Chapter Text
December 1995 - Fifth Year
George Weasley didn’t understand Winnie Spencer.
When he’d finally grown the balls to apologize to her, it was like she’d been a completely different person.
Well, maybe not completely different. She still argued with him. For absolutely no good reason.
But something had been off. Like she was exhausted by his mere existence. Or maybe she was just exhausted by her own existence.
He needed to stop coming up with motivations behind Winnie Spencer’s actions because she would turn around and prove him wrong every time he tried to understand where she was coming from. Choosing to go directly against whatever thing he seemed to think he had figured out about her.
Winnie Spencer was a mystery that George felt quite certain he would never solve. But for some reason, that didn’t stop him from wanting to try.
“George, can you stop mooning and hand me the-” Fred started.
“I am not mooning,” George protested as he whipped around to face his brother.
George, Fred, and Lee were sitting around one of the tables in the Gryffindor Common Room, working on a new invention.
When George and Fred had first started their experiments they’d mostly worked on their fireworks or other distractions for their own personal (prank-related) needs.
But this year, as they started to sell their products to their fellow students, they quickly realized they had a real money maker with their Skiving Snackboxes. The treats were perfect for students looking to bunk off a lesson or two, and between Umbridge’s so-called ‘defense lessons’ and strongly disliked professors like Snape and Binns, there were plenty of customers in the halls of Hogwarts.
“Right,” Fred replied as he nodded at his twin with a mockingly serious look on his face.
“Of course,” Lee added as he crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re just staring out the window in contemplation of the best decantation of mugwort, not a certain, slightly terrifying, and very pretty snake.”
“Seriously, Georgie? That Slytherin girl? Still?” Fred whined as he looked at his twin in disappointment.
George simply stared at Fred with an unamused look on his face. He’d been receiving this kind of ribbing from his brother and friends ever since Lavender Brown, the notorious gossip from their brother Ron’s year, had spotted George and Winnie speaking when she’d made her way back to the Charms classroom to retrieve a forgotten quill.
Brown had told all her roommates about the interaction and news that had spread through Gryffindor Tower like fiendfyre. George’s friends found the potential crush deeply amusing and spared George none of the teasing.
“At least she’s a quidditch player. It could be worse; he could have fancied one of those Greengrass girls,” Lee points out.
“I’m pretty sure Spencer used to be friends with the Greengrass girls,” George commented offhandedly before even realizing he’d said it aloud.
“Ugh,” Fred groaned as he slumped back in his chair.
“How do you even know that?” Lee muttered.
“I have eyes,” George replied with a shrug. He liked to notice things. What could he say?
Before Fred or Lee could say anything else, the door to the common room burst open and a visibly upset Ginny came rushing through the common room.
“Ginny!” George shouted over to their sister as she pushed through the groups of students sitting around the common room doing schoolwork or playing games.
George leaped to his feet and managed to intercept his little sister before she could make it to the staircase up to the girls' dormitories.
“Hey!” He exclaimed as she tried to barrel right through him.
“I don’t want to talk about it!” Ginny shouted back as she tried to push through her older brother, then tried to snake around him. Nearly bowling Geroge over before she realized she wasn’t going to get past
“Too bad,” George muttered as he led her back over to the table in the corner of the room.
“Ginny, what happened?” Fred asked as Ginny slumped down in the chair between the twins.
“That Pansy Parkinson is such a.. a snake!” Ginny spat. “She’s spreading this awful rumor about me and Michael, and I-I…” Ginny trailed off as her voice broke while her older brothers looked at her in alarm.
“Urgh! I hate her!” Ginny shouted. “Izzy told me that she’s one of the worst Slytherin girls, reckons it’s because she spends so much of her time trying to impress Malfoy.”
“I don’t know how Izzy and Winnie can stand it,” Ginny continued with a shake of her head as she slumped back in her chair.
“What do you mean?” George asked. The mere mention of Winnie’s name snapped him back into innate his curiosity.
“Well, those girls are always whispering awful things about Izzy and Winnie because of their blood status. Izzy said they must have said something really awful to Winnie because they're not even civil with each other anymore. I think I’d die if I had to share a dorm with someone like Pansy Parkinson and those other girls.”
George shared a curious look with his twin as he digested this new information.
It wasn’t news that Winnie and the others were having a difficult go of it. The pureblooded Slytherins certainly were not quiet about their thoughts about halfblood and muggleborn students.
And when the trio of Slytherins joined Dumbledore’s Army it had been clear that those thoughts were not confined to those outside of house lines.
