Number 93 Diagon Alley was a very busy address. The Owl Post official sighed in resignation as he left. Ginny felt sorry for him but it was her job to pack and ship out all the mail orders that came into her brothers' joke shop. This had been the second time an official from the Owl Post had come to complain about the volume of daily shipments from their shop. This time Ginny had told him to figure out some way to deliver the hundred odd packages that left here each day. Delivery was his job, her job was filling and sending them out.
"Lunch time Ginny" she heard Fred yell to her. A moment later Fred and George came into the back of the shop carrying a large bag of takeout food.
Ginny quickly got up and followed her brothers up the back stairs into the kitchen of their flat above the shop.
"What did Mr. Owl Post want this time Gin?" George asked as they settled around the table pulling several containers out of the bag.
"Would you believe he wanted me to tell him how to deliver all these packages every day?"
"Gerr Off!" Fred exclaimed
"That's his job!" George also exclaimed
"That's what I told him. I asked him to give us suggestions not ask us for them. He didn't appreciate that much." Ginny supplied taking a bite out of the pizza George offered her.
"Well we will need to hire at least one more to help with the register. It's just too busy down there" Fred sighed.
"Yeah the customers are all over the place and we can't help them all fast enough. I had to kick about twenty people out for our lunch hour" George said regretfully.
"Maybe we can try Ron again" Ginny offered.
"He seemed pretty set on not working this summer though." George commented
"Hey Gin, what about you go buy something special for yourself. Then show it off in front of Ronniekins!" Fred suggested brightly
"Yeah then he will think of the money he can make, Great idea Fred."
"Hey George did the girls say when they would be back tonight?"
"Bro they are getting those supplies we need remember? I expect them back by dinner though."
"Yeah that's right, I hope they can find everything we need to fill those orders."
They finished eating their lunch and went down to reopen the shop. Ginny went back to work on filling the mail orders but she didn't get far.
George saw fellow Gryffindor Neville Longbottom standing just outside, waiting for the shop to open. George turned around just before Fred unlocked the door and hollered "Ginny, Neville has come to visit."
"Welcome back to our shop Neville" Fred said as he opened the door. He gave Neville a pat on the back as he ushered him inside and out of the path of the awaiting crowd trying to shove past him. Neville had become a regular visitor since school had let out.
This is a fascinating place and besides Ginny is here Neville thought as he walked inside. His Gran visited Diagon Alley almost daily and she always kept Neville with her. How he had gotten her to agree to allow him to visit the twins shop without her hovering he still was not sure. But today she had agreed and told him she would be back later to retrieve him. Fred left him standing in the corner, just inside the shop, when he had to go help some customers. Then Ginny came out from the back and smiled when she saw him waiting there for her.
"Hi there Ginny, how are you today?"
"Busy as always around here. Would you like to help me catch up? I have a lot of orders to fill before five."
"Sure Ginny, what do you need me to do?" He said while following Ginny towards the stockroom.
"Just find the items for each order from the supplies in the stockroom and I will box them up." She turned and smiled at him again. "Just be careful not to drop anything, who knows what would happen" she teased.
"I promise to be very careful Ginny."
They reached the stockroom and Ginny gave him a quick tour. "Everything seems very organized in here Ginny, I would think your brothers wouldn't have time to keep it so neat."
"Alicia keeps everything clearly labeled and makes sure the boys have everything they need to keep the store going. Angelina takes care of all the banking and the record keeping. I really don't think the boys could pull this off without their help."
"What about when you need to go back to school? I guess they will hire someone else to fill the orders?"
"Actually they were just talking about hiring someone else to help in the shop, it's a madhouse out there most days. OK here is the pile of orders. Take them one at a time and collect everything for that order, use a separate basket for each order. When you have a complete order place it over here on my table and I will check it and box it up."
"Alright that sounds pretty simple."
"Yes just that there are a lot of them so once you get comfortable start pulling them as fast as you can. We have four hours to get these orders ready, with you helping I think we can make it." She smiled encouragingly at him.
Neville smiled back and took the first order from the pile. He headed off into the aisles of bins basket in hand.
Ginny went back to packaging what she had already collected. She was quite surprised that Neville made very few mistakes on filling the orders and they were done at four o'clock.
"Excellent Neville were done!"
"My legs are tired from all that walking, this place doesn't seem that big but I feel like I have walked miles and miles."
"Well you probably did" Ginny spoke laughing.
"Let's go see what the boys need, they always need help" With that she headed out to the store.
Neville followed close behind, wondering if he could spend the whole summer doing this.
Ginny pulled George aside when they came into the store. "We're done filling today's orders, what do you guys need out here?"
"Wow already? That's awesome. Hey Neville you want a job? We could sure use the help."
"I would love to but I need to ask my Gran first."
"Ok well thanks for helping today, Ginny we need restocking out here. You think Mr. prospective employee and you can take care of that please?"
"Sure George, we're on it"
Ginny grabbed a clipboard from behind the counter and started walking around the shop writing numbers next to each item on the sheet. "Neville I'm writing down how many of each item we need to bring out from the stockroom, here get started on the first page." She tore the top sheet off and handed it to him.
Neville headed back to the stockroom thru the crowd waiting to check out. He heard Fred hollering as he got to the door. "Ginny can you handle the register for a bit?" Neville decided he would be doing the restocking all on his own so he went to work on the sheet Ginny had given him.
A/N Ok done with others now, next several chapters are pure H/Hr. Hope you liked this one.