The Great Hall thrummed with activity. The storm had passed and the sky overhead showed the cloudless night sky, speckled with stars.
Fred Weasley scanned the entrances again for what felt like the hundredth time. Something had gone wrong, he was sure of it. The animagus ritual was only supposed to last a few minutes. For George to be gone this long…
A presence appeared by his shoulder. “Where’s your twin?” Katie asked with a smile. “Off executing some dastardly scheme, maybe?”
Fred buried his worries deep inside and flashed the younger witch a brilliant smile. “Not even going to guess a name, Katie?”
Katie stuck her tongue out. “I can always tell the difference, Fred. George told me how.”
“Oof.”
“And you didn’t answer my question.”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“Just so long as I don’t find out by being the target.”
“Katie you wound me. Would I ever?—“ He stopped mid innocent proclamation when he spotted Hermione Granger enter the Great Hall from the door that led down to the dungeons. “Excuse me,” he said, standing up.
Katie followed his gaze. “Dealings with the Slytherins?” She smirked. “Best watch your step around them. You know how slippery they can be.”
Fred ignored her and marched towards the door. He passed right by Granger without even a second glance. He almost collided with Lovegood and Black in the archway.
“Watch where you’re treading, you lanky oaf,” Alex growled.
Fred ignored her too.
What he didn’t ignore though, was the final figure in the pack, out in the main hall way. “Ginny!” Fred skidded to a halt in front of his baby sister. “You’re alright. Where’s George?”
Ginny looked up at him with an impish grin. “What’s this? Big brother Fredrick is worried?”
“Of course I’m worried!”
Ginny’s grin didn’t fade. “He said he’d be waiting for you in that place. He said you’d know what place he meant.”
Fred took off at a sprint.
“No running in the castle!” Filch screeched as he passed an intersection.
Fred ignored that man as well.
“I say!” said the scandalised portrait of a knight as he vaulted over a banister and took the next stairs three at a time.
Fred climbed higher and higher.
At one point he met Daphne Greengrass going the other way.
“Worry not!” the ice princess called out behind him, voice already fading through the walls as he took turn after turn in the maze that was Hogwarts. “I already sorted out his problem!”
Problem!?
Fred ducked into his third secret passageway, ran up the corridor, and pushed through a tapestry of a niffler eating sprinkles.
He knew he was overreacting. He knew that whatever might have happened, it can’t have been that bad. Not if Ginny wasn’t worried. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t anxious. He and George had been practically joined at the hip since birth. They did almost everything together. This was only the second time they hadn’t, and then only because witches were apparently funny about that sort of thing.
In the corridor where the Hogwarts students had set up their own little black market, hidden away from even Filtch, Fred skidded to a halt in front of a single large trunk. Quickly, he opened the lid and climbed down into the depths. There, in the middle of the trunk, stood three smaller trunks, each one just large enough to fit through the first trunk’s opening. Fred picked the middle one and threw open the lid.
A rush of ice cold air hit him in the face.
The reason for this became apparent the moment he stuck his head inside. Ice covered the walls, stairs, and floors — the stools and the benches.
“George?” Fred asked. He couldn’t see his brother anywhere.
He was halfway down the stairs when he heard a small clinking sound above. Too late, he turned his head upwards and saw the bucket tipping over.
“GAHHH!”
Freezing water splashed over him as the bucket clanged away down the stairs.
A loud pleased-sounding chirping filled the air. Then a small black and white bird hopped off a ledge above, landed on its belly on the stairs beside Fred, and slid down a thin icy slide. It slid to the bottom of the trunk, hit a ramp, and started to spin, all the while making those triumphant chirping sounds.
“You—!”
The rockhopper penguin slowly spun to a stop. When it fully stopped, it shifted back into George. “Fred!” his brother beamed. “So good of you to join me. I hop you’re not feeling too cold.”
Fred grinned, even as he began to shiver. “I’ll let that one slide.”
“HAH!” George whipped his wand out of his robes, aimed it at him, and started casting drying and warming charms.
“Thanks,” Fred said as the spells started to really work their magic. “I’m glad nothing went too—“ He stopped in shock as George closed the distance and grabbed him in a hug tighter than any he could remember. “—wrong? George? Are you okay?”
George was fighting back tears. “Brother,” he said. “I’m so happy to see you. You’ve no idea.”
“What happened?”
“Eighteen months happened.”
Fred leaned back to look at his brother in shock. “Eighteen months?”
George nodded.
Fred let out a long breathe and his breath misted in the air. Something had gone wrong. At least the consequences didn’t sound too dire. He gestured back to the trunk entrance, to where their workshop trunk lay. To where they both could brew mugs of hot chocolate and relax on the sofa. “Tell me all about it.”
And over the next several hours, George did.
— End of Bonus —