Realistically, Fred knew it was probably a bad idea to hold onto something for Buster Mastiff[1], but he also knew itw as probably a bad idea to not hold onto something for Buster Mastiff.  Even if Fred was a prefect, Buster was… well, he wasn’t small.  And he wasn’t really afraid of using his fists to get what he wanted.  So, when he handed Fred a seemingly innocuous, egg shaped thing and told him to hold it for him until class the following day, Fred just stared at him and nodded dumbly before he walked away.  He had shoved it in his pocket and forgotten all about it, honestly. 

Going on with the rest of his day, Fred was just glad when classes were over and dinner was done.  He was tired.  The holiday break had been great and everything, but it hadn’t nearly been long enough to fully rest up before the end of the year sort of careened out of control.  He could already feel it! 

It didn’t help that even prospect of the career fair could give him hives.  Being an adult seemed like an overwhelmingly horrible thing and it was coming up so quickly.  As he lounged on the chair in the common room, he was just glad he wasn’t a seventh year.  That would be way too much. 

Shifting in his seat, he grumbled as something uncomfortable dug into his side.  He lifted his hip and dug at his pocket, surprised when the egg popped out and he fumbled with it.  It fell to the floor and when he thought it would stop rolling… it didn’t.  In fact, it seemed to turn on its side and roll away as he stood up and tried to grab it.  “What the…” Fred grumbled as he scurried after it… and it rolled under a couch.  “Fizzing whizbees!” he grunted as he tried to push the couch.  “A little help?” 

1.

NPC

"Mmph."

"Hmm.  Wha-?"

"I'm who?!"

Figaro Sellaphix, a man of means and Hufflepuff senior citizen, was jostled from privilege and slumber when his chariot sofa began a-shaking. When he sat up, pillows and blankets he'd been using as cover spilled to the floor.  His hair was all messy now, his shirt twisted, and he had lines on his cheek from the brocade cushion.

"Fred. Fred. Fred. Why. Why? Why, Fred?"  His sleepy gaze finally found focus on the face of sweet young Fredley.  A good lad who was going quickly down a dark path, what with this nap-nuisance.

"Why, Fred?!"  He was such a good boy, why this, why now?

Jumping back, Fred hadn’t realized anyone else had been asleep in the common room!  Honestly!  The pillows and blankets falling off were enough of a clue that Fig had been covered and it was totally reasonable that he didn’t see him.  It also explained why he suddenly couldn’t move furniture. 

Not to mention, there was still sleep crud in the corners of his eyes as well.  But, that stupid egg… and Fred held his hands up, like Fig was an auror about to arrest him or something.  For what?  Disturbing his beauty rest?  Unlikely.  Tomorrow though, Buster would break his face and Fred’s teeth were too nice to have them punched in. 

“There’s an egg,” Fred explained, completely straight faced, waiting a moment before his eyes grew wide and realized that was the weirdest thing he’d ever said – well, today at any rate.  “An egg under the couch,” he explained further.  “I dropped it and it started rolling… by itself.” 

His expression was all wide eyes and open mouth, “We need to get that egg.”

"An egg..." Figaro echoed.  He picked himself up off the sofa, keeping a blanket as a cape, and took a few steps away to have a better look.

"You lost an egg under there? Well, Fred, I just don't know what the fuss is, mate. Eggs are rounded. They're going to roll, aren't they? Use your head."

He looked at Fred who looked far more worried about a humble egg than he should. Was he beginning to crack? Figaro snorted a private laugh at his own private pun. Crack. He was cracked.

"Now that I've liberated this couch from under my arse, have at it, lad. Rescue our egg!"  He made a sweeping gesture with his blanket cape. Fifth years were so adorable. And literally anything was better than studying for N.E.W.T.s or thinking about the future in any way.

 

Figaro thought he was crazy. 

Maybe he wasn’t so far off from the truth.  Fred was a nutter, but he knew that Buster would have his head if he didn’t actually have it tomorrow.  And it wasn’t really an egg – he thought, but there was no way to really explain that… so he would just stick with being crazy. 

Nodding vigorously, Fred looked back to the couch and let out a deep breath before he rolled up his sleeves.  “Alright,” he nodded resolutely and walked up to the couch.  “If you see it, Figaro,” he looked back to the seventh year, “You’ve got to grab it, okay?”  He didn’t really wait for Fig to confirm that he was going to do it because he didn’t want to lose his nerve – or the motivation to lift it.

Wrapping his hands under the bottom of the couch, he bent his knees and strained as the heavy brocade thing lifted slightly from the floor.  As the sturdy old couch creaked, Fred saw the light blue egg start rolling, bobbling this way and that across the common room.  Eggs definitely rolled, but not like that.  “Fig! Right there!” without thinking, he moved his hand to point and dropped the couch with a giant thud… and a scream. 

