Vulnerability || George Weasley

The Four Champions

The next day, the entrance hall was packed. The Goblet of Fire stood in the centre of the hall on a stool. A thin golden line, which Phoenix recognised to be the age line, surrounded the goblet. Phoenix stood beside Alicia and Katie as Angelina scribbled her name down on a piece of parchment, but she was so nervous, yet still excited that she kept spelling her name wrong.

"I didn't know that your name was Angelina Johnstone," said Phoenix, smiling as Angelina ripped up her fifth piece of parchment.

"Can't even spell your own name right-"

"That is not what we would like to call-"

"Hogwarts champion material."

"Mother of Merlin," Angelina mumbled as Fred, George, and Lee came strutting down the marble staircase, they were all grinning from ear to ear.

"We just taken it," said George proudly, "the Aging Potion," he added at Alicia's confused expression.

"You're not acting any older," muttered Angelina.

"That's because we only need to be a few months older," said Fred.

"We took a drop each," said Lee. "We didn't want to end up middle aged."

"Couple of forty year olds strutting into the entrance hall may arouse some suspicion," grinned George.

"We're going to split the thousand Galleons between the three of us if one of us wins," said Lee, grinning at the girls who all stared at them, looking at them as though they were the biggest morons in the world, which in Phoenix's opinion, they were.

"I'll go first!" said Fred, pulling from his jacket a slip of parchment, with the words Fred Weasley - Hogwarts written in Fred's familiar handwriting.

"If one of them becomes a champion I'm going to wear a hula skirt and a coconut bra for the rest of the year," said Phoenix and Lee looked gleeful. Lee Jordan never grasped the concept of her sarcasm.

Fred stood at the very edge of the golden line and stood there for a few moments, bouncing on the balls of his feet and Phoenix had to resist the temptation to push him. And then, as everybody in the entrance hall stared at him with baited breath, he took a dramatic breath and stepped gracefully over the line. Seconds later, George stepped forwards, yelling in triumph and stepped over the line after Fred.

Lee was seconds away from following them, but suddenly there was a loud, sizzling sound, and both Fred and George were thrown painfully out of the circle and landed, ten feet away on the cold stone floor of the hall. But that wasn't the last of it, there was a loud pop and identical, long white beards grew on their faces.

Laughter burst from all the onlookers. Phoenix was crying with mirth, she approached the twins along with Lee who was shaking his laughter. Fred and George got to their feet and looked at one another's beards.

"Nice beards boys," she said, curling a finger around the end of George's beard before she pulled him to his feet.

"Yeah," Lee snorted as Phoenix clung to him for support from how much she was laughing at them. "Absolutely love them."

"I did warn you," said Dumbledore's amused voice as he emerged from the Great Hall. His eyes cast looks over Fred and George's white bearded faces, the familiar twinkle in his eyes. "I suggest that you two go up to the Hospital Wing to Madam Pomfrey. She is already tending to Miss Fawcett, of Ravenclaw, and Mr. Summers, of Hufflepuff, both of whom also decided to age themselves a little. I must add however, neither of their beards is anything like as fine as yours."

Still crying with laughter, Phoenix and Lee accompanied Fred and George to the Hospital Wing.

"You both look like Dumbledore's long lost brothers," said Phoenix as they walked up the marble staircase, Fred and George both receiving strange looks off several students.