Chapter Text
Fred and George felt a little bad about leaving Harrison to meet with their Mother, but they also knew that she would not have shown up if it was not important. They were confused when they entered the private room to find Percy talking with some blonde woman with turtle-shell glasses and several large rings. "Hello, you two must be Fredrick and George, I am Rita Skeeter," the woman said holding out her hand to them. Both twins shared a look recognizing the name of the woman as they wondered why she was there. Rita did not seem put off when they did not shake her hand but just smiled at them. "I have been hearing a lot about you and your brothers from Molly. Now she has informed me that your full name is Fredrick but you go by Fred. Or is there another name you prefer to be called, that goes for all of you," she said looking at George and Percy.
"Fred is fine," Fred said still confused about why the woman was there.
"Molly will explain everything when she comes in," Rita said sensing their confusion but once again not taking offense at it. "I will go check on her."
"Rita will be right back," Molly said as she entered the room and moved to sit down before motioning Fred and George to take a seat. "I gave come to see you guys to tell you of some changes that have recently happened. First off since Ginny has started classes, I talked to the old Hogwarts Healer and started at St. Mungos," Molly shared smiling at her three middle kids before she seemed to gather herself to share her next bit of news. "Now unfortunately the next thing I have to tell you is not so good. A few days after you guys left, I found myself free of some spells and enchantments that had been placed on me. I can only assume that for some reason someone asked Lady Magic for a judgment which led to me being Cleansed for I had done nothing. The spells, potions, and enchantments were placed by your father, making me break off an engagement to Rita. I have since divorced your father," Molly said doing her best not to do anything that would turn her sons against the man in case they wished to visit or live with him. "Since I was under an enchantment to be with him and give birth to you all, I want you all to know I still love you all.
During your Yule Break, I will take you all to Gringotts or St. Mungos to make sure that none of the negative effects of being born from a union where one participant was under love potions are affecting you. I have also moved out of the Burrow and for the moment have moved in with your Great Aunt Muriel. We have given you all your own rooms, Fred, and George, we even set up a potions lab for your product development. I, however, destroyed all your notes and prototypes dealing with Love Potions. I beg you not to try to make them again. Now while I have come to see you three and explain what is going on, I ask you not to tell Ron and Ginny about any of this. I will tell them myself when you all come home for the Yule," Molly said not revealing to three boys what she had found out about what their younger siblings had done to Harrison and she was looking for some Mind Healers for them. "Do any of you have any questions?"
"Can we talk to Bill and Charlie about it?" Percy asked.
"Yes you can, Bill was with me when I found out and helped me move our stuff to Prewett Manor. I have just sent Charlie a letter telling him about everything and suggesting he get tested," Molly said.
"Was divorcing him the only thing you did to Dad?" Fred asked.
Wanting to be honest with her kids about everything, Molly admitted, "Well, after I got Cleansed, and we moved everything out of the Burrow, the next time I saw him I kneed your dad in the nuts."
"Way to go," Fred said as George laughed.
"I don't know if I should be happy you approve or not," Molly admitted with a small blush.
"Since you said you talked to Percy about this a little, did he tell you about what Dad did?" George asked.
"Did about what?" Molly asked.
"My re-Sort. He sent a Howler ordering me back to Gryffindor. That is how I figured out you and he had split," Percy admitted.
"Percy, I am so sorry," Molly said reaching over and taking his arm though rather proud of how smart he was. "That was one of the things I did not take with me when I left the Burrow, Howler Paper, I mean. Since after being Cleansed I recalled raising some trouble when I was a student, so I will let most of your pranks slide so long as no one gets hurt or you use love potions," she said looking at the twins.
"Twins' Honor," Fred and George said doing a random salute by covering their right eyes with one hand while their other hand grabbed their elbow making Molly laugh a little and Percy roll his eyes at them.
"What is going on in here now?" Rita asked entering the room after buying the Butterbeer and spicy chicken sandwich for Harrison in the main restaurant downstairs.
