The midnight bell chimed, and Hector snapped fully awake.
He glanced around at his roommates, all fast asleep, and slipped quietly out of bed. To prevent anyone from waking up abruptly, Hector hit each of them with a Stunner.
They slept even more soundly now—as evidenced by the sudden cessation of their snoring. Hector was quite satisfied with the effectiveness of his spell.
If things didn't work out for him in the wizarding world, opening a clinic in the modern world specializing in rapid cures for insomnia would be a great backup plan. It came with guaranteed anti-snoring benefits, of course.
Hector calmly threw a robe on over his pajamas; the early autumn nights at Hogwarts were still a bit chilly.
When he reached the Gryffindor common room, Fred and George had already been waiting downstairs for a while.
"Why are you late, Hector? We need to speed things up!" said Fred. Both he and George stood up the moment they caught sight of Hector, and George seamlessly picked up the thread:
"We can't stay out all night, and we certainly can't afford to be late on our very first day of classes."
"My fault, I was taking some safety precautions before I left," Hector explained.
"Safety precautions?" The Weasley brothers didn't quite catch Hector's drift, nor could they have guessed that Hector had just hit each of his dear roommates with a Stunning Spell. Still, they didn't dwell on it; they drew their wands from inside their robes.
"Hector, we can't just stroll out for a night-walk like this," Fred said, pointing his wand at Hector. "Not without hiding ourselves, at least for getting in and out of the Gryffindor common room."
"This calls for a rather clever charm," George said, looking immensely proud of himself. "The Disillusionment Charm. We only just learned it."
Hector watched as the two brothers practically glowed with the desire to show off right in front of him. He watched them clumsily cast the unfamiliar Disillusionment Charm on each other, then watched them rapidly transition from the botched Disillusionment Charm into the much more familiar Bat-Bogey Hex and Tarantallegra. Finally, just as the two of them were on the verge of escalating to full-blown Stunners, he stepped in and stopped their mutual massacre.
Watching the semi-transparent, flickering bodies of the two Weasley brothers was genuinely unsettling. He had known the pair weren't entirely reliable, but he hadn't realized they could be *this* unreliable.
First, he hit the Weasley brothers with a Finite Incantatem, followed by the counter-spells for the Bat-Bogey Hex and the Tarantallegra. Standard jinxes usually didn't react much to a basic Finite, while the upgraded version, *Finite Incantatem*, was a bit too powerful for the job—and since *Finite* came with a glowing visual effect, Hector avoided using light-producing spells unless absolutely necessary.
The Weasley brothers finally returned to normal. They brushed the dust off each other's clothes and looked at Hector.
"Many thanks," said Fred.
"You know, newly learned spells always come with a few side effects," George was always the one to supply the follow-up line.
"Side effects? I don't recall the Disillusionment Charm and the Bat-Bogey Hex having much in common," Hector sighed. "Let me do it."
"You can? We spent months learning it," Fred looked somewhat skeptical, but George patted his shoulder.
"Don't worry, mate. He's a Dumbledore."
"Just out of curiosity, what's the incantation for the Disillusionment Charm?" Hector pondered for a moment. He had already learned up through fifth-year material, but the book didn't seem to contain the Disillusionment Charm.
"You don't know it?! Then what were you bragging about just now?!" Fred and George were utterly shocked, causing their voices to rise involuntarily.
"Shh, quiet, you two. Don't wake the whole house," Hector made a hushing gesture.
"You can teach me right now. I've always been a fast learner. Besides, I'm your only option left to try out, aren't I?"
Fred and George exchanged glances, then checked the time. Their own Disillusionment Charms clearly weren't good enough; they might as well let Hector give it a shot.
"All right. The Disillusionment Charm isn't in any standard spellbooks; we found it in the Restricted Section," Fred spoke first, followed by George:
"The Disillusionment Charm is very difficult to learn. We couldn't master it at the time, so we copied that page down to keep practicing."
Fred pulled a heavily folded, rather crumpled piece of paper from inside his robe. He handed it to Hector, who took it. The handwriting on it was sprawling and crooked; it took a moment just to decipher it.
"You know we couldn't get a signed permission slip from any of the professors, so we just sneak out in the middle of the night," Fred scratched his head. "Circumstances are limited."
