There Had to Be Something Under That Turban

When Gavin found the twins, they were studying a candy that hopped into people's boots on its own.

More precisely, Fred was studying it, while George was coming up with possible uses.

"If we put them in the Slytherin changing room—"

"They'd work brilliantly."

"If we put them in Professor Snape's office—"

"The effect wouldn't last as long, but it'd be more memorable."

"If—"

"If you put those in my pocket, I'll consider stuffing both of you into a suit of armor."

The twins turned around together.

When they saw Gavin, their faces took on identical expressions.

It was the welcoming look reserved for "a Hufflepuff who speaks our language and sometimes brings interesting ideas."

Ever since the incident history would remember as the Astronomy Tower explosion, they had been especially fond of Gavin. They agreed that he was a true Gryffindor who had been sorted into Hufflepuff by mistake.

"Gu!"

"Perfect timing!"

"We're discussing a highly educational experiment—"

"On how candy can redefine the footwear experience."

They introduced their latest research in an imitation of the way Gavin usually spoke.

Gavin glanced at the box of bouncing candy and gave it an approving assessment.

"Interesting invention. This makes me think I came to the right people."

"Let's hear it," Fred said, curious.

"We're good at plenty of other things, too," George added.

"Including, but not limited to—"

"Exploring, solving mysteries, inventing things, and helping people with problems!"

The two slapped palms, looking delighted with themselves.

Gavin nodded.

"Then don't you want to know," Gavin said, suddenly lowering his voice, "what's actually under Professor Quirrell's turban?"

The twins' eyes lit up at once.

They had the look of people who had found a kindred spirit.

They had been interested in the professor with the enormous turban for ages. Back at Christmas, they had tried pelting him with snowballs, and had ended up hitting his turban.

The turban had been practically covered in snow, but Quirrell had shown no intention of taking it off. He had simply hurried away as though startled.

Since then, they had been intensely curious about Quirrell's turban. But he was a professor, and they had too many other things to investigate lately, so they had yet to act on it.

"You think so too?" Fred lowered his voice.

"Of course." Gavin nodded. "I think there's something suspicious about him."

Apparently deciding that wasn't convincing enough, Gavin went on.

"When I visited his office the other day, the fire was blazing. He took off his robes, but he still didn't take off the turban."

He made it sound thoroughly mysterious.

And coming from Gavin, it sounded less like a wild guess.

The twins exchanged a glance.

Their unspoken understanding worked perfectly in that moment.

"That makes a lot of sense," George said.

"A tremendous amount of sense," Fred said.

"There must be something under that turban," George concluded.

"Something besides a head, at least," Fred said.

Gavin nodded.

"That's what I think, too. There might even be a face without a nose under there."

And so, with Gavin's gentle encouragement, a schoolyard operation to make Professor Quirrell take off his own turban began.

At first, the twins took a fairly traditional approach.

They tried causing small accidents that weren't dangerous but would leave him flustered.

For their first attempt, they quietly enchanted a hook in a corridor Quirrell used, hoping it would catch his robes and make him stumble enough to loosen his turban.

Quirrell gave a violent start and nearly fell. His robes caught on the hook, but his turban didn't budge. He almost jumped out of his skin.

"That turban's tied on tight," Fred observed regretfully.

For their second attempt, they changed tactics.

They tampered with the doorframe of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. As soon as Quirrell arrived, a sticky lint roller would spring from above and latch on to whatever was on his head.

The roller caught the turban, but Quirrell was left stuck in place as though it had grown out of his head.

In the end, some kindhearted students in the classroom freed him from the lint roller.

But the turban stayed on Quirrell's head the entire time, without shifting an inch.

George couldn't understand it.

"Does that turban grow out of the back of his skull?"

For their third attempt, they decided to be more direct.

As Quirrell passed through a corridor, a bucket of cold water appeared out of nowhere and drenched him from head to toe.

The two culprits watched from hiding, hoping to see him take off the turban himself, until Professor McGonagall caught them.

Professor McGonagall was furious. She took twenty points from each of them and forbade them from playing any more tricks on a professor.

But the two didn't care. All they wanted to know was what was going on with Quirrell's turban.

"Did that turban sign a contract with his scalp?" Fred said in frustration.

"If water didn't work, should we use that?"

George winked at Fred.

"Good idea! We'll use that!"

Fred's eyes lit up at once.

Gavin, who had been listening nearby, asked curiously, "What's 'that'?"

"Dungbombs!"

The twins immediately showed a touch of professional pride.

"A classic product," Fred said.

"Widely loved," George said.

"Sure, they smell—"

"But that's the whole point."

So Quirrell suffered a Dungbomb attack one day. One struck the back of his head squarely, and the smell kept every student at least a dozen meters away. Yet, unsurprisingly, even then Quirrell did not take off his turban.

Interestingly, when Gavin caught a whiff of it from afar, his verdict was:

"I've smelled worse."

The twins both looked at him skeptically, as if to say, Do you have any taste at all?

That stung a little.

