The weather on Sunday was relentlessly gloomy; the sky over the castle was a dull, uniform grey, and a steady drizzle lashed against the high windows.
At seven o'clock in the morning, when the vast Great Hall was still nearly empty, a yawning Albert Anderson, who had barely finished his ablutions, was practically dragged towards the auditorium by his vibrating, over-caffeinated roommates. The sheer energy emanating from the twins and Lee Jordan was exhausting.
"I really don't understand," Albert grumbled, finally pulling free of the twins' hands and meticulously straightening his robe. "What is so fantastically exciting about taking a long, wet walk to a small village?"
"That's Hogsmeade, Albert! The only entirely wizarding village in Britain!" Lee Jordan announced with exaggerated enthusiasm, as if Albert had just insulted a beloved deity.
"In all of Britain," Albert sighed softly, shaking his head. He felt perpetually out of sync with their brand of youthful, reckless excitement.
The corridor they were traversing was dim despite the early hour. The twins, still buzzing with anticipation, couldn't resist.
"Lumos!"
"Lumos!"
Their wands, still slightly shaky from a night of practice, gave off weak, flickering beams. They were so focused on the magic that they failed to notice the silent figure rounding the corner until it was too late.
Argus Filch materialized from the shadows, his face a mask of leathery, ecstatic malice. He caught George in a sudden, bony grip.
"What do we have here? Casting spells in the corridor, are we? First thing on a Sunday!" Filch crowed, his eyes gleaming with anticipation of a glorious capture.
The triumphant caretaker dragged George off, his slippers slapping against the flagstones, heading straight for the cramped, dusty administrator's office.
Fred and Lee watched in silent horror as George was marched away. Albert simply shook his head and waited for the inevitable return.
A few minutes later, a crestfallen George reappeared. "That guy is absolutely dreadful," he muttered, rubbing his arm where Filch had gripped him. "He caught me for using the Lumos Charm."
"What did you tell him?" Albert asked, trying to stifle a laugh.
"I lied!" George declared with a brave face. "I said, 'Ahem, I just used the Luminescence Charm because my vision was dim. You know, it's still early now, and the corridor…' I was trying to make it sound reasonable."
"But the corridor has torches," Albert pointed out mildly, unable to hide a suppressed snort.
George glared. "Filch didn't believe me either. He just smiled like a vulture. He happily took a large roll of parchment from his desk drawer and spread it out in front of him. Then he picked up that long black quill and dipped it in the inkwell: 'Name… George Weasley. Crime... casting random spells in the corridor. Penalty recommendations…'"
"'...washing the chamber pots in the hospital wing!'" George finished, mimicking Filch's voice perfectly, which was full of malicious delight. "'It just so happens that the chamber pots in the hospital wing haven't been cleaned all summer.'"
George's enthusiastic expression froze. The sheer horror of the suggested punishment hung in the air.
Albert reached out and patted George's shoulder, trying to genuinely comfort him this time. "Don't worry, George. First, I can teach you a very simple Descaling Charm to clean things like that. It'll be solved quickly with magic, not elbow grease. Second, Filch can only suggest punishment. He can't impose detention directly; that authority belongs to the Heads of House."
"That guy is so annoying," George repeated, his gaze fixed on the closed door of the administrator's office.
"Don't be depressed. I'll buy you a glass of Butterbeer later in Hogsmeade," Albert offered, quickly changing the subject to refocus George's mind. "Tell me about his office, George. What did you see in there?"
George paused, his mind shifting from personal grievance to natural curiosity. "What did I see? It was vile. There are a lot of filing drawers, and all sorts of awful-looking handcuffs, manacles, and even some leg shackles hanging on the wall behind his desk. That old man—no, that old pervert—must have some seriously weird habits."
Old Good-for-Nothing—Hagrid's term for the Squib caretaker—flashed through Albert's mind, but he didn't utter it. Insulting nicknames were rarely beneficial.
"What else, besides the instruments of torture?" Albert pressed, leaning in. "He must have confiscated a lot of items."
"Yes, I did see a very large, steel file cabinet drawer," George confirmed, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "It was labeled in big, red letters: 'Confiscated Supplies, Highly Dangerous.'"
"I bet he put all the confiscated mischief and forbidden items in there," Fred interjected, his eyes lighting up with interest.
"If it were truly highly dangerous," Albert murmured, a slow, knowing smile spreading across his face, "it wouldn't be placed in a standard filing cabinet drawer in a first-floor office. It would be secured in the dungeons or the Headmaster's vault."
Albert's internal calculus was immediate: that drawer almost certainly contained the Marauder's Map, which had been confiscated from the Weasley twins years ago. Another long-term objective located, he thought.
"Yes, we thought so too!" the twins said in unison, a dangerous, shared glimmer of mischief passing between them.
