As Long as You're Not Dumbledore's Favorite Student

Putting aside the Weasley twins ' ambitions, they had found their place in the Black family home, as Sirius clearly saw them as the best candidates to inherit his and James's aspirations.

Since Sirius had nothing to do lately and was in a lull waiting for his work assignment, he shared all the ingenious ideas he had come up with with James and Lupin with the Twins without reservation.

"These are some little gadgets we made back then." Sirius poured a bunch of brand-new little things out of a box that had been enchanted with Untraceable Extension Charm. "You can give them a try. After all, our ingenious ideas—let's just say they have some merit."

"Without a doubt." The Weasley twins looked at the messy little things in front of them with shining eyes. "We are now a little regretful—regretful that we were born more than ten years too late. If we could go to school with you, I think Gryffindor would be much more interesting."

"Are there enough Gryffindor points to lose?"

Hermione's voice came from the front door; yes, she had also come to Black family home for a vacation.

"It's okay, we don't have to win the House Cup." Fred whistled at George. "You agree, right?"

George? We've had enough of this.

"Hahahaha—" Sirius laughed and clapped his hands.

George picked up a delicate little pin, examined it closely, and suddenly said to Fred, "Look, Fred, this says ' The Marauders '? That name sounds familiar—have I heard it somewhere before?"

"I remember now!" Fred slapped his thigh. "Remember that map? The Marauders's Marauder's Map? Wasn't it the one with ' Marauders ' written on the title page?"

After Fred's reminder, George also remembered.

"Oh, I remember that map." George chuckled. "God knows how much that map berated us. When we were at our wits' end, Moony always called me a little troublemaker, and Padfoot always said you were rude, right?"

"He's so rude!" Fred retorted. "But they're really geniuses to have made a map like that. I bet they're Hogwarts students."

"Fred! George!" Hermione exclaimed suddenly, "You two know each other!"

"We know each other?" Fred and George asked in unison, then turned around and said in unison, "Miss Granger, we all know you're a know-it-all, but isn't it a bit too much that you both knew about this?"

"What's so scary about that?" Hermione rolled her eyes. "God, those two taught you Defense Against the Dark Arts — Moony is Professor Lupin, and Padfoot is Sirius. Don't you know that?"

The news was so shocking that the Twins were somewhat stunned.

They never imagined that their "idol," whom they had only met once in a long time, was actually right in front of them, even though they were far away.

"Are you serious?" Fred was the first to react, asking repeatedly, "Is Mr. Black really Padfoot?"

Professor Lupin really has Moony?! Merlin's smelliest socks, please tell me this is true!

"Of course." Sirius leaned against the doorframe, striking a very cool pose. "I am Padfoot when we formed the Marauders with Harry's father, that Prongs was James — James Potter."

Sirius was clearly pleased when James was mentioned.

"That's so cool!" Fred whistled, then, as if to rub salt in the wound, asked, "So, the question is, who's Wormtail?"

"It's Pettigrew," Sirius answered without hesitation. "As you can see, he betrayed us—"

"Sorry," the Twins said in unison.

"There's nothing to apologize for, after all, it was a mouse in your house for so many years." Sirius chuckled twice.

The Weasley twins ' faces turned ashen at the mere mention of their pet rat, Scabbers.

but-

Unlike Ron, who slept with the mouse, their greatest hobby was conducting all sorts of experiments on it.

"I should say we miss it," Fred said nostalgically. "We used to have such brilliant ideas..."

They would always steal it from Percy or Ron and use it for experiments. We discovered back then that this guy was incredibly Life Force, but later we learned that it wasn't a mouse at all, but an Animagus.

"Then I have to thank you," Sirius said earnestly. "Thank you for helping me punish this guy when you had nothing else to do."

"Oh, you're thanking me?" Ron said from the side. "You don't know, for a while, that bastard Scabbers would scream and run away whenever he heard their voices. It's obviously left him with a lot of psychological trauma."

Hearing Ron's words, Sirius and the Twins laughed even harder.

"Mom even bought a cat for it," George continued. "That cat was terribly ugly, with a big, ginger-yellow, round face, and its name was Crookshanks— but Mom actually liked it quite a bit, I don't know why."

"Maybe it's because that cat looks like you guys." Ron started verbally attacking his two older brothers.

"Maybe," Fred and George shrugged together.

Life at Black family home was quite good, except that there were always explosions coming from the Twins ' room, and sometimes screams would come from Harry's room.

At first, no one was used to it, but over time they got used to it.

The Twins ' room was filled with long order forms, all recently received from their classmates.

They lived a very free life at the Black family home, where their mother would never suddenly come to check on them and burn all their order forms.

About two weeks later, one morning, Mr. Weasley arrived at Black family home.

"Welcome, Arthur." Sirius and Mr. Weasley gave each other a big hug. "It's so nice to see you—have you eaten yet?"

"We've eaten," said Mr. Weasley. "We need to go buy the tickets now. Remember what we agreed on? I've already told Ludo Bagman about it."

"Will he sell it to us?" Sirius asked.

"Don't worry, Sirius," Mr. Weasley said gently. "Ludo and I get along well, and I like him quite a bit. He's a good friend—I once helped him out with a small matter: his brother got into some trouble—he gave a lawnmower a lot of special abilities—and I fixed the whole thing."

