Author's Note: The D.A. time frame on when it was busted/snitched on is set just before term ends in 1996, as did the twins departure of the school.

I recommend reading Content (Silver Fireworks Chapter 1) by spittingllama7856 prior to this piece just for a small, little fun background to the start of all this wonderful madness.

Rated: T

Genre: Humor

Summary: When the chase becomes a sly little game, the goal remains the same: Win. But when it comes to handling their feelings when a war is looming over them, there are only two ways to go about it...

Warnings: Suggestive Luring/Preying/Stalking Undertones; Romeo & Juliet Age Difference (2 Years, 2 Months, 4 Days to be exact); 16/18/18); Sexually Charged Teasing

Dedication: A special gift to a dear friend of mine, Blue Rose.

Chapter 1: A Twist in the Game

5th of June, 1996

Draco Malfoy had been assigned with an important task by Headmistress Umbridge herself to investigate and unravel the suspicious gathering of students lead by his school rival, Harry Potter. Even though they had a solid idea of where they were hiding, he could not figure out for the life of him how everyone involved slipped past their watchful eyes. It was starting to aggravate him enough that he started a list of students he knew were a part of Harry's silly, rebellious club to see who would be an easy target to interrogate.

Scanning the names written several times, he crossed out ones he knew would not give anything away, placed a question mark beside others, and check marks on ones he was confident would buckle under pressure. Oddly enough, he checked the Weasley twins as candidates, but he wrote beside their names their talent of being caught in the act of their pranking shenanigans. He felt like this was a good sign that they would slip up sooner or later with the club.

Draco decided to start with the first two names he checked before attempting to investigate the twins, recalling their rather reckless handling of Graham Montague several weeks ago had him a bit nervous. His first target was Neville Longbottom. It was not how he wanted to spend his sixteenth birthday, but this was important, and he knew there would be a large care package from home in his dorms when he got there. A rewarding treat for a hard day's work.

Despite being the type that was easily intimidated, he underestimated Longbottom's loyalty. The stuttering, timid kid clammed up at the very sight of Draco and his Squad and refused to say a single word about anything, not even a nod or shake of his head and it went nowhere fast. Luna Lovegood was just as infuriating to question as well and she was quickly written off. All he had left before moving onto the questionable names were the Weasley twins, and after his poor sense of judgement with the last two students, he was apprehensive to confront them in more ways than one.

It took several days to trace their unusual routine—if one could even call it that—outside of their class schedule, but Draco managed to track them to an empty classroom they frequented during their downtime. He wished someone else was with him for the confrontation, but no one wanted to make themselves available to face the endless pranks the two normally planted in their wake. He was lucky enough to disable a few of them when they were detected. Other times, he had another Squad member take the brunt of the booby trap by coaxing them to take the lead down the corridor.

His wand drawn and ready at his side, Draco's hand hovered over the handle but he made no motion to open it. It seemed off. The corridor wasn't trapped this time, and the door didn't appear rigged like it had been before. Were they expecting someone to show up? Did they know he was coming?

Brushing the suspicion aside, Draco gathered the little courage that drove him to do this in the first place and shoved the door open. Raising his wand as he entered, their locks of burnt orange hair was the first thing Draco saw in front of him before one of them rose to his feet and addressed the blond. The other quickly slammed something closed.

"He came alone like you said, brother," one said with a chuckle.

"I knew he would," the other answered, holding out his hand as the other placed something in it. "After the way he shamelessly had others take the hits, they're smart to not tag along."

The exchange had Draco completely lost. So they were expecting him, but why?

"Aw, he's speechless, how cute."

He couldn't allow his thoughts to stray from the task. Tightening his grip on the wand's handle, Draco scanned the room quickly before spotting the logo of the Weasley joke products on the side of a chest one of the twins was sitting on. Jutting his chin out in disapproval, he looked back at them.

"Selling your worthless junk is prohibited on school grounds." His voice sounded less confident than he wanted it to be.

The two laughed at the rehearsed line, and one of them raised his hands in mock surrender. "Looks like he got us."

"How unfortunate."

"What are we in for, Slytherin Prefect?"

The way they were acting so casual on being caught red handed irritated Draco, but he couldn't let his guard down. "Point deduction—"

One snorted, covering his mouth to muffle the sound before he managed to speak. "No points to take, unfortunately."

"And if there were, we've lost hundreds before already."

"So that hardly bothers us, anyway."

"Try again, mate."

The grip on his wand faltered some at the realization, Gryffindor really did have few points to take. Usually point deduction was enough to scare students into behaving, but not this time. He should have known better. Draco's mind raced for an alternative.

"Detention."

"Detention, he says." The one sitting nudged the other.

"Reckon we won't be around long to attend that."

