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If there was one thing Harry didn't understand, it was how people could mistake two very obviously different people for the other.
Make no mistake, Harry has had his share of false appearances and mistaken identities when it comes to the grand mysteries that revolve around him every year (curse you, Tom Riddle) but he has never actually managed to incorrectly recognise someone (unless magical shenanigans are involved, like that time with Barty Crouch Jr and Polyjuice potion).
Thus, as he gazed over the Gryffindor table at lunch he wondered what the bloody hell George was doing flirting with Angelina while her boyfriend Fred was nowhere in sight.
Ron, happily chowing down as usual, turned to ask him a question but stilled when he saw the look on Harry's face. "You alright, mate?"
Harry turned to him. "Me? I'm swell. But I think Angelina might not be."
Having overheard, Hermione glances at in girl in worry. "What makes you say that?"
Ron also looked but shrugged, "She looks fine to me."
Harry linked his hands together and rested them under his chin, elbows on the table. He fixed Ron with a hard stare. "Correct me if I'm wrong but, Angelina is dating Fred."
Ron looked at him strangely. "Yeah. So?"
Harry turned to Hermione, silently begging her to understand. She only shrugged in response.
Harry sighed. "So, why is she flirting with George?"
"What?" Hermione yelped.
"There's no way," Ron argued. "That's Fred, mate! Can't be George."
Hermione leaned closer, squinting at the redhead down the table as if trying to see for herself. "How can you tell? And even if it was George, why would he be flirting with Fred's girlfriend?"
Harry shrugged, unsure how to explain it. "I just do, Hermione."
Ron took a massive bite of his roast chicken sandwich, to Hermione's disgust and vehemently shook his head. "I've lived with them for years and even I can't tell them apart sometimes. There's no way you can."
"So you think I'm wrong?" Harry asked.
Ron shrugged helplessly. Hermione fiddled with her fork and sent a sheepish smile Harry's way.
Harry sighed, "Okay. It's not like I would disagree if I was in your shoes." He stood up. "I'm going to prove it." With that, he made his way around the table to the two in question, ignoring the protests of his friends.
George and Angelina were laughing when he arrived. He put on a smile and asked, "What's so funny?"
Angelina beamed up at him. "Harry! We were talking about the play France's quidditch team performed against Germany's. Their chaser got so turned around from their own strategy that he passed the quaffle to the opposition!"
George smirked, a glint in his eyes. "And then I said that all we have to do to replicate it was to fly in circles around the Slytherins in our next match!"
Harry wanted to laugh along with them but there were more important things to worry about just then. "Sounds great. Hey Angelina, how have things been with your boyfriend?"
Her grin turned questioning. Not that he could blame her seeing as this was the first time he'd even acknowledged her dating life.
"It's going fine. What's up, Harry?" She glanced at George as she spoke, giving Harry the proof that she thought she was talking to Fred.
Harry narrowed his eyes at the boy, wondering if the tightness around the redhead’s eyes was from mirth or anxiety. George glanced at him and Harry turned away. "Still dating Fred?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Oh, no reason," Harry assured her. "Just making sure I have all the facts straight." Then he looked her right in the eyes.
"I've never told you this before, but you're kinda like my older sister. Everyone on the team is sorta my family." Both members of his audience relaxed as he spoke, looking touched at his words.
Harry continued, "That being said, I will hurt anyone who plays you, family or not." His pseudo-sister looked confused at that, but George's eyes had widened and he looked to be subtly shifting in his seat as if testing how to escape.
Angelina nodded. "That's really kind of you, Harry. But what brought this on?"
Harry smiled sardonically, leaning into the other boy's space. "Oh, I think Fred knows. Right?"
The panic on George's face was so obvious it didn't take a genius to figure out he wanted to escape ASAP. Still, it looked like he needed a little push to unfreeze him.
Harry stared into his eyes, mustering every frigid thought imaginable. "I will end you."
George bolted, swinging off his seat, pushing past Harry and sprinting for the doors.
Harry yelled after him, "Get back here, George! I'm not done with you!" He ran after him.
