Hello fabulous creatures.
Autumn is here! Witching month is upon us, and I wish you all be blessed by Hecate.

———

Delphi had the most wonderful song in her head. She couldn't remember the original words and she'd wandered off the original melody too but who needed that when your mind can explore every intonation on its own.
The tune had come to her in class and with it an urge to dance. And when you're considered crazy already, those urges are yours to follow and she did, once the charms lesson had ended.
The music had led her feet in something similar to a jig and she'd chased the feeling of energy and adventure down one staircase and across another hall, dancing as she went.

It was wonderful to embrace moments like these, the confused stares of nearby students hardly registering as drums joined the strong melody carried on the violin in her mind.
It was just getting to the height of the song when the shout pulled her back and the sound was gone as soon as it had come.

"Hold up, Lovegood!"

She spun to glare at George Weasley who'd followed her for 8 bars of perfect melody before ruining it, "George! Why did you interrupt me? The song was just getting to its most coppery!"
He seemed startled by her genuine annoyance. "S-sorry?"
Delphi pouted, and that reaction seemed to confuse him too. "Inspiration is rare and precious...surely you know this?"
He blinked, and then gave an awkward but genuine smile. "I do, I won't do it again."
Delphi stretched and brushed hair out her face, the eight cartwheels in a row had probably been the thing to undo her ponytail, but she didn't mind much.
In clearing away her hair she finally registered that her dance had taken her to one of the courtyards, the pair of them alone by a quiet fountain. She'd really been lost to have not noticed getting outside.

The sky was clear and weak rays of sunshine reached them. It would rain soon but there was little point telling the first years out on the grass, they wouldn't believe her anyway.
"I hope not," she informed the Weasley boy, "but that one is long gone and you shouldn't miss things that won't miss you. What can I do for you Mr Weasley?"
His expression suggested there were many things he wanted to ask, which intrigued her, but he settled for the thing he'd planned on saying. "We thought you'd want in on planning the pranking of the bumblebee. Since it's you commissioning us, you should get the gratification you desire."

Delphi did not want to befriend the twins, she had enough drama already in her life, and the amount of guilt she already shouldered for everyone soon to die before their time was plenty without actually getting emotionally attached to Fred Weasley.
But George said it was about a commission. She doubted she interested either guys much since they'd left her be for most of their lives, plus they were pretty serious about their business so this made sense.
Business not pleasure. That would be fine.
And Dumbledore deserved this.

"Alright then. Lead the way, it'll rain soon so I hope you've somewhere to plot indoors?"
George's glance skywards was dubious, but he led her indoors anyway and in the direction of the Transfiguration classrooms.
"Fred seems confident you can keep a secret, so we're letting you visit our secret base. I don't think you'll be able to memorise the route but if you do, I hope you'll keep it to yourself?"
"I'll take it to the grave." She replied with her cheeriest tone.
The younger twin narrowed his eyes at her, "do you do that on purpose?"
Delphi gave him her most vacant innocent smile, "do what?"
He snorted.
His aura had held strong tints of hostility and jealousy when he'd arrived but she was glad to see them fading a little. She wondered faintly what he'd envied she could possibly have.

To be honest, she knew relatively little of the future of the Weasley twins. Her visions were mostly focused around landmark events, births, deaths, battles...she'd get snatches of the mundane but not enough to piece together the future lives of everyone she met.
For the twins, who interacted rarely with Harry (whose near future she knew best), much of their lives were unclear.
She knew the twins gave Harry the Marauders map the year before, and that Fred danced with Angelina at the Yule ball. She knew Fred and George would open a joke shop in Diagon Alley. She knew in painful detail how Fred would die. And there was not a single vision of George after that to work out what happened to him but it wasn't to hard to guess.

Yeah, not the people in her year group she wanted to get emotionally attached to.
She'd avoided them, and Cedric Diggory for all her time at Hogwarts, and that plan was unchanged. But was there anyone else insane enough to prank Dumbledore? No.

She soon found out what George meant about memorising the route. They entered a secret passage she knew well, but immediately slipped into a passage just off it hidden by an illusion charm of some kind. It was five lefts and four rights and several hidden entrances before they eventually entered a room that could only have been a disused potions experimentation room, the warding was truly impressive, if dated.

Fred was lounged across a moth-eaten sofa, like he was king of some empire. The moment he saw her he gestured grandly to the room with pride oozing from every pore.
"Welcome, Miss Lovegood, to Casa Weasley! Home of mischief and mayhem!"
She hummed, "If you're mischief and George here's mayhem, can I be madness?"
Fred raised and eyebrow, "Miss Lovegood, I am George, but otherwise of course you can. Madness becomes you!"
Delphi shook her head. "You are Fred."
"How can you tell? My handsomeness?"
Delphi hummed, turning from him to examine the stacks of books on shelves to her left. "Why would it be difficult to tell? You're different people."

Before either could press for a clearer answer, she let out a gasp. "Moste Potente Potions! That's in the restricted section!!! May I?"
She turned hopeful eyes on the duo and George nodded, looking bemused.
Delphi hurried across the room to grasp the book carefully in both hands, stroking the spine with her index finger. The book shivered, opening up with a half purr half yawn, to let her read. Her eyes flicked over the hand written pages and she almost completely forgot the boys in the room with her.