But what if something had happened? If Winnie’s roommates had threatened her, or her family? That was unimaginable. A disconcerting development in the now seemingly unavoidable war that was sure to come.
George didn’t know what to think of it.
But he knew he had to do something.
“Peter!” George shouted. He got the Slytherin boy’s attention easily, his head springing up as he bounded down the hallway in Fred and George’s direction.
“Um,” Peter hummed nervously as he glanced between the twins. “I really need to go to transfiguration today. I can’t help you test anything.”
“That’s not what this is about,” Fred replied with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“What happened with Winnie and her roommates?” George asked Peter.
“Oh, uh..” Peter hedged as he glanced around the busy hall. Checking to see if any of his fellow Slytherins were in earshot.
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but Izzy said they got into a huge fight a few nights ago,” Peter told them in a low voice. “There was lots of screaming and shouting from their dorm, and Winnie stormed out of the dungeons and didn’t come back for hours. Everyone’s been talking about it all week.”
“Why?” George pressed.
“Izzy says they probably said something about her mum. That’s the only thing that would piss Winnie off that much,” Peter replied.
“Yeah,” George responded with a nod. “Thanks, Peter.”
“No problem,” Peter replies with a small lift of his shoulders. “See you later.”
“I have an idea,” George told Fred once Peter had disappeared into the crowd moving down the hallway.
“Of course you do,” Fred replied, shaking his head.
“Weasleys,” Winnie greeted the twins with a sharp nod as she walked out of the potions classroom to see them standing there. “You two have detention with Snape or something?”
“Of course not,” Fred replied with a smirk.
“We’re here to see you,” George told the witch, causing her to glance over at the two abruptly, clearly surprised.
“Why?” Winnie asked. After the last time George Weasley had cornered her in a hallway outside of a classroom, she was less than thrilled about the prospect of doing it again. Especially if he had brought his twin as backup.
She was already having a shit week. She didn’t need to deal with whatever this was on top of that.
“Well, a little birdie told us that you need to plan a little payback for your roomies,” George replied.
“Peter,” She grumbled under her breath. She was gonna have to talk to that kid about keeping his mouth shut.
“And what’s it to you?” She asked as she continued on her way down the corridor, forcing the Weasleys to walk alongside her.
“We came to offer our expertise,” Fred told her.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, sweetheart, but pranks are kind of our thing,” George added.
“And why, pray tell, do you think I need your help?” Winnie asked.
“You’re a goody-two-shoes,” George replied as if it was obvious.
“But even a Slytherin can’t let such a grave insult stand,” Fred interjected. “And we certainly know what that insult was, but we’d love to hear all about it from you, of course.”
“Ignore him,” George said before Winnie could even open her mouth. “You’ll need a couple of veterans to show you the ropes if you want to get your message across effectively.”
“And why are you offering to help? What’s in it for you?” Winnie asked as her eyes narrowed at the pair.
“Can’t we just be doing this out of the goodness of our hearts?” Fred supposed.
Winnie stares back at them, unimpressed.
It was George who answered her question truthfully.
“We hate the Slytherins too, in case you’ve forgotten about the near millennia of intra-house conflict. And Parkinson has been spreading some nasty rumors about our sister.”
“Shit, really? I can say something to her,” Winnie replied before she thought better of it. Her word would have no effect on Pansy. If anything, her saying something might make Pansy dig her heels in harder and worsen everything.
“Or… well…” Winnie trailed off.
George shook his head.
“You don’t need to. We can get even with this prank,” He told her. “It’s what we do best, after all.”
“C’mon, Spencer, let's have some fun,” Fred added.
“Live a little,” George said.
Winnie stopped in her tracks. She turned to face the Gryffindors. She couldn’t believe what she was about to say.
“What exactly do you have in mind?” She asked the twins.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Winnie asked for the umpteenth time.
“Are you really about to doubt us?” George asked, placing a hand over his heart and looking at Winnie with faux hurt.
“Piss off,” Winnie muttered as she shoved at George’s shoulder. “I’m just worried that this might be taking it a bit too far.”
“It’ll be perfect,” George reassures her. “None of your prissy roommates will get hurt. It’ll just remind them to think twice before they fuck with you again.”
The moment she’d accepted Fred and George’s help, they had immediately launched into discussing their plans with her.
They had no shortage of ideas. Everything from planting enchanted pails of water above the doors into the fifth-year girls’ dorms to infused sweets that would give any unsuspecting enjoyers uncontrollable gas for the rest of the day.
But in the end, they came up with something new together.