Back in the Great Hall, Angelina sat gaping at the retreating backs of her supposed boyfriend and pseudo-little brother. George had been flirting with her the whole time? But she'd called him Fred and he'd not corrected her!
She buried her head in her hands, feeling overwhelmed with embarrassment. If Harry hadn't come over when he did, she might have ended up kissing her boyfriend's twin brother.
Angelina groaned, wondering what she should do now.
—
That night in the Gryffindor common room Ron was still laughing over what happened. Seeing his brother take off as if a fire had been lit under him had convinced him that Harry had been right. He delighted in retelling Harry the shock and awe that had rippled down the Gryffindor table upon seeing George flee from Harry's irate face.
Hermione had given up on trying to do her homework as she too was struggling to contain her giggles. Harry simply sat back in smugness and listened to his friend ramble.
A commotion arose from the portrait entrance and he turned to look. A Weasley twin entered with a despondent look on his face, gathering the attention of other students sitting and talking nearby. A few went up to him and slapped him on the back, telling him better luck next time and not to mess with the wrong chaser.
Harry was the first to notice the irritation clouding his face and hand creeping toward his wand and realised he needed to step in. Harry waved a hand at his friends’ curious looks and made his way over, pushing through the crowd.
"Oi! Back off! Give him some room!" Harry called.
The other students stepped back, curiosity clear on their faces as they watched what would happen.
Harry glared at them before turning his back on them. "You alright, Fred?" Gasps of shock erupted behind him, the students just realising they might have been teasing the wrong twin.
Fred's shoulders dropped, misery leaking from his stance. "Not really. Angelina came to find me after what happened at lunch to tell me she wanted to break up."
Harry's jaw fell open. "What? Why?"
Fred shrugged. "She said the thing with George made her realise that she really couldn't tell the difference between us. She was scared it would happen again and that that wasn't fair to me."
Harry's thoughts swirled chaotically in his head. Fred must have seen the troubled look in his eye because he patted Harry on the shoulder comfortingly.
"It's not your fault. You were just looking out for her. I don't blame you for our break up."
Harry's eyes widened at the possibility and despite Fred's words guilt welled up in him. After that, Fred said he was headed off to bed and the crowd dispersed with a few soft words for him. Harry sat back down on the couch and stared at the floor.
Hermione and Ron, who had watched the whole thing, started up a soft conversation about something inane, leaving him to his thoughts, for which he was grateful.
—
For those in Gryffindor, the idea of Harry being able to tell the Weasley twins apart was mostly buried under the drama of Fred and Angelina's break up. It wasn't until over a month later that someone even remembered and brought it up for a laugh.
Fred and George, once again a pair of inseparable troublemakers, overheard the retelling and realised that they had no idea how Harry had done it, and decided that wasn’t good enough. So they set out to learn.
—
"Hello Harry!"
Harry jolted and almost swore when the Weasley twins materialised in front of him. After taking a breath to calm himself, he addressed them by name. “Fred, George, how’s it going?”
The twins blinked in surprise, taken aback that he had correctly guessed their identities. They turned to one another, talking interchangeably.
“So it’s true,” Fred began.
“He really can,” George added.
“Tell us apart!” they chorused together.
Harry jolted once again when they suddenly turned back to him, sweating under their intense stares. “Uh, did you… need something?” he stuttered, wondering why they were behaving so strangely.
“Well,” George started. “We remembered that time you caught me pretending to be Fred.”
“Nobody’s been able to tell us apart before,” Fred continued. “Unless we mention our names to each other, or purposefully make ourselves look different.”
“They can still get it right some of the time if they guess,” George sighed, crossing his arms.
“But they still hesitate to call us by name,” Fred concluded, copying his brother’s movement.
They suddenly grinned and leaned into Harry’s personal space, speaking simultaneously, “Until you, of course! Tell us how you do it, Harry!”
Harry cocked his head to the side, feeling puzzled. “But… it’s not really something I do. I just know.” Seeing their confusion, he shrugged. “Look, I don’t know how to explain it, okay? Sorry I couldn’t help you. I need to get to class now, bye!”
He rushed off, unaware of the intense stares following him as he left.
