"Ouch," I cried out feeling some of the oil from the hot pan land onto my arm. I jumped to wipe it off me before it left a nasty burn in it's place. Currently, I was in the kitchen with Mrs. Weasley attempting to help her make some breakfast for everybody. I had slept deeper than I had all summer and woke up with a smile ready to start the day.
Turns out I had woken up just an hour after Mr. Weasley and Harry left for the ministry since his trial was scheduled for 10:00am. The rest of us would stay at home and await the decision of the court to see if he'd been expelled.
"Oh, dear do be careful," Mrs. Weasley said from the center kitchen isle where she was cutting up potatoes.
"Yeah I'm good!" I reassured her flipping the next egg on the skillet, but I could see a small red mark beginning to show up on my wrist. Now if I were able to do magic outside of school, I could just flip the egg with my wand at a considerable distance. The idea went through my head, but then I thought that was stupid since that's the whole reason Harry was facing a trial; for simple underage magic.
Once I had finished cooking enough for everybody, I placed an omelet on each plate at the table. Mrs. Weasley brought over a big bowl of hash browns, scooping a round portion for each person.
"How are you going to wake everyone up?" I asked knowing that there were so many rooms and people staying at this place.
"Like this," she smirked. She held her wand to her mouth and began to speak loudly, "breakfast is ready be down in two minutes," she said in a normal voice, but the wand seemed to project it. Her voice echoed throughout the entire house in a magnified volume that would have scared me half to death if I'd been asleep. It was times like this where I noticed her smirk matched the twins whenever they were concocting some kind of prank. The resemblance was uncanny.
A loud scream went through the house which made me jump in fear. The scream sounded like a kind of wail and I raised my wand trying to locate the source of the noise in case anyone was hurt.
"I forgot about that stupid painting," she muttered throwing the towel on the counter, and taking off towards wherever the noise was coming from. I was alone in the kitchen and I felt dumb for just standing in the aisleway when people would be coming down any second. I grabbed my goblet from the table and went to fill it up with water when I ran into two solid people, a crack noise going through the room.
"Oops sorry Violet, we didn't know anyone was standing here," George apologized with a laugh while I held my nose. I had hit it with my goblet when I ran into them, since they decided that apparating into the middle of the room was a good idea.
"What do they say during apparation training! Focus on your destination, not just a random spot in the room where someone could be standing," I lectured.
"Oh yeah? And what would you know about apparation?" Ron asked walking into the kitchen.
"Well Ronald, at Ilvermorny you learn how to do it when you're in year 3. I have my American license but not my Britain one."
"That's my girl," Fred praised me and came to sit at the spot next to me, "How'd you sleep?"
"Better honestly," I smiled at him. Before we could continue conversation, Mrs. Weasley reentered the kitchen with a long line of sleepy people following her.
"Boys help me carry the stew over to the table," she instructed. Ron went to go pick it up with his hands, but Fred and George had other ideas.
"We'll show you the way little brother," George smirked while the twins both pointed their wands at everything they were supposed to be carrying over.
"JUST CARRY THEM," screamed Mrs. Weasley which made them lose their concentration on levitating the food. I made wide eye contact with Sirius as we both ducked under the table. The stew skidded the length of the table and came to a halt just before falling over the edge. It left a long black burn on the wooden table. The bread knife also slipped off and landed point down exactly where my hand had been seconds before I moved it.
"FOR HEAVENS SAKE! JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE ALLOWED TO USE MAGIC DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE TO WHIP YOUR WANDS OUT FOR EVERYTHING," screamed Mrs. Weasley.
"Violet I'm so sorry are you okay?" Fred hurried over to me.
"Yes, I'm fine but that doesn't make you any less of an idiot," I said making him frown.
"Okay I deserved that but hey you're alive?" he tried to joke lightheartedly.
"I hope that you don't have that same careless attitude when taking care of my daughter," dad said narrowing his eyes. I could see Fred gulp from beside me.
"No sir of course not-," he stammered.
"Because if so we're going to have a long talk young man," dad continued. I kept my eyes going back and forth between them not wanting to get in the middle of whatever was happening. Ron was giggling across the table and I kicked him hard. I held in my giggle as I saw Ron's laughter get cut off, and his mouth now held a large O as he held his shin in pain.
"I assure you I would never carelessly watch over Violet. That was just a stupid thing for me to say," Fred apologized, "I promise, it won't happen again," he finished which seemed to temporarily satisfy dad.
"Alright dig in!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed attempting to diffuse the tension. Everyone began to chatter amongst themselves eating the grand meal we had made.
"I think I peed my pants," Fred whispered to me.
"He's just protective like that," I laughed in response and intertwined our hands to tell him everything was fine. Once breakfast had been finished, we cleaned up the kitchen and were told to prepare ourselves for a long day of cleaning.
I put on an old muggle band shirt I had and some shorts before meeting everyone else in the drawing room like Mrs. Weasley said. My hair was strung up in a high ponytail and I hesitantly walked in the room, not knowing what to expect.
