Chapter 16: Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes
July 7 - 9:00am - Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes
Luna studied the twins shop for several long moments. Various inventions, gadgets, and sweets lined the bright orange walls. She recognized some of the products from the previous school year, including the skiving snack boxes, portable swamps, and fireworks. Now, in the middle of the twins' shop, she realized that she had only glimpsed at the level of items created by the Weasley twins.
"Impressive." Both Fred and George smiled at her remark. They always enjoyed seeing how their friends and family responded to the store.
Fred watched carefully as she wandered around the store examining items that sparked her curiosity, while George consulted with Lee Jordan about the store. Their best friend Lee Jordan had joined them at the shop as soon as he graduated from Hogwarts, much to the dismay of his parents. Lee, however, loved his work and enjoyed dealing with the customers which freed the twins up to pursue their real love of inventing and experimenting.
When the twin's had first discovered that a girl named Luna Lovegood had gone with the others to the Department of Mysteries, they had drawn a blank as to who she was. Ginny had filled both Fred and George in on who she was and how helpful she had been during the fight. The clincher for both had been her potion recommendation that their mother credited with helping save Ron. Her skill at potion making was only icing on the cake as it gave them a fresh pair of eyes to examine their latest projects.
Luna wandered around the shop as she thought back over the events of the morning. She had not expected Ron to suddenly like her, but she also had not considered that he would dismiss her so easily. The scene that had followed that dismissal had gone a long way towards improving her mood. Luna smiled as she remembered how her father had okayed the visit only after scrutinizing and then grilling both Fred and George for several long moments. Surprisingly the twins had remained quiet and answered his questions about their intentions and why they wanted Luna's help, remaining absolutely serious the entire time.
Luna had watched in amusement thoroughly enjoying the twin's discomfort. She knew her father would trust her judgment that she could trust the Weasley twins, and they were just going to Diagon Alley. She had not informed the twins of this, but instead had allowed them to assume that they would have to convince her father of her safety and their trustworthiness.
"Lee's all set," George announced interrupting Luna's thoughts. "One of us will have to check back later to see if he needs some help, it's been getting very busy in here during the afternoons."
"Ready to see the rest of the store, Luna?" Fred inquired turning to address the small blonde. Luna nodded and then watched as Fred tapped his wand lightly against the door and mumbled a password. The door sprang open and the two ushered her in quickly before the door closed behind them with a thud.
"Welcome to our lab," George and Fred invited together using their arms to motion to the room. Roughly the same size as the room they had just left, this room was meticulously neat and crammed full of potions ingredients and paraphernalia. It was a truly magnificent room for someone who loved to experiment and create.
"What's beyond that partition wall?" Luna questioned pointing to a large sturdy looking partial wall that separated the room into at least two parts.
"We do most of our testing on the other side of the wall so we don't damage the equipment on this side," George explained leading the way towards the partition. The other side of the room was a much smaller area with some old scared looking tables and a couple of chairs. Notes were tacked onto the walls though in an orderly manner.
"I love the work space," Luna informed them.
"Thanks," the twins said together. They hadn't shared their work space with anyone but Lee and Bill, as neither of their parents nor other siblings had dropped by the shop yet.
"So what is this new product?"
"There are actually a couple of projects that we are working on and we're on a pretty tight time crunch on several of them, that's why we could use your help," Fred explained as he wandered over to one of the tables where a strange blue-gray looking potion sat smoking slightly.
"One project is sort of a cross between muggle color contact lenses and Moody's magical eye," George took over explaining the blue-gray potion. "So far, we have figured out a simple way of changing people's eye color and you can see magical aura's but not through walls or anything."
"George thinks there's a way to fix that and give it more of the properties of Moody's eye without having to go to the trouble of a large rolling eyeball," Fred added patting his brother on the shoulder.
"We just haven't figured out how yet." The two informed Luna speaking in perfect sync.
"We're also adding to our skiving snack boxes line, but so far the hives we have people breaking out in take four to six hours to go away," George went on explaining their various problems there as the trio walked to the next table where maroon and cream colored pills lay. "The maroon side brings on the hives."
"And the cream part is supposed to take them away instantly, so you can get out of class and use the time for more enjoyable pursuits," Fred put in picking up one of the little pills.
"Unfortunately, something's wrong with our remedy." George continued. "We've figured out the issues with our advanced extendable ears, which was easy enough, if you can help us get these last two projects finished then we can go on to our next batch of ideas."
"I'm glad to see that the Order is taking advantage of your skills in inventing," Luna said startling both Fred and George.
"What makes you think the Order has us working on anything?" Fred countered.
"The magical contact lenses are a perfect stealth item for the Order and aurors in general as are advanced extendable ears and those experiments you have back there with what looks like a polyjuice potion," Luna replied completely unfazed by the question.
"I guess we'll need to be careful about underestimating you," said George as he looked over the young woman again. Even now she didn't appear to be paying any attention to what he said or the room, but she had quite obviously missed nothing in the short stroll through their work space. And the polyjuice experiments were on the far side of the room, no where near where they had taken her.
"Shall we work on the contacts first?" Luna suggested moving back to that table. She examined the potion and looked down at the list of ingredients and directions for what they had done so far. A set of tiny lenses lay on a white cloth on the far right corner of the cloth. "Have you cast an impervious charm on these?"
"No, but that's certainly an excellent idea," George added joining her by his latest project.
"Add an unbreakable charm as well, as for the potion have you tried an infusion of wormwood or perhaps a mixture of some dragon's blood and ground flobber worms?" Luna suggested.
"Why the flobber worms?" George questioned thinking about the possibilities of wormwood and dragon's blood.
