Weasley Twins Cruciatus Candy Crystals Adventure, Add to this thread here Options

[zymurgy]

"I will tell you the Golden Rule of the Marauders," said Remus. "Never, ever play a prank if you don't think you'd laugh at it if someone played it on you. Truth be told, we didn't really always follow that rule..."

"Nevertheless," said Fred, dramaticly, "it is up to future generations to make up for past errors."

"Make the world a better place and all that," chimed in George.

Remus sighed. "I'm not going to get anywhere trying to reform you am I?" he asked, tiredly.

"No," chorused the twins.

Remus shook his head. "Well then," he said, "if you're deturmined to wreak havoc, I'll just have to make sure you wreak the finest havoc possible."

"Grade A havoc," said George, brightly.

"Causing hysterical laughter and outraged shrieks since 1523," said Fred.

Remus raised an eyebrow. "You haven't been causing hysterical laughter and outraged shrieks for that long."

"No, we haven't," said Fred. "But they've both been in existance far before that. We're just in the business of making sure they happen often."

"Rule number two of the marauders," continued Remus, "was: Variety is Golden. Never play the same prank twice. That one, now, we did follow."

"How many rules are there?" asked George.

"Plenty," answered Remus. "Interested?"

George and Fred exchanged glances.

"You bet."

And so Remus began...

[McGonagall's Cat]

Fred's insistent voice intruded, "About time to head for Potions. Wouldn't want to leave old Snape lonely and forlorn."

"You have our viles of today's assignment?" George chuckled, wishing he could have continued on revisiting the memories of their early involvement with their now-Professor Lupin.

Fred looked mock-shocked, "No! I thought you had it!" as he handed his brother a small bottle of deep purple liquid and pushed him out into the tunnel.

[McGonagall's Cat]

Chapter Two

[McGonagall's Cat]

As First Years are not allowed to go on Hogsmeade weekends, the Twins were halfway to the Shreiking Shack before any of their upper-classmen had reached the gates of Hogwarts.

"Hallo, Mr. Lupin!" rang out when Fred pushed open the creaky door a few minutes later.

"Down in a minute," a voice echoed from the next floor.

"Would you look at this?" George was running his hands across the face of a large leather-bound book lying on the table beside the boarded-over window.

Fred's eyes sparkled. "Wow! I only ever heard of this! 'Never thought I'd see one."

[zymurgy]

"This is absolutely amazing," George whispered in awe.

"Do you think he'd notice if we took it?" asked Fred.

"Where do you think he got it?" asked George, flipping to the first page.

"'Hey' thinks you are going to 'get it,' in about a minute," said Remus coming into the door. "That is MY Dark Arts Simulator and I'd thank you to take your hands off it."

"But- but-" stammered George.

"Couldn't we...?" tried Fred.

"No," insisted Remus. "You remember how it was with the Bogart? When you thought what you saw was real? A Dark Arts Simulator is a thousand times worse, since it can hurt you physically. I can't believe you'd touch it knowing what it was."

"Sorry," muttered George, letting the book drop back to the desk.

Remus took a deep breath, and banished the book. "I believe you came down for a reasons?"

Fred and George exchanged glances. "Yes," they answered slowly. "We need your help."

Remus narrowed his eyebrows. "With what?"

"Well, you see," began George, "We've made a potion..."

"And the Antidote didn't work," finished Fred.

"You've a good reason for not simply going to Pomphry or Snape?" demanded Remus.

"Well, we would," said George, "but it just so happens... well, I took it."

"You don't seem to be in..." began Remus.

"He's not in pain, no," said Fred. "But it's terrible. They'd never believe we'd done it ourselves, and they'd ask all kinds of stupid questions, and... and they'd tell our mother."

Remus sighed, and seated himself in the nearest chair. "Explain."

And so they began.

[McGonagall's Cat]

The boys began hesitantly revealing what they'd done.

Lupin pointed to two old upholstered chairs which had stuffing dribbling from various tears and cushion corners. "Here, sit. We might as well be comfortable," Remus suggested graciously.

The Twins looked at eachother a little panicky.

"Well, that's part of the problem," Fred said.

The older man repressed a grin, "Yes?"

George inched his jumper up above the waistband of his pants. What should have been his skin resembled scale-like plates that shifted with his every movement. Each scale was about five centimeters in diameter and sheild shaped, lapping gently over the upper edge of one below it. A slight scraping sound could be heard as George breathed and the scales shifted.

Lupin had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. "And just how did this happen?" he choked out eventually.

"Look! It's not funny when you're on the inside!" George grumbled through gritted teeth.

"Yes, yes. You're absolutely right about that." But Lupin could contain himself no longer and let loose an infectious mirth filled laugh. "Really, it's not you. I'm sorry. It's just that ..."