It took Hector five full minutes just to manage a read-through of the entire text, though that was the only difficult part of learning the spell.
George and Fred quickly witnessed Hector lower the paper, give his wand a single flick, and slowly fade out of existence into thin air.
"Merlin's beard, pinch me, George, just to make sure I'm not dreaming," Fred couldn't hide his shock. He nudged George beside him, who was standing with his jaw agape.
"Hector, are you still there?" George reached out and felt blindly at the empty air in front of him, asking cautiously.
Hector gave his wand a flick, revealing his form from the void.
"You learned it? In just a few minutes? We've been practicing for nearly three months and still haven't fully mastered it." For a moment, Fred still couldn't accept reality. George patted his shoulder again.
"Grow up, brother. His name is Dumbledore, I think that explains a lot."
"So, are we staying here for the night, or are we setting off now?" Hector asked, looking at the shocked expressions of the two Weasley brothers. Getting to show off a bit in front of his good mates felt pretty good.
The Weasley brothers pushed their jaws back up into place, opened their arms, and closed their eyes. With a wave of Hector's wand, both of them vanished into thin air instantly.
"By the way, you two know how to cast *Finite*, right? You realize there's a strong chance I won't be able to see you."
"Who do you think we are, first-years? *Finite* is a night-walker's essential spell!"
"Just to be sure—if you guys can't do it, the commotion from a full *Finite Incantatem* is going to be a bit loud, so you'd better wait until daylight before I lift your invisibility," Hector shrugged, then cast the Disillusionment Charm on himself as well.
"By the way, where are we going?"
"We're going to the Forbidden Forest," a voice drifted from somewhere ahead, the Disillusionment Charm still retaining some acoustic distortion. "Keep close."
"How is he supposed to keep close when we're using the Disillusionment Charm, Fred?" That sounded like George's voice.
"Good point," said Fred. "We can just drop it at the end of the corridor; we only needed it to slip past the Fat Lady."
The Gryffindor door—which was the Fat Lady's portrait—swung open automatically. She looked decidedly half-asleep.
"Out night-walking on the very first day of term? Nasty little wizards, don't let me catch you, or I'll be telling Professor McGonagall!"
At the end of the corridor, three figures slowly flickered into view in mid-air. Fred extended a hand with exaggerated chivalry:
"Right this way, esteemed Mr. Dumbledore. Welcome to the ranks of the night-walkers."
"On the very first night of the term, too—truly worth celebrating." George cast a *Lumos* and volunteered to lead the way at the front.
"We're really going to the Forbidden Forest?" Hector felt a bit uncertain about being brought out safely from the jaws of the Acromantulas.
"Oh, of course not that deep in—that really is dangerous."
"The outer edge of the Forbidden Forest, though, is basically our back garden. Most of our products are developed out there. And, of course, your surprise is there too." The Weasley twins seemed thoroughly excited, setting a pace that left Hector—sandwiched between them—struggling to keep up.
"If you guys don't know the Disillusionment Charm, how did you used to go night-walking?"
"Oh, an Invisibility Cloak we nicked from Filch. We found it when we were serving detention; Filch had chucked it in a corner inside the Most Dangerous Items box," Fred explained.
"We rummaged around for ages before we found it. Filch really does have loads of good stuff in there. Too bad that Invisibility Cloak stopped working toward the end of last term and almost got us caught."
"If you don't mind, we need to hurry. Filch still patrols at night. We'll talk about the rest later." George quickened his pace, practically hoisting Hector along beside Fred.
Faced with the Weasley brothers' formidable physical strength in addition to their magical prowess, Hector was temporarily powerless to resist.
*(Hector: Just picking on me because I'm young, are you? Just wait, your old age will come eventually.)*
And so, the three of them walked through Hogwarts in the dead of night. The Weasley brothers looked thoroughly pumped, while Hector felt like he was touring a haunted house. The ancient castle after lights-out exuded an eerie gloom everywhere, especially since the pair kept leading Hector in circles through the massive fortress and occasionally doubling back, giving Hector the distinct illusion of being trapped in a ghost maze.
After quite a while, they finally stepped out of the Hogwarts castle, sped across the vast expanse of open ground between the fortress and the dense woods, and plunged headfirst into the thick forest.
