Trial and Error

Percy Weasley descended the stairs bright and early Friday morning. His hair was perfectly combed, his robes were free of lint and dust, and his teeth were shining. His appearance was perfect down to the last detail. Naturally, he was on high alert for Fred and George. Those two were always right around the corner, waiting to ruin his day.

Instead of his brothers, it was their new partner in crime that he found waiting for him in the Common Room. She was in plain sight, which was reassuring, as was the fact that he had never actually caught them working together. Nevertheless, Percy was still certain that Peta-Lorrum and the Twins were scheming during meals, or swapping notes at the very least. Whatever it was that they always did, it gave him a horrible feeling.

"Salutations, Percy!" Rose greeted him. "Would you please help me with something?"

That was a trap if he had ever heard one, but Percy was still a prefect, and a student in need of help was still a student in need of help.

"How can I help you?" Percy asked authoritatively.

"I assume, as a prefect, you know about the spell active on the girls' stairs?"

Percy slowly nodded his head. "I do. Why?"

"I was wondering how it worked. Alex said that the stairs turned into a slide, but it didn't make sense for all of the stairs to turn into a slide. I mean, if a boy accidentally went up the stairs, then every girl on the stairs would tumble down and most likely fall on the boy."

"Which is why we don't tell the boys about it. The boys could easily stop one of the girls from reaching the safety of their rooms."

"But they're going to figure it out eventually, aren't they? We are in the think-first-ask-questions-later house! I'm sure Fred and George have already figured it out!"

Percy opened his mouth to argue, but closed it when he realized that she had a good point. How had more of the boys not figured it out yet? He hadn't known about the stairs until Professor McGonagall had told him during orientation in September, but he was respectful and always gave women their space. But most of the Gryffindors were more like the Twins than Percy. They were rash and impulsive, not responsible and respectful like him.

Then the answer occurred to him: Harassing the girls would mean incurring the wrath of Professor McGonagall, and no one wanted that. Sure, half the Gryffindors were scared of Professor Snape, but they knew that outside of Potions, they could hide behind Professor McGonagall. They could not do the same against their head of house, who accepted nothing but the best from each and every Gryffindor student (Or in the case of the Twins, she took what she could get).

"If a boy were to try to climb the stairs," Percy began. "Then he would undoubtedly be reported by one of the prefects, all of whom sleep on the first few floors. So assuming that he could ascend the stairs, he would have to sneak past them, in addition to the rest of the students. If he gets caught, then he will be reported to the prefects, who will not only dock points, but report him to Professor McGonagall, of whom most students are afraid."

"Yeah, she is kinda scary when she's mad," Rose said. "She reminds me of Carolina like that."

"Who's Carolina?" Percy asked. Percy was aware that she was distracting him from making his rounds, but the stories that Peta-Lorrum made up were interesting.

"My brother's girlfriend," Rose replied. "Well, they deny it, but I'm fairly certain that they're in some sort of secret relationship."

"And what does this have to do with Professor McGonagall?" asked Percy impatiently.

"You know how Professor McGonagall has this death glare she gives your brothers?"

"I know it very well."

"Carolina has an almost identical glare. I don't even know how she does it! It's not like she puts ranks into Intimidate! I think she gets a circumstance bonus to Intimidate checks against people who are acting like children." Rose cocked her head. "Come to think of it, I think she gets a bonus on all Charisma checks and Charisma-based skill checks when dealing with people who are acting like children."

Percy nodded. He might have found it more difficult to believe that there existed a person that was just as intimidating as Professor McGonagall, except that his mother could be just as terrifying if she so chose. Neither woman was particularly keen on glaring at Percy, as he was careful to always follow the rules, but having seen both women when they stared down Fred and George, he decided that he was quite comfortable with only his second-hand experience.

"If that is all, Ms. Peta-Lorrum, then I need to be–"

"Just one more question! What if a girl tried to do the same thing to the boys? Chase after them, I mean. Is there a similar enchantment on the boys' rooms?"

"No, since that doesn't happen as often. Men tend to be more aggressive than women."

"Really?" asked Rose. "Are you sure? All the women I know are way more aggressive than the men."

Percy eyed her. "I'm not sure what you mean, but–"

"My best friend Shadow doesn't mind the odd kill, Carolina has been known to throw people out of windows, and my sister Alice carries around a battleaxe."