After all, when it came to smell-based weapons, the twins had considerable confidence in their carefully selected products. And Gavin's verdict was merely that he'd smelled worse.

"Have you got something better?" George asked, raising an eyebrow.

Gavin glanced at them.

The next day, in a well-hidden corner, the twins received two boxes of "strategic supplies" from their classmate Gu.

Two tins of fermented herring.

One tin of pickled auk.

The packaging was plain, but it was clearly not from the wizarding world.

Three seconds after opening the first tin, Fred took half a step back, his expression a sight to behold.

"...What kind of Forbidden Curse-level weapon is this?"

George pinched his nose.

"I'm starting to understand why Gu wasn't impressed by Dungbombs."

Over the next few days, Professor Quirrell's life became visibly more difficult.

First, someone slipped a little juice from the fermented herring into the gap under his office door. There wasn't much, but it was enough to fill the room within half an hour with a smell suggesting a sea creature had died peacefully inside it seven days earlier.

The moment Quirrell opened the door, his face went pale.

Later, someone smeared a little pickled auk brine beneath his lectern. No one would normally look down there, but after the professor had stood there teaching for a full lesson, the smell would slowly creep upward like a grudge rising from the depths of the North Sea.

Quirrell himself was clearly at the end of his rope.

He had always been nervous, and now he had another ongoing torment:

He never knew whether the next bizarre stench he smelled would come from the floor, the lectern, the corridor, the gap beneath a door, or—

The lingering smell of Dungbomb on his own turban.

A few times, the twins even saw him reach for his turban.

After hearing their progress report, Gavin gave an impartial assessment.

"Good results."

"Mainly because the ingredients are excellent," Fred said.

"We've decided to make this a new product line," George said.

"We've already thought of names—"

"Auk's Fury."

"Or Herring's Revenge."

"Both have great market potential."

Gavin nodded.

"Don't forget my share of the profits."

The twins grinned with satisfaction.

Clearly, their little campaign against Quirrell's turban had become exactly their kind of fun.

Meanwhile, Quidditch rumors began spreading wildly through the school.

This time, the first thing to circulate wasn't the usual trash talk between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. It was something else:

Professor Snape might referee the match.

As soon as the news broke, the mood in Gryffindor visibly sank.

Harry took it especially hard.

By now, he trusted Snape about as much as he trusted Uncle Vernon—

Which was to say, not at all.

The moment he heard Snape might be the referee, he looked thoroughly miserable.

The twins weren't happy either.

"We're doomed," Fred said.

"The fairness of this match is already in free fall," George said.

"If he makes calls against us—"

"Then afterward, we'll have to discuss how to make the referee's stand smell like pickled auk."

Hufflepuff's reaction, by contrast, was more nuanced.

Cedric made no public comment. Now that he had a Nimbus 2000, he was in a mysterious state of confidence that amounted to, "As long as the match isn't canceled, I can outfly anyone." The other players were more concerned that if Snape really did referee, the whole match would feel like a gloomy underground classroom.

On the day of the match, Harry and the twins still wore expressions that said they expected a rough time.

But when everyone reached the pitch, they discovered something was off.

Snape wasn't there with a broom, ready to referee.

Madam Hooch was still the referee.

The referee's position was clear, without a black robe in sight.

"...Wait," Ron said, taken aback. "Where's Snape?"

Harry looked startled too.

The twins let out such enormous sighs of relief that their shoulders visibly dropped.

"Thank goodness."

"The world hasn't completely lost all order."

Standing beside the Hufflepuff stands, Gavin was the most surprised of all.

Because this wasn't right.

According to the original story, Snape was supposed to be here for this match. At least, as Gavin remembered it, Snape should already have entered a phase of intense vigilance: "I need to keep an eye on Potter myself in case someone curses him to death on the pitch."

But he hadn't come.

Did the plot change?

That was Gavin's first thought.

Then he rapidly ran through everything he had done lately.

Had he interacted with Snape?

No.

Had he directly interfered with anything involving the Quidditch referee?

No again.

The only thing that had really changed was—

Quirrell had been looking pretty rough lately, thanks to the twins.

At that thought, Gavin's eyes flickered.

No way.

Could it be that Quirrell had simply been having such a miserable time lately, and Snape had been tied up with something else?

It wasn't entirely impossible.

While everyone else was still surprised that Snape hadn't shown up, Ron noticed something else.

"Professor Quirrell isn't here either," he said.

The people beside him didn't catch on at first.

But Ron was already frowning.

Lately, thanks to his twin brothers, he had developed a complicated sort of sympathy for Professor Quirrell.

"...Honestly," Ron muttered, "I kind of feel sorry for him these days."

Harry turned to look at him.

"Sorry for him?"

"Haven't you noticed?" Ron said. "He always looks like he's smelled something weird lately."

At that, the twins both looked away in perfect unison.

Before long, the wind was whipping across the stands, the flags snapping in the air. The players had begun filing onto the field, but Gavin stood where he was, lost in thought.