For The Greater Goof
is a oneshot Harry Potter fanfic by Right What Is Wrong.
Partway through their third year at Hogwarts, Fred and George Weasley connect the dots about a certain name that keeps showing up on the Marauder's Map. See, this name has been constantly appearing near their brother Percy on the map, but they didn't think much of it because their brother is always surrounded by people. This year, however, the name keeps following Ron around and he's by no means a social butterfly.
Further points of suspicion:
- They've never been able to see the person the name is associated with.
- The name in question is Peter Pettigrew, who is supposed to be dead.
- Percy happened to give Ron his old pet rat this year.
- The rat is missing a toe on one of his paws, just like how Pettigrew was missing a finger.
The twins decide to investigate this and another oddity further, which leads to the canon plot being completely derailed.
This fanfic includes the following tropes:
- Achievements in Ignorance: Fred and George Weasley address Voldemort by his true name of Tom Riddle, enraging the Dark wizard and astonishing many of their professors because the two being the same person isn't public knowledge. When McGonagall asks them how they knew about Voldemort's name, the twins reveal they didn't know they were dealing with Voldemort in the first place; all their research only came up with Tom Riddle because the connection wasn't made public, so they just called him by the only name they knew.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Molly Weasley sends her sons Fred and George a Howler letter with a twofold purpose: after the letter finishes yelling at them for how reckless they were, it starts gushing about how proud their parents are of them for exposing two Dark wizards on the same day. Fred and George are "mortally embarrassed" about the letter yelling all that for everyone in the Great Hall to hear, but receive a round of applause from their peers regardless.
- Disapproving Look: Due to Voldemort managing to infiltrate the Hogwarts staff, students start joking that the next Defense Against the Dark Arts professor will be another Dark Lord. Dumbledore's expression is noted to sour whenever someone brings up Gellert Grindelwald as a possible candidate due to their shared history, which only further fuels speculation on that line.
- Either/Or Title: The fic has the alternate title of Or, how Fred and George got the Order of Merlin, First Class, at the august age of thirteen.
- Expecting Someone Taller: After Peter Pettigrew's true form is revealed, George comments that he thought Pettigrew would be taller.
- Mythology Gag: Due to Snape being nicer to the Gryffindors following Peter Pettigrew's arrest, Fred and George decide to shelve a prank where they unexpectedly shampoo the former's hair; this references how in Deathly Hallows Fred cracks a joke about Voldemort moving faster than "Severus Snape confronted with shampoo" while running a pirate radio station.
- Noodle Incident:
- Mr. and Mrs. Weasley occasionally tell their children anecdotes about the Wizarding War. The one tale that's mentioned and is not something brought up in canon is Mad-Eye Moody escaping from the dungeons of Travers Tower.
- Fred and George serve a detention in the school's trophy room that results in them seeing one of Tom Riddle's awards. Whatever they did to earn said detention is left unsaid beyond it being "a prank Filch hadn't found half so funny".
- Among the various misfortunes that befall the interim Defense Against the Dark Arts professors is Remus Lupin being hospitalized following an incident with a lot of sterling silver utensils that reveals his status as a werewolf.
- The Plan: In order to test whether there's a connection between Scabbers the rat and Peter Pettigrew's name showing up on the Marauder's Map, Fred takes the rat and runs down a corridor before returning it to Ron so George can track the motion of "Peter Pettigrew" on the map. The plan goes off flawlessly and confirms that Pettigrew's dot moves when Scabbers does.
- Point of Divergence: This fic splits from Harry Potter canon when Peter Pettigrew is discovered early in Harry's first year at Hogwarts by the Weasley twins instead of at the end of his third by Sirius Black, in addition to Voldemort being found on the back of Professor Quirrell's head at the start of said first year instead of its end.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Thanks to observing the behavior of the Marauder's Map, undertaking some additional research, and making some inferences, Fred and George arrive at the conclusion that Quirrell has a Dark wizard attached to him and decide to expose this to the Hogwarts staff. However, as the Map does not display any aliases a person may have and the two being the same person isn't public knowledge, they just know the Dark wizard is named Tom Riddle and have no idea they're unmasking Voldemort until after the fact.