"I see," Sirius nodded and said.

They left in a hurry, and then rushed back.

"Looks like you had a pretty good haul?" Hermione asked, looking up.

"I've booked a top-class box," Sirius said with a chuckle. "Don't worry, it's big enough for all of us, and even if you doubled the number—maybe I can invite Dumbledore to come and watch the game? Oh, and Professor McGonagall too, she loves Quidditch."

"Are you sure Professor McGonagall wants to see you?" Harry bluntly challenged his Godfather.

"You're kidding!" Sirius retorted indignantly, "I'm Professor McGonagall's favorite student, haha!"

Harry thought to himself, "Fine, as long as you're not Dumbledore's favorite student—otherwise, there'll be a pervert from Austria who'll show you what a Black Hand is all about."

"The Quidditch Match is the day after tomorrow," Sirius said again. "Let's pack up and set off together from Black family home— Arthur, you can have the children and Molly meet here; there are plenty of rooms for them."

That makes sense, after all, Black family home was illegally extended using the Untraceable Extension Charm, and the space inside is comparable to a large castle.

"Okay." Mr. Weasley put the tickets back in his pocket. "I'll go get them over right away—and Ludo said he can arrange the tents for us too, which solves a big problem—"

tent?

No one took Mr. Weasley's words lightly; after all, everyone had gained a new understanding of tents after seeing Professor Scamander's tent.

At noon, the Weasley family emerged from the fireplace carrying large bags and bundles.

Mr. Weasley. and Mrs. Weasley were the first to emerge, and they quickly adapted, each hugging Sirius.

Next were Ginny and Percy. Percy was wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and looked somewhat reluctant. He was holding a stack of papers, as if he had something to do.

Finally, there were two red-haired men whom Harry had never seen before, but he could guess that they must be the Weasley family ' eldest and second sons —Bill and Charlie.

"How are you, Harry?"

The brother closest to Harry grinned and stretched out a large, heavy hand.

Harry reached out and shook it, feeling his fingers touching many calluses and blisters.

This must be Charlie, who was studying Fire Dragon in Romania, which is why it's so rough.

Charlie was about the same size as the Twins, but shorter, stouter, and more sturdier than the bean sprout-like Percy and Ron.

He had a broad, weathered face, resembling a kind gentleman, covered with dense freckles that made it appear almost brownish-black.

His arms were muscular, and one arm had a large, shiny burn scar.

Bill also came over, smiled, and shook hands with Harry.

Bill's appearance was somewhat unexpected. Harry knew he worked at Gringotts, the Gringotts, and had been the head of the Hogwarts School of Head Boy when he was a student.

Because of his position as student council president, Harry always thought Bill was a carbon copy of Percy, just a few years older, and equally prone to making a fuss about breaking school rules and liking to give orders to everyone around him.

I only realized today that it wasn't like that. Bill looked incredibly "cool," and he seemed very punk.

He was tall, with long hair tied into a ponytail at the back of his head, and an earring with a small fan-like object hanging from it.

Bill's outfit would have been appropriate even for a rock concert, but Harry noticed that his boots weren't made of cowhide but Dragonhide.

In terms of temperament, Bill is closer to Sirius before the Potter family' tragedy.

"We've finally met, Harry." Bill shook Harry's hand in return. "Thank you so much for taking care of Ron, you know? He could even take me down in a duel."

"It was a sneak attack," Ron added. His respect for his older Bill was clearly greater than his respect for Percy and his Twins brother. After all, Bill really looked like the big brother, both in a blood sense and in a social sense.

"Hahaha," Bill laughed heartily, reaching out to pat Ron on the shoulder.

Before he could speak, Percy interrupted him.

"Excuse me, is there a table here? Merlin, I must continue with my work—"

He was rambling on and on, seemingly talking to someone or to himself, and appeared to be somewhat mentally unstable.

"Over there," Hermione pointed to the Living Room, "There's a table Living Room, you can go there for now."

"What's wrong with him?" Ron asked curiously.

"Write a report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation." Percy interrupted Bill before he could speak, his expression one of pride as if he were undertaking some earth-shattering feat. "This is a task assigned to me by Mr. Crouch. We are preparing to inspect the thickness of the crucibles according to standards. Some imported products have bottoms that are too thin—the leakage rate is increasing at a rate of almost three percent per year."

"That's amazing, this report will change the world," Ron said. "I think the Daily Prophet will have it on the front page: The Cauldron Leaks."

Percy's face flushed red, and he trembled with anger, looking as if he wanted to throw the papers in his hand at Ron's face.

Seeing his expression, Ron readily chose to hide behind Bill.

Percy glared at him, then turned and left.

"He's working for that Old Barty Crouch now," Charlie added in a low voice. "He's practically a Crouch fanatic now, mentioning Mr. Crouch every three sentences, like just now—'This is a task Mr. Crouch gave me.'"

You know what, Charlie imitated Percy's mannerisms perfectly, making the Weasley twins laugh out loud.

"Oh, right." Charlie waved to the Weasley twins.

Seeing the Twins approach, Charlie glanced at their mother, who was chatting with Sirius, and warned in a low voice, "You two better not let your mother find out about your Weasley magical tricks these next few days. She's already discovered the order brought by the owl that Accio into the house, and I can't guarantee what her reaction will be if she sees you still making these little things—"

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