Winnie thought it was brilliant. It was deceptively simple.
While Winnie was at Quidditch practice with the rest of the Slytherin team, George and Fred would sneak into the Slytherin dorms.
Once they were in, they would plant the various hair dye potions in the girl’s shampoo and the wart cream in the boy’s soap.
Then they would release the Trollclegs that Winnie had procured for them in each dorm. A type of infestational fly that usually preferred troll blood, but would feast on just about anything with a pulse.
They were impossible to kill without magic, and their bites were unbearably itchy. However, once they realized you weren’t a troll, they usually moved on to something else.
Winnie would cast the Trollcleg repellant charm on her belongings before she left for practice.
All of that would be done before the twins would accidentally be caught by an unsuspecting Slytherin or two on their way out.
“It really is adorable that you don’t think they’d hex me for this,” Winnie replied with a sigh as she shook her head.
“They won’t. There’ll be no way to trace it back to you,” Fred told her. “Georgie and I will be the sole parties involved as far as anyone else is concerned.”
“I’ve been hexed for less,” Winnie replied with a shrug.
“Seriously?” George asked after a moment.
“You don’t know the first thing about Slytherins, do you?” Winnie said. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a big girl; I can take care of myself.”
“Then stop whinging and just enjoy the ride,” Fred replied.
“There’s the password,” Winnie said as she pushed a scrap of parchment across the table to them.
George picked it up and unfolded it. The twins both peered down at the word written down.
“Seriously?” Fred asked as he looked up at Winnie.
“You think I picked it out?” Winnie asked.
Pureblood.
“It’s not terribly original,” Winnie continued. “I mean, it was our password for a good three months during my second year, but someone must be feeling nostalgic, so they brought it back.”
“That’s fucked,” Fred replied with a look of disgust on his face.
“Yeah,” Winnie agreed with a nod.
“They’re getting what they have coming,” George replied.
The plan had been painstakingly clear. The goal was to point the prank back at the twins so obviously that none of her fellow Slytherin would suspect Winnie’s involvement.
It was perfect. It played into everyone's strengths: Winnie’s potioneering and the twins’ penchant for making a spectacle of themselves.
At least in theory.
It was a classic case of misdirection. Winnie had heard all about the Weasley twins and their prank on the Slytherins when she and the rest of the team returned from practice.
Everyone had seen them sprinting through the common room, setting off so many dung bombs you could hardly see a foot in front of you for hours as the prefects struggled to air out the dungeon.
All of this taking place while a particularly irate Sebastian Selwyn tried to catch them sprinting down the stairs, only for the twins to cast Glissleo behind them, causing Sebastian to starfish so spectacularly as he accidentally pitched himself down the slide they’d created that he tumbled into one of the ornate bookshelves in the common room which in turn toppled into the window facing the lake, cracking the glass and nearly flooding the common room before a quick-thinking sixth year leaped up to fix it.
The entire common room had descended into chaos by the time the quidditch team arrived after practice.
The magnificence was not lost on Winnie.
And she knew it was only the beginning.
The next morning she woke up early to shower and get ready so that she had a front-row seat for the parade of fifth years entering the Great Hall for breakfast.
She had been sure the boys would get the brunt of it over the girls when they’d been planning.
“Payback at your ex?” Fred Weasley had asked her when they’d been sketching out their plan in the back corner of the library. Surprised that she was so eager to get back at the boys when as far as the twins knew, it was the girls who had been giving her the brunt of it.
“Something like that,” Winnie replied in a low murmur.
George glanced at her curiously as Winnie’s gaze dropped down to the table.
In truth, she wished she could leave Theo out of this prank entirely, but she knew that wasn’t a response based on logic. He deserved what was coming for him just as much as everyone else. She had to remind herself of the cruel words he’d spat at her in the middle of the hallway when they’d first arrived back at school. Of all the terrible things he had said and done, pressing any other memories of Theo back into the recesses of her brain.
But all of that was out of her mind as Winnie watched her roommates file into the Great Hall.
The hair dye potions had worked perfectly. Winnie had known they would. She’d spent a good ten minutes looking at her own reflection in the mirror this morning, admiring the new bright blue hue of her hair.
The various colors of neon hair the girls all sported were horrendous.
Pansy looked half a second away from having a conniption as she slumped into her seat. Her posture was rim-rod straight as she looked around tensely.
Thanks to Winnie’s blue hair, none of the girls had spared her much of a glance. Accepting that she had been a victim of the prank just like them. Though Winnie heard Millicent whisper to Daphne that it wasn’t fair that Winnie’s bright blue locks seemed to compliment her appearance.