Percy blinked. He wasn't sure which part concerned him more: The assassin best friend, the defenestrating woman, the sister with the battleaxe, or the little girl standing in front of him who imagined all of them.

"I mean–" Percy cleared his throat to stall whilst he collected his thoughts. "I mean that when it comes to the opposite gender, men tend to be more aggressive."

"Huh," Rose said, thinking about the boys she knew. "I'm not sure–"

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to make my morning rounds."

"Okay!" Rose beamed. "Thank you, Percy!"

"You're welcome," Percy replied, stepping through the portrait.

Rose turned to look at the stairs.

"He didn't really help me as much as I'd have liked," she said. "Oh well! First test!"

Rose activated her shapechange ability, and took the form of Percy. She/he then attempted to walk up the stairs which, true to the words of Alex and Percy, turned into a slide. Percy!Rose returned to her normal form as she slid down, and the stairs reverted back into stairs.

"Alright, so it is physical appearance," Rose said, making a note in her notebook. "Next question, does it only work on Humans?"

She activated shapechange again, this time taking a different form. Crimson hair began to sprout from her skin, and there was a series of crunching noises as her bones realigned themselves. She, along with her cloak and all of her equipment, began to shrink. Magic items automatically resized themselves to fit the wearer, and shapechange allowed any equipment to stay with her that would still fit. Thus, she would retain all magic items on her person when using shapechange, regardless of what form she took. Including a crimson red cat.

Of course, even as a cat, Rose retained her keen, analytical, not to mention insightful mind.

<I'm a kitty!> she told Reflectesalon.

<Confirmed; you are a feline.>

Rose, now in the form of a male cat, began to leisurely stroll up the stairs. This time, the stairs did not revert into a slide, but instead remained as stairs.

Satisfied with her results, Cat!Rose trotted back down the stairs, and began the change back to her Human form. Each alteration with Shapechange only took a few seconds, but it was always accompanied by gruesome visual and sound effects. She and Sk'lar had looked it up once, and found that Professor Applegate, who had invented the shapechange spell, was never able to silence those sound effects, nor was she ever able to regulate the process. As a result, you ended up with the potential to have your skeleton change before your flesh caught up with it. Having had it persisted on her for over a year, Rose had grown accustomed to the quirks of the spell.

"Alright, so it only reverts to a slide if a Human male walks up it," Rose said. "Now, does he have to walk up it?"

Rose looked around, then took a different form. The first change was her height. She grew about a foot, and then her hair began to turn black. Her figure changed, until finally she had taken the form of Professor Snape.

"Now then," Snape!Rose said as her/his feet lifted off the ground. "Let's find out, shall we?"

Snape!Rose floated up the stairs, and as Rose had anticipated, they did not turn into a slide.

Rose took her normal form, just as the Weasley Twins crawled through the portrait.

"Was your hair black just now?" Fred asked.

"Nope!" Rose replied. "I was just running some tests on the girls' stairs. I take it you know about the enchantment?"

"Of course!" George said.

"Figured it out in our first year," added Fred.

"It turns into a slide if a boy tries to walk up," George said.

"We wanted to know if the girls' rooms were just like the boys'."

"Boy, were we surprised when we started tumbling down!"

"Did you know that you can fly up them?" Rose asked.

"We had thought about that."

"But how would we get a broom in here?"

"Right, you lot need brooms to fly, don't you?" Rose said.

"Don't you?" asked Fred.

Rose thought about how to reply, which on its own was a new concept to her. She reckoned that she no longer needed to hide her talents to stop from being expelled, but she also didn't want the attention that they'd bring her. Then again, these were the Weasley Twins, and they had secrets of their own.

"No, but that's a secret," she said in a hushed voice. She looked from side to side, an action mimicked by the Twins. She looked at them and brought her finger to her lips. "Shh!"

"We won't tell a soul!" George said.

"Just so long as you tell us how you're managing it!"

"Stormrage," she said. "Eighth-level, personal target spell. Combines fly, wind wall, and allows me to shoot lightning bolts out of my eyes. I'm also immune to any natural, wind-based effects."

"You're making that up!" said Fred. He and George both knew that she wasn't, but they really wanted to see her shoot lightning bolts from her eyes, a desire that was relayed to Rose by Reflectesalon.

