Chapter Text
Andrea Clearwater pushed her trolley through a bustling crowd of muggles on an early September morning at King’s Cross station on her annual voyage to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Many stared as her raven, Hugin, squawked incessantly from his large cage perched atop all of her school things as they rolled along.
For the first time in the whole seven years in attending Hogwarts, she was running very late which made her uncharacteristically jumpy. After what felt like ages of swerving in and out of crowds, she approached the pillar for platform 9 ¾ with just five minutes to spare. With a deep breath, she ran straight through it without bothering to check whether any muggles were watching.
Great clouds of smoke were billowing out of the gleaming scarlet Hogwarts Express, as a few last students scrambled onto the train at the sound of the final whistle. Hugin shrieked noisily as Andrea yanked his cage and her belongings off of the trolley and ran for it. Andrea finished dragging her largest trunk up the metal steps, through the doorway, and hastily shoved it into a luggage rack by the door just as the engine slowly rumbled to a start.
With a sigh of relief, she started down the corridor to try and find an agreeable compartment. A sweet nostalgia swept over her as she absorbed the familiar sights, smells, and sounds of the Hogwarts Express. The compartments were already mostly full, but she couldn’t help glancing in each to find the students already breaking out Gobstones and rummaging through their things for their wands, eager to start using magic again after their two months of summer holidays.
Andrea loved the summer break especially because she could spend time with her best friend, Frida. Her one regret at the start of each school year was leaving Frida behind. Frida was a muggle and, strictly speaking, was not supposed to know anything about the wizarding world. Fortunately, their fathers were best friends from childhood, and Frida’s father, Pat, was Andrea’s godfather.
As part of a wizarding family, the Ministry of Magic granted Frida’s family permission to be exposed to the wizarding world in the same way that they did for Andrea’s muggle father when her parents were married. Of course, this did not mean that Frida was able to attend a school where students study witchcraft, so as Andrea passed a compartment of chattering Ravenclaw fourth years, she swallowed a bitter lump knowing that no one on the whole train could compare to Frida’s company.
As she neared the end of the train, a great, black mushroom cloud burst from a compartment ahead with a loud bang and a flash. Andrea hurried forward, stepping into the dark smoke and shot a look inside the compartment from which it came. As she peered through the haze from the doorway, a voice from the dust cloud said, “ Shhh ! Shhh ! It’s a prefect! Hide them, quickly now !”
The cloud slowly dissipated and three heads of red hair and one blonde appeared. By the time the smoke had completely cleared Andrea saw the rather small, blonde boy hastily stowing something small and green into his filthy shoulder bag.
“Aha! It’s only Andrea! I thought you were Penelope – Percy the Prefect’s budding bride, for a moment! You sort of look like her, don’t you? Anyways, not to worry Andrea, we were only demonstrating some merchandise to a potential buyer,” said Fred Weasley in an unconvincingly innocent tone.
“Don’t worry Collin! She’s alright… for a prefect at least,” said George Weasley (Fred’s twin) with a sly wink and flashing a crooked smile.
“Don’t test my patience, Weasley! I could give you detention for this you know,” said Andrea with a smirk and swishing back her long, black loose curls for dramatic effect. “I think Filch would be more than happy to let you help clean the bedpans in the hospital wing for him!”
“Wow, Percy would be proud! Putting us in our place is no easy task,” said George.
“I don’t think Percy or Penelope ever did grow enough balls to punish us did they, George?” said Fred.
“Nah, but I reckon Andrea might,” said George, shaking his head and giving Andrea a peculiar look.
“Well, she may yet show you both mercy if you at least offer to help her bring her things inside!” said Ginny Weasley, grinning at Andrea from her seat by the window.
At this both Fred and George leapt up, bound over to the door, and snatched up Hugin’s cage and Andrea’s backpack, before each bowing to her mockingly as she took her seat.
“Quite right you are, Ginny! After all, have a reputation as model citizens to keep up with,” said Fred, sharing a wicked chuckle with George.
Fred and George Weasley were Gryffindors in Andrea’s year, and certainly were not model citizens. In fact, their reputation for class clowns had been contended by very few in all of her years at Hogwarts.
Ever since their older brother, Percy, had started dating her older sister, Penelope, the twins had made a point to pester Andrea for her association with the pair (not that they weren’t equally as associated as she was). It certainly didn’t help matters that she was a Ravenclaw prefect just like her sister.