"Legend has it that flobber worms actually have magical properties that aid in seeing even in total darkness. It may just cause a heightening of the other sense almost as if you were blind, but added to everything else you've got here it may be just the kick you need to allow you to see through walls and other solid objects," she explained looking back over the list of other ingredients. "And who knows perhaps flobber worms can see through solid objects and we just don't know that because they are worms and we are not, but they obviously have some abilities when it comes to tunneling because research shows that they completely change direction just before reaching any solid object almost as if they know what is there and that its solid before they get to it."
"Let's try it, all three, we'll see what works," George responded after a moment to think about what she had suggested.
Fred watched the two of them as they talked and then started a new cauldron of ingredients following George's recipe but with Luna's suggestions added in as they went. He felt a twinge of being left out, something he was not used to feeling when it came to his twin. Finally, he sighed and went to the back of the room to work some more on the polyjuice potion. The goal was to create a disguising potion like the polyjuice, but one that took less time to make. Dumbledore had also hinted that he would be interested in any improvements that they could make in the potion, including the length of time it lasted or ways to counter it if necessary.
George and Luna worked well together laughing and joking as they worked on the changes in the potion. Fred remained relatively silent on the other side of the room. A couple of hours passed in this manner and George and Luna were ready to try their experiment. George conjured a fresh pair of plain lenses. He cast the already discussed charms to make the lenses unbreakable and impervious. The moment of truth came as they placed the lenses in a portion of the potion. They moved quietly to the other side of the partition wall and after placing the sealed vial with the lenses and potion on a table, George said the necessary incantations to begin the process of imbuing the lenses with the properties from the potion.
"We usually give it some time to fully go through the process," George explained after he said the final incantation. "I'm going to go check on Lee."
"Alright, I'll see what Fred is working on now," Luna replied then followed George back to the working side of the partition. George glanced at his brother who appeared to be immersed in the polyjuice project. He didn't stop to chat though figuring he'd really better see how Lee was doing.
Luna walked up next to Fred careful to wait until he noticed her before speaking. She didn't want to startle him and cause some weird explosion or something. It was several minutes before he noticed her and he almost jumped in surprise.
"How's the project going?" Fred questioned curiously when he noticed Luna. She'd startled him and he realized that he hadn't realized that Luna and George had stopped talking. Once he had started working, he lost himself in the intricacies of what he was doing.
"The lenses are hopefully absorbing the magical properties of our newly finished potion as we speak. What are you working on so quietly?" Luna asked as she withdrew her wand from behind her ear and laid it carefully on the work table. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and then twisted the long locks into a loose bun using her wand to secure the knot of hair. George watched the process and instead of answering her question said.
"That's an interesting place to put your wand but won't muggles notice?"
"If a muggle wanders into the lab of your shop in Diagon Alley I suppose they will just have to deal with my hairstyle, though I imagine most muggles would simply think it's a wooden hair pin."
"Oh," Fred answered. Luna smiled at him before repeating her earlier question.
"I think I've figured out a way to brew a potion similar to that of the polyjuice, and it will only take about half the time. The downside is I think it will likely only last about half as long."
"Still that's excellent. Whoever is taking it would just need to carry extra with them if they needed to remain undercover for longer than half an hour. When do you try it?"
"I started brewing the potion almost a week ago, and I've added some things today that I think will help and make the potion ready for testing sometime later this week or early next week."
"You'll have to let me know how it goes. I'm actually going to want updates on several of these projects I think, except maybe the skiving snack boxes," Luna said her voice reverting to its usual dreamy nature.
"You don't like our skiving snack boxes?" Fred questioned pretending to be outraged. "How could anyone not be interested in those?"
"Ravenclaw, remember, we actually like to attend class and excel," Luna informed him as if he were silly to forget her house and its commitment to intellect and learning.
"Maybe your just too scared to skip out on class every once in awhile and do something daring," Fred suggested stacking his notes neatly on the table and then turning to face Luna.
"Skipping class to pull pranks isn't daring, its fun," Luna responded, "I do plenty of daring things over summer break." Fred looked skeptical.
"Trust me, when your dad's an ex-auror and editor of "The Quibbler," then you get to have more adventures then you want sometimes." George interrupted them before Fred could push for details about her adventures.
"Hey, Lee's going to need some help soon and has suggested that if we want to eat, we should do so now."
"Shall we go back to Grimmauld or have something in the Alley?" Fred questioned.
"Perhaps something in the Alley, our treat," George offered, "It's the least we could do for your help this morning. Besides we still need to test the lenses and work on a remedy for those hives."
"Plus, if we take Luna back to Grimmauld, mum may try to prevent us from bringing her back," Fred added thoughtfully.
"Please join us in Diagon Alley for lunch," both twins pleaded together. Luna laughed at their antics.
"I'd love to."
"We'd better get going then."
"There's a great little lunch place just down the street from the shop."
"We've grown quite found of it." The twins explained as the three left the lab through the shop. It was a beautiful summer day outside and Luna enjoyed the warmth and the feel of the gentle breeze that flowed through the busy street. She had not been to Diagon Alley since just before Christmas, and realized how much she missed strolling along the streets and examining all the new items for sale. The three talked and laughed all along the short walk to the small café for lunch.
"Well, I must say I am not surprised to find that the poor Weasleys have joined forces with the loony Lovegoods," a voice drawled from their right just before they reached the front door of the café. The three turned instantly hands hovering over their wands to find themselves facing several familiar Slytherins.
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Thanks to all those who have reviewed and those who are reading my story. I hope your enjoying the story, and the foray
in this chapter into the twins' world. Please let me know what you think as I love feedback.