Disclaimer- I don't own HP, if I did, you can bet that Fred and Dobby would have lived. Harry might not have… er, anyway.
A/N- Both the Twins and Filch are among my favorite characters. I first thought of this story while reading HP6, and I thought, hey, that's a fun pairing to read! So I ran over to that section of FFN and only found 1 story. I didn't think that was good, so I wrote my own. I'm going to make this two, maybe three chapters long.
Summary- In exchange for not giving them detention, Fred and George teach Filch a few Muggle magic tricks. Takes place sometime before HP1.
avatarjk137- Thanks for pointing that out to me. The story was in bold because the font I type in is hard to see otherwise. I was going to change it before I posted; I just kinda forgot to. Anyway, that's why I reposted this chapter.
Chapter 1: Of Spatulas, Sporks, and Smoke Bombs
The Weasley twins were standing in a corridor that was emitting multicolored smoke. Actually, what they were doing was more along the lines of 'lurking.' It might seem insane to linger, as doing so could incriminate certain known pranksters, but the twins wanted to see the result of their handiwork… and their shoes had melted to the floor.
"Well, well, well… caught with your hand in the cookie jar, are you?"
Both twins turned, as best as they could, toward the source of the sound. They didn't need to, not really, because they knew the voice quite well already, but nonetheless they looked.
Argus Filch stood behind them, arms crossed and looking rather grumpy. Ms. Norris was slinking behind him, looking both nasty and cross and evil, as she is wont to do.
"Come with me," Filch said, and he grabbed their ears, fully intent on dragging them to his office to hang them by their ankles from the ceiling or menace them with dull sporks or something equally horrible, but found to his surprise that they would not budge.
"I said, COME WITH ME. Now!" Still they would not budge.
"As much as we'd love to come with you to our doom, I'm afraid we can't," said Fred. Maybe. It could have been George.
"You see, Fred and I are in a bit of a pickle," added the other, who was by default George.
"We seem to have melted our shoes to the floor," Fred continued.
"That's why we didn't run," finished George.
Filch sighed and rolled his eyes so much that his head got in on the action and turned to the invisible cameras that he was convinced followed him everywhere. Then he turned to Ms. Norris.
"My dear, would you please go get the spatulas so we can remove these troublemakers from the floor."
Ms. Norris mewed once and darted off around the corner.
"While we're waiting," Filch said in a voice that suggested he was used to this kind of thing, which he probably was, "perhaps you can tell me what happened here. Where did all this smoke come from?"
"You wouldn't believe us if we told you," answered the one who was probably George, but could have been Fred. Filch had forgotten already.
"It's really a funny story now I think about it."
"We were just standing here minding our own business,"
"Innocently as you please,"
At this Filch snorted. He had never known the twins to be innocent.
"More innocent than usual, anyway,"
"When this boy runs up and dumps a load of junk in our arms."
"He told us it was ours as long as we didn't tell who we'd gotten it from,"
"And then he runs off."
"Well now, Freddy and I look over this pile of junk and we realize that it's all Muggle magic tricks,"
"And in it are some smoke bombs for making a grand entrance."
"So we decided to see how they might be useful to use,"
"And while we were heading off to our dorm, Georgie here drops all of the smoke bombs,"
"And they just exploded all over,"
"And melted our shoes to the floor,"
"Which brings us up to where you came in."
Filch was debating the worth of using a Time-Turner to go back and make sure the twins were never born and thus never plagued him when part of their words hit him like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Laughed-At in a bad mood.
"Did you say Muggle magic?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Muggles can't use magic, can they? All the ones who can get sent off to school."
"They can use illusions and sleight of hand, though."
"That's what all the junk was."
"Do you know how to use these… items?" Filch was trying desperately not to look desperate, but it was becoming difficult. These Muggle magic tricks might be just the break he was looking for!
A muffled mewing at his feet drew his attention to Ms. Norris, who was standing there with a silver spatula clamped in her mouth. He took it from her and began the long, arduous task of prying the melted shoes from the floor. Several minutes and an hour later, both Weasleys stood over a breathless Filch, who had half-collapsed, half-sat on the floor upon finishing.
Surprisingly, they both waited patiently for the bitter caretaker to regain his breath before helping him up. Hey, where's the harm in getting on the good side of someone about to punish you? (Not that it worked, of course, as they had so long ago gotten so far onto his bad side that there was no going back.)
Finally, Filch had gotten them to his office and sat them down, where they awaited their doom calmly. He glared at them for some time before finally dropping the façade.
"I'm going to make a deal with you," he said. They immediately looked up in surprise. Filch never made deals. They waited. "This is the deal: you teach me how to use these Muggle magic tricks of yours, and I will skip punishing you."
The twins looked at each other in awe. An uncomfortable silence fell over the three present. It was Fred (or maybe George) who broke this silence.
"Why?"
"What?"
"Why do you want us to teach you these tricks?"
Filch grew very red and mumbled something that sounded like "Onness Mim Ince." As can be expected, neither twin understood this language and rather wondered if perhaps Filch had taken leave of his senses.
"What was that, Mr. Filch? You're mumbling."
"I said, 'I want to impress Madame Pince.' Now are you going to help me or not?"
They exchanged identical grins of… well they weren't completely evil. There was some joy and happiness and maybe some fluffy stuff at the bottom. As if on cue, they jumped up and held out their hands.
"Mr. Filch, you've got a deal!"
Filch took their hands in turn and shook them, immediately wondering if perhaps he had made a grave mistake…