Welcome

[Benjamin Weasley]

So, apparently, not everyone likes to have bucket of jello dumped onto their heads. Well how was he supposed to know if nobody ever told him? It wasn’t like he could read minds and figure out who liked jello and who didn’t. If he could do that, he’d probably be on to bigger and better things, like doing stage shows and getting lots of money – and a girlfriend. But no, he wasn’t all that skilled in Leglimency and he could neither read people’s minds nor see the future, and yet people still expected him to know what they liked and didn’t like.

Why, you ask, was Benjamin Weasley scrubbing the trophies right now with a bucket of suds and a sponge in his hands? And what did it have to do with a bucket of jello? This morning, he made a big vat of cherry red jello, only to figure out that he preferred green jello. Well, he’d always been taught not to waste things, so he couldn’t just dump it out into the trash. However, after thinking for a bit, he came up with an idea: just because he couldn’t dump it out, didn’t mean he couldn’t dump it on. So that was what had become of his red jello.

Instead of it falling on his planned target of some Gryffindor snot that was currently trying to irritate him to an early grave (yes, some of his enemies were fellow Gryffindors and also Potter Supporters) , it fell on a seventh year Slytherin. And just when things couldn’t get any worse. A Gryffindor dumping red jello of all things on a Slytherin – that had to be seen as a family/House attack! So the entire thing was exploded out of proportion and here Benny-Boy was, on his hands and knees, scrubbing some already clean trophy with dirty suds, sporting one beautiful black eye.

“That’s what some heroes get!” one older Gryffindor told him, clapping him on the back as he’d left the common room to begin his detention tonight. So now he was a hero. Had his prank gone as planned (had that Slytherin not accidentally set it in motion before it was ready), they would’ve all been thoroughly pissed at him, but would’ve laughed about it later. Red jello on a Gryffindor? Oh, so ironic and funny; you have to laugh at that! But no, instead of being that ironic jokester, Benjamin was a hero, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“What I would give to get out of this madhouse,” Benjamin grumbled under his breath. It sounded as if he was talking about the castle, but what he was really talking about was getting out of the middle of this family war going on around him. Deciding it was time to take a break, he sat back on his legs and wiped his forehead off with his right arm, still holding onto the wet sponge. He looked like the epitome of a hardworking soul who got dirty to get the job done. Then again, he’d always done things that way, hadn’t he?

[Maurice Weasley]

<sub>Another day, another lie. That was Maurice's motto for the day. He'd done absolutely nothing all day, but told his friends that he was working to finish his work; ditching them as often as possible. Yes, it wasn't good to lie to your friends, but it's quite alright to lie to acquaintances. Ah...don't you just love loop holes?

Maurice was bored and had just left the kitchens. The servants seemed to fear him, no wonder why. Maybe it was because he was a Slytherin, and most Slytherins were known to abuse and mistreat their house-elves. Maurice and his parents had house elves, but wouldn't dare mistreat them. They help them with most of their things, not to mention bring them a delicious meal, everyday! Maurice nodded before stepping out of the portrait, two apples in his pocket, and a half eaten pear in his hand.

Where to now? It was too early to go back to the common room, but too late to go outside, not that he really cared, but today he thought he'd try to obey the school rules. He walked up the stairs unknowingly, not really thinking about anything in particular, then he heard noises. Now, these noises...what were they? Scrubbing? Hmm...who's the unlucky soul? Maurice knew all too well the consequences for breaking rules. Filch would make you clean trophies until your head fell off and he and Mrs. Norris got married.

Walking further down the hall, it became evident who the unlucky guy was. Benjamin Weasley. The poor bloke...shame he's not a Slytherin, would've been a great candidate! Nonetheless, Ben was the easiest to talk to. No one else would dare talk to the Weasley traitor, the gits!

Maurice noticed that Benjamin had stopped scrubbing to rest his tiring arms, “What I would give to get out of this madhouse," Maurice heard him say. True this school was a mad house, but their family was more complicated than the Potter/Malfoy families combined.

"Oh, we aren't all that bad now are we, mate?" Maurice said, finally speaking up, letting his presence be known. He walked closer to Ben and leaned against the wall, next to the trophy that Ben was just scrubbing.

"Would you hate me if I spilled ink on this?" he said smirking as he pointed to the shiny piece of art. Of course he didn't mean it, just a bit of fun.</sub>

[Benjamin Weasley]

When most people looked at Benjamin, they saw one of two things: either they thought he was an angel, the perfect sixteen year-old who helped everyone and refused no one -- or they saw something darker resting behind those tired eyes of his, something a little less Gryffindor and a lot more sinister. The first group said he was just a mischievous boy, seeking humor in everything (and he was, oh, he was), and others nodded their heads in agreement, but were still wary about him.

He wasn't right -- not right in the head at all. After all, the Weasleys were a good lot, but even they had their bad eggs. Maurice Weasley was one of them, wasn't he? And while the rest of them shunned the bloke, Benjamin could still be seen talking with the Slytherin Weasley. Some things are mistakes -- flukes -- and are separate from normalcy, but Benjamin had always been a link between the "mistakes" and the "normal ones", which shouldn't be possible.

Maybe there wasn't somthing right with him, after all. Benjamin would never know, and he'd never care about it either. He thought he was a pretty normal kid; he also thought that Maurice was just as normal as any other Potter supporting Weasley. Sure, he was different, but there was always a rebellious child that traveled down a different path. It was just harder to live when you aren't walking on a path, just the brush in between two paths, which was where Benjamin was walking.

"Oh, we aren't all that bad now are we, mate?"

Instead of jumping from being startled, Benjamin slowly stopped scrubbing a trophy until he came to a complete stop. His heart had jumped, but Gryffindors are supposed to brave for a reason; plus, everyone knew that Benny-Boy, as innocent as he was, had one of the best poker faces ever. He sat back onto his legs again and turned his head around to see the one and only Maurice Weasley standing there.

"You and I both know that none of us are going to that great stage in the sky," Benjamin quipped, referring to heaven. It would always be a stage to him, where they to interact and pretend how they could have lived on earth, their lives just mere skits and jokes. Here at Hogwarts, no one was innocent or free of wrong-doing.

"Would you hate me if I spilled ink on this?"

Benjamin glanced at the trophy and then back at Maurice. "Forget hating; I'm pretty sure I'd have to murder you if you did that since it took me the longest to clean," he said seriously in a nearly monotone voice. Happy-Go-Lucky Benny had taken a long break after the eleventh trophy, and he was on the twenty-first trophy now. Almost done -- eight more to go.