“You thinking what I’m thinking, Greg?”
“I think I am, Forge.”
They smirked in unison, already brainstorming their next steps.
—
After that time Harry ran into the twins, he noticed that they subtly changed their appearance. Fred began to wear his hair slicked back like the 11-year-old version of Malfoy had. George wore his hair loose and messy with a matching loose tie, meanwhile, his brother’s was crisp and perfectly tied.
Despite the changes being so small, it seemed almost everyone in the castle had noticed since it was strange they weren’t playing up the identical twin gag. Harry chalked it up to Fred not wanting his brother to be mistaken for him again and George going along with it to make up for his mistake.
The students sitting at Gryffindor's table in the Great Hall began to grow more confident in telling them apart and even students from other houses began to pick up on how to do so.
One day at lunch, Harry was painstakingly rewriting one of his essays as he ate. It was tough trying to eat with his left hand, which was still throbbing from Umbridge’s latest detention while including Hermione’s corrections as he wrote with his right.
Ron and Hermione sat across from him, absorbed in a conversation about their prefect duties. Harry felt the presence of two people sitting down next to him and glanced up to see it was the twins. “Hi, guys,” he said before turning back to his lunch.
“Working hard, Harry?” the twin on the right asked.
“Or hardly working?” the one on the left smirked cheekily.
Harry sighed, giving up on finishing his essay so he could instead take a big bite of his food. Once he swallowed, he slumped onto the table. “With all the detentions I’m getting from Umbridge, and all the extra homework for OWLs, I hardly have the time to get it all done. Not to mention how much I suck at History. This essay is gonna do me in.”
The twins must have had some sort of telepathic conversation over his head because he didn’t hear anything from either of them for a few minutes.
The twin on the right patted his shoulder consolingly. “Don’t worry so much, Harry. If you’re having trouble, you can ask us for some advice.”
“Yeah. After all, we’ve been in your position before and we somehow survived,” the left twin agreed, also patting Harry’s shoulder. “Ask us anything.”
Harry sat up straight to look them in the eye. Seeing they were both genuine, he smiled. “Thanks, guys. In that case,” he gathered up his parchment and shuffled through it, searching for one of the notes Hermione had written which still confused him.
He turned to his right, “Fred, do you know what section of the textbook talks about Grimborne the Unwieldy? I have no idea if I read about this already or not.”
Hearing the choked breath from in front of him, he glanced up from his notes to see Fred almost wheezing. “Why are you asking me that?” he finally replied.
Harry raised an eyebrow, “Obviously because you’re better at History than George. If this was a Charms question I’d ask him, but I need help with History right now.”
Both twins stayed quiet, staring at him in wonder. A cough from Ron brought Harry’s attention back to his friends, who were staring at him in bewilderment. Ron lowered the hand he’d coughed into, looking physically pained.
“Mate, are you sure that’s Fred?” he asked.
Harry rolled his eyes, “Again with this argument? Yes, I’m sure. What’s the problem?”
“Nothing, Harry!” Hermione squeaked. “It’s just, well… look at the way they’re dressed.”
Harry narrowed his eyes consideringly at her but did as she told. He swapped back at forth between the two of them, looking for something obvious that he wasn’t seeing. Eventually, he got it, “Oh, you guys switched styles? You should have said something, everyone will get your names wrong again.”
The silence was deafening and it was at that moment that Harry realised most of the surrounding students were watching them. He nervously wondered how long they’d been watching and if they saw him struggle to realise the twins’ new style just now.
George smacked a hand to his face, slumping down onto the table, “Well, there goes that plan.” Fred sighed heavily, also looking dissatisfied.
“Eh?!” Ron exclaimed. “You mean, Harry was right? You guys dressed up as each other?” Chatter burst to life around them, the students realising that the twins had just pranked them all yet Harry had not fallen for it.
Hermione leaned forward, questions almost visually bursting from her tongue. “But why would you do that? Didn’t you want to not get mistaken for each other anymore? And why are you so fixated on Harry? What was this ‘plan’ you had in mind?”