Rose turned her head towards the fire place, and, sure enough, a bolt of lightning lanced out of either eye, joining into a single bolt before striking the wood in the fireplace. She turned back to the twins, who were grinning from ear to ear.

"That was cool," said George.

"Can you show us how to do that?" asked Fred.

"Not easily, I'm afraid," Rose said. "I've only got it because it's persistable, but being an eighth-level spell, it's incredibly resource draining to make an item of it. Especially a continuous one. I might be able to make you boys something that just lets you shoot lightning, but I couldn't easily make the whole package." Before they asked her to explain further, which she didn't feel like doing at the moment, she changed the subject. "What were you two doing out this early?"

"Absolutely nothing!" both of the boys said.

<They tilted most of the portraits on their brother's route,> Reflectesalon informed Rose.

Rose grinned. "I can top that," she told the Twins and Reflectesalon.

That afternoon after lunch, Rose and her band of first-years went up to the seventh floor for the first of the elective seminars. Hermione nearly ran the whole way, followed by Rose, who was skipping. The pace set by the two girls forced the boys and Sally-Anne to trot to keep up with them.

"Does she always skip?" panted Ron.

"Not always," replied Sally-Anne, "but nearly."

When they arrived at classroom 7A, Hermione briskly walked in and took a seat in the front row of the classroom. Rose sat next to her, followed by a slightly worn out Sally-Anne. Harry and Ron took seats behind the girls.

Over the next few minutes, several other students filed into the classroom. Unfortunately, amongst the newcomers were Draco Malfoy and his two goons whose names Rose didn't care to memorize.

"My name is Professor Vector," the woman at the front said. "As some of you may be aware, I teach Arithmancy here at Hogwarts. All of you that showed up are probably planning on taking my class, and for that, I commend you. Many of your older classmates will tell you that Arithmancy is the most difficult class offered at Hogwarts. Personally, I always thought that was History of Magic, because no matter how hard I tried, I could never stay awake."

That got a few snickers out of the class.

"Arithmancy makes use of maths to analyse spells. Using it, one can deconstruct a spell into its base components, or create an entirely new one."

Septima looked out over the faces of the students, attempting to gauge their reactions. Of interest were a few Gryffindor girls in the front row. Two of them looked ecstatic, while the third girl looked mildly interested at best. What concerned Septima the most was that one of the three Gryffindor girls had crimson hair.

This must be Rose Peta-Lorrum.

"Now, I'm going to give a few maths problems to check your current level of understanding." She began to write on the chalkboard. "Unfortunately, with no core maths curriculum, students begin Arithmancy at a variety of skill levels." She wrote out the problem 467 x 32. Septima thought it might be a bit much, but she had found it to be more encouraging to the students to start with a problem that took the smarter students (pronounced "Ravenclaws") longer to solve. That way, the rest of the class at least gave it a shot, instead of assuming that they wouldn't be able to solve it before the smart students (again, Ravenclaws). "Take your time with–"

The girl that Septima was fairly certain was Peta-Lorrum raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss…?"

"Rose Peta-Lorrum, and the answer is 14,944."

It is her. Septima looked down at her notebook. The girl was correct. How'd she solve it so fast?

"That's… correct." Septima regained her composure. "Two points to Gryffindor."

Septima decided to try a harder problem, so she wrote out 74 on the board, and Peta-Lorrum's hand once again went up.

"Ms. Peta-Lorrum, I rarely have to say this, but please give someone else a chance."

The girl lowered her hand. After a moment, the girl with the bushy hair sitting next to Peta-Lorrum raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss…?"

"Hermione Granger, Ma'am. 2,401."

"Very good, another two points for Gryffindor," she said, erasing the board. She wrote 714 / 17.

Peta-Lorrum's hand went up again.

"Ms. Peta-Lorrum," Septima began, "Ms. Granger," she added after Granger's hand went up again, "let's give the men a chance. I'm sure your housemates are more than capable of securing more points for Gryffindor."

They heard snickering from the back of the class.

Septima looked towards the source of the sound, and thought for a moment that she must have been hallucinating. It looked like Lucius Malfoy was sitting in her classroom once again, but then she remembered that his progeny/clone was now attending Hogwarts.

"You must be Draco Malfoy. I take it you have the answer?"

