Change the Future

OOTP 21

It was the day after the D.A. was caught. Harry was looking at the hourglasses containing the house points. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw had been neck and neck in the lead that morning. Even as they watched, stones flew upward, reducing the amounts in the lower bulbs. In fact, the only glass that seemed unchanged was the emerald-filled one of Slytherin.

"Noticed, have you?" Fred said as Rory, him and George came down the marble staircase and joined Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ernie in front of the hourglasses.

"Malfoy just docked us all about fifty points," Harry said furiously, as they watched several more stones fly upward from the Gryffindor hourglass.

"Yeah, Montague tried to do us during break," George said as Rory smirked.

"What did you do?" Lily asks looking at her daughter.

"What do you mean, 'tried'?" Ron said quickly.

"He never managed to get all the words out," Fred said,

"due to the fact that we forced him headfirst into that Vanishing Cabinet on the first floor." Rory finishes as Hermione looked very shocked.

"Prongs your daughters my favourite of your kids. Sorry Harry" Sirius says smiling at Rory.

"But you'll get into terrible trouble!"

"Not until Montague reappears, and that could take weeks, I dunno where we sent him," Fred said coolly. "Anyway we've decided we don't care about getting into trouble anymore."

"Have you ever?" asked Hermione.

" 'Course we have," George said. "Never been expelled, have we?"

"Been close a couple of times" Rory added.

Molly and Lily look at Rory and George with a frown on their faces.

"We've always known where to draw the line," Fred said.

"We might have put a toe across it occasionally," George said.

"But we've always stopped short of causing real mayhem," Fred said.

"But now?" Ron said tentatively.

"Well, now" George said.

"what with Dumbledore gone" Fred said.

"we reckon a bit of mayhem"

"is exactly what our dear new Head deserves,"

"You mustn't!" whispered Hermione. "You really mustn't! She'd love a reason to expel you!"

"You don't get it, Hermione, do you?" Rory said, smiling at her. "They don't care about staying anymore"

"We'd walk out right now if we weren't determined to do our bit for Dumbledore first. So anyway," Fred checked his watch, "phase one is about to begin. I'd get in the Great Hall for lunch if I were you, that way the teachers will see you can't have had anything to do with it. You too Rory"

"Oh god whats phase one" Lily asks sharing a look with Molly.

"Anything to do with what?" Hermione said anxiously.

"You'll see," George said. "Run along, now." Fred and George turned away and disappeared in the swelling crowd descending the stairs toward lunch. Looking highly disconcerted, Ernie muttered something about unfinished Transfiguration homework and scurried away.

"I think we should get out of here, you know," Hermione said nervously. "Just in case"

"Yeah, all right," Ron said, and they moved toward the doors to the Great Hall, but Harry had barely glimpsed today's ceiling of scudding white clouds when somebody tapped him on the shoulder and, turning, he found himself almost nose to nose with Filch, the caretaker. He took several hasty steps backward into me; Filch was best viewed at a distance.