"But in this situation," Victor said with a small smile, "if I go to Snape right now, then yes, I'll probably get punished too."
He looked between the twins calmly.
"But I'm very sure he'd enjoy catching the famous Weasley twins far more."
Fred and George both went quiet for a second.
The worst part was that Victor sounded completely sincere.
George stared at him.
"That is actually terrifying."
Fred slowly shook his head.
"There's definitely something wrong in your head."
Victor didn't deny it.
The twins exchanged another look.
Ron had complained about Victor enough times already for them to know the basics. According to Ron, Victor had "the emotional warmth of a dungeon wall" and smiled like he was planning a funeral.
At the time they thought Ron was being dramatic.
Now they weren't so sure.
Because threatening to hand yourself over to Snape just to make someone else suffer more was not normal behavior.
Victor still looked perfectly relaxed.
"You two should be grateful," he said. "Most people don't get this much effort from me."
Fred looked offended by that sentence alone.
"You sound like a villain from a bad novel."
"And you sound like someone who's about to lose fifty points for Gryffindor," Victor replied.
George immediately stepped forward and pushed the door shut again before Victor could touch it.
"Let's all calm down," he said quickly. "No need to involve Snape in our personal growth tonight."
Victor gave him a long look before finally stepping away from the door.
The twins visibly relaxed after that.
"So tell me," Victor said, looking between the twins, "what exactly are you two doing out at night?"
Fred and George exchanged a glance before answering together with matching confidence.
"Being free."
"No one can take that away from us."
Victor stared at them for a few seconds, clearly deciding whether the answer deserved a response.
"Right," he said at last, sounding unconvinced. "That explains absolutely nothing, but somehow I expected that."
He walked over to the classroom door and unlocked it carefully, opening it just enough to check whether the corridor outside was clear.
Before stepping out, he looked back toward them again.
"And next time you sneak around the castle," he said quietly, "try not to crash into people."
With that, he slipped out into the corridor and disappeared into the darkness almost immediately.
The room stayed quiet after he left, both twins still staring toward the closed door.
Fred folded his arms slowly.
"Ron truly failed to explain how strange that boy is."
George shook his head.
"No, Ron explained it perfectly. We just assumed he was being dramatic like usual."
After another second, George reached into his robes and pulled out an old folded piece of parchment.
Fred's expression brightened slightly at once as he tapped the parchment with his wand.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
Ink spread across the paper instantly, revealing twisting corridors, staircases, classrooms, and tiny moving names all across Hogwarts.
The Marauder's Map.
The twins immediately searched the nearby corridors, expecting to find Victor's name moving away from the classroom.
Instead, they found nothing.
George frowned and checked the surrounding passages again more carefully while Fred scanned the upper floors.
Victor's name wasn't nearby.
Actually, it wasn't anywhere on the map.
The two slowly looked at each other, their earlier amusement fading into confusion.
Fred lowered the map slightly.
"That's… not normal."
George nodded, still staring at the parchment.
"We were literally talking to him thirty seconds ago."
The twins kept staring at the map, checking the nearby corridors again to make sure they hadn't overlooked something. Names moved all across Hogwarts as students wandered between common rooms, staircases, and late-night detentions, but Victor's name was nowhere to be seen.
Fred slowly lowered the parchment while George looked up from it at the same time.
Then both of them grinned.
Interested.
"Well," Fred said, folding his arms, "that's unusual."
George nodded while tapping the edge of the map lightly.
"Very unusual," he agreed. "People don't normally disappear from this thing."
Fred leaned back against one of the desks, clearly entertained now rather than bothered.
"And honestly," he added, "anyone willing to hand themselves over to Snape just to make sure we suffer more deserves investigation."
That earned an immediate nod from George.
"Agreed. That level of pettiness is almost admirable."
Fred snorted.
"Poor Ron."
The twins exchanged another look, both already thinking the same thing.
A mysterious Slytherin sneaking around Hogwarts after curfew was interesting enough.
A mysterious Slytherin who couldn't be tracked on the Marauder's Map?
That was the sort of thing Fred and George Weasley absolutely could not leave alone.
***
The next day, Victor realized he had somehow gained two permanent shadows.
Fred and George Weasley had apparently decided that following him around Hogwarts was now their newest hobby.
Victor saw them near the staircase after breakfast.
Then outside Charms.
Then again near the library pretending to read a history book upside down.
By lunchtime, they had completely stopped acting subtle about it.
When Victor entered the Great Hall and sat near the Slytherin table, he could still feel the twins watching him openly from across the room.
Ron noticed it almost immediately.
He looked from Victor to Fred and George with visible confusion on his face.
"…Why are my brothers staring at you like that?" he asked slowly.
*****
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