At that moment, Fred pulled out his wand from behind Hector and cast a *Lumos*.
"Hector, you'd better use a *Lumos*, or you'll easily get lost."
"My *Lumos* has, um, a few issues. Just use yours."
Hector gazed at the increasingly horror-movie-like atmosphere around them. He would have loved to use a *Lumos*, but unfortunately, his version came with a bit of a bug. Once he turned it on, he wouldn't have to worry about not being able to see his surroundings—the brightness of Hector's *Lumos* was enough to blast Aberforth all the way over from Hogsmeade.
The Weasley twins found it a bit strange, but they didn't press the matter. The Forbidden Forest was no safe place, and most of their attention remained focused on scanning their surroundings to ensure their own safety.
They walked for quite a bit longer. Just as Hector was starting to wonder if the "surprise" the two lads had mentioned was taking him on a blitzkrieg raid against the Giant Eight-Eyed Spiders, George—who was walking in the very front—finally came to a halt.
"We're here." George stepped aside, revealing a shed constructed from several long, thick tree branches right before Hector's eyes. The roof was covered in a thick layer of leaves, and inside lay a carpet strewn with a few dust-covered cauldrons and scattered tools.
"Welcome to the Weasley brothers' secret workshop—the birthplace and testing ground of all our joke products." They dug two shovels out from inside the shed.
"Ready, Fred?"
"Ready, George?"
The Weasley brothers exchanged a glance and began digging furiously beside a nearby tree. The two of them shoveled with great gusto until, after a moment, a small chest was unearthed.
"Our stash," said Fred. The two brothers carried the crate over and placed it before Hector, gesturing for him to open it.
Hector looked at the pair suspiciously. Knowing these two as he did, it would likely bring plenty of scares and zero joy.
Still, he opened the box. To Hector's surprise, there were no fake snakes, fake mice, or spring-loaded jump-scares of any kind inside. The items within were neatly wrapped in brown parchment, and the interior of the box looked thoroughly dry—evidently treated with meticulous care.
"We cast a Drying Charm and a tiny little *Protego* on this chest," Fred began boasting to Hector.
"Not to brag, but in certain areas, we are absolute geniuses." George looked equally proud.
"The *Protego* took me and Fred ages to figure out. We can only manage a field this small; otherwise, we would've slapped a protective shield over the whole secret workshop ages ago."
Inside the box were several neatly packaged bags of biscuits. Fred claimed they were their new product, Canary Creams, currently still in the experimental phase, though George swore they were completely safe. Beneath the biscuits lay a layer of fabric; lifting it, Hector found neat rows of fireworks. The quantity wasn't huge, but they all looked fully functional.
"Welcome to Hogwarts. We've always felt the opening-year ceremony ought to include a fireworks display—not the ceiling kind, of course," Fred explained.
"So we prepared a firework ceremony for you to celebrate joining Gryffindor House, and of course, joining our night-walkers' squad." As George spoke, he motioned for Fred to help carry the fireworks out to an open patch of ground near the secret workshop.
Hector followed behind them, the Weasley duo flatly and firmly rejecting his offers to help carry anything. They insisted Hector was much too young, telling him to stand back and just watch quietly.
Hector sat down atop a large boulder and quietly watched the two brothers bustle about. The pair carefully arranged the fireworks to their satisfaction, lit the fuses, and scrambled back.
Soon, streaks of fireworks went shooting up into the sky. First, they burst with a loud crack and scattered in all directions, then—guided by some unseen force—they coalesced into a roaring, maned lion. Its eyes half-closed as it surveyed its surroundings, looking like it was inspecting its own territory. After a moment, the lion lunged forward fiercely, and the fireworks forming the majestic beast suddenly fractured and scattered, no longer binding themselves to any single shape, blooming wildly with their own untamed beauty.
Hector stood up, gazing up at the sky. Taking advantage of his distraction, the Weasley brothers grabbed him by the arms, hoisted him up, and hoisted him onto their shoulders.
"Welcome to Gryffindor, Hector," the two of them shouted in unison.
The fireworks were so brilliant that the three Gryffindors watching below felt, in that moment, that they were brilliant too.