"You have your bags? Your boxes? Your—"

"We sure do, Mum." George teased, shoving a few papers into his bag. Tori frowned, fiddling with the necklace Fred had given her.

"I'm going to miss you guys," Tori said sadly. Taking a seat on the empty bed. Lee sighed, taking a seat next to her. "Hogwarts isn't going to be the same without you. I mean, we all came here together. It just stinks we won't all graduate together."

"You'll only be without us for... two months," Fred promised. Lee and Tori exchanged looks. They already knew this would be a rough two months.

✧ ✦ ✧

Tori could barely focus during the next hours of the day. She kept playing with her thumbs during study hall, causing Filch to yell at her to get back to work.

When the bell rang, Tori and Lee were the first to leave. The other students were still packing up, giving them time to get to the twins first.

Tori felt as if she was going to burst out crying, but instead pulled herself together and hugged George tightly. "Geez, Tori." He chuckled before she moved into Fred.

He held her face in his hands before kissing her. "We'll be okay." He said quietly. Tori nodded, forcing a wide smile onto her face.

"I'll miss you both." Lee hugged each of them as well before they could hear the other students coming down the corridor. Lee and Tori quickly went back the way the came, acting as if they had been there the whole time.

"Watch yourselves!" George's voice called down in the crowd as he threw some time of dust down. Students began to cough and some even screamed.

Tori grabbed Lee's arm so she wouldn't lose him. When the fog cleared, a large swamp appeared. The students stared at it, realizing there was no way across to their classes.

Prominent among the onlookers were members of the Inquisitorial Squad, who were all looking exceptionally pleased with themselves, and Peeves, who was bobbing overhead, gazed down at Fred and George, who stood in the middle of the floor with the unmistakable look of two people who had just been cornered.

"So!" said Umbridge triumphantly, who had just came running down the stairs. "So... you think it amusing to turn a school corridor into a swamp, do you?"

"Pretty amusing, yeah," said Fred, looking up at her without the slightest sign of fear.

Filch elbowed his way closer to Umbridge, almost crying with happiness.

"I've got the form, Headmistress," He said hoarsely, waving a piece of parchment. "I've got the form and I've got the whips waiting... Oh, let me do it now..."

Tori felt her heart drop. She could hear several students around questioning if Filch really had just said 'whips.'

"Very good, Argus," Umbridge said. "You two," She went on, gazing down at Fred and George, "Are about to learn what happens to wrongdoers in my school."

"You know what?" said Fred. "I don't think we are." He turned to his twin. "George," said Fred, "I think we've outgrown full-time education."

"Yeah, I've been feeling that way myself," said George lightly.

"Time to test our talents in the real world, d'you reckon?" Fred asked, looking at his twin.

"Definitely," said George.

And before Umbridge could say a word, they raised their wands and said together: "Accio Brooms!"

Tori heard a loud crash somewhere in the distance. Looking to her left, she ducked just in time— Fred and George's broomsticks, one still trailing the heavy chain and iron peg with which Umbridge had fastened them to the wall, were hurtling along the corridor toward their owners. They turned left, streaked down the stairs, and stopped sharply in front of the twins, the chain clattering loudly on the flagged stone floor.

"We won't be seeing you," Fred told Professor Umbridge, swinging his leg over his broomstick.

"Yeah, don't bother to keep in touch," said George, mounting his own.

Fred looked around at the assembled students, and at the silent, watchful crowd. He winked at Tori before shouting, "If anyone fancies buying a Portable Swamp, as demonstrated upstairs, come to number ninety-three, Diagon Alley — Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes," He said in a loud voice. "Our new premises!"

"Special discounts to Hogwarts students who swear they're going to use our products to get rid of this old bat," added George, pointing at Professor Umbridge.

"STOP THEM!" shrieked Umbridge, but it was too late. As the Inquisitorial Squad closed in, Fred and George kicked off from the floor, shooting fifteen feet into the air, the iron peg swinging dangerously below. Fred looked across the hall at the poltergeist bobbing on his level above the crowd.

"Give her hell from us, Peeves."

And Peeves, who Tori had never seen take an order from a student before, swept his belled hat from his head and sprang to a salute as Fred and George wheeled about to tumultuous applause from the students below and sped out of the open front doors into the glorious sunset.

✧ ✦ ✧

The story of Fred and George's flight to freedom was retold so often over the next few days that Tori could tell it would soon become the stuff of Hogwarts legend: within a week, even those who had been eye-witnesses were half-convinced they had seen the twins dive-bomb Umbridge on their brooms and pelt her with Dungbombs before zooming out of the doors.