The twins turned away, purposefully looking anywhere but at the three of them.
Ron scratched his head in confusion, Harry glanced worriedly at the twins and helplessly at his friends, but Hermione’s eyes gave away her whirlwind of thoughts.
Abruptly, her eyes lit up. “You were testing Harry! You wanted to see if he could tell you apart based on how you look!”
“What?” Harry startled. “That’s dumb.” The four of them looked at him like he was crazy which made his anger rise deep inside him. He’d gotten enough of those looks from everyone who didn’t believe Voldemort was back and called him crazy for doing so, but he fought his emotions back down since he knew his friends didn’t mean it that way.
He reached up to mess with George’s hair, “You guys shouldn’t have to compromise the way you want to dress just so you can be told apart.” He grabbed Fred’s tie and straightened it as best he could since he wasn’t the best even when it came to wearing one himself. “There, now you guys look like yourselves again. So, Fred, do you know which part of the textbook I’m talking about?”
The redhead in question, paralysed, appeared to shake himself back into focus and hesitantly started answering Harry's question. George also unfroze and distractingly reached for a roll of bread as he watched his brother and younger brother’s friend converse.
Ron leaned over to Hermione, asking in a low voice, “Do you have any idea what’s going on here?”
The girl shook her head incredulously. “I could be wrong, but…”
“What?” the boy urged her. “This is about Harry, Hermione. If my brothers start harassing him on top of everything else going on this year, I’ll tell them to back off.”
“Oh, no!” she shook her head vigorously, her bushy hair shaking wildly. “I don’t think it’s anything malicious. The twins probably just…” She sighed. “Never mind, I must be overthinking things. Let’s just keep an eye on them, okay?”
Ron stared at her for a moment longer, judging her sincerity before he nodded and turned back to his lunch, studying his friend and brothers once more.
Hermione did the same and desperately hoped her friend wasn’t going to end up in even more trouble this year.
—
“Oi! Potter!”
Harry paused in the courtyard and sighed, turning around to shoot a look of exasperation at the blonde boy. “What is it this time, Malfoy? I’m not interested in being harassed by you.”
The other scowled and folded his arms tightly to his chest. “I’m not interested in ‘harassing’ you either, Potter. I came to ask if the rumours are true.”
Harry snorted, “About Voldemort being back? Yeah, they are. I thought you’d believe that at the very least.”
Draco flinched at the dark wizard’s name and appeared to tighten his grip on his arms before forcefully relaxing them. In a lower voice, he answered, “Not those rumours, you idiot! The ones about you being able to tell the Weasley twins apart.”
Perplexed at his response, Harry shrugged. “This is my first time hearing rumours about it.”
Draco scoffed, annoyance clear on his face. “I wasn’t expecting you to be up to date on the latest school gossip, particularly with how so few people are willing to associate with you because they think you’re crazy.”
Despite how he could see the logic in Draco’s reasoning, the haughtiness of it irked him to no end and reminded him of why he so rarely chose to associate with him. “If all that was an excuse to insult me then I'm leaving,” Harry turned to walk off.
Draco snapped out his hand and grabbed Harry’s wrist. “Now, hang on! Just answer my damn question! Are the rumours true? I highly doubt someone as dull as you could have discovered the secret to telling them apart.”
Harry wrenched his hand free, feeling the blood rise to his face. “There you go again insulting me! Just leave me alone, Malfoy!”
As the two boys began to get into a row in the middle of the crowded courtyard, neither managed to spot the two redheads heading straight for them. Just as things were about to get physical, Harry’s sight went blurry as his glasses were whisked off his head.
He yelled in outrage and turned to the blurry figures beside him. “Fred! George! Give my glasses back!”
One of them was holding their arm high above his head as if holding Harry’s glasses out of his reach. Harry tried to grab them but they only tossed the eyewear to the other twin, who’d moved to Harry’s other side.
“Try and guess who we are without your glasses, Harry!” the one with his glasses laughed.
“We’ve definitely got you now,” the other taunted.
Growling, Harry leapt for his glasses and just managed to miss them as they were thrown again. “Agh! Be careful, George! They’re the only pair I have!”
