George was whistling when he tripped on the top step. The pot rolled free of his grasp and fell with a thud. Sand went flying down the hallway rug, only to come swirling back a moment later.

"Mum, you forgot to remove the enchantment!"

"Leave it on the landing," Molly called. "I'll get to it later."

As George got to his feet, his legs wobbled unsteadily beneath him. "I've... made a tactical error."

Still getting your sea legs? thought Fred.

George heard his brother clearly in his mind and replied by tossing the pot to him.

"Give that a bit of a go, why don't you," he said aloud, as Fred looked suddenly panicked. "Losing your grip?"

"Not... quite..."

As far as I'm aware, ten of our collective twenty fingers still work, George boasted in thought. Let me check.

He opened his palms and inspected them proudly while Fred struggled to keep hold of the pot. It dropped a second time. He looked down at his hands and shook them with a scowl.

"Damn it all. Useless George-body..."

"I'll have you know, I used it rather well for several years, thank you."

George stumbled toward their bedroom door, where Fred was struggling to open it. George reached forward and turned the knob. They walked in and shared a look that said it all. After three months, the twins were still having terrible trouble adjusting to their new bodies. So they fell onto their beds and brooded (for the usual amount of time).

Fred looked at the calendar on the wall and groaned at how many days they had left in August — how many days before they would be leaving for Hogwarts from platform nine and three-quarters. He reached for his wand on the nightstand. It toppled from his grip within seconds.

"That could prove difficult," he said, sitting up.

"Fred's basically a Muggle now, have you heard?" George muttered. He nodded to the pillow beside him as if they were deep in conversation. "You're so right. How very, very sad."

"I should probably be down there practicing with Ron. You'll have to do the brotherly thing when we get to school and write my lines for me, George."

"Afraid not, butterfingers. And, in all fairness, Fred — it was you that swallowed the pill."

"Would you have rather I let you turn into Aruzula Darc?"

"At least then we'd know what she was up to. I think you just didn't want to share a room with her," said George. He reached under his pillow for a crumpled newspaper, as Fred went after his wand. "It's been twelve whole weeks and they've made no mention of Aruzula Darc in the Daily Prophet. Do you think Dumbledore's caught her yet?"

"Well, if we get the chance," Fred grunted while failing to pinch his wand from the floor, "remind me to thank the old bird for ruining my body — er — your body..."

"I'm worried I might never sit on a broom again."

"Even if I'm able to hold my wand, there's no guarantee it'll even work properly. Same goes for you, actually."

"Why didn't we perform any real spells after the transformation?" said George quickly. "Don't know what we were thinking."

"It'll have to wait until we get to school, but we'll get it sorted," said Fred.

"No choice in the matter. It's not as if we can keep tricking Mum into performing magic for us."

"Speaking of."

Fred launched himself onto the desk in the corner and reached to the top of their dangerously stacked bureaus. Unable to use his fingers, he pawed at what was hidden up there until it fluttered down to an open drawer below. George staggered across the room and lifted it into the sunlight from the crooked window. It was a square of old parchment, covered with intricate lines, descriptions in tiny script, and little dots of ink moving across the page as if they were alive. This particular magical item was the greatest treasure of their first year — a map of Hogwarts Castle. And not just any map. No, sir. The Marauder's Map was imbued with the essence enchantment of four very clever and beguiling mischief-makers known only as Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, who were waiting patiently within the black ink to offer a word of advice or contempt.

The Weasley twins took great pleasure in possessing the Marauder's Map, especially with their headmaster's permission. It revealed hidden corridors and passageways. It gave them the power to observe every action going on at the castle at a moment's glance. They were never without it. Which is why they were desperate to switch the bloody thing back on after a few days at the Burrow with nothing to do.

Fred hopped down from the desk and admired the usual rhythm of the few moving dots. "I still can't believe it worked."

"One of our finest achievements to date."

