I give you - Weasley!

George shook his head resignedly and pointed to the middle of the Blackboard.

There was a message written in big crimson letters : To all Gryffindor students ! As you may know, three ofour excellent Quidditch players, Maureen Tressle, Gina Perry and Lawrence Shue graduated last year.
Therefore it is my duty to announce that there are now free places for one Chaser and two Beaters. Every second- year and above can apply. The selection will take place on Saturday, September 14^th. Nothing but brooms required.
by Oliver Wood, Gryffindor Quidditch Captain
 
Fred became ecstatic. "Great! We’re going to be Beaters for Gryffindor!" he shouted and patted George’s shoulder.

His twin looked thoughtful. "Fred, second-years and ABOVE can apply, which means that we would be two of the youngest. And you know, our Cleansweep Fives aren’t really good. In fact they’re totally rubbish."

George sighed. He loved Quidditch and he would absolutely love to play a Beater in the Gryffindor House Team, but it was as if a lizard wanted to fight dinosaurs. They were both reptiles, but the lizard would never have a chance to conquer a dinosaur.
Well, maybe thatwasn’t a good comparison.

Let’s just say that a sparrow couldn’t fight a hawk.

And when you compared a Cleansweep 5 with a Comet 260 or maybe a Nimbus 900, you really got the feeling of comparing a sparrow with a hawk.

Fred knew that, too. But he didn’t want to give up so easily.

"Yeah, we would be two of the youngest, so what? Charlie also started in the Team when he was in his second year, didn’t he? AND he had a Cleansweep TWO!" he told his brother impatiently.

George answered gloomily, "That was ages ago. Besides, he got a Comet 240 when he started to play in the Team!"
 
But now Fred played his ace. He wanted to get on the Team and he would get on it!

"George, you prat, what are we wizards for? There is certainly a spell or something that would improve the skills of our broomsticks, don’t you think so?"

George’s face brightened. "You’ve got a point, bro’. Let’s go to the library."

Fred grimaced. "Eeew, library. Why can’t we just ask somebody? Besides, we’ve got a week’s time!"

"D’ya think I love it there? But if we really want to become Beaters, we must do something for it. And we can’t ask anybody because then other people could start to improve their brooms too. We don’t need that."

"Ok, OK, you’re right." Fred sighed and followed his brother to the library, picturing them both holding the Quidditch Cup with the other team members and the Gryffindors cheering…

* * * * *

 
With the help of books …

It was Monday evening.

The twins weren’t about to play a joke on somebody.

But that wasn’t the weirdest thing at all.
 
Fred and George Weasley were sitting in the library leafing through books!

Miranda Celliar, a third-year Hufflepuff, had spotted them there around six o’clock. At six twenty Madam Pomfrey had to diagnose hyperventilating, paleness and trembling on her.

But whether the reason was the extra-hot chili dinner or the sight of the twins in the library, had remained an unsolved mystery.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only problem that had remained unsolved.

Fred and George were sitting at a table, bending over some books, fume coming out of their ears.

No, they were neither very furious nor exceptionally exhausted, they just had been cheering themselves up a bit – with Pepperup candy. And that candy tended to cause some minor side effects when one consumed too much of it.

George slammed the "Big Book for the Best Brooms" shut and sighed.

That had been definitively a mistake.

Fred put the fire out, using a small amount of water that came out of his wand and frowned.

"I TOLD you! No sighing, laughing, coughing nor sneezing for two hours!"

"Sorry, bro’. I’m just so depressed. We’ve been hanging around in here for almost three days now and we still haven’t found anything! I’m not feeling very well. It’s this place – bad vibrations or something …"

Suddenly Fred went rigid and then started leafing through a book, muttering madly " 207, 207, 207, …"

He pointed at page 207 and yelled on top of his lungs.

"Yeah, this is it! Accelerating Charm! We’re gonna be…"

He got cut off all out of sudden.

"You are going to be nothing but thrown out of here it you continue shouting like that! This is a library, not a Quidditch pitch!" bellowed Mrs. Pince, the librarian.

The twins gave her two identical innocent smiles.

"Sorry, Mrs. Pince!" they said in unison. The librarian shot them a sharp look and then returned to her work.

George bent over to Fred and – no, he just managed to stop himself from sighing.

Fred had indeed found an Accelerating Charm, but there was a problem.

Beneath the description there was a warning, written in big red letters: ATTENTION! USE THE ACCELERATION CHARM ONLY ON HUMANS! DO NOT USE IT ON OBJECTS – IT MAY HAVE FATAL RESULTS!

Fred frowned once again.

"Fatal results? Rubbish! What should possibly go wrong?" he spat angrily.

"Maybe they just want to avoid objects zooming through the air by themselves," replied George wearily and returned to his book "A Guide to Winners" by Uli the Unsuccessful.

The twins got absorbed with their books a few minutes after the incident.

Suddenly George looked up, wearing a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Fred? Hey, Fred!"

His brother glanced at him, grinning, "I didn’t know what sort of things you can do with a broomstick…" he said.

George rolled his eyes. "What I wanted to say, and now that your mind is on the right topic again, I may start as well...."

"Spit it out, Forge!" said Fred good-humoredly. He actually seemed to have found a book that interested him.

"OK, the point is that I think we’re trying to solve the problem in a wrong way. By now, we’ve only thought of an Accelerating spell! But wouldn’t it be more effective with an Accelerating potion?"

"You mean, like a polish or something?"

"Exactly, bro’, you’re getting the point."

Fred nodded slowly.

"Yeah, that could work. Now we just have to find such a potion, its ingredients and brew it."

"Let’s start with the potion search, OK? Minor details will be considered after that."

"For once, I agree."

It seemed like George’s suggestion hadn’t been bad. After two hours of exhausting search (and some exciting moments when they were sneaking into the Restricted Section ), the twins finally found what they had been looking for.

Hastily, they copied the ingredients and the description of brewing out of "Cheats and Fiddles" by Li R. Ruin.

The potion itself wasn’t complicated to brew and the ingredients weren’t difficult to get, which was a big relief to the twins.

"Luckily, it’s not that difficult. At least SOMETHING goes well these days." Fred commented as he and George were standing in an old classroom next to the nearly finished potion.

After a few minutes, they filled it into a small bottle and headed for the Gryffindor Tower.

"The potion works only for an hour. That means we will have to put it onto the brooms right before the selection starts," mused George.

"Yeah. Do you know how the future players will be selected?" Fred asked eagerly.

George made an uncertain gesture.

"Hm. I’ve heard something about a race on a special route made by Wood, but I’m not sure. He’s being keeping it quiet."

"Well, we’ll see on Saturday."

"Yeah. Let’s do some practice then."

"Actually, that’s not a bad idea. How soothing to have such a bright brother like you are…"

Fred grinned as George hit him playfully and the twins started walking down to the Quidditch pitch, now with uplifted spirits.
 
More chapters shall follow...