Whilst she was preoccupied they were busy themselves having a silent conversation composed of wiggling eyebrows, small head tilts and shrugs.
"So, Miss Lovegood," began Fred eventually, "I'm sure your Ravenclaw heart yearns to read, but we have plotting to do!"
"Oh right." Delphi smiled softly, caressing the spine of the potions book again. The twins watching in slight awe as the book seemed to stretch before closing.

She set it down on its shelf with utmost gentleness before turning and conjuring herself a chair to sit on. "I can't decide between a short embarrassing prank or a long irritating one."
Fred opened his mouth to say something but George shot him a glare before speaking to her calmly, settled next to his brother on their sofa. "We're going to need you to be more helpful than that."
Delphi snorted, "I rarely am. Is there anyway to make a really complicated spell replicate the effects of a very basic prank? I can't think of anything more humiliating than Dumbledore appearing to fall for a prank spell even first years can counter, but not appearing to know how to do it."

She saw both twins' eyes shine with inspiration.
""Tonne tongue toffees!"" They yelled together, eyes lit up.
"We'll have to make them..." began George, grinning.
"...so the usual counter doesn't work..." continued Fred.
George spared Delphi a smile, "...but there's loads of different ways to engorge something..."
"...including some illegal ones-" added Fred.
"Fred!" Hissed George, clearly annoyed his brother admitted that.
Delphi waved her hand dismissively, "rules are made to be broken."
"Why do teachers think you're such a good girl?" Asked George, appearing genuinely curious.
Delphi smiled dreamily, "because I don't get caught. And Mrs Norris loves me...you'd also be surprised how far my family reputation can extend to excuse me from punishment."
"That's cheating." Grumbled Fred.
Delphi smirked, "that's the Ravenclaw way. Lions charge after their prey, eagles dive only at the perfect moment."
George snorted.

"But there's another problem."
The duo blinked together, before cocking their heads in sync, ""what?""
Delphi chuckled, "tonne tongue toffees are a Weasley original, the prank would obviously be yours and he'd punish you because it couldn't be anyone else."
"Oh shit." Muttered George.
Fred hummed, "a very un-Weasley prank then...but they're boring!"
"Even more humiliating." Said Delphi, "you change his hair or his clothes he'll just play it off with that eccentric grandfather act. It has to make him look senile...or make people doubt him... perhaps something no one would even recognise as a prank?"
"Oh merlin..." murmured George.
"...what did he do to you?" Finished Fred.
They said it in a rhetorical tone, even though she had no doubt they wanted to know.
"He tried to break into my reality." She replied in her favourite form of hidden truth. "But my crazy is my own and I don't like sharing it with anyone."
"What about Luna?" Asked George while Fred seemed to be trying to compute.
Delphi smiled, "she has her own beautiful madness, and is wise enough to leave mine be."

Neither twins did the awkward laugh she expected, but watched her like they'd just understood something. It made her feel a bit uneasy, so she pushed past it. "So come on geniuses, plotting is not as fun as a solitary occupation."
"Right." Both twins shifted before focusing on the parchment in front of them.
George scrawled 'embarrassing' with a question mark, and 'subtle', and 'UNWEASLEY' in capitals.
"Well," began Fred, "how about..."
And he and George painted a picture with their words so beautiful she had half a mind to kiss the pair of them. A shiver of anticipation ran down her spine.
Once they finished, she sent them a wide grin, "make it last all year, and I'll give you guys 32 more galleons, 15 sickles and 3 knuts."
"What?" Gasped George at the same time as Fred exclaiming; "how did you know about that!"
It was unsurprising they were so shocked, it would make the total exactly the amount they lost to Bagman.

Delphi rose, vanishing her chair with a flick of her wand and moving to the door, with a vacant smile, "I'm Hogwarts' crazy lady. It's what I do."
George managed to raise an cynical eyebrow, still looking flustered. "So crazy lady, how can you do that? Did you tell our fortune?"
"You could do with a fortune I believe," she replied easily, "more the literal kind though, and I don't have one of those." She moved closer to the door but hesitated before glancing back at the twins. "Following your dream is tiring."
Fred slumped back in the sofa, even as George still stared at her. "It is, when it seems no one else wants you to succeed."
She tilted her head, "I suggest asking the dream where it's going and catching up with it later. You two deserve a break."
It took the twins a full minute to process what she said.
"Non riddle speak?" Asked George weakly.
She laughed again, at the irony of the twin-speaking duo asking that. "Go have fun. Do what you love and money will come your way, just like today."
She doubted they could let Bagman's theft go so easily, but it was worth trying.
She opened the door, "if that's that, the clocks will be yelling poetry soon."

The twins were quiet, and worrying she'd said too much, Delphi moved to leave.
"Delphi, do you have a dream?" Asked George suddenly.
Delphi had no idea what made her say it, but something about the question made her feel every ounce of her exhaustion and stress, turning with haunted eyes to gaze at the two boys who lived for laughter whilst she knew little but guilt. "Thousands of them," she murmured, "though they follow me and never leave."

She left quickly, without looking back. Cursing herself for saying something so weird and dark. She should have just laughed. Or said something whimsical like 'to become the sound of a pebble dropping into deep water'.
But no, she had to be honest. Why? She could hold her own against Dumbledore yet a couple of dumb Gryffindorks with smirks that could make butter melt had her practically spilling her deepest secrets.
She slapped her cheeks with her hands to snap herself out of it. She had potions homework to do, and if Snape got a disturbingly detailed and long essay, well, good for her grades.