"Just George and Fred promising me they will not do certain things when they prank others from now on," Molly said moving a little over to let Rita take the seat right next to her. "Now Rita was the person I had been engaged to as well as having a marriage contract with before your father got involved. We have since made up and have begun to court each other again. I expect we will be spending more time together in the future. Also since I know she has a reputation, she promised me that she will not report anything that your father did to me or messed with our family," Molly told them.
Fred and George could not help but wonder what else Arthur Weasley had done to mess with their family besides enchanting their Mum and sending a Howler to Percy when he became a Hufflepuff. However, they also felt they should have done more to the hats they sent him after hearing what he had already done. The pair were so lost in thought it took them a moment to realize that Molly and Rita had begun to share some of their pranks when they had been students at the castle. When the twins finally started to pay attention, they began to get ideas for new pranks or in this case old ones that their Mum and Rita had done.
The students who had seen Harrison in the Three Broomsticks alongside Rita Skeeter, were shocked when no article appeared about the Boy Who Lived. Some older Slytherins whose families still supported the Dark Lord were also disappointed that no article had been written by the woman by the gossipmonger ripping his fame to shreds. No one could figure out why the woman had been with Harrison but had not done anything with it. Though even more surprising was an article about Rita in Witch Weekly which shared that the woman had been seen out on what looked like a couple of dates with Molly Weasley. Any Hufflepuff that read the article refused to ask their new Housemate about it, while most of the population were too scared to ask the twins lest they get pranked. When they asked Ron or Ginny about it the pair could offer no answers having no idea what was going on.
After coming back from the first Hogsmeade weekend and hearing the stories of their Mum's pranks, Fred and George had upped their prank game. Hearing about how Rita had convinced some House Elves to help pull off the pair's pranks, the twins asked the Elves if they would be willing to help out again. The Hogwarts Elves agreed to help out so long as there were no dosed food or drinks involved. Thus hardly a day would go by now where thanks to the Elves someone was not slipped color-changing pellets, or hair Growth formulas around the castle.
As the twins started to come up with even more pranking ideas, not only due to their Mum stories but seeing a dot called Moody on the Maruaders' Map, Fred and George started to notice something strange out of the corner of their eyes. As they planned pranks and looked off into the middle distance to think who to target or what to do, they would catch sight of a strange creature that looked like a lizard with a duck-like bill. It took them a couple of times to see this strange creature when they recalled the Bibiblowak making them wonder if this was another Fae Beast. Since it had not approached them yet, Fred asked Luna if he could borrow the book Harrison had given her so they could look up what creature they were seeing.
Luna had been busy with the book changing not only the dinosaur's color scheme into their Fea Beast form but adding sticky notes that explained the Fae Beast's duties as well as its real name. George and Fred soon found that the creature they were spotting was a Quibbler who worked as a muse for random ideas. They figured the Quibbler was close by to help them either plan or create new pranks for almost as soon as they found it in Luna's book it approached them. "It took you long enough," the Quibbler said in a voice that sounded like a Harlequin and made the sound of horns honking with each step.
"Well, we only met another one of your kind before," Fred informed it.
"I am aware, which is why you can see me now. You have accepted my kind's place in the world so you can interact with us more than you could. But now that that is done, let's get planning some Pranks. I had a few ideas," the Quibbler said as with a flourish of his hand a roll of parchment appeared and began to unroll steatching all the way to the door of the prank labs the twins had set up within Hogwarts.
"A few, I would hate to see you with a lot of ideas," George quipped.
"Hey I am just expanding on your work," the Quibbler said as they pointed out one where a color-change pellet could be combined with some hair growth solution to give someone a rainbow-colored afro or beehive hairdo.
"That is brilliant," Fred said. As usual, the twins tested out the new prank on themselves first to make sure it was not overly dangerous making them nearly pass out in laughter as Fred got a twelve-foot round afro of red, yellow, purple, and green hair while George's hair turned into an eight-inch beehive made up of pink, teal, black, and orange hair. Like most of their prank objects, there was a time limit so both had their normal red hair in just under half an hour.