The string of profanities Fred let out was something no one would expect to come from him.  He panicked and shoved the couch with all his might, eyes welling up as the chair scraped along the rest of his foot before it hit the floor. 

It all happened so quickly.  What came shooting out from under the couch was no ordinary egg. And now there was carnage!  Figaro winced hard and shouted in sympathy. "OH!"

As curious as Figaro might have been about that egg, it was out of sight and sweet Fredley Radley had just said a few things that would make the wallpaper peel. Fig let the blanket cape slide off his shoulders to the floor and went to help Fred and his bloody stump of a foot.

"You're fine, mate, just - just maybe don't look down. Sit here."  Luckily, Fred's bum wasn't too far from a chair and it was easy for Fig to guide him over without him having to walk on the foot.  "Um, at some point you are going to have to teach me some of those because, Fred, your mouth is filthy. But just relax. Here. Here."

Figaro hovered his index finger over Fred's sock-covered foot. "Does this hurt?" He touched it. Poke.

 “No, no! Not me – the egg,” Fred protested as Figaro tried to calmly guide him to the chair and put him down.  It’d be much more than his foot that was broken tomorrow if something happened to that thing.  He was sure of it.   “Ow, ow!” he yelped as he sort of had to pivot and put his toe down which did not go well, clearly.

Despite himself, he looked down at his foot and grimaced.  His sock was red.  Feeling a little woozy, he dropped onto the couch and grabbed the side of his head.  “Oohhh,” he groaned like a person who was sick to their stomach might.  That wasn’t good and it felt like he had two hearts –one beating fiercly against his chest and the other pulsing in his foot. 

That was disgusting. 

He rolled his head back and closed his eyes, trying to imagine anything else: puffskeins might be a good image to conjure right now… No! Not Hattie Woolfolk, he snapped his eyes opened and blinked a few times.  Ugh.  She was terrifying, but she was also pretty. 

Tilting his head back up, he sort of drawled a, “huh?” not registering what Fig was going to do until it happened.  He jerked his knee up and it made contact with something hard – either the corner of the couch or Fig’s face or something because that combined with the shooting pain from his foot?  Fred yowled, “Of course it blood hurts!” he managed to grit out, the tension in his leg muscles did nothing for the pain. 

“Get the bloody egg!” he demanded, “and then get the bloody healer!”  Madame Sage was going to hate him, but Fred Radley could not have cared a wit at this moment.  Excrutiating! 

Fredley's knee came up square into Figaro's face.  Figaro yelped and threw himself backwards, holding his mouth.  The blue orb took advantage of the opening and zipped its way across the new space between them.

Figaro, meanwhile, was seeing stars and tears were streaming out of the corners of his eyes.  "Youashcl lawihf thhfff!" he wailed, holding his hands over his nose and mouth as he stumbled out of range.

He gingerly moved his hands away. "Amabliddng???"

He was. He as very bleeding indeed.

Isla was having a wonderful day, despite the fact that she was back at school. Ignan Storm had not decapitated her yet, Alistair actually accepted a hug from her, and Fred hadn't denied being her brother today. Most importantly, however, her cousin Balfour had sent her a package of treats. She kept the chocolate-and-caramel dipped cashews in the pocket of her robes for snacking (and to prevent sharing), but everything else needed to be enjoyed by the rest of the house. Including chocolate oranges that you had to peel, gummy flobberworms, and popping pomegranate seeds[1]

The young witch practically frolicked down the stairs from her dorm, box of goodies in her arms. Fred would get first picks.

"FreeeeeEEEEeeeeeEEEED!" Isla called out as she exited her dorm room. He screamed in response! Good, he was excited to see her.  The young witch practically frolicked down the stairs. By the time she reached the common room, Fred was sitting in a chair and Figaro was trying to give him a footrub.

Okay. That was kind of normal. Weirder things had happened. She was about to offer Figaro some sage advice when Fred kneed him in the face and a blue thing ricocheted off her head before finding its' next victim. Isla froze, momentarily bewildered until she realized that Figaro's nose was bleeding. All he had done was give her brother a footrub and this was how he repaid him?!

Fred wasn't getting first picks now. Figaro was.

"Do you want a gummy flobberworm?" Isla asked, as if a person with a bloody nose would want to be eating sweets at that moment. She realized her mistake. "Oh. I know episkey!" She did not. But she believed in herself today. Isla closed the distance between them, dropped her sweets on the ground and fumbled around for her wand. "Prepare to not bleed."