“Oh, come on!” George whined. “How are you able to tell? Is it our voices? A lucky guess?”
“Plan B, George! We’re not giving up!” Fred called out.
Just then, both twins grabbed his arms and spun him around several times.
“Hey! What are you doing?!” Harry yelped.
“Making it harder to tell,” one began.
“Which one of us is which,” the other continued.
“Based on your memory!” they sang together.
When they let go Harry stood there on shaky legs, his balance messed up from all the spinning. As the world appeared to tilt on its axis he finally understood what they meant. With their spinning trick, the twins had managed to mess up any chance he had of tracking their movements to tell them apart. He no longer knew which one had been holding his glasses last.
He took a few steps forward and tripped over a loose cobblestone, crashing into someone and taking them down with him accidentally. “Ow,” Harry spoke in a pained voice. “Sorry about that,” he spoke to the student moaning in pain under him.
He raised himself up slightly to look them in the face but couldn’t make out their features with his shit eyesight. All he could manage was a yellow blur. He tilted his head in confusion, “Who’s this fuzzy potato?”
The indignant squark from the person answered his question before they could even give their own name. “Oh, it’s just Malfoy,” Harry groaned, getting up carefully.
“Watch yourself, Potter! I could have been brained on these cobblestones! What if I had gotten brain damage?!” Draco huffed and tried to hide the scarlet flushing his face. He’d never tell anyone but looking at Potter’s face so closely without his glasses made his green eyes look all the more striking.
Harry dusted off his hands, scoffing, “If you’re able to talk like that there’s clearly nothing wrong with you. Now,” he turned back to the two redhaired blurs, grimacing internally at the smugness radiating off of them.
He folded his arms and glared. “If I guess right will you give me my glasses?”
The two moved their heads in sync, which he assumed meant they were nodding, but didn’t say anything. Harry guessed they still thought he was using their voices to tell them apart.
He sighed wearily. “Ok, fine. Which one of you has my glasses?” The one on the left held up his hand. Harry held out his own hand, “Hand ‘em over, George.”
The two spluttered incoherently and whined loudly as Harry was handed over his eyewear.
“Foiled again!” Fred complained.
“How is he doing this?!” George gripped his hair in distress.
Harry ignored them as he walked away, intent on putting as much distance as possible between them as he could in case they were planning to steal his glasses again.
The students who had been watching gossiped amongst themselves, unable to believe Harry had outwitted the twins again and coming up with all sorts of outlandish ideas as to how he did it.
Malfoy watched the Boy Who Lived leave. ‘I guess the rumours are true,’ he thought to himself, shocked.
—
After that, the twins seemed to try any and all methods to confuse Harry about which twin was which. They no longer seemed interested in finding out how Harry was able to tell them apart, instead turning their antics into a game for the amusement of the entire school, sans Umbridge who saw all three of them as disruptions to the school’s order, and poor Harry who was caught in the middle of it.
During a DA meeting where Harry was teaching their members a new counter-curse, he noticed that the twins were doing poorer than usual and went over to check on them. He watched them sparring with their partners for a couple of minutes before calling out some pointers.
“George, don’t aim for their chest, aim for their legs - it’s harder to block. Fred, your reaction time needs improvement. And for goodness’s sake, use your own wands!” He turned around and marched off to help someone else, missing the sheepish looks the twins made as they exchanged wands.
The students around them felt their eyebrows rise. So not only could Harry tell the twins apart, but he could also tell their wands apart? Who on Earth noticed that sort of detail? Well, Harry, apparently. They went back to practising with the thought in the back of their mind that Harry Potter really was an enigma.
Another time, Harry had been walking with Ron down from the Divination tower when Fred had abruptly emerged from a side corridor and yanked the book Harry had been holding out of his arms, talking off down the hallway with a gleeful cackle.
Harry and Ron stood there in shock for a moment before they took off running after the redhead. Fred had disappeared by the time they turned the corner and they almost kept running when Harry suddenly remembered one of the secret passages behind a nearby tapestry.