Despite all of their proclamations of disappointment and heartbreak upon hearing the news that Andrea had been made perfect two years ago, the twins couldn’t have been more pleased at this announcement. They then had all the fuel they needed for endless teasing for years to come. However, Andrea usually enjoyed their anti-Penelope jokes, as the twins seemed to be the only ones to truly grasp how annoying her sister was.
Luckily for them, Andrea wasn’t like Penelope at all, and she secretly rather enjoyed the Weasley twins’ antics. If she had been, the twins would certainly have landed themselves each a hefty detention before they had even sat down for the start-of-term feast.
“Hello, Collin,” said Andrea, pointedly changing the subject. “That’s your name isn’t it? It’s nice to meet you. I’m Andrea.”
She looked at Collin for a moment, waiting for him to respond, but he did not. He was gaping at her as if she was a venomous tentacula plant from the school greenhouse. Collin was a shy fourth year who never seemed to have quite grown up – he still had the appearance of a twelve year old who had gotten ahold of a can of rapid-growth bubotuber fertilizer, making him much taller and thinner than he ought to be.
Andrea, by contrast, was uncommonly striking, so reactions like Collin’s were not completely foreign to her. She had long, loose, raven black curls that hung freely down her back and emphasized her pale, freckled complexion.
She was taller than Ginny (the twin’s younger sister), but still shorter than most boys her age, and her figure provoked more than a few backwards glances in the corridors at Hogwarts. Perhaps most unusual of all were her deep amber eyes which had a burst of forest green just around the irises.
As Collin slouched in his seat with his mouth slightly open, Andrea began feeling increasingly uncomfortable, so she resolved to occupy herself by opening a pack of cockroach clusters to appease poor, still perturbed Hugin. The twins exchanged a meaningful glance before Fred said, “Don’t fret Collin, she doesn’t bite! Just ask Wood… OUCH !!”
Ginny had jabbed Fred hard in the knee with her wand, as Andrea’s eyes, still fixed on the wrapper of her cockroach clusters, flashed dangerously.
“Say Andrea, how is our old Quidditch captain? He’s probably realized by now how much we were really worth as Beaters now that he’s on a pro team,” said George. “He always took us for granted, didn’t he Fred?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Andrea flicking a cockroach cluster into Hugin’s cage, watching him gulp it down ravenously. “I broke it off with him, last year. Remember?”
Fred clearly did remember and seemed to be delighted at the direction the conversation was heading. Kicking his feet up onto the window sill and tossing his head back onto his hands, Fred smiled smugly at Andrea.
“Ahh! Yes you did , you did! Right before the Yule Ball last year! That couldn’t have been because you acquired a taste for Bulgarian could it?” said Fred, wagging his eyebrows obnoxiously.
“Fred… Please… I really do not want to have to explain myself to you or to anyone else. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stuff it,” groused Andrea, blushing behind a copy of the Quibbler that Luna Lovegood had offered her on her way to the compartment.
“Was that a threat, Clearwater?! Also, how could you tell that I’m Fred??” said Fred laughing. “Not even Mum is that good.”
“It’s because you’re the one who doesn’t know when to stop,” snapped Andrea defensively, still half hiding behind her magazine.
In truth, she could always tell the twins apart. Even now, glancing over the top of the magazine that she was pretending to read, she could tell.
Physically, the two young men were completely identical. She found both annoyingly attractive with their red-brown eyes, angular faces, surprisingly well-styled red hair, and devilish grins. Not to mention the two were very much in shape.
She wasn’t sure whether it was due to all of the Quidditch they played or simply good genetics, but their athletic forms were noticeable even from under loose wizard’s robes.
In part, Andrea could tell the twins apart, because their mannerisms differed slightly to a trained eye, but mostly she could tell them apart because of how each of them looked at her. Fred looked at her with friendly mirth (that usually was derived from annoying her with prefect jokes).
George, however, looked at her in an altogether different way. To Andrea, the strangest part about George’s peculiar behavior was that everyone else seemed to be completely oblivious to it. Even Oliver Wood, her ex-boyfriend and the twins’ old Quidditch captain didn’t seem to notice. George teased her a little less than Fred did, and his eyes seemed to fall on Andrea with the slightest gentleness which she often thought she must be imagining.