"Reckon we won't."

"I could easily have you expelled for this!" Draco blurted in his frustration.

"Ah, there's the winning answer!" The one standing said while lightly clapping his hands.

The other just laughed at the response from his brother.

Draco wanted to flee the scene at this point. They had already backed him into a corner when it should be the reverse, but he couldn't make himself back out the door and run. His wand lowered some but was kept aimed at the two.

"What are you planning?" he found himself asking.

"That's for us to know—" one started.

"—And for you to find out," the other finished.

"Tell you what, we will serve your detention right here and now." The two looked at a each other a moment with a smirk on their faces.

"But you have to play a little game with us to help pass the time," The other finished.

"I'm not going to play any of your twisted games," Draco snarled, raising his wand some.

Several spells filed through his head that could subdue the pair, but his unfortunate curiosity barred him from acting on any of them.

"Hear us out."

"If you win, you can turn us and our chest of goodies in fair and square," the one standing said.

"And if we win," the other continued, motioning between his brother and him. "You walk away and say nothing about what happened in here."

"The game is called Question or Command. It's easy enough to understand."

"We'll cast a lie detecting charm to make sure the answers are truly true—"

"—And the commands will be contained to this room only."

"We all take turns until one plays chicken."

"Which means until one of us refuses to answer a question or perform a command."

"Anything goes."

"There will be punishments for lying or quitting."

"Deal?" the two said at the same time, holding out their right hands to him.

Draco puzzled the idea around for a moment. He could do this and spin it in his favor if he asked the right questions, but agreeing to something so readily without even knowing who was who was not something he was going to allow to slip past him.

What was he getting himself into?

Draco swallowed hard, allowing his wand arm that grew numb from being held up for so long to drop to his side. "One question."

"We're all ears."

"Which one of you is George?"

Grey eyes looked between the two, unable to make out any distinguishing factors between them to use in order to remember which was which even if he did know. The weirdos even dressed identical to purposely throw him, he just knew it.

The expression on the twin who stood dropped to a brief frown, while the other smirked. "Seems he finds you to be the most rememberable one, brother."

"Naturally. I knew I was the more handsome one between us," The one sitting said, flicking his shirt collar upward while sending a wink the blond's way.

The odd gesture threw Draco off guard, but he didn't remove his gaze from the twin who sat on the chest.

"Now he's staring. You certainly attract the strange ones, don't you, George?" The one standing—Fred—said with a laugh.

"The good ones are always a little off," George replied.

Draco found himself flustered at the questionable undertones of the conversation they had right in front of him. Were they insinuating that he fancied one of them? That was absurd! Giving himself a mental shake, he let out a disgusted scoff and subconsciously moved further into the room.

Fred was faster than Draco's thoughts were in catching up with what was going on. With a flick of Fred's wand that Draco hadn't even seen drawn, the door behind him slammed shut.

"So you're in?"

Feeling somewhat uneasy, Draco gave a curt nod. Why did he not just back out the door when he had a chance? "Let's get this over with."

Fred drew a chair from a small cluster shoved in the corner for Draco to sit in before grabbing one for himself. George remained perched on the chest, which would keep things easy to remember if the two decided to not move around. George flourished his wand in the air, creating a small white ball of light hover over them.

"What's the spell?" Draco demanded, eyes falling back to George.

"He doesn't trust you."

"Such a shame, too."

"Of course I don't!" Draco hissed, sending a glare toward Fred. "The spell?"

"Triowth Orbis."

Draco had conjured up a second orb that hovered beside the first one.

"It will glow blue for truths and red for lies. Simple."

"I'll start," Fred offered, resting his elbows on his knees. "Question or command?"

The game was on. Draco geared his mind to focus on the task of turning this back around on them, but to be the one to start could easily make things go wrong. "Question."

"What's your middle name?" Fred asked.

Draco looked to George, who was twirling his wand between his fingers in a distracting manner. Looking back to Fred, he replied. "Lucius."

The two cringed at the answer. Fred stifled a chuckle, but their subtle reaction to it already had Draco feel like he was going to regret his plan to try and shift this in his favor. The orbs above glowed blue for a few seconds before going back to white.

"I already feel a little sorry for you, mate," George stated.

Draco rolled his eyes and took his turn. "Question or command?"

"Command," the twins stated together.

"And make it a good one, too." Fred added in.

Draco had nothing. He didn't think that a command would come up so quickly. Needing to have a way to identify them easily, he came up with an idea.

"Fred, I want you to remove your right shoe using only your teeth. George, the same, but with your left shoe."

"We've got a clever one on our hands," Fred acknowledged.

"Right we do," George responded with a smirk.