Fred began laughing, too, and try as he might, George soon caught the giggles in spite of his efforts to the contrary. Little gritty sounds came from the scales rubbing together as he tittered.

Catching his breath, Lupin continued, "It's just that we did the same thing. You were trying the Squama Potion, weren't you?" The flush began to fade from his cheeks, but an occassional chuckle continued to break through his attempted serious demeanor. "We were a bit older than you are." Suddenly his eyes danced. "I think you'll find that you used ground Hebridean Dragon Scales. Next time try Chinese Fireball"

"But those are EXPENSIVE!" Fred said astonished. "We couldn't afford something like that!"

Lupin shifted into "wise elder" teaching mode, "Don't EVER make any Potion without the correct ingredients. Sometimes substitution works, most times it doesn't. In this case, the scales will wear off in about... another few hours from the looks of them." He grinned a bit and his shoulders rose conspiritorially. "Poor Sirius was stuck with them for over two days. Imagine going to class with those." Remus laughed until he ached, rubbing his cheeks to make the cramping go away. Then he sputtered, "He clanked when he sat down."

[zymurgy]

"Well," said George, having recovered from the giggles, "we have a few hours before these wear off, and for obvious reasons we shouldn't be seen in school during that time. So... what's to do?"

"I believe," replied Fred, cracking a grin, "that we should get Mr. Lupin here to give us a hand with our latest Magilogical marvel."

"Now see here," protested Remus, "I can't just go and-"

"Oh can't you?" chided Fred.

"Please?" added George.

Remus sighed. "What is it?"

"Agree to help first," insisted George.

Remus shook his head. "I'd have to know what it is."

"Promise you'll help," reiterated Fred.

Remus looked trapped.

[ronsmyman]

With a sigh Remus gave into the boys’ stipulation and nodded his assent before knowing what he was getting himself into.

“I will however reserve the right to add a few conditions of my own,” Remus added to his nod. “My agreeing to do this will only continue if the project does not include me leaving this house or getting involved with any other Hogwarts students than you.”

Fred and George exchanged triumphant glances and clapped each other on the back. Fred recoiled in pain, having momentarily forgotten that his brother’s back was metal. While Fred sat cradling his hand, George reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He set it on the table and slowly unfolded it, crease by crease, smoothing each edge before moving onto the next for dramatic effect.

Remus had to smile at their flare for the dramatic. It reminded him of the Marauders and for the first time, this memory wasn’t painful.

When the paper was completely folded, however, the smile disappeared from Remus’ face, replaced by a look of confusion. Lying before him on the rickety wooden table was a list of common herbs that would be used in any first year student potion. Remus was unable to recognize the order of the ingredients though.

“What is this?”

“This,” replied Fred, motioning with a wave, finally having recovered the ability to use his hand, “is our newest invention. We finally realized that stealing things from Snape’s stores wouldn’t be able to go on forever, and the top of the line ingredients are just too expensive, not to mention the parental warnings. So, we have decided to work with what we have.”

George continued, “We have compiled this list of all the ingredients in the student stores, and we have since been experimenting with new combinations of common ingredients, in the hopes of discovering something useful.”

“That is extremely dangerous boys!” Remus broke in. “Do you have any idea what can happen when you haphazardly throw materials into a cauldron?”

“Well, after the second explosion and the eighth case of boils, we considered that it was too dangerous to continue,” Fred said, “but it wasn’t until George went blind for two days that we were scared into a little caution. George, demonstrate.”

George performed the bubblehead charm on himself and somehow managed to stretch it so that only his hands were left out of the bubble.

“That’s advanced magic. Who taught you to do that in your first year,” Remus inquired, astounded

“We may come off as a bit dense and unable to concentrate, but when the need arises, we can learn anything. Isn’t there some famous quote, necessity is the father of invention, or something like that.”

“This still doesn’t explain what this list is here, I know there are more ingredients in the store room than this,” Remus motioned towards the ceremonious paper on the table.

“This is where you come in,” Fred prompted. “We think we’ve made a breakthrough.”

[McGonagall's Cat]

Remus scratched his head as he studied the list.

"Have either of you tried to make this yet?" he asked absently running a finger down the lines of ingredients and the instructions.

Before either could answer he shook his head. "If you mix these, in this order, you'll have problems... The scarab, ginger, and armadillo bile are used in Wit-sharpening Potion. While the sneezewort, scurvy-grass and lovage are used to make Confusing & Befuddlement Draught. They should be so contradictory in their effects that the person taking it would pass out and go into convulsions."

George commented, "Well, yeah. But..."

"I wasn't out for that long. The next time we..." Fred started to add.

Lupin whirled on them. "WHAT? You didn't actually take any of this did you? It is dangerous and irresponsible to be randomly mixing things and trying them on eachother!"