The rest of the girls, on the other hand, all looked ill. Pansy’s bob was a neon yellow that made her pale skin look grim, like she was perpetually nauseous. Milicent’s thick hair was changed from a mousy brown to a brilliant orange that made her look like a clown as it puffed out around her shoulders from the ponytail she’d tried to pull it back in. Tracy’s usually blonde locks were transformed into a shade of green that was akin to vomit, and Daphne’s gorgeous strawberry blonde waves were now a midnight black and seemed to have lost any sense of volume, giving her the appearance of something out of a horror film as the lank strands of hair hung around her face.
But the girls’ loss of vanity was nothing compared to the boys. Theo and Blaise hadn’t even made an appearance. Peter came to sit beside her and told her in a rushed whisper that they’d instead run straight to the infirmary to beg Madam Pomphrey to help them with the warts that had appeared all across their bodies.
Crabbe and Goyle were glumly eating breakfast while scratching at themselves.
Poor Draco Malfoy had stormed into the great hall with his entire face covered in boil-like pox marks before announcing to everyone eating breakfast that when he found out who had done this, he would make them wish they’d never been born.
A threat that made Winnie smirk into her toast and tea.
“We know it was you,” Pansy stated when she walked into the fifth-year girl’s dorm, the rest of the girls in tow as Winnie looked up from the textbook on her lap.
“What are you talking about?” Winnie asked. Feigning confusion. “Why on earth would I-”
“A boy, especially two Gryffindor boys, wouldn't be able to get into our dorm room. Not without help.”
“I think you might be underestimating the Weasley twins,” Winnie replied with a shrug of her shoulders as she looked back down at the Ancient Ruins textbook.
“I think our estimations are right, and that someone, namely the one person in this dorm who happens to not have Trollcleg bites all over their body today, helped them,” Millicent responded with a shake of her head.
“Clearly you’ve already decided I had something to do with this, so what could I even say to make you believe I wasn’t involved?” Winnie asked.
“What were you thinking, Winnie?!” Daphne hissed. “Draco’s going mental, and he’s not going to stop until those responsible for it pay!”
“Well, he’s not going to figure it out, is he? Not unless one of you tells him!”
“And why shouldn’t we?” Pansy asked.
“Because he’s not your friend. I am,” Winnie spat at them. “At least I used to be. We used to sit around and tease him! And now you’re all at his beck and call!”
“You have no idea what it’s like,” Daphne scoffed.
“You’re right! I don’t! Because you all shut me out!” Winnie shouted at them.
She had tried for the last few months to bottle up all of her feelings about this. And pretend that she didn’t care that some of her closest friends in the world had completely iced her out. But she was upset and pissed. And she didn’t understand why.
She knew what was brewing, the anti-muggleborn and halfblood sentiment, but she hadn’t expected her closest friends to fall for it. To so easily throw her over. All it had taken was one summer apart for them to decide she wasn’t worth more than a speck of dust under their shoes.
“We had to!” Tracy shouted in response.
“Don’t you understand? It was the only way to make sure you stay safe,” Daphne told Winnie as she moved to sit down on Winnie’s bed in front of her.
“What do you mean?” Winnie asked.
“You have no idea what it’s been like, Win,” Daphne replied. “Truly, the things that happened this summer. The meetings. The way our parents start to behave…”
“It’s impossible to know who stands for what. We can’t risk the wrong time of information getting back to our parents,” Pansy told her.
“If they knew…” Daphne whispered. “There’s no telling what they would do. To us, or to you.”
“Win, there’s already so much focus on your family. Your dad’s made some powerful enemies in the years since the war ended,” She added as the other girls nodded in agreement.
“I know,” Winnie replied. “Trust me, I know.”
The expectations of the parents of Winnie’s pureblooded classmates were something that Winnie had struggled to understand as a child. But after growing closer and learning more about their home lives, and speaking to her own father about how he was raised, Winnie came to understand that many pureblooded families were not grounded in love and care, but in duty and responsibility.
Some of her friend’s parents loved their children. Some cared for them very deeply. But there was a sense of duty that came before all of that, to the family bloodline, these archaic ideals, and century-old traditions.
And then, when she started dating Theo, Winnie came to learn that there were just as many of her friends and classmates whose parents didn’t care for them at all. Or that only cared when they were useful, being what their parents needed them to be.
Abuse. Emotional, physical, and mental, were all rife amongst the pureblooded families—especially Slytherin purebloods. Control was the main goal of parents. And what better way to keep it?