1.	Like poprocks, but they look like pomegranate seeds

That wasn’t good.  That wasn’t good at all.  Figaro was no longer speaking words and when Fred opened his eyes, well... That was really bad.  There was blood pouring down Fig’s face and he looked at his pant leg – he had definitely caused it.  “Sorry, Fig! Sorry!” Fred waved his hands, panicky at the fact that he totally just injured a seventh year. 

He was getting expelled, he knew it.  He was getting expelled and it was all Buster Mastiff’s fault!  Could this day get any worse?! 

And the universe answered his pathetic, rhetorical question in the form of Isla Spectre.  Oh good Godric, They were going to die.  If he wasn’t going to die tomorrow anyway, he might have been more upset about her appearance… and her question!

What was she on about?  Who wanted to eat when they were bleeding?! 

“Isla!”  he protested when she announced she knew the spell.  This was not good, “no, no!  Not episkey!” he added, breathing heavily.  He had to talk her down, it was like talking down a terrorist or something, you know, like you saw on those weird muggle shows he read about in his textbooks.  They were like moving, talking pictures about aurors and the things they did.  He would have appreciated the comparison a lot more if he didn’t think both he and Fig were in their final moments.  Breathing slowly enough to now speak, Fred pushed himself up on the couch with one hand, still holding the other out to her, “Isla,” he tried to get her attention again, “go to my dorm,” this was a possibly scarier thing to ask of her, “go to the dorm and in the dresser by my bed – the one with the Piddlehinton postcard on the side table, and grab… my wand.”  He thought the direction was clear enough, “and if you see a blue egg on your way… GRAB IT!” 

Figaro's eyes widened in horror at the sound of her voice.  When he turned to see her, the room around them seemed to fade away in some kind of phantasmagoria trick of the atmosphere.  Isla Spectre was about to aim a wand at his bleeding face.

"Nhgh!" He covered his mouth with one hand, and raised his other in self-defense.

He looked furtively to Fredley for help, and blessedly, St. Fredley was intervening.  It gave Figaro a moment to triage his own face.  His nose was bleeding, but so was his mouth.  He gingerly explored with his tongue. "Hng!"  With a groan he spit a tooth into his hand.

The stars were fading, but everything tasted all iron-y.

"Awthome."

Not episkey? Isla frowned. She had been so certain that was the healing spell.

To be fair, it didn't sound like a healing spell.

'I'm not getting your wand, Fred!" Isla said, "Alistair told me that boys dorms were gross. I'm not falling for that trap." She was so smart today, and she knew it. Nothing was going to crush her spirit. Nothing!

She pointed her ugly, ugly wand at Figaro again. If episkey wasn't the spell, then this one had to be it. It sounded like a legit spell. "Healifors!" Isla said with ill-advised confidence. An aquamarine jet of light made its way towards Figaro, the perpetual victim of circumstance.

He thought he had done it.  He thought he had spared Fig the horror of a spell to the face.  But, like most times and pretty much any situation involving Isla, he was wrong.  So wrong. 

She wasn’t going to go?!  No!  “Isla, no – it’s not that bad, I swear,” he looked around and tried to think of something… anything that might stop her.  “And if you don’t want to… um… you could… why don’t you go get Counselor Maiko… or… or Madame Sage?”  He was going to say go get a prefect, but he was a prefect and clearly he was useless right now. 

So useless that none of the things he offered were acceptable to the redheaded third year.  She raised her wand and announced something that wasn’t even conceivable to Fred – far more terrifying than anything Buster Mastiff was going to do to his face tomorrow, anyway.  Where was that damn egg?! 

The egg became a distant thought though.  “Uh… Isla… you better go get the healer,” he advised, wide eyes trained on Figaro, despite talking to the younger year.  There was a very strange, vibrating bump in the middle of his chest where the spell must have hit.  It was sort of like what you imagined a bump in waterbed would look like under a sheet and there was a sort of faint glow coming up from his collar as it pulsated. “Like… now…” 

"No!"

But Isla had already let off a spell that Figaro had never even heard of, and it hit him in the chest. He held his breath, bracing for whatever horrors were sure to come, but - nothing?

He looked at Isla who was fair and terrifying with that little grin and tilt of the head. He looked at Fredly who was pallid and staring.  Fig followed his gaze back to his own chest.  Which was glowing.

"Okay. This is fine."

It probably was not fine.  He tried not to move or breath. Standing there, his mouth and chin and palms covered in blood, his chest throbbing blue.

"Isla. Yes. Now. Now is good."

If Figaro hadn't been him at this moment, he'd be laughing.  And if he survived this, he wouldn't be him in this moment tomorrow and then he could laugh about it then.