"We are going to have so much fun with that one," George said adding it to their master list of pranks to pull.
"Yes but who to test it on first?" Fred asked.
Their Quibbler pranking Muse was not the only Fae Beast that Fred and George came across after the tea party and the trip to Hogsmeade. The weekend after meeting Rita, the pair saw a Shigmac. The only reason the pair did not freak out upon seeing the massive pink bat-looking thing was after meeting the Quibbler the pair had looked through Luna's entire book to discover more about the Fae Beast since they now knew they could see and interact with them. Knowing that a Shigmax would only appear to people who could offer much-needed help at a certain time, Fred and George dropped what they were doing to follow the thing. The Shigmac led the pair down towards the Hogwarts Kitchens before it turned to a hidden side corridor they had never seen on the map, nor had even known about. At the end of the corridor was one of Hogwarts' many unused classrooms.
The room, however, was not empty at the moment as George and Fred found Fifth Year Cedric Diggory holding onto Percy's collar lifting their older brother off the floor. "What is going on here?" Fred asked bursting into the room shocked that their neighbor Cedric looked like he was about to beat up Percy.
"I have just returned from St. Mungos," Cedric snarled still not letting go of Percy.
"So?" the twins asked confused.
"Oh, yeah you don't have time to read the Prophet with all your bloody pranks. Well, your dad went ballistic and smashed my dad's head over and over against the wall, breaking his nose and putting him into a coma," Cedric said still snarling a little.
"What does that have to do with why you look like you are about to pound our older brother?" Fred asked.
"It would make me feel better," Cedric admitted as he lowered Percy to the floor.
"But it would be nothing better than what the bastard did to your dad," George pointed out.
"Wait what?' Cedric asked not expecting that.
"Our father is an asshole and bastard," Fred said moving forward to force Cedric to let Percy's robes go. "We found out during the Hogsmeade weekend. That is why Mum has been spotted going out with Rita Skeeter. Mum found out the bastard enchanted her and broke them up."
"Damn, I just thought... Look, I am sorry," Cedric said.
"Eh, no problem," the twins said.
"I disagree," Percy snapped. "I get your anger but you could have said something first, and I could have told you about the asshat." Fred and George goggled a little at their older brother for the name he had given to their sire before they blushed a little.
"It actually might be a little bit our fault," Fred said.
"What do you mean?" Percy asked. "How could you be responsible for the asshat enchanting Mum?"
"No, we mean that the bastard hurt your dad, Cedric," George explained.
"How?" Cedric and Percy both asked.
"It is thanks to the Howler he sent after your Re-Sort. Neither of us could recall the bastard getting that mad before. So we thought he must bottle up his emotions. We thought that we would send him a cursed hat that would remove the block. We thought it would allow him to finally stand up for himself to the abuse some of the other Ministry workers give him at work. We did not imagine he would end up doing something like that," Fred said as both he and George got on their knees and bowed to Cedric in a show of pure shame for what they had caused.
"We will have to report this to someone," Percy said. "For if the asshat gets punished without it being revealed that he was cursed, he might get off on the attack."
"And we would be the ones that get punished," Fred said fearing his and George's expulsion and possibly even arrest.
"The Ministry already knows," Cedrci said still breathing a little heavily.
"What do you mean?" the three Weasley sons asked.
"Madam Bones came to see my Mum and me when we sat at my dad's bedside in St. Mungos. She explained what they had found out about the attack. Including your Dad"
"Bastard." "Asshat," the twins and Percy interjected.
"Losing the blocks. Madam Bones had figured that the bastardhat," Cedric said combining both names for the man who attacked his dad, "either had some traumatic experience in his youth or had seen a Mind Healer who had placed the blocks on him. Though not why the blocks had been removed. So yes while I would like to reveal why the blocks were gone, I would rather have the bastardhat sent away than you two," Cedric said.
"You don't want us to say it was because of what we did?" Fred asked.
"Maybe just getting rid of the blocks and the reason for it, but to be honest, I don't know," Cedric admitted.