He grabbed Ron and led him back the way they came, going through the passage and emerging on a lower floor. Ron spotted a hint of red dipping behind a corner and yelled at Fred to stop or he’d deduct house points, taking off after him.
Harry followed his lead, secretly surprised that Ron would go so far as to lower Gryffindor’s chances of winning the house cup even more than they already were just to punish his own brother.
Dashing around the corner revealed to them the sight of one Weasley twin standing there awkwardly while another ran away through the crowd at top speed. Ron bellowed in outrage and raced off in pursuit before Harry could say otherwise.
He and the remaining twin watched them go, who then turned to him and said, “Aren’t you gonna go after Fred, too? Looks like he made you guys mad.”
Harry grinned, stalking closer. “Why would I go after Fred,” he gripped the redhead’s tie in a vice grip. “When Fred is right here?” The redhead paled as the deception was easily seen through. A chill went down his spine at the dark look in Harry’s eyes which contrasted to his pleasant smile.
He stammered out an apology, handed over the textbook - his hands shaking as if handling a cursed object - and power-walked away as soon as Harry turned his eyes off him.
Another plan ended in failure, but the twins weren’t giving up yet. After all, they still had one last trick up their sleeves.
—
Harry entered the common room late at night, dragging his feet in exhaustion after several hours of writing lines in Umbridge’s office. The back of his hand was aching badly and the bandage he’d haphazardly wrapped around it was already coming loose.
There was noise coming from a group of students sitting up late by the fireplace. As he walked closer he saw that the Weasley twins were making another sales pitch and demonstrating their new joke products.
They spotted him on the fringes of the crowd and called out to him heartily. “Harry!”
“Interested in our new Puking Pastiles?” Fred queried.
“They’re good for sneaking into that undesirable someone’s dinner!” George winked.
“We guarantee they’ll be feeling sick to their stomach!” they crowed together.
Harry shook his head, “No thanks, guys. But that was an amazing sales pitch.” The two nodded and smiled, turning away to field questions from their audience. Harry almost turned away too but a strange feeling made him stay and watch for a while longer.
He tried to puzzle out what was making him feel this way, but none of the students seemed to be paying him any attention or doing anything shady other than dealing in the twins’ products. His gaze settled on the twins and that feeling intensified.
Thoroughly spooked, he wondered what could be making him feel so uneasy when by all accounts nothing was wrong. Then he noticed something, a tiny little detail, a slight deviation from the usual that snatched his attention.
Paying even closer attention than before, he watched carefully, picking out the things about the twins that seemed wrong and before long alarm bells were ringing in his ears.
Ignoring the crowd, he stepped up until he was right in front of the twins, staring at their faces intensely. The two paused their activity and shared a look of confusion between them. “What’s up, Harry?” they asked.
Harry stared a moment longer before replying. “I don’t get it.”
The twins cocked their heads simultaneously. “Care to elaborate?” one asked.
Harry slowly moved to point at the one who spoke. “That one looks like Fred but acts like George,” he pointed to the other one, “And vice-versa for this one.” He crossed his arms in contemplation as he thought, grimacing as they shared a smug smirk.
He sighed. “So either, you’ve somehow switched minds, or… “ Harry’s eyes widened, his mouth falling open in shock. “Hold on,” his voice shook from the strain. “Did you two polyjuice as each other?”
From the twin dismayed looks on their faces, Harry assumed he’d been right. He burst out laughing, tearing springing into his eyes.
George, looking like Fred, huffed and muttered, “All that effort brewing Polyjuice, for nothing.”
His twin buried his face in his hands, appalled at their failure. “We were so sure we’d won for a moment there!” The crowd around them burst into equal amounts of shock at the revelation and light-hearted teasing at the twins for failing yet again.
Harry finally managed to get his giggles under control and gasped out, “You guys are such idiots. You don’t need Polyjuice, you’re identical!” And with that parting remark, he trudged off to the boys' dormitory, still giggling at their stupidity.
The twins watched him go with a strange look in their eyes, both thinking the same thing. Harry Potter sure was something.
Sitting at a table in the corner, Hermione smirked at the twins in delight. It looked like her hunch from before might have been right after all.