The New Marauders and the Trickster God

Chapter 41: Malfoy, Zachariah and Other Catastrophes

The last weeks of the holidays flew by, and the 1st of September was just around the corner. A week before the train towards Hogwarts would leave, the friends agreed to meet for the necessary shopping for school supplies. The twins told them when their family intended to go to Diagon Alley, and the others decided to come and "save" them.

So now Hermione, Neville, Harry, Loki and surprisingly Sam – both deaged – were sitting at a table at Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour waiting for the twins to show up. They were accompanied by Harry's parents. Sirius and Ellen, who wanted to see how the magical community of Great Britain looked like, also joined. Meanwhile, Jo stayed with Bobby, glad to be away from her mother and her beau for some time. It took the twins nearly an hour to finally show up.

"Sorry, but getting away from our family wasn't that easy," Fred explained while slumping down on a chair with a huff.

"Your parents don't know that you're here?" Ellen asked suspiciously, and a bit worried. She was a mother, after all.

"It's not the first time we snuck away," George replied with a shrug.

"And it is much more fun that way," Fred added with a broad grin.

"That's the spirit!" Loki piped up.

Neville and Hermione only rolled their eyes, already used to the antics of the twins.

"So, where do we want to go first?" Hermione asked, had she to decide they already would have gone to Flourish & Blotts a long time ago.

"Not to disappoint you or such, but we honestly should avoid the bookstore for now," George told her.

"Yeah, there is some bloke giving autographs, Lockhart, I think," Fred added.

"That's how we finally got away. The crowd in there allowed us to vanish."

"Lockhart? I heard he's brilliant!" Hermione squealed like a fangirl ready to bolt to the bookshop.

Loki, on the other hand, couldn't help himself and snort. "That idiot isn't even able to tell the difference between an illusion and reality."

"You know him?" Harry questioned.

"I might or might not have run into him once. He's a complete fraud and homophobic as it seems," he explained with a snicker.

"And I don't even want to imagine THAT," Hermione groaned in embarrassment while Neville's face went beet red.

The twins, on the other hand, snickered.

"Hey, I'm a shapeshifter...I don't care about gender," Loki huffed in indignation.

"Kinky," Harry said with a roguish grin.

"Harry James Potter, you're twelve years old!" Hermione screeched, attracting quite a bit of attention with it. "You're not supposed to know about such things and even less think about them."

"Oi! First, technically, I'm thirteen, for your information. Second, I have free access to the internet," he retorted. "You know, teenager plus free internet...."

"I don't know whether as your father I should be proud of you or angered," James spoke up, earning himself a hit over the head from Lily.

"I'm definitely proud of you," Sirius said with a broad grin, also getting hit over the head by Ellen.

"You're sleeping on the couch tonight," both Lily and Ellen said simultaneously before they looked at each other and smiled.

James and Sirius, on the other hand, looked horrified at their wife and girlfriend, respectively. Still, the women's gazes told them that they were serious, so they slouched in their chairs, sulking about it. Harry chuckled at their misfortune.