The two did as they were told. Each one now sporting a single shoe on the opposite foot from each other. The sight was quite amusing, Draco thought. Though he could never imagine doing the gross task himself, he decided to avoid doing any commands if he could help it.

"Question or command?"

"Question."

"When is your birthday?"

What an odd question to ask. "It's today, actually. Fifth of June."

The orbs cast a blue light over them before fading back to white.

"Happy Birthday," they said in unison.

"Erhm… Thanks?"

After the tenth turn passed, Draco was beyond irritable at getting nowhere with whatever brilliant idea he had that landed him there. The twins had asked for commands every time, and he was running out of dumb things to make them do. They had kissed the dusty walls, stared at each other for a whole minute, and even balanced on one leg while standing on chairs through a turn. They asked him weird things like what his favourite color, sweet, or animal was. When the twins saw they had effectively bothered him, they changed it up to throw him off.

"Question or command?" Draco drawled, pondering on what command he should have them do next.

"Question," George asked solo.

"Command," Fred decided.

"What?" This confused him, they had answered together up until now. He was unsure of how to handle this.

"Clocks ticking, mate."

"Er, Fred," he addressed, looking over at him. "Spin around fifteen times.

"George," Draco had no idea what to ask. He had his chance now, and the bizarre situation he put himself in had him almost lose his original reason why he stuck around as his eyes locked onto George's chocolate brown ones. "What do you do for extracurricular activities?"

"I help my brother and Lee create new products for Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes mostly," George answered, and the blue lights verified.

"Anything else?"

"Careful. Only one question at a time," a now dizzy Fred warned, stumbling into his chair. "That was quite fun, actually. Think that's the most I've done in a while."

"We'll let it slip this one time," George added. "But next time, there will be a penalty."

Draco did not want to find out what their penalties would consist of.

"Question or command?"

"Question," Draco said quickly.

"What is your preference: blonds, brunets, or gingers?" Fred asked, a mischievous smile creeping across his lips.

He tried his hardest to keep himself from going pink. They were purposely doing this in hopes that he'd quit, but he wasn't going to be swayed that easily. If they wanted to embarrass him, he can do the very same thing back. Being aware of the orbs above, he bit his tongue before looking to the floor. There were plenty of other gingers in the castle that weren't related to a Weasley, he was sure of it.

"Gingers."

The two snickered between them, seeing that he turned his attention off them for the first time since he entered the room. Their plan was working. Draco quickly asked which option they wanted and both asked for a question.

"How does it feel being poorer than dirt?" He snapped, surprised the previous question put him on edge so much.

"Oh, it's loads of fun, actually," George answered first.

"It really humbles a person," Fred added in, "and it teaches you to value things with more appreciation in the long run."

"It's easier to take the challenging risks because you got nothing to lose."

"But everything to gain from it."

"It's how we got our business off the ground if you think about it."

"So in actuality, we aren't really poor."

They instinctively high fived each other, knowing the question backfired on Draco as that annoying blue glowed from above. Finding the reply deflating his confidence, it also had him notice that the way they talked so fluidly back and forth between one another alluring. It was like they were constantly connected by Legilimency, knowing what the other would say so they could finish their train of thought. Imagine the things they could say to conv—

'No!'

"Question," he muttered out, still avoiding looking at the twins as he did another mental brain shake.

"Why'd you ask who was George—" Fred started.

George finished. "—and not who was Fred?"

This was a very loaded question that Draco never thought he'd be forced to answer. Why did it matter which name he used? George just flowed off the tongue smoother than Fred did was all, but saying that could be taken quite inappropriately. The orbs above him now felt very ominous, taunting him to even try to lie. He thought of the vaguest answer he could muster without the coloring on his face betraying him. Instead, the pounding in his chest seemed to grow louder in his ears as he scrambled to answer.

"It was the first name that came to mind."

What were they doing to him?

"How interesting," Fred said in a mysteriously deep tone as the blue light glowed on his face.

The way he said it had Draco's skin bristle, but not in the sense that it made him uncomfortable. These questions were not going to stop if he kept asking for them, which meant he'd have to avoid them and take a command. He wasn't sure which one would be worse right now. What he really needed to do was compose himself. The twins were reading him like a book by his body language alone, and he needed to stop that immediately. Draco found himself feeling like his turn kept coming back around way too fast while his answers became even more difficult to phrase to avoid saying something he shouldn't.

"Command!"

The two chuckled at his change of answer after over a dozen questions. "Should we go easy on him? It's his first one."

"I say we just push him right in," Fred responded with a smirk.

This was why Draco favoured George slightly more. He was a little kinder, gentler, but Fred was a great ringleader and he pondered what crazy schemes he could come up with to convince Draco to do…

'What the bloody hell am I thinking?'