Other times, she would accidentally make eye contact with George across the Great Hall or a courtyard to find him staring at her intently with his dark eyes, making her blush and look quickly away. She had only seen that particular look a handful of times, but their overall chemistry allowed her to effortlessly identify him.
As the morning went on, Andrea kept herself occupied with reading a muggle novel that she had borrowed from Frida, sharing funny bits with Ginny as they came up. Meanwhile, Fred and George dashed in and out of the compartment, flagging down potential customers for their emerging joke shop, Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.
Around lunchtime, Andrea and Ginny had been enjoying a quiet moment when the twins had stepped out to heckle a first year, to giggle over a particularly juicy passage in Frida’s book, when the twins loudly burst into the compartment.
“And just as he sat down, the puss filled boils all over his--- Ladies !! What’s got the pair of you looking so cheerful, eh?” said Fred with a shrewd grin, stuffing a small green box into his pocket. “Is Andrea teaching you to read smutty novels, Ginny? Mum will be thrilled! She can loan you her copy of Lorcan d'Eath’s Got Vampire Teeth .”
“Argh! We are not reading a dirty novel!!” barked Ginny, turning scarlet to the ears. “Andrea was just showing me a funny bit in this muggle novel she’s got.”
“Funny? That’s our specialty!” said George, flashing a grin.
“Hand it over, then!” said Fred. “Let us give it a look and we can give you ladies our expert opinions.”
Andrea snapped her book shut and packed it in her bag shooting a menacing glare at the twins.
“Why must you always assume the worst about me?” said Andrea with a dramatic sigh.
“The worst? Hardly!” said Fred. “We all have our areas of expertise ! George and me, we know how to have a good laugh,” he said, suddenly tossing a miniature bicycle horn from out of his pocket and onto the floor which ran on two little legs. It scampered out of the compartment and down the corridor, honking madly at passerby’s.
“And my area of expertise…?” asked Andrea, narrowing her eyes at Fred.
“Oh – that? Well, biting people, for one!” said Fred nonchalantly. “Also you were with Wood for a decent bit of time, and, honestly Andrea, there are loads more private places to snog than the Quidditch locker room. Only joking! Geeze! Don’t get your knickers in a twist!”
Ginny glanced, wide eyed, between Andrea, Fred, and George.
“I don’t bite people, Fred” said Andrea through gritted teeth, automatically gripping her wand. She did not particularly want to have this conversation in front of Ginny, nor did she want to confirm the twins’ suspicions about some of Oliver and her extracurricular activities.
“Ah, then it must have been the giant squid that attacked Oliver, George!” said Fred, shaking his head sympathetically. “Awfully small though, the suction cups. Always thought they’d be enormous. Must have tried to strangle him while he was out polishing his broom handle by the lake! No wonder he never fancied telling us how he got those marks.”
It was true that Andrea might have gotten a little enthusiastic with Oliver one day, and accidently left a few love bites on him. Unfortunately, she had forgotten that he would have to undress in the Quidditch locker rooms, and Fred and George must have gotten a look.
“I’m finished engaging in this childish exercise,” said Andrea, getting up and sliding open the compartment door. She had a feeling that their conversation would only continue heading south. She was feeling more and more like she was going to snap – she did not appreciate the implications of what Fred was saying and she did not find it amusing. “Want to go look for the lunch trolley, Ginny? It should be here any minute now, and I need some air.”
“Absolutely,” said Ginny, clearly eager to break the tension that was steadily building in their compartment.
Half way down the corridor, Ginny spotted her other brother, Ron Weasley, a fifth year, talking animatedly to his friends Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom, and Hermione Granger.
“Andrea, do you mind if I stop in this compartment for a bit?” said Ginny, peering eagerly through the glass door as if trying to catch part of their conversation.
“Sure thing, I’ll be buying food and maybe walking around a bit more. Don’t worry about me!” said Andrea.
“You sure? Okay, great! See you later, then!” said Ginny, sliding open the compartment door and slipping in.
Andrea made her way farther down the corridor and spotted the older witch that hobbled along selling a variety of wizarding snacks. She was busy distributing boxes of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavored Beans, several cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties, and a large handful of chocolate frog packs to a swarm of older Slytherins. The witch looked quite busy, so Andrea leaned against a nearby window to wait for an opening.
“Oi! You there!” said a familiar voice from behind. George was striding up the corridor towards her with his hands in his pockets sporting a mildly sheepish, yet typical Weasley-grin.