The threat they faced wasn’t imaginary. It was a reality that was already in effect in some of their lives.
“But now there’s a chance those enemies will finally be able to do something about him,” Pansy said. “If we spend time with you, it’ll put a target on your back. We don’t know for sure where this is all heading, but it doesn’t look good at all. The Sacred Twenty-Eight? They’re preparing for war. They’re preparing like they did last time.”
“I already know all of this. Theo told me all of this over the summer,” Winnie replied with a sigh. This wasn’t new information to her. Theo had told her as much when they’d seen each other over the summer. That his father was disappearing at strange hours in the middle of the night only to come back hours later, agitated.
“But Theo never cut me out of his life, even after everything,” Winnie told the girls.
“But you listened to him. You broke up with him because you trusted he was doing it to protect you,” Daphne replied. “So let us do the same,” She added softly.
“There’ll be a target on my back either way,” Winnie replied stubbornly. “I don’t think it’s worth losing all my friends over.”
“You never lost us. We thought you hated us ,” Tracy interjected.
“Yeah, because I thought you all hated me,” Winnie replied. “Self-preservation, it’s kind of a Slytherin trait, remember?”
“I think we all went into self-preservation mode,” Daphne, ever the mediator of the group, interjected. “But we’re also all stronger together.”
“Slytherins stick together,” Pansy agreed.
“So, are we friends again?” Winnie asked.
“Never stopped,” Daphne replied before pulling Winnie into a tight hug as the other girls came around them, and they all collapsed onto Winnie’s bed in a giant group hug.
“We still have to be careful,” Pansy added after a moment.
“Just give us more time to figure out who we can trust,” Daphne told Winnie with a look.
“Don’t worry about me,” Winnie said with a shrug. “I’m just glad I have you all back.”
“Well?” George prompted Winnie as the pair of twins stood next to her table in the library.
Winnie’s hair, just like the rest of the Slytherin girls, had been returned to its natural hue. Once the girls had finally cleared the air, Winnie gave them all the antidote to the potion she’d placed in their showers, cast the repellant charm on everything in their dorm, and gave them her best batch of anti-itch cream, and all had returned to normal.
“It was perfect,” Winnie told them. “Absolutely brilliant. Good work, you two,” She added with a grin.
“You walked into the great hall with Daphne Greengrass,” George said.
“I did,” Winnie replied.
“Did they seriously not figure it out?” Fred asked.
“Of course they did,” Winne told them with a shrug. “But we talked it through.”
“Weren't they mad?” Fred asked.
“They actually thought it was hilarious. Most of the girls were just focused on how stupid the boys looked since they got the brunt of it.”
“We talked,” Winnie explained. “I think it helped us all get along a lot better.”
“Slytherins,” Fred scoffed.
“And I talked to Pansy about spreading those rumors about your sister. She claims that she was just repeating what she heard from Terry Boot, who in turn said Michael Corner was telling anyone who would listen about him and Ginny. But she’s going to refrain from gossiping about Ginny in the future.”
“Thanks for helping me,” Winnie added. “And for taking the blame. I know Snape gave you both two weeks' worth of detention. I owe you two.”
“Are you complimenting us?” George asked.
“Are you offering us a favor to cash in at any time?” Fred asked at almost the same time as his twin.
“Yes, and yes,” Winnie replied with a sigh. “Don’t get used to it.”
“I don’t know about that. I might start developing a complex thanks to you,” George teased her.
“Whatever,” Winnie replied as she rolled her eyes. “Now leave me alone. I have twenty-four inches of ancient runes to finish before tomorrow.”
It’s two weeks before George sees Winnie again.
Well, he sees her in the Great Hall a few times, but it’s two weeks before he’s able to talk to her again.
She’d missed the last DA meeting. When Lee, fed up with George’s constant glances over at where the two Slytherins, Izzy and Peter, were practicing, walked over to ask them where Winnie was, they’d just shrugged and told him they hadn’t seen her that day.
“Where were you last meeting?” George asked Winnie as he walked up to her at the next DA meeting.
“I was sick,” Winnie replied with a shrug.
“Weren't you just sick?” George asks her.
Winnie gave him a peculiar look. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be paying that much attention to her.
“Yes, it’s a monthly thing,” Winnie explained. “Y’know, lady issues?”
“Oh,” George replied lamely. Immediately regretting bringing it up.
“Yeah, so I’m going to end this conversation now before it gets even more uncomfortable for both of us,” Winnie replied as she reached up a hand to pat George’s arm before heading over to where Izzy was waiting for her.