After that, both Lavender and Parvati went back to whispering to themselves and left the rest of us alone and so we went to sleep after the long day.

     Next morning, I woke up earlier than the rest of the girls. I got ready quickly and walked downstairs to the common room, where I found it almost empty except for Fred and George, who were sticking a paper up the notice board.

     "Watchu doin?" I sang, waltzing towards them.

      "Hey, George?" Fred started frowning, ignoring my presence. "Do you hear someone talking?"

I rolled my eyes and chuckled, shaking my head at his childishness. But I couldn't really complain about that. I was pretty much the same.

"You're still mad that I laughed at you? You know, George and Lee started it." I said as Fred walked away from the board and sat down on the couch, opening a book laying there which clearly didn't belong to him, and started to pretend like he was reading it.

Just then, the door to the boy's dormitory opened and Lee came down to the common room and walked towards George by the board, discussing their advertisement with grins.

"Fred," I sighed, looking at him as he pretended to read and ignore me. "You're holding the book upside down."

I laughed, snatching the book out of his hand with a cheeky grin, as he tried to glare at me without cracking into a smile.

"I already said I'm sorry," I groaned playfully.

"But you didn't stick to the deal! So save your breath. I won't accept any apologies now," he said stubbornly, trying to keep his face serious.

"What if I did your Potions' homework for the next week?" I suggested with a grin.

"No."

"What if I get snacks for you from the kitchen?"

"Nope."

"What if I kissed you right now?"

"No — wait—" he turned his head on me promptly, his face lighting up. "Yes."

"But you already said no," I pursed my lips, standing up from the couch.

"But I take it back!"

"Yeah... I don't think it works that way," I grinned, making my way quickly towards to the dormitory's staircase.

"Lexi, wait! I TAKE IT BACK!"

***

After I'd taken my bag from upstairs and went down again, things where soon forgotten as we sat down in the common room, going through the list of those few first years who had already signed up their names for becoming Fred's and George's testers.

     The three of us only got up when everybody else had left to the Great Hall for breakfast and so we decided to join them all.

     "Oh, there's Ron," said Fred, pointing at him, Harry, and Hermione as we got to the Great Hall. "Let's join them, shall we?"

     George and I nodded, walking towards where the three sat as McGonagall was passing out the schedules.

      "—Binns, Snape, Trelawney, and that Umbridge woman all in one day!" we heard Ron say as he went through his classes. "I wish Fred and George'd hurry up and get those Skiving Snackboxes sorted. . . ."

     "Do mine ears deceive me?" said Fred, squeezing onto the bench beside Harry. "Hogwarts prefects surely don't wish to skive off lessons?"

      "Look what we've got today," said Ron grumpily, shoving his schedule under Fred's nose. "That's the worst Monday I've ever seen."

      "Fair point, little bro," said Fred, scanning the column. "You can have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like."

     "Why's it cheap?" said Ron suspiciously.

     "Because you'll keep bleeding till you shrivel up, we haven't got an antidote yet," said George, helping himself to a kipper.

      "Cheers," said Ron moodily, pocketing his schedule, "but I think I'll take the lessons."

      I started to put on some jam on my toast as they went on talking, discussing how hard the fifth year was going to be with the O.W.Ls coming up.

     "How are you going to manage, though, Lexi?" Hermione asked me, lowering her voice. "I mean... we have practical exams too."

     "I'm sure Dumbledore can manage to get me out of it," I said reassuringly, but then my heart sank when I remembered what was going to happen.

      By that time, Dumbledore was going to leave Hogwarts and Umbridge was going to become headmistress.

      What if she found out about me...?

I shook the thought away, dragging myself back to reality and tried to rejoin the conversation which had gotten further without me even noticing.

"We seriously debated whether we were going to bother coming back for our seventh year," said George. "But we didn't think Mum could take us leaving school early, not on top of Percy turning out to be the world's biggest prat."

"We're not going to waste our last year here, though," said Fred. "We're going to use it to do a bit of market research, before opening the joke shop."

"But where are you going to get the gold to start a joke shop?" asked Hermione skeptically. "You're going to need all the ingredients and materials — and premises too, I suppose. . . ."

"Ask us no questions and we'll tell you no lies, Hermione," said Fred with a grin. "C'mon, George, if we get there early we might be able to sell a few Extendable Ears before Herbology."

The twins stood up and by that, Fred grabbed my arm, pulling me up while I was in the middle of biting my toast, making it fall to the ground.

"Hey! My food!" I whined grumpily as he dragged me away, looking back at my toast which laid on the floor with remorse.

"Here, I brought a few more," said George, handing me a new toast.

"Yay!" Immediately, my smile widened again as I took it happily, only to catch Fred giving me a look with a grin.

"Shut up, Weasley," I mumbled as I cheerfully took a bite of my toast.

"You're an idiot, Hooper," he chuckled.