He clenched his jaw firmly together, mentally shaking his wayward thoughts away once more while he waited for the command.

"Sing us your favourite childhood song."

Draco blanched. "Are you serious?"

"Very," the two said.

As reluctantly and quietly as the twins allowed him to get away with, Draco half-whispered a lullaby his mother made up for him when he was afraid or couldn't get to sleep. His face felt very warm the entire time.

"Question," they said in unison.

The reason he was there had slipped his mind. He was no longer playing the game for answers now but playing to win, and this plummeted his mind into a strange place. Draco knew he was going to deeply regret asking the twins this question. He couldn't stop his warped curiosity from flooding his head. It seemed they already knew his dirty little secret so why can't he learn theirs? He straightened his posture before the question rolled off his tongue.

"What characteristics do you prefer in someone?"

The corner of George's lip twitched, Draco noticed. He subtly leaned closer to them with an unknown anticipation for their response.

"Fred tends to lean for the brunettes—"

"—but I do like silvery grey eyes, too," Fred cut into George's sentence. "George here seems to fancy hazel eyes—"

"—but a cute blond will turn my head from time to time as well."

Draco was rendered completely speechless. He knew his pale skin was tinged that embarrassing shade of pink but he didn't care. They were not hiding the fact that there was something more to this game than he originally thought. They were playing for the prize in front of them, and Draco had willingly fallen right into their hands. Completely captivated by being outsmarted by the pair before him, Draco couldn't help himself but admire the clever trick they pulled to get him alone.

"S-so you're saying you—"

"Zzzt!" The strange loud buzz noise came from Fred while George spoke over it.

"You've been fouled, mate."

"Free score for us then, brother?" Fred asked, nudging his shoulder against George's.

"That it is."

Draco swallowed the unfinished question down with a lump. What were they planning to do to him? Dear Merlin, what did he want them to do to him?

The pair stood up and suddenly vanished with a strange finger snapping sound, appearing in crouching positions on either side of Draco with an arm resting on each shoulder. The action startled and exhilarated him all at once, but he wasn't sure who was who now that he couldn't see their feet.

"So you are going to perform a command—"

"—or you can answer a question."

"But you must do one or the other without your clever shoe trick as a crutch."

"We know you've been watching us very carefully for a while now—"

"—so we will put your observation skills to the test."

"You can either give one of us a kiss—"

"—or tell us which one is Fred—" the one on the right started.

"—or George?" the one on his left finished.

Their close proximity put Draco's mind in overdrive. They were so much closer than he'd ever been to them. He could see the individual specks of freckles splattered across their faces, the shape of their broad shoulders that made them great beaters in quidditch. Their firm arms draped over him with a gentle heaviness as they pressed on his shoulders. Sensory overload was an understatement. It almost had Draco's brain slip into a mindless, euphoric fog, but he shook it away. He needed to think.

He knew George was on his right and Fred was on the left before they moved. They liked to say their respective brother's name when speaking, but not always, so they could have either switched spots or said the opposite names. George's lip tended to twitch slightly when things went in his favor. Fred's eyes squinted briefly when he sometimes spoke. Swallowing dryly, he felt himself flush as he made his decision. He was going to win this game the way he wanted to win it.

One of Draco's hands found the soft burnt orange hair at the back of the neck of the twin on his right. Observing the reaction, he watched the twins' chocolate brown eyes subconsciously twitch at their edges at the caressing gesture. Draco quickly placed a hand under the chin of the one he now knew was George on the left and planted a lingering kiss on him. His fingers curled into the ginger hair he still reached out for on Fred. The softness of it was addicting, so his hand only slid further into it before forcing himself to pull away and meet those delicious colored eyes.

"Did I win, George?" he half-whispered before looking over at the other. "Fred?"

The pair smiled their mischievous smirk at the comment. One thing was for certain: neither of them would say a single word on what happened after leaving that classroom.

Author's Note: This little story has just completely exploded into so much more. Between my friend Blue and I, we have developed this Brainchild of a Triad; Ferrets Fireworks (Fred/Draco/George). It just ... works, you can't knock it till you try it, really. It has created its own little series between her and I. So, if you want to see a "Prologue" as well as a "Post-War" view of sorts that links to this story, please go look at her amazing work!

Most of the stories are stand alone (They will be marked accordingly), but they also link to each other as you will see based on some chain of events throughout. This is our version of a collaboration, we pick scenes we come up with and decide who wants to write what. We worked our magic to get this triad pairing together, and by golly we are loving every second of it. I will update links to my friends and I's work as they are posted on my profile. Who knows how far we can push this? We are definitely going to find out!

~Aya

Originally written for:

Monthly Challenges for All

Word Count: (Per Google Docs) 3,758