"Obviously," he boasted. "It's…" The Slytherin paused for a moment, apparently attempting to do the work in his head. "697!"

Rose and Hermione smiled, both trying hard not to laugh.

"Incorrect, Mr. Malfoy, that is a division symbol, not a subtraction symbol," Septima chastised. Your father made the same mistake on his first day. "Ms. Granger, would you care to enlighten Mr. Malfoy as to the correct answer?"

"It's 42, Ma'am."

"Very good."

Rose heard Draco mutter "Filthy Mudblood" under his breath from behind her. Rose didn't know how, but Professor Vector heard it too.

"Mr. Malfoy," Professor Vector said sternly. She pointed at the door. "Five points from Slytherin, and there's the door! Next time I hear you use that word in my classroom, you will be going through it. One way or another."

"I didn't do anything!"

"Five more points from Slytherin for lying. Do not think that simply because I was in Slytherin that you will receive special treatment."

It was at that moment that Rose decided that she liked this professor.

By the end of the seminar, Rose was certain that Hermione was pushing herself harder than normal. Being unable to receive Hermione's thoughts, she made a note to ask Hermione why.

As the other students got up to leave, Hermione approached Professor Vector.

"Professor Vector?"

"Ms. Granger, how may I help you?"

"I was wondering… er… I heard that sometimes students can test into classes early… and…"

"And you'd like to try to test into Arithmancy early," Professor Vector finished for her.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"As you may have heard, I prefer not to allow students to test in early," Professor Vector replied.

"Oh," Hermione replied, looking down.

"But, you have displayed significant talent, Ms. Granger. If you'd like, next term we can work on an independent study. Depending on how you do, I will sign off on you taking Arithmancy a year early."

Hermione's entire face lit up. "Really?"

"Of course," Professor Vector replied. "Any of you are welcome to try as well."

That was a bluff, but Septima knew the reputation that Arithmancy had. Not only did most Gryffindor first-years not want more work than they already had, but they certainly didn't want to be doing–

"Really?!" exclaimed Peta-Lorrum.

Damn!

"If you'd like, Ms. Peta-Lorrum, I can certainly make room," Septima said, not skipping a beat.

Rose opened her mouth to say 'yes', but then caught a glimpse of Hermione out of the corner of her eye. Her friend looked a little upset.

<She feels as if you are taking maths away from her,> Reflectesalon told Rose. <It's the only subject at which she thought she could outdo you, and she is unaccustomed to being shown up by another student so easily. You already shine in every other class, thus it is upsetting her that you are able to come up with the answers more quickly than she.>

<That's why she was pushing herself to answer the questions before me.>

Rose thought about it for a moment. Artificing was already her thing, but this was maths. This was apparently Hermione's thing, and Rose knew that if you started outshining the other party members, then the other party members started to hate you. Hermione was Rose's best friend on this plane, so that was the last thing she wanted.

"On second thought," Rose said. "I think I'll pass. It sounds like a lot of effort."

Hermione smiled a little, and Septima caught herself before she breathed a sigh of relief.

<Thanks, Ref,> Rose pathed to her item familiar. <Hold on, didn't I tell you not to relay Hermione's thoughts to me anymore?>

<You did, however I was following the 'importance' clause of our arrangement. I deemed her distress as important, and thus relayed it to you.>

<Oh. Okay!>

"Professor Vector?"

"Yes, Ms. Peta-Lorrum?"

"How'd you hear Draco all the way in the back? I barely heard him, and I got a 61 on Perception."

"Several years back, I put an enchantment on my classroom that allows me to hear when students are swearing in it, or using other profane language. Racial slurs, of course, fall into that category."

Rose grinned. "Nice! My brother, Sk'lar, had a similar idea about a sort of alarm system to let him know when a student was in trouble. That way, students wouldn't get bullied so much, since the professors would be able to step in immediately."

"That is an interesting idea. Now if I may ask you a question," Although if Severus and Minerva are to be believed, I will surely regret it, "how were you able to solve those problems so quickly?"

"An Int score of 40 certainly doesn't hurt, but you learn to be quick about computations when adventurers walk into your shop asking for some custom item, forcing you to compute the cost in your head. You've also got to be quick, so they don't get bored waiting and go find someone else to make it for them."

"Of course," Septima said. "Ms. Granger, I will be in touch with you about further examination later this term. Until then, all of you, take care."