In the immediate aftermath of their departure, there was a great wave of talk about copying them. Tori frequently heard students saying things like, ''Honestly some days I just feel like jumping on my broom and leaving this place," or else, ''One more lesson like that and I might just do a Weasley."

Fred and George had made sure nobody was likely to forget them too soon. For one thing, they had not left instructions on how to remove the swamp that now filled the corridor on the fifth floor of the east wing. Umbridge and Filch had been observed trying different means of removing it but without success. Eventually, the area was roped off and Filch, gnashing his teeth furiously, was given the task of punting students across it to their classrooms.

Tori was certain that teachers like McGonagall or Flitwick could have removed the swamp in an instant but, just as in the case of Fred and Georges Wildfire Whiz-bangs, they seemed to prefer to watch Umbridge struggle.

Then there were the two large broom-shaped holes in Umbridge's office door, through which Fred and George's Cleansweeps had smashed to rejoin their masters. Filch fitted a new door and removed Harry's Firebolt to the dungeons where, it was rumored, Umbridge had set an armed security troll to guard it. However, her troubles were far from over.

Inspired by Fred and George's example, a great number of students were now vying for the newly vacant positions of Troublemakers-in-Chief. In spite of the new door, somebody managed to slip a hairy-snouted Niffler into Umbridge's office, which promptly tore the place apart in its search for shiny objects, leapt on Umbridge when she entered, and tried to gnaw the rings off her stubby fingers.

Dungbombs and Stink Pellets were dropped so frequently in the corridors that it became the new fashion for students to perform Bubble-Head Charms on themselves before leaving lessons, which ensured them a supply of fresh air, even though it gave them all the peculiar appearance of wearing upside-down goldfish bowls on their heads.

Of course, to no ones surprised, Tori and Lee were leading that for sure. After all, their Niffler prank was gaining some respect. And after years of helping the twins out, they knew how to hide a trail.

At the same time, Umbridge was always hauling them in her office at any sight of trouble like she had done the day Fred and George had left.

"I know you two knew about this!" Umbridge had screamed in their faces. "You two must've! I— I will have those two expelled!"

"You can't have them expelled." McGonagall had came in by then. "They left school! And I do not appreciate you yelling at my students! If Mr. Jordan and Miss Silvers were aware of the Weasley Twins' actions don't you think they would have gone with them?"

Filch prowled the corridors with a horsewhip ready in his hands, desperate to catch miscreants, but the problem was that there were now so many of them he never knew which way to turn. The Inquisitorial Squad was attempting to help him, but odd things kept happening to its members. Warrington of the Slytherin Quidditch team reported to the hospital wing with a horrible skin complaint that made him look as though he had been coated in cornflakes; Pansy Parkinson and Dove missed all their lessons the following day as they had sprouted antlers.

Meanwhile, it became clear just how many Skiving Snackboxes Fred and George had managed to sell before leaving Hogwarts. Umbridge only had to enter her classroom for the students assembled there to faint, vomit, develop dangerous fevers, or else spout blood from both nostrils. Shrieking with rage and frustration, she attempted to trace the mysterious symptoms to their source, but the students told her stubbornly they were suffering from ''Umbridge—itis."

After putting four successive classes in detention and failing to discover their secret, she was forced to give up and allow the bleeding, swooning, sweating, and vomiting students to leave her classes in droves.

But not even the users of the Snackboxes could compete with that master of chaos, Peeves, who seemed to have taken Fred's parting words deeply to heart. Cackling madly, he soared through the school, upending tables, bursting out of blackboards, toppling statues and vases; twice he shut Mrs. Norris inside a suit of armor, from which she was rescued, yowling loudly, by the furious caretaker.

Peeves smashed lanterns and snuffed out candles, juggled burning torches over the heads of screaming students, caused neatly stacked piles of parchment to topple into fires or out of windows; flooded the second floor when he pulled off all the taps in the bathrooms, dropped a bag of tarantulas in the middle of the Great Hall during breakfast and, whenever he fancied a break, spent hours at a time floating along after Umbridge and blowing loud raspberries every time she spoke.

None of the staff but Filch seemed to be stirring themselves to help her. Indeed, a week after Fred and George's departure Tori witnessed Professor McGonagall walking right past Peeves, who was determinedly loosening a crystal chandelier, and could have sworn she heard her tell the poltergeist out of the corner of her mouth, ''It unscrews the other way."

To cap matters, Montague had still not recovered from his sojourn in the toilet; he remained confused and disorientated and his parents were to be observed one Tuesday morning striding up the front drive, looking extremely angry.

Unfortunately, everything seemed to lose its touch. Even winning the Quidditch Cup.

sad