"You don't want to get caught attempting to break into a Professor's—or rather, a Caretaker's—office," Albert warned, though his tone lacked real disapproval. "Otherwise, you will truly be in trouble."
The twins protested in practiced unison: "You are slandering us, Albert. How could we ever do such a thing?"
The Great Hall was beginning to fill as the four boys finally sat down at the Gryffindor table. British breakfast, thankfully, was always the most abundant and appealing meal. Albert systematically prepared his plate: a bowl of oatmeal porridge with a dash of milk, a fried egg, two slices of crisp bacon, a plump sausage, a couple of slices of toasted bread, and a small side plate of fresh vegetable salad. . It was a far cry from the disappointing lunch menu.
"Hi, good morning!" A cheerful, handsome boy stopped beside the table and greeted the twins.
"I remember you seemed to be from Hufflepuff..." Lee Jordan trailed off, trying desperately to recall the boy's name, looking helplessly at Albert.
"Cedric Diggory," the boy supplied with a friendly smile.
"Hello, Cedric," the twins greeted their neighboring housemate. "I didn't expect you to be in Hufflepuff, though."
"I don't think Hufflepuff is bad at all," Cedric responded, with a touch of defensiveness that spoke of loyalty to his House.
"We didn't say anything bad about it," Fred began.
"...it's just that Gryffindor is better," George finished with a good-natured wink.
As Cedric laughed and walked away, another person arrived.
"Long time no see, Albert," a boy with dark, intelligent eyes and the subtle aura of a true academic greeted him. "I didn't expect you to be in Gryffindor. It truly surprised me."
"Long time no see, Gabriel," Albert greeted his pen pal with a genuine smile.
"Do you two know each other?" Cedric Diggory, who hadn't gone far, looked confusedly from Gabriel to Albert.
"Of course, we know each other," Gabriel replied, giving Diggory a mysterious smile. "He's the one I mentioned to you... the incident with the newspaper and the bet."
Cedric Diggory looked at Albert with wide-eyed surprise, a flicker of comprehension crossing his face. Gabriel had told him the incredible story over the summer, but had never revealed the identity of the boy.
After Gabriel left to join his Ravenclaw tablemates, the twins looked at each other, their minds working at high speed, and said in unison: "Could it be..."
"Could it be what?" Lee Jordan still hadn't put the pieces together.
The twins looked at each other again and declared: "That thing!"
"What thing?" Lee was still lost.
"Ahem, I am glad you know," Albert interjected, taking a large bite of bacon. "Remember to keep it strictly a secret!" He added a silent threat in his head: Otherwise, no Christmas presents this winter.
"We will keep it a secret," the twins chorused meaningfully, crossing their index fingers and placing them over their mouths in a solemn, albeit slightly theatrical, vow.
"Hey, don't exclude me, you three sneaky bastards!" Lee Jordan whined, feeling unjustly left out of their newly formed circle of conspiracy.
"Ahem, the newspaper, Lee," Fred reminded him, winking. "Remember what we talked about on the train?"
"50 Galleons," George reminded him, completing the phrase.
"Wow, that thing!" Lee Jordan finally understood the connection, his jaw dropping slightly. "How did you manage that back then...?"
"I don't want the whole school to know about this before the term even starts," Albert said, raising a finger to his lips, enforcing silence.
"Okay, but you're truly amazing!" The Weasley brothers still admired Albert's audacity and cleverness. The casual, easy way he had secured twenty-five Galleons from a single, audacious stunt was beyond their capabilities.
"No wonder you were willing to gamble away all the Galleons you got right there on the train," Lee Jordan said, his voice sour with a mixture of awe and envy.
Albert curled his lips in a mysterious smile. "It wasn't certain that I would lose, Lee. Do you know why wands made of redwood are so popular among witches and wizards?" he asked, deftly pivoting the conversation away from his actual genius and toward a mystical, plausible deception.
"Can it bring luck?" George asked uncertainly.
"Precisely," Albert confirmed, leaning forward conspiratorially. "The Redwood wand is said to be naturally lucky, attracting good fortune and often pointing out a path of success to its owner. At that moment, I simply had a powerful hunch—a feeling, you see—that if I risked it all, the result would be substantial. I didn't truly gamble; I merely followed my wand's intuition."
The lie was brilliant in its simplicity: it attributed his uncanny foresight not to overwhelming intelligence or strategic knowledge, but to a magical quality of his wand, something they, as less experienced wizards, could easily believe and respect. It maintained the facade of Albert being a naturally gifted, strategically lucky genius, rather than a system-powered intellect who never left anything to chance.
The twins and Lee Jordan looked at his Redwood wand, then back at him, their admiration cemented by this easily digestible piece of magical lore. Albert smiled and returned to his systematic breakfast, knowing the deception had been successfully deployed.