They had just left the classroom, when they heard a familiar voice.

"You think you're so smart, don't you, mudbloods!"

Rose sighed. "Gonna try to scare us, Drakey?"

Ron snickered at the name 'Drakey'.

"Little disappointed to see you here, Potter. Since when do you hang out with the freaks?"

"It was right around the time that a troll made you scream like a little girl!" Ron replied.

Rose could almost hear Bowie shouting "Oh! Shots fired!"

Malfoy glared at the five of them. His hand began to inch towards his wand.

"Before doing anything you regret, Mr. Malfoy," came a voice from behind him, "I'd like to remind you that using magic in the hallways is strictly forbidden."

He turned around to see Professor Vector standing behind him, arms crossed.

"I was doing nothing of the sort!" Draco exclaimed.

"He just wanted us to share our secrets with him," came an annoying voice from beside him. Draco felt a hand on his shoulder, and realized that Peta-Lorrum had put her arm around him. "That way he can make sure to do better when he actually takes the class in two years."

Septima looked at the students in front of her. Malfoy was positively fuming; Septima almost thought she saw smoke coming out of his ears.

Malfoy pushed past Rose, his goons hot on his trail. They walked past the other Gryffindors, who parted to let him through.

"Thank you, Professor!" Rose exclaimed.

"No need to thank me, Ms. Peta-Lorrum," Professor Vector replied. "It's my job as a professor to help the students."

"Does Snape know that?" muttered Ron.

"Mr. Weasley, despite my age, my ears work perfectly fine," Professor Vector said. "Five points from Gryffindor, and for future reference, the proper form of address is Professor Snape."

Ron's face turned a shade of red that almost matched his hair.

"Now if you'll all excuse me, I've got work to do," Professor Vector said, turning back towards her classroom. "Have a good afternoon."

"See ya later, Professor!" Rose called after her.

She turned back to her friends.

"I like her. She's funny."

Rose was in the Room of Requirement early the next morning. Her persisted spells were going to wear off soon, which was precisely why she was there. She had reduced her XP expenditure earlier in the year, but even with her it as low as it was, it would never survive a time skip. Even just a single month would cost her 675 XP, and that wasn't including any XP she had to expend for Serendipity. She needed help, and there was one person she knew that knew her craft better than she did.

<Get it? Craft? Because I'm an Artificer?> she asked Reflectesalon.

<You may recall that I do not have a sense of humor.>

<Yeah, you're no fun.> Rose made a note to relay the craft pun to Bowie, then sent a message to Professor Ozerl.

<Uncle Oz! Are you there?! Eom.>

<Good to hear from you Rose. How has your time at Hogwarts been? Eom.>

<I killed a giant!>

<So I heard. I trust you are well?>

<Yup! I just wanted to ask you something.>

<Go right ahead.>

<You've got a million spells persisted on you, right?>

<Far less than a million, Rose.>

<But a lot of spells.>

<Correct.>

<How do you do that? I'm burning through XP every other day to keep it up.>

<Ah, power surge.>

<Yup!>

<My solution is related to my recommendation that you cast shapechange at 22nd level.>

So it's something with 22 hit dice, Rose thought.

She ran through every monster of which she could think that had 22 hit dice. As each one took center stage in her mind, she recited the statistics of that monster. After about 30 seconds, she got her answer.

<Solar Angel.>

<Why?> Oz asked her. She could hear in his "voice" that he knew she had figured it out.

It was always this way with her uncle. He could just tell her the answer, but then she wouldn't learn anything. Some teachers stopped being teachers when they were off duty; Professor Ozerl believed that he always had more to teach, and even more to learn.

<They get wish as a spell-like ability once per day. I can use that to recharge my Staff of Power Surge at the start of the day.>

<Precisely.>

<Thanks, Uncle Oz!>

<Anytime, Rose. Oz out.>

<Rose out.>

Rose began to plan. First, she needed to verify that she could in fact use wish to restore the Staff of Power Surge. In theory it worked, but it seemed so broken that she was almost certain that it wouldn't work as expected. Even if it didn't, she wanted some new spells on the staff.

Rose power surged Serendipity, then went to work. She specifically wasn't using her thought bottle, as she figured it would please the Distressing Meddler more if she burned off some of her XP. She had plenty to spare at the moment, so she figured it would be fine for now.

