubtless knew, but potions worked differently. Potions and Spells were a bit like sound and light, fundamentally different, and thus had to be treated differently.
Undoing spells required spellwork...undoing potions required antidotes. And potions were far more pernickety than spells. You needed to know everything about a potion's brewing process and components to have a hope of developing an antidote within months of starting.

This potion was completely original (thus with no known antidote), and Severus Snape would rather die than admit the greatest potion prodigy in the school - George Weasley - belonged in Gryffindor, let alone, shock horror, was a prankster. He along with Delphi would provide cover for the pair of them, and without a guilty party no information on the potion could be found. With that...Dumbledore would have a rude singing beard for, at the very least, the rest of the term.

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