Fred looked at him indignantly, "Who else are we going to try our stuff out on?"

"What if you poison yourselves? There are some things even Madam Pomfrey can't counteract!"

"Point taken, but we have tweaked it and it doesn't do that anymore." George grinned pointing at a notation on the parchment near Jobberknoll feathers.

"Besides, I had a bezoar. Anyhow, now it's really spiffing! Listen to what we discovered!" his brother continued.

[ronsmyman]

Curiosity got the best of Remus and he leaned forward to hear the boys explain this strange potion they had concocted.

“Well, as you kindly noted, this potion is a mixture of the Confusing & Befuddlement Draught and the Wit-sharpening Potion. What you failed to notice, however, is that this also contains the ingredients for one of the most simple potions that we as students are forced to learn to make,” Fred began.

Remus leaned towards the potion list and the boys waited quietly for him to figure out what he had overlooked.

“Ah, forgetfulness potion, I should have known, but that should just serve to further confuse and befuddle the drinker,” Remus mused.

“One would think so,” George stated, taking the scroll and glancing down it. “But we have discovered that by adding this simple ingredient, the effects are nothing short of miraculous.” George pointed at a word on the parchment and handed it back to Remus.

“Lacewing flies?” Remus questioned.

“Not the whole fly,” Fred continued. “We have discovered that if one just places the wings in the potion, the effect is nothing short of extraordinary.”

Remus was growing impatient. “What in Merlin’s beard have you done?”

Fred and George exchanged a look and pointed at one last ingredient on the list. A look of understanding lit up on Remus’s face.

[zymurgy]

The first thing out of Remus' mouth when he realized what the twins were up to wasn't very elegant, nor well thought out, nor even really English.

He said, "Yieeach!"

The twins exchanged amused glances. "English?" suggested George.

"Unethical," Remus shortly. "Yuck. Disgusting. No. Don't."

"Complete sentences would help, some," said Fred helpfully.

"I can't let you brew this!" exploded Remus.

[McGonagall's Cat]

Fred and George glared at the older man before simultaneously erupting in defiance.

“What do you mean you won’t LET us?”
“You can’t stop us!”
“You were one of the Marauders! You can’t go old and stodgy on us!”
“Yeah! You did loads of dodgy stuff."
"We figured this out ourselves, it’s brilliant.”
“You aren’t going to pull that ‘You’re too young” load of malarkey.”
“You’re not our Mum!”

Lupin raised an eyebrow - and his voice - at the Twins. “This could go very wrong, boys. When The Marauders did things we discovered early on that safety had to be the highest priority. Look at you two! You came here with a problem that, fortunately, didn’t harm or involve anyone else. This Potion, however, could easily do damage to everyone in the vicinity.”

Slowly the boys’ fury receded a little and they quieted down, though they continued to glower at Remus.

“It’s not dangerous,” said George adamantly, his comment chorused by rustling and light grating noises from his scales.

“We’ve already made one cauldron of it,” his brother defended.

Remus continued more calmly, “You won’t come across this level of Potions making until your sixth year. The problem’s called Tertiary Ramifications.”

They looked perplexed.

“Basically, if you mix ingredients X+Y you get compound Z. If you combine A+B you’ll come up with C. It is fine to blend A+X, or Y+B, or A+Y, and even X+B. BUT – If your timing is off slightly when you are putting the elements together on your list here, your A+B still turns into C. However, if those have already become C when you add in Y, the Potion gives off a poisonous gas.

“But we’ve already done it,” Fred argued.

The Twins scrambled over beside him to look at the list as though expecting to see the Ginger and Armadillo Bile combining right then and there on the crumpled paper.

The older man looked very somber. “You were lucky. I can only assume that the Lacewing Fly Wings or the feather powder managed to keep the more volatile aspects dampered.”

He held his left arm above their heads and snapped his fingers. The door of a high cupboard above the boggart’s closet flew open and a ragged advanced Potions text sailed into his hand. All their anger bled away and the Twins watched intently as Lupin riffled through its pages. Coming to a stop three quarters of the way thought the book, he stepped back saying, “There.”

A Potion with most of the same ingredients as theirs accompanied a woodcut of what appeared to be a farm with dead animals lying all around a dead wizard and witch. The boys avidly read every gory detail.

“Look, you have to promise you won’t try anything like this again,” Lupin said earnestly once they’d finished.

“You know we can’t promise anything so vague,” George snuffled with a wry grin.

“Why don’t you offer to teach us?” Fred asked.

He continued innocently after the hopeful though very prolonged silence, “We’ll just find some other dangerous Spell or something - and die wretched deaths..."

George finished the thought a bit too earnestly, “Which would then be on your shoulders.”

“You’re good at this,” Remus nodded looking a bit perturbed.

