stonecrandall Chapter 32 Night Stroll, Twins
Chapter 32 Night Stroll, Twins
It was late at night.
Landric quietly got up and tiptoed out the door.
Noticing that no one was around, he immediately cast an invisibility spell on himself.
"Disillusionment"
Landric's body gradually disappeared, and when the Slytherin common room was empty again, the door opened and closed softly, unnoticed by anyone.
Landric walked quickly, not wanting to waste time on the road. Although he did have an invisibility spell, spells still required magical power.
Even with his magical talent, he is only eleven years old today. His magical reserves are considerable compared to his peers, but he always feels that they are not enough.
Without wasting a moment, he headed straight for the library, which was on the second floor of the main castle building, making it easy for Landric to find his way.
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"Hey Fred, look what I found!"
"Shut up, Fred. I'm George. Is this little beauty out for a night stroll?"
"I have a bold idea!" the twins exclaimed in unison, "and the first user of our new magical artifact is born!!"
The two watched the names keep moving, pushing and shoving each other, annoyed that the other was taking up too much space.
"George (Fred), what do you think about us following them?"
The Weasley twins were quite in sync; after exchanging a glance, they both started walking along Landric's path.
The spiral staircase turned slowly in the moonlight, and Landric's fingers gripping the brass handrail suddenly tightened.
He could smell the faint, sweet scent of bubblegum in the air—a scent he had smelled on the train, from a pair of red-haired twins' prank candy.
Landric's fingers trembled slightly on the armrest, and the magical fluctuations of the invisibility spell gave him goosebumps.
The gears of the spiral staircase made a soft clicking sound, and the moonlight refracted into tiny spots of light on his disappearing silhouette. When the sweet scent suddenly intensified, he almost instinctively curled up in the shadows at the corner of the staircase.
"George, you stepped on my foot!"
"Shut up, Fred. This damn staircase spins faster than Peeves's pranks—"
The twins' hushed arguing came from below, and Landric could see two fiery red heads swaying in the moonlight through the gaps in the railing.
He noticed that George was clutching half a bubbling jelly bean in his hand, the pod oozing a fluorescent green liquid—it was their homemade "sticky chaser."
The staircase platform suddenly turned towards the north tower, forcing Landric to move sideways, hugging the wall.
The Weasley brothers clearly hadn't expected their cute little prey to suddenly change course. George's elbow struck the armor, and the rusty metal gauntlet clattered to the ground.
"Merlin's briefs!" Fred hurriedly caught the Marauder's Map before it slipped from his grasp. "He went to the library!"
Landric cursed inwardly, thinking that the twins were more difficult to track than Filch's cat. How did they manage to do it?
As the library's oak doors drew near, Landric's invisibility spell suddenly rippled.
The moonlight outlined a blurry silhouette on his left shoulder—Merlin above, and those red-haired weasels were throwing Sticky Pursuers in this direction!
Fluorescent green syrup meandered like a spiderweb on the stone bricks, the Marauder's Map in George's hand rippled, and Fred suddenly snapped his fingers: "Three meters! He's right in front of you!"
Landric's back bumped against the cold door knocker. The twins' breaths were so close they could blew the stray hairs on his forehead, and the heat hit Landric's face, causing him to recoil uncomfortably.
He reached for his wand, preparing to cast the Leg-Locking Charm, but heard George chuckle out, "Don't be nervous, little snake, we brought a gift."
Fred magically produced a crystal ball from his pocket, inside which floated a constantly reconstructing astronomical star chart.
"Just post this on Filch's bulletin board, and tomorrow the whole school will see the administrator doing a tap dance—want to join?" Moonlight filtered through the intricate carvings of the spiral staircase, condensing into silver frost on George's fingertips.
The two men tried to negotiate with Landric in a nonsensical manner, but Landric refused without even thinking. "We're not familiar with each other, get out of here!"
"Don't be like that, little snake. Don't you want to know what secrets the library holds?"
Landric's eyes were cold, his voice laced with suppressed anger, "Why are you looking for me?"
Landric's wand tip glowed with a ghostly blue light, creating a safe distance between the three. His invisibility spell had completely failed, and two shards of fluorescent green syrup remained stuck to the hem of his black robe, making Landric feel nauseous.
The twins suddenly raised their index fingers in unison: "Because—"
"Your serpentine movements to dodge the patrol spell are even more flamboyant than Charlie's Norwegian Ridgeback!" George pulled a piece of parchment from his other pocket, on which Landric's movements tonight were drawn in color-changing ink.
"And also because..." Fred lowered his voice and tapped the candlestick on the wall with his wand.
The bronze serpent's eyes suddenly shifted, revealing a hidden compartment behind it filled with meerkats' shells. "A freshman who discovers the secret passage to the Slytherin common room definitely deserves two fire-breathing pointed hats!"
Landric's pupils contracted sharply in the moonlight, and the tip of his wand emitted a burst of blue light.
The winding silver ink on the parchment resembled little snakes coming to life, clearly a manifestation of some kind of tracking magic—he should have realized that the pair of red weasels had tracking tools.
"Roadmap?" He sneered, the tip of his cane suddenly turning towards the syrup on the hem of his robe. "Clean it up!" The fluorescent green slime evaporated instantly.
"What do you want to do?" Landric's emotions calmed down at an eerie speed.
With a wave of the wand, silver threads appeared, instantly seizing the unidentified object from the twins' pockets.
The twins cried out in unison. "Merlin's lace stockings! We spent three nights mixing the color-changing ink!" George lunged at the silver thread that was dissipating in mid-air, but Fred suddenly grabbed his brother's shoulder.
The red-haired boy, two years older than Landric, took a half-step forward, his cinnamon-scented breath brushing against Landric's ear: "Do you know why I chased after you? The west wing of the library's bookshelves at midnight..."
"Vines that grow poisonous tentacles?" Landric suddenly interjected.
Seeing the twins' instantly frozen expressions, he curled the corners of his mouth and said, "Chapter 47 of *Hogwarts: A History*, 'You think Slytherins only read Dark Magic books?'"
The twins opened their mouths hesitantly, "You...you know?"
Landric didn't answer, but stared at them silently.
The spiral staircase suddenly shook violently, and three young bodies collided together.
Fred's back rested against the cold, serpentine relief, while Landric's hand rested on the bronze candlestick beside his neck. Moonlight filtered through George's fingers, illuminating the face of the young wizard Millie.
Landric's knuckles turned bluish-white on the bronze candlestick, and George's breath was hitting the throbbing veins on the side of his neck.
The young wizard's emerald pupils swept over the twins' ruby-like eyes, then he suddenly released their grip and took a half-step back: "Prove your worth."
The moment Fred was pushed away, he snapped his fingers, and the Marauder's Map slid out of George's sleeve, revealing a library projection on the parchment.
"After eleven o'clock, the books in the forbidden section are rearranged." George poked a glowing silver spot in the projection with the tip of his wand. "But our dear librarian has put a chain charm on every bookshelf—unless..."
"Unless someone can disable Mrs. Pince's protective charm, right?" Landric suddenly drew his wand and pressed it against Fred's throat, the blue light from the tip of the wand making the boy's Adam's apple appear eerily blue.
"A misjudgment is enough~" George jokingly interjected from the side.
Fred looked at Landric in front of him and thought that little Adam's apple was quite cute; if it were slightly pink, it would be truly stunning.
The spiral staircase suddenly stopped at an eerie angle, and the moonlight cast long shadows of the three people onto the fangs of the serpentine relief.
"Thank you so much for the information, but! Don't follow me!"
Landric turned and left, disappearing without a trace under the cover of the invisibility spell.