"I wish the Staff of Power Surge had Greater Arcane Sight and Veil of Undeath."

She felt weak as the XP was drained out of her, but she stayed standing, comforted by the thought that the feeling would soon pass.

"Greater Blindsight."

Rose tapped Serendipity to her own forehead, and felt the effects of the spell.

"Permanency."

She had one charge on Serendipity left, and Rose had a few ideas for its purpose. One idea she had was to upgrade her gloves, but there was a possibility that she would pass out if she did. While technically XP deprivation was only role-playing, she got XP from role-playing it. Or at least, she thought she did. Rose had a long list of other items she was planning on making, and experiments that she wanted to try. Since the experiments were all items that didn't already exist, she couldn't reliably use Serendipity to create them. Instead, she was going with another idea she had that would allow her to further compete with the Twins in their implicit prank war.

Rose grinned, and discharged the final wish.

"I wish the Ruby Amulet was also a collar of perpetual attendance."

Her amulet glowed as the final charge was expended to improve it.

"Alright, now the moment for which we have all been waiting," she said to Inar, Reflectesalon, and Intelligencer. Rose began her normal morning routine, but this time she actually expended the charges from the Staff of Power Surge. If this didn't work for some reason, then she could always just keep doing what she had been doing originally, with no penalty. Either way, it would certainly be interesting to see if this worked.

After persisting each of the spells on herself, she activated her shapechange ability. She felt herself growing taller, and saw her skin turning gray. There was a series of sickening crunches as her bones realigned themselves, and she saw a pair of wings sprout from her back. Or, the skeleton of the wings, which was quickly covered in pink flesh. From this, feathers began to sprout, until finally, she finished her transformation.

"I wish the Staff of Power Surge had fifty charges on it."

Rose saw the staff glow in her hands, and felt the warmth of a recharging staff. Since she was using wish as a spell-like ability, she did not expend any of her own resources recharging the staff. It had worked. She was able to recharge the Staff of Power Surge as a solar angel.

Grinning, she reverted back to her "normal" form, then looked in a mirror to see the effects of her new spells. Her skin was now chalky white, a result of veil of undeath, and her eyes were sea-green rather than green, tinted blue by greater arcane sight.

"Perfect."

"Hey, Rose– WHOA!" Ron shouted at breakfast. "What happened to your face?!"

"What?!" Rose gasped, running her hands over her face. "What happened?! Is it bad?!"

"Rose, why is your skin so pale?" asked Hermione. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Oh," she panted. "Whew! Had me worried for a swift there! That's just veil of undeath." She grinned. "Kethé, huh?"

"What's that mean?" Ron whispered to Hermione.

"It means 'Shiny' in Rose's made-up language," she whispered back.

"What's veil of undeath?" asked Harry.

"An eighth-level spell that gives me immunity to–" Rose took a deep breath. "'Mind-Affecting spells and abilities, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, extra damage from critical hits, non-lethal damage, death from massive damage, ability drain, energy drain, fatigue, exhaustion, damage to physical ability scores, and any effect requiring a Fortitude save unless it is harmless or affects objects.'"

Her friends stared at her. Rose beamed back at them.

"I got 'mind' out of that," Ron said.

"Did you say 'poison'?" asked Sally-Anne.

"Did she breath at all during that?" asked Harry.

"She can't be serious," Ron said, turning to Hermione. "Is she serious?"

"I don't know anymore," Hermione sighed.

On their way back to Gryffindor Tower, Hermione noticed something else strange about Rose. Well, different; Rose was already far beyond strange.

"It's called a collar of perpetual attendance. It casts a continuous unseen servant spell, whom I call Smithy. Smithy follows me around and caters to my every whim! It can do a whole bunch of tasks! It can light things on fire, carry my books, and…" A huge grin crossed Rose's face. She started to laugh. "Pick up my gromphun broom!"

Harry, Ron, and Sally-Anne, who were unaccustomed to Rose's random fits of maniacal laughter, stared at the crimson-haired girl with both confusion and fear.

Hermione just sighed. "That doesn't answer my question," she said.

"What was it again?"

"Why is it tilting all the portraits?!"

Rose grinned.

"I'm topping the Weasley Twins!"

Hermione sighed again. "Of course you are."