Thank you for all of the reviews. That chapter was a lot of fun, and I'm glad you liked it. Please, please review. This story is nearly over; there is only one more chapter left for me to post. I am busy at work on the next one already.
I love Fred and George, too. They are wonderful characters, but they tend to get me off on tangents...
See Chapter 1 for Disclaimer.
For the first time in the young lives of the Weasley twins, they did not have a comeback or an excuse. They simply stood, eyes wide, alternating between staring at Harry and Lily. Harry continued to laugh hysterically, and the harder Harry laughed, the more difficult it became for Hermione to stop. They unsuccessfully tried to catch their breaths.
Fred finally found his voice. "What the bloody hell is going on here?!"
"It's a very long story," said Lily calmly. "The short version is that I am indeed Lily Evans Potter, and I was killed sixteen years ago. I helped Hermione in the final battle, and she helped Harry. I am a shadow, a memory preserved in the pendant that Hermione is wearing."
Harry and Hermione had finally managed to get a grip on themselves and listened to Lily's vague description of her presence. Fred and George, however, did not relax. Their eyes instantly flashed bluer and a hardened fury etched itself onto their identical faces. George strode quickly over to Hermione, and grabbed her pendant, holding it in his palm. He turned it over and over. Fred immediately whipped his wand out and pointed it straight at Lily. "A shadow? Memory? Preserved in a pendant? I don't like the sound of that," he said menacingly to her.
"I know that you have a good deal of experience with preserved memories in inanimate objects, do you not?" she answered. "Memories that kill? I am not here to kill, or injure, or do any harm. I'm not like the memory of Tom Riddle. And just so you know, you can't kill me. I'm already dead, remember?"
Fred slowly lowered his wand. "You're... you're really Harry's mum?"
"That I am," she smiled.
"So, did you two just wander through the lake to hit on my mum?" Harry interrupted.
"It certainly wasn't our intention," George sighed, "but I can't say it was an entirely negative experience."
"Yeah, Mrs. Potter, if you weren't older and married and dead, I'd date you," Fred offered.
"Thank you, I think," she responded, laughing gently.
George spun on his heel to face the two people he had really come to see. "As much as I've enjoyed all of this, we did come here for a reason."
"A very precise and exact reason," Fred added.
"Since when have either of you been precise or exact?" Hermione asked.
"Ouch," Fred said, feigning hurt. "We have always been precise and exact. At least for the last half hour. You see, my brother here and I decided to pay the two of you a visit--"
"-since neither of us had seen you in a few hours. So we got to thinking--"
"-where you had gotten off to. And then we had a brilliant idea. If you both disappeared at the same time, you may have disappeared together."
"And, you being Harry, and you being Hermione," George raised an eyebrow at each of them in turn, "we determined that if you disappeared together, it meant one of two things."
"You either must have finally opened your eyes to the inevitable, or you were sitting somewhere side by side, the same as always. Either of these situations requires us."
Harry looked confused.
"My dear practically-brother," George patted Harry's shoulder, "Had you finally opened your eyes, you would be snogging with seven years' worth of tension. And then you would need a chaperone. Had you simply been sitting, side by side and completely platonic like always, you would still be acting thick, and you would need... well... a shove in the right direction, if you know what I mean."
Harry's eyes flashed in warning at the twins, and he shrugged George's hand away. "Don't..." he began, but didn't finish. He was interrupted.
"I must say I'm disappointed, though," Fred sighed. "When we first saw you, you were in a right compromising position. Makes our jobs much easier. But, you know, Harry, you may not have much experience with this, but let me give you some advice." He leaned in toward Harry and pretended to look around to make sure no one was listening. He didn't lower his voice any, however. "If you're going to snog someone, don't do it in front of your mum!"
"We weren't snogging!!!" Hermione retorted, with a bit of the Weasley temper visible in her eyes. Too many summers spent at the Burrow had corrupted her. "Harry was trying to protect me from the idiots coming at us from the lake!"
"Well, Hermione, you sure know how to hurt a man's ego," Fred quipped, pretending to be insulted and with a hand over his heart.
Harry looked over at Hermione next to him. She was annoyed, to say the least. It wasn't like he hadn't seen her like this before, after all, he shared a dormitory with Ron. Hermione was tense, her eyes flashing with fury. But there was something missing from the picture, Harry reasoned. He looked her over, trying to determine what it was. Head to toe... that was it. Usually, when she was furious, she was standing straight, every bit of her proud and assertive. But she made no move to stand this time. Harry blushed briefly when he remembered why she wasn't standing. She was sitting firmly on her right leg, hiding it from view. She did this, of course, because she had removed her shoe and sock, and she didn't want Fred and George to have another piece of information to misinterpret. Harry, however, knew why she had taken them off. They were going to talk, about her scar, his scar, their lives, and what it all meant. He blushed again, remembering.