Fred and George were reminiscing about the challenging task of tricking their mother into unsealing the map for them by saying the unique phrase I solemnly swear that I am up to no good one word at a time. And with her wand touching a corner of the parchment, no less. It took the twins most of the summer, and the timing of when to move the parchment away from her was extraordinarily tricky, but they managed to get the job done — and without wands — because, as their mother liked to always remind them, A Weasley Makes Do.

Aside from haunting Percy from under the Invisibility Cloak, there was no greater way to spend their time than by watching Hogwarts through the Marauder's Map. Their favorite was adding bad-tempered remarks to Argus Filch's dot while it skulked through the corridors, his moldy tailcoat very likely leaving a trail of stink in his wake. He was always good for a laugh, Mr. Filch. That is, until the day they saw him being led through the school by someone named Apollyon Pringle. Whoever this man happened to be, he was spending hours each day with their cantankerous caretaker, appearing to unveil many of the hidden passageways that snaked throughout the castle.

The twins knew that many of the school passages were common knowledge, even Percy frequented the curving one in the dungeons so that he could be the first to Professor Snape's lessons. But many of their favorites had been secrets of the map, and being unable to stop the dot of their greasy caretaker from discovering them was maddening.

Fred, who tended to get easily frustrated with the Marauder's Map of late, shoved it aside in a huff when he noticed their ink dots in yet another formerly unknown passage. "This Pringle fellow sure knows our school like the back of his hand. He's taken Filch to nearly all of the passageways. Next, he'll be showing him how we snuck over to Hogsmeade. What if there's a second map?"

"Doubtful. He's probably using magic to find them," George suggested. There was a note of desperation in his voice.

"Do you reckon he's the new Potions Master?"

"It's likely, if Snape is taking over Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Well, they'd better steer clear of the Founders' Room."

Thankfully, there was nothing thus far to indicate that anyone else at the castle was aware of the secret chamber and passage on the fifth floor of the castle's east wing, behind the visually disagreeable statue of Gregory the Smarmy.

As for the remaining dots on the map, Dumbledore stuck to his office, Professor Sprout attended to the local plant life on the grounds, Madam Hooch prepared the pitch and towering stands for a new season of Quidditch, Professor McGonagall was often found in the kitchens, and Hagrid spent much of his time in the portrait hall with Professors Flitwick and Kettleburn, no doubt repairing all the damage due to the moving staircases going haywire at the end of first year.

None of the dots were spectacularly out of place, save one. There was a new dot on the Marauder's Map. An ink dot for Vindictus Viridian, the wizard they had saved from the painting in Percy's hallway. Viridian roamed the school quite often but generally kept to the library. He was still very much on their minds because Fred and George had gotten an owl from him at the start of the summer, delivered by one of the more trusted birds of the Owlery. The only owl, in fact, that wasn't spooked after fellow mischief-maker, Victor Sparrow, had been turned into a massive canary, care of the Toilers of Trouble.

Viridian's message was sealed with an emblem in green wax of a broken square made up of four deep triangles pointing inwardly. At the center were two words — Semper Paratus. What began as a simple letter, ended with an ominous warning. It read:

To the honorable Fred and George Weasley,

My many thanks for the part each of you played in helping to free me from captivity. You did so at great risk. And while you made it through alive, you are far from safe. Aruzula Darc knows your identities and will certainly be looking to repay you in kind for spoiling her plans. There are difficult days ahead for you both. Take heed and cling to your allies. Much of what you experienced with Darc is but the beginning. Prepare for retaliation.

With this letter, I send two copies of a book I had penned before I was imprisoned in the portrait. Read them at your leisure.

Cordially,
V.V.

Fred and George had been rather keen to unwrap the books that came by owl later that afternoon but were swiftly disappointed. On a dreadfully bland cover were the words Theory and Modalities of Dark Arts Defense by Vindictus Viridian. The twins had gotten halfway down the first page of chapter one just to be polite. The owl hadn't even left the windowsill before the twins found a good use for the books — as an extra leg to stabilize George's broken bed frame.