"Cover your faces and take a spray," she said to me as soon as I walked in, "It's Doxycide. I've never seen an infestation this bad." I grabbed a spray bottle and some cloth to wrap around my face. The twins soon joined me while we all stood in a room looking like we were about to take a hike through sand dunes. It was quite a comical sight actually.
"Nice shorts," Fred hummed in my ear.
"Oh these ones?" I asked innocently. He nodded still glancing down at me from behind. I undid the knot in the front, and tightened the bands even more so it could hug my butt more firmly, "thanks," I winked and turned away from him. I could feel him make a weird noise from behind me but I chose to ignore his whining and listen to Mrs. Weasley.
"Right, you lot, you need to be careful because doxies bite and their teeth are poisonous. When I say the word, start spraying them immediately." I lifted my bottle up and prepared myself for the worst. I had never seen Doxies in real life, but I heard they were the angriest bunch. As soon as the curtain was pealed back a group of fairy like creatures jumped out at us. In a moment of panic, I sprayed my bottle rapidly at anything that was moving. The Doxie that had been flying rapidly towards me and had it's fists clenched with fury, froze midair and fell to the floor. I could tell Hermione and I were not fans of this creature at our repulesed expressions, but the twins seemed to take interest in it. After spraying a Doxie, Fred held it in his hand and began inspecting it.
"Fred what are you doing?" said Mrs. Weasley sharply, "Spray that at once and throw it away!" I elbowed him to do what she said so she didn't assign us more chores around the house.
"Okie dokie," Fred said brightly and sprayed the Doxie making it faint in his hands. But the moment that his mother turned her back to him he pocketed it with a wink.
"What are you doing?" I mumbled quietly through my closed mouth, "you're going to get us in trouble."
"I'll tell you later," he assured.
We spent the next hour peeling back different items of furniture and spraying anything that moved. The curtains were the worst, as every time we pulled them back more Doxies seemed to appear out of thin air. At one point Snow ran into the drawing room with us, and started playing with one of the stunned Doxies we dropped on the floor. It was quite a game of tug and war since he didn't want to let the creature go. Once we had finally finished, we left the sweaty room and went to go rinse off. Ron and Hermione were talking in our bedroom, so I decided to shower first and give them their privacy.
After rinsing off, I dried my hair and put it up into one of those high buns I have come to adore over the summer. Since my hair was wet this was just the easiest way to style it with the least amount of effort. The door to my bedroom was still shut so I skipped up the stairs to the floor above me. Both of the twins were just sitting on their beds writing stuff down into a journal of some sort.
"Okay so what was that up there," I asked Fred entering his room.
"What do you mean," both twins looked at me confused.
"You said you'd tell me why you kept that Doxie later,"
"Oh yeah! We want to experiment with doxy venom for our skiving snackboxes" Fred said happily.
"What are those," I said not understanding.
"I'm just going to tell her George," Fred said looking at his brother who shrugged in response, "remember in Hogsmead last year when I told you that we wanted to have a joke shop when we leave school?" I nodded remembering, "well we decided that we don't want to sell just anyone's work but our own. So we've been developing products over the summer."
"That's incredible," I said immediately, "only how is your mum giving you the money to do that?"
Both boys gave an uneasy look at my question, "well that's the thing that nobody knows so far. Last year when we were with you and Harry in the hospital wing after the third task, he woke up first. He gave us his entire winnings, the whole 1000 galleons. Told us he reckons people need a good laugh nowadays." I had my mouth open in astonishment. I knew Harry was generous, but to give away 1000 galleons was something else.
"Wow that's so unbelievably kind of him," I said shocked.
"We know," George answered, "that's why we got started with work right away and created the skiving snackboxes. They're a range of sweets to make you ill. Not seriously ill, just ill enough to get out of a class when you feel like it. Fred and I have been developing them since early this summer. They're double ended, color coded chews. If you eat the orange half of the puking pastilles, you throw up. Moment you've been rushed out of the lesson for the hospital wing, you swallow the purple half-"
"which restores you to fill fitness, enabling you to pursue the leisure activity of your choice during the hour of missed class," Fred finished with a grin, "They still need a bit of work. At the moment our testers are having a bit of trouble puking long enough to swallow the purple end,"
"You guys have people testing them in the house?"
"No we take them in turns, we both tried the Nosebleed Nougat and mom thought we had been wrestling." I laughed at this.
"Since we haven't been able to look for a place yet, we're currently running it as a mail-order service. We put advertisements in the Daily Prophet last week." Fred told me as I looked at them in amazement. Whenever you ask a wizard what they want to be you always get the same old answers; ministry official, auror, professor, but the twins were unique, and they didn't let that stop their path to success.
"Well add me to your list of testers I'd love to help," I said, and Fred put his arm around me. At the same time the front door opened loudly, and we heard a large amount of voices speaking. The three of us ran downstairs knowing that Harry and Mr. Weasley had to of just returned from the ministry.
"Well what happened! Hermione demanded when they had finally entered the kitchen.
"I got off, I'm good," Harry gave a real smiled for one of the first times. The twins and Ginny started singing some song about how he got let off and the rest of us let out our breaths of concern, knowing that everything was okay now.
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