Unfortunately, George noticed. "Getting a bit flustered, Harry?" Harry shot him a murderous look. "Shut it," he warned.
Fred clicked his tongue. "Denial won't help either of you, you know. Soon, you'll be out of here. You'll need to face up to it soon, everyone else has. You two are the best couple of your year, and everyone but you sees it." He leaned in to Harry, and whispered to him, "You'd better make your move soon. Or we'll feel the need to really help you out. We've got a new formula down at the shop, you know. Heartspill Honey Drops. A drop in your tea, you'll never know it. Makes you reveal the innermost feelings in your heart. Don't make us use it. You know we will."
Harry's eyes flashed bright green again in anger, but, unbeknownst to him, the twins could read a different emotion on his face. Fred grinned smugly. "Consider that your little shove from the two of us," he said quietly.
Fred and George rose to their feet, satisfied with a job well done. They turned to Lily, who appeared to be very humored by the entire situation. "It was very nice meeting you, milady," George smiled. "Even though you're dead and all, and you're Harry's mum, and I have no clue how it is that you're here, or even if you really are here..." he trailed off, confusing himself thoroughly.
"... we are pleased to have met you. And... you know... sorry for... hitting on you..." Fred's ears became the traditional Weasley red.
"Yeah," George said, his ears also twinging red. "And no offense to your husband... we've heard that Harry's dad was pretty strong and everything... really fast on a broom... we didn't mean to hit on you... wouldn't have done it if we knew... we just got rid of one person who wanted us dead... if it's all the same to him, we don't want another one."
Lily laughed. "James? Want you dead? Are you kidding? Well, you did hit on his wife, and Harry's mother, but all the same, he wouldn't be able to kill you. You have way too many pranks. He'd just want to sit and share prank histories with you. But next time, make sure that when you hit on someone, she isn't one of your mates' mothers."
The twins blushed again, nodded their heads at her, and turned to Harry and Hermione, shaking their heads, as if to rid them of all of the confusion they were feeling. This was Hogwarts, after all, and nothing was strange at Hogwarts, but still, they'd never met one of their friends' dead mothers, looking and feeling very alive.
Fred winked at Harry. "Don't think we won't," he said, smiling. With that, he and George turned their backs on the others, and walked back toward the lake. A step away, however, George spun on his heel, back to look at them.
"Oi, Hermione, I know that it's hard to remember with your boyfriend so close, but do try to dress appropriately when greeting someone. We don't all want to see the evidence of your affair." He grinned broadly, pointed at her shoe and sock lying beside them on the ground, and before Hermione could reach them, they jumped into the lake.
Lily sighed. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," she called toward the lake. "You can't get back into the castle the way you came."
The two redheads surfaced. "That brings back my original question," Fred said. "How exactly do you know about the passageways of the castle?"
"The Marauder's Map, of course," Lily smiled.
"You had the Marauder's Map?!" George was amazed.
"Of course I had the Marauder's Map. And when I didn't have it, I had the Marauders."
"You knew the Marauders?!!" Fred and George said in unison, jaws dropping simultaneously.
"I knew the Marauders? I married one," she said, with a wave of her hand.
The twins simply stood there where they were, only their heads visible above water. They eventually managed to shut their mouths, and George tripped over the words that he and Fred both really wanted to say. "You married a Marauder?"
"Prongs."
"You were married to someone other than James Potter?" Fred asked.
"Of course not. I married James Potter. Prongs. And the rest were always hanging around the house. In fact, I do believe that the two of you knew several of the Marauders yourselves."
Their mouths fell open.
"Sirius, Remus, and James... what a group they were," Lily sighed in reminiscence.
George choked. "Sirius Black?"
"Remus Lupin?!" Fred gasped. "A Marauder?"
"Honestly, do you know any other Siriuses and Remuses?" Lily quipped. "Now close your mouths so the pixies don't come in, and get out of the water. Go to that tree over there, the one with the engraving. Tap it twice with your index finger, and then go behind the tree. Straight into the Gryffindor common room closet."
Taking a last amazed look at Lily, they scrambled out of the water and did as she said. They vanished behind the tree.
Harry grinned, but the grin faded abruptly. "Uh, Mum... which closet are they going to find themselves in?"
"The locked one," she declared, with an evil grin. "I've spent too much time with Potter. He's corrupted me."
Please review!