Both Twins shrugged sheepishly.

“Though you do have a point. I can’t, as a responsible member of society, teach under-aged wizards such advanced magic. But if left to your own devices you could easily cause harm to yourselves and others, which makes it irresponsible not to,” he paused. “A paradox.” Then he muttered more to himself than the Twins, “Sirius and James used to do this to me all the time.”

“But you’re not!” Fred smirked.

Lupin looked at him with furrowed brow, “Not what?”

George grinned, “You’re not a responsible member of society!”

Lupin recoiled.

“You’re a Marauder!” both boys said at the same moment, oblivious of the discomfort their prior comment had caused.
“You are our hero!”
“And friend.”
“You are a brilliant wizard who knows exactly where we are coming from.”
“And where we want to go to!”
“We’re going to invent our own jokes and tricks and be rich and famous before we are twenty!” they both concluded enthusiastically.

Turning and walking over to the chair he’d been sitting in before, Remus sat down heavily. With a sigh he dropped his head into hands.

“There’s more to it than you can possibly know,” the older man said without looking up. “I need time to think.”

[McGonagall's Cat]

After a few moments, where Remus looked as though he was being ravaged by a migraine, he turned to the Twins.

"Today is not a good day. Why don't you head back to the castle and we can discuss this in a day or two," he said quietly.

The boys looked crestfallen.

Lupin continued, "I need some time. Please... And promise you won't brew anymore potions until then."

[cherabela]

The twins looked at him as if they still couldn't quite believe their ears.

Finally Fred spoke in a low voice, "Ok, we promise not to hurt anyone." George stood with his head hanging low, staring at the ground, with an expression of guilt on his face.

Remus sighed. "I don't want you two to get into trouble and put other students into trouble as well."

"We get it!" said George, suddenly raged. "You don't need to lecture us. You sound like Snape sometimes. You can go back to your pondering now."
With that, he and his brother stormed out of the room, leaving a very pale and confused Lupin behind them.

As soon as they reached the passageway, Fred burst into laughter. "You gave him a hard time. I had never seen you get so angry before. You were like the time when we transfigured Percy's favourite hat to show 'Dunce'. He was furious when he realised he had gone through a hole day of stares."

"You know, adults can really be easy to go round at times," snorted George. "But we won't be going back from our promise. We shall not hurt anyone! So, about the potion Fred..."

"I think it doesn't have the same harmful effects because we only used half an ounce of armadillo bile, instead of an ounce," said Fred, as they made their way back to the castle. "We should stay away from Lupin for a while, so that we can finish our potion, and then we can go show him that he was wrong all along. I think his Maraudered spirit is wearing off."

"We can work better next Saturday. It's Hogsmeade weekend, and I think Percy said he needed to go to buy some new quill or something. It's better when he's not around, breathing down our necks," said George, back in his enthusiastic mood.

Soon they arrived back to the top near the statue of the humpbacked witch. They got out, nearly falling on top of each other, because George, who had been behind Fred, felt as if something was scurrying round his feet, and jumped in fright. From the third floor, they decided to make their way back to the Gryffindor Common Room.

As they neared the Portrait of the Fat Lady, they heard some commosion up ahead. A group of students where standing in front of the portrait; occasionally one of them screamed and backed away. The Fat Lady was screaming at the top of her voice over all the students' voices.

"Get it away from here! He's ruining my beautiful portrait!" she was shrieking, as she ran from one portrait to another. The twins made their way to the front of the group, hoping to find some weird magical creature in front of them, only to find...

"That's a rat!" shouted Fred, as he tried to scoop it up in his hands. But the rat seemed to be of a vicious nature, and bit his finger. Fred yelped in pain, and stared at the point where the rat had dug its small pointed teeth into his fingers. The rat quickly scurried away through the tumult, squeaking in its small voice.

"You should be more careful!" said a first year who had come to his side, with a somewhat accusing tone in her voice. Fred looked at her, incredulously. "Maybe you should go to the Hospital Wing, just to be sure that bite's not dangerous," she continued.

"I'm fine," he said. "It would take more than a stupid rat's bite to get to me."

"Do as you like. Don't say I didn't warn you though," the black first year told him, shrugging.

Soon order was restored, and they could all get inside the Common Room once again. The twins quickly went up to their dormitory to continue brewing while everyone was busy downstairs.

"Did you see that first year who was talking to me earlier? As if I don't know what to do in case I get bitten. Do you know her name?" Fred asked his brother.

"I think I remember her name from the Sorting. Her name's Johnson. Angelina Johnson."

[chad13]

"She's sure got guts talking to you like that!" George said jokingly.

"I can see her being a right little pain that one, doesn't know her place in the pecking order round here!"

"Perhaps someone will have to show it to her then eh Fred?" George grinned.