“Hey,” said Andrea flatly, turning her attention back to the trolley witch.
George leaned up against the window next to Andrea, looking at the ceiling for the moment.
“What do ya reckon you’ll get?” said George.
“I don’t really know yet,” said Andrea, trying her best to sound casual and keep her eyes fixed on the trolley witch, who was having a small argument with a boy who was five sickles short. “Maybe I’ll get a couple pumpkin pasties or a cauldron cake.”
Andrea stared blankly at the hubbub in silence for a long moment. She was not eager to receive any further taunting about her romantic past from either of the twins.
“Listen, Andrea,” said George seriously, gently taking her shoulder and turning her to face him. “Don’t take Fred too seriously. He was just fooling around. It’s nothing personal. We just can’t pass up an excuse for a laugh!”
Andrea looked down at George’s hand, which was still resting softly on her shoulder, then up to his face which was only a fair four inches above hers. He looked at her sincerely as his eyes searched her face for something unknown to her.
Something had certainly changed in their interactions slowly over the years. They had become increasingly flirtatious, but this new, bolder behavior still took Andrea off guard.
“So you’ve said,” said Andrea, slowly turning back to face the trolley trying to hide the slight rise in color in her face.
George moved around to Andrea’s other side to face her, once more cutting off her view of the trolley. “Yes, but I just wanted to make sure you weren’t too upset,” said George with a small smile. “We wouldn’t want you actually angry with us!”
Andrea noticed vaguely that the old witch had finally finished with the Slytherins and approached Andrea and George for their order.
“One pumpkin pasty, one cauldron cake, and a pack of peppermint toads, please,” said Andrea, pulling out her money bag.
“I’ve got it, Andrea!” said George “And I’ll have a box of Bertie Bott’s if you will ma’am,” brandishing a handful of wizard money at the witch.
Andrea stared, stunned for a moment, at George. In all the time she had known the twins, the pair had been very tight with money, and certainly never lent money to anyone to her knowledge. In addition to being part of a rather poor family, the twins had been saving up for their business.
“No,” said Andrea. “Don’t worry about it. Let me. Really, it’s fine – I can pay for my own food.”
“I insist,” said George with a roguish wink, stowing his change in his pocket.
George handed Andrea’s items to her, and took his own box of Bertie Bott’s Beans. “Would you share with me?” said George.
Andrea normally wasn’t particularly fond of Bertie Bott’s, but something in George’s countenance made her agree.
“Sure. I don’t see why not,” said Andrea, as they made their way back down the corridor back to their compartment.
Andrea spent the remainder of the trip to Hogwarts picking out particularly suspicious-looking beans and daring the twins to eat them while she dug around for safer-looking ones. She even agreed to try the twins’ nosebleed nougat which ended up causing her nose to gush uncontrollably, spouting blood all over her clothes and belongings and causing Hugin to have an uproar.
Shortly after the chaos had ended, Andrea decided it was time to change into her robes and to join the other prefects so that she could help guide the first years to the boats once they arrived at the station. This, of course, meant a tirade of prefect-related humor from the twins until she said ‘goodbye’ to Hugin, slammed the compartment door shut, and made her way to the front of the train.
As the train slowed, Andrea looked out at the familiar, dark platform. Her last year at Hogwarts had finally begun. After the Triwizard Tournament last year, she doubted this year could be any more exciting, but she couldn’t help but feel hopeful as she scanned the skyline for the dark silhouette of the most magical place she’d ever been to.
The wheels of the Hogwarts Express screeched as the train lurched to a full stop, and Andrea hopped off the train ahead of the rest of the school.
“First years! Make your way down to the end of the platform! First years! Hey, are you a first year? Head that way. Excuse me, don’t shove!” said Andrea as the platform churned with chattering students in black robes.
“Nicely done, Andrea!” jeered Fred as he and George passed by. “Keep these hooligans in form!”
To Andrea’s surprise, George said nothing, but he kept his eyes fixed on hers and gave her a small grin before turning forward again. The twins sauntered off, cheerfully greeting several Gryffindor’s from their Quidditch team.
Andrea turned back to the platform. Almost everyone had cleared off, so she turned to walk up the winding path to the carriages with a slight skip in her step that she tried not to overthink. Andrea looked forward to her last start-of-term feast at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.