[2] The Great Orangenie | FRED WEASLEY

Chapter Eleven

Aubrey always like having a clear direction and right now, her task was gathering as much intel as she could from Saskia. She'd genuinely intended to let Fred do all the work with Umbridge but it was Umbridge who wasn't cooperating on this one. Annoyingly, Aubrey kept running into the mean Defence against the Dark Arts' Professor and found herself losing more house points than her entire time at Hogwarts.

As she walked out of Divination with Lexy and Saskia by her side, one day, Umbridge had been walking past and malice had instantly crossed her face, "Ten points from Hufflepuff."

Aubrey had been horrorstruck, "Um, Professor, for what?"

"... Incorrect uniform," She'd sniffed, "Your skirt is far too short, it's absolutely appalling, the exact type of behaviour we should be punishing far more strictly."

With that, the woman had walked off and Aubrey had been so confused, she hadn't noticed Saskia hiding back in the classroom the whole time. This was only the start of things to come and over the next few days, Aubrey lost points for crimes she didn't even know existed. Apparently, Hogwarts didn't tolerate holding your boyfriend's hand, laughing too loudly nor wearing scarfs outside. By mid-week, Aubrey had truly had enough.

"Maybe you could use this," Fred suggested, as they sat together at lunch "Slip a fainting fancy into her tea for us, turns lemons into lemonade as you sometimes say."

"Yeah, that would be wicked if you could actually," George added, hopefully glancing down at Lexy who was engaged in avid conversation with Angela and Kenny, "So far it made me faint but not Fred and then one of the first years - "

At this, they exchanged a look as Aubrey's widened, "I'm sorry, hon, what?"

"They weren't really that much of a First Year..." George bluffed quickly, "Well, they were but that was before you told us not to..."

"Yeah, we test them on willing volunteers now," Fred assured her before leaning in, "On a less Umbridge note ... have you found out much from Saskia yet?"

Aubrey shook her head, "No, not really other than every time Umbridge appears, she runs away or hides which is so bloody helpful. Although something odd did happen, I mentioned I might need something to hit Umbridge with in passing and she pulled a bloody bat out of her cloak."

"Wicked," The twins grinned in time.

"And odd! Why would somebody carry a bat around with them like that?" Aubrey asked with vague horror, "Well, we can discuss it later - "

"About that," Fred said, "I might have to miss one of our meetings this week, Quidditch Practice."

With everything else going on, Aubrey had completely forgotten her boyfriend was part of the Quidditch elite, him and George making up one hell of a team. In that moment an idea occurred to her; if she and Fred were going to be a proper couple, they needed to do stuff outside of amateur sleuthing. Even if she preferred Football to Quidditch, it would be nice to see him practice.

"Are people allowed to come and watch?"

The twins nodded, "Absolutely."

A smile spread across her face, "Then I'll be there, sounds like fun," She turned to George with a mischievous grin, "I can see if Lexy wants to come down too..."

Fred sniggered into his pumpkin juice whilst George attempted a nonchalant shrug although his eyes did flit back to the blonde a few seats away, "I mean, sure if you can ... no obligation though but yeah, that could be nice..."

Even though it felt like she was betraying Hufflepuff, Aubrey agreed to wear Fred's Gryffindor scarf to the practice that Saturday. It had taken little persuasion to get Lexy to come along, the girl spending close to an hour getting ready before eventually deciding on her usual space buns. At last, the three girls set off to the pitches.