Mrs. Weasley gave Fred and George a firm but gentle twist on their ears.
“If you two ever manage to win the Special Award for Services to the School, you’ll be carrying that trophy down Diagon Alley yourselves.”
Then she turned to Percy with a softer expression. “All right, dear, I hope you have a good term. When you arrive, please send an owl with a letter for me.”
She kissed Percy on the cheek, and he walked off, his face faintly pink.
“Now it’s your turn.” Mrs. Weasley gave the twins a pointed look. “I expect you two to behave this year, and don’t even think about corrupting Kyle.”
“Corrupt Kyle?” Fred’s voice rose in protest. “Mum, are you joking?!”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Weasley replied firmly.
A whistle sounded as the train slowly began to move.
“Hurry now, get on board—and make sure you take care of Ron.”
“Don’t worry, Mum. Ron’s perfectly safe with us,” Fred assured her before he, George, and Ron scrambled onto the train.
Kyle leaned out the window, waving. “Bye, Mrs. Weasley!”
“Goodbye, dear,” Mrs. Weasley called back. “And if they get into any trouble, write to me right away!”
With a rumble, the train picked up speed. Ginny ran alongside it, waving until they were out of sight, disappearing as the houses whizzed by.
Kyle turned back to the compartment, settling into a game of Wizard Chess with Cedric, while Kanna and Cho huddled over a magazine, whispering conspiratorially. After one match, Cedric leaned over to see what they were reading, only to be playfully shooed away by Cho. With a good-natured sigh, he refocused on the chessboard for another couple of games.
Then the compartment door slid open, and Fred and George burst in, visibly excited. “Guess who we just ran into on the train?”
Cedric barely glanced up. “Who could you possibly run into? It couldn’t be Harry Potter.”
Fred’s eyes widened. “How did you know?! Yes, it was Harry Potter!”
Cedric’s hand froze mid-move, his surprise evident. “Are you serious?”
“I asked him myself,” Fred confirmed, “and I saw his scar. It was right there—like a bolt of lightning.”
Now intrigued, Cedric leaned back thoughtfully. “That actually makes sense. Judging by his age, he’d be starting Hogwarts this year. The Dark Lord fell about ten years ago, after all, so the timing fits.”
“But do you think he remembers what the Dark Lord looked like?” George asked curiously.
“Unlikely,” Cedric replied. “He was only a baby. How could he remember?”
Kyle chuckled. “What’s this, you’re all curious about what the Dark Lord looked like?”
“A bit, yeah,” Fred admitted, lounging against the carriage wall. “I mean, he’s the Dark Lord—aren’t you curious too?”
“Not really,” Kyle said with a shrug. “He was just another powerful wizard, right? What’s there to be curious about? For all we know, he didn’t even have a nose.”
Fred burst out laughing. “Oh, come on, that’s impossible! No nose? Ridiculous!”
Kyle’s joke had struck a chord, and Fred, along with the others, found it hilariously far-fetched. None of them believed in such absurdities.
After a while of laughing, Cedric wiped his eyes and asked, “We’ll be arriving at Hogwarts soon. Are we still selling maps this year?”
“Absolutely,” Fred replied, nodding enthusiastically. “This is serious business—worth more than ten Galleons! And we only get one chance each year, so there’s no way we’re missing it.”
“That’s right,” George agreed with a grin, casting a sly look at Kyle. “As older students, we simply can’t stand by and let those innocent first years get lost.”
Kyle raised an eyebrow. That was clearly his line, and George had swiped it.
“What’s everyone’s plan for now?” Cedric suggested. “If you’re free, why not make the maps here?”
The train ride to Hogwarts would still take hours, giving them plenty of time to produce a batch of maps. Cho and Kanna agreed without hesitation; they had nothing else to do, weren’t keen on Wizard Chess, and liked the idea of doing something useful.
Fred and George considered it and agreed too. Although they’d told Lee Jordan they’d join him in the Slytherin compartment to prank with his spider, they figured that compared to earning a stash of Galleons, that could wait.
All eyes turned to Kyle.
“No objections here,” Kyle shrugged. “Since we’re all in, let’s clear the table. We’ll need space for the parchment with all these snacks lying around.”
At that, everyone jumped up and started packing away the snacks on the table.
Kyle took this chance to grab two stacks of parchment from his box. The thicker stack was standard scholarly parchment, sold in packs of ten for a sicco, with discounts for larger bundles. Kyle pulled out around seventy or eighty sheets. The other stack was much smaller, with only a dozen sheets of higher quality parchment—soft, pristine, and bordered with golden threads at the top and bottom. This was real gold, not the cheap paint they’d used the previous year, and each sheet cost a full Galleon.
Kyle set both stacks, along with the original map, on the table. “Well then, what are we waiting for? Let’s get started.”
The group simultaneously reached for the regular parchment, each grabbing a dozen sheets.
Seeing their quick reflexes, Kyle sighed. “You all have a real knack for taking the easy option, don’t you?”
While everyone’s Doubling Charm would do the job, his more expensive stack required a bit of decorative work and added detailing, making it much more time-consuming. He’d been polite in offering first choice, but he hadn’t expected everyone to snatch up the easier task. If he’d known, he would’ve chosen first himself.
Kyle sighed again, thinking how, thanks to the Weasley twins, even Cedric and Kanna had picked up some sly habits. Those two brothers were a bad influence, no doubt.
With a resigned sigh, Kyle pulled out his wand and tapped it on the parchment. “Geminio.”
The map lines gradually appeared on the blank parchment. This time, Kyle estimated he could stretch the Doubling Charm to last through the entire semester.
Soon, the compartment was bustling with activity. Blank sheets turned into maps one by one, with each of them focused on duplicating as quickly as possible.
Suddenly, a loud knock echoed from outside, right against their compartment door.