Dreams Are Falling Short

I was spraying the Doxys left, right and centre. I moved the bandana that was tied around my mouth a bit higher, making sure I didn’t directly breathe in the Doxycide first hand.

“Fred, what are you doing?” said Mrs Weasley sharply. “Spray that at once and throw it away!”
Fred was holding a struggling Doxy between his forefinger and thumb.

“Right-o,” Fred said brightly, spraying the Doxy quickly in the face so that it fainted, but the moment Mrs Weasley’s back was turned he pocketed it with a wink.

“We want to experiment with Doxy venom for our Skiving Snackboxes,” George told Harry under his breath.

I sprayed two Doxys at once as they soared straight for my nose, and I saw Harry move closer to George and mutter out of the corner of his mouth, “What are Skiving Snackboxes?”

“Range of sweets to make you ill,” George whispered, keeping a wary eye on Mrs Weasley’s back. “Not seriously ill, mind, just ill enough to get you out of class when you feel like it. Fred, Corey and I have been developing them this summer. They’re double-ended, colour-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 full fitness, enabling you to pursue the leisure activity of your own choice during an hour that would otherwise have been devoted to unprofitable boredom.’ That’s what we’re putting in the adverts, anyway,” whispered Fred, who had edged over out of Molly’s vision and was now sweeping a few stray Doxys from the floor and adding them to his pocket.

“But they still need a bit of work. At the moment our testers are having a bit of trouble stopping themselves puking long enough to swallow the purple end,” I said.

“Us,” said Fred. “We take it in turns. Corey did the Fainting Fancies – we,” he indicated to himself and George, “both tried the Nosebleed Nougat –“

“Mum thought we’d been duelling,” said George.

“Joke shop still on, then?” Harry muttered, pretending to be adjusting the nozzle on his spray.

“Well, we haven’t had a chance to get premises yet,” said Fred, dropping his voice even lower as Molly mopped her brow with her scarf before returning to the attack, “so we’re running it as a mail-order service at the moment. We put advertisements in the Daily Prophet last week.”

“All thanks to you, mate,” said George. “But don’t worry... Mum hasn’t got a clue. She won’t read the Daily Prophet anymore, ‘cause of it telling lies about you and Dumbledore.”

-

I sat at the table in the kitchen, a big, half-eaten plate of bacon, eggs and toast in front of me. Fred was on my right and Mrs Weasley was cooking, while everyone else was probably still in bed.

“It has awoken!” I announced, as a tired and grumpy looking George made himself present.

“Remind me again why we keep her around, Freddie?” George said irritably.

“I really don’t know,” Fred said. “Neither of us will get any sleep with her around.”

I had woken Fred up about an hour ago, because I didn’t want to walk around the house at six when I knew there were creepy things around. Plus, Fred could legally do magic, so he could protect me. We had found Molly in the kitchen, where she’d been sitting since before five, when Harry had awoken to go to his hearing.

“Don’t worry, Mum, it’s not like that,” George said, quickly, seeing his mum glance our way.

I finished my plate of food quickly, and Fred looked at me, his eyebrows raised expectantly.

“Will you give me a piggyback ride, Freddie?” I said in a baby voice and making my eyes wide.

“Don’t you have legs?” Fred said, but pushed his plate away anyway.

“I do, how else do you think I’d stay on your back?”

“Alright, get on,” Fred said, standing up.

I stood on my chair, and jumped on Fred’s back.

“Come find us when you’re done eating,” I told George.

Fred took me all the way up to our room, where he dumped me on my bed.

“Hey!” I exclaimed. “That was rude.”

“I had to carry you up how many flights of stairs?” he said, sitting on the floor beside his bed.

“Fair point,” I said, getting up and going to sit next to him.

“So, what other product do we still need to make?” Fred asked.

“We need to work on the Portable Swamp,” I said, “and the Love Potions.”

“We should probably work on the Swamp,” Fred said, going to reach for the papers and prototypes.

“I think we should work on the Love Potions,” I mused.

“Oh, really,” Fred said, sitting back, a smug expression on his face.

“Yeah,” I said, looking at him.

“Well...” Fred stretched and put his arm around my shoulders, and shuffling a bit closer to me.

“I was referring to the fact that we haven’t actually started them,” I said, chuckling.

“Oh,” Fred said.

He started to move his arm away, but my hand shot up without my consent and held it, not allowing him to pull away from me. He looked at me, somewhat confused; but I couldn’t tell what other emotion was there.

“Don’t,” I said quietly, and I wasn’t even sure if he’d heard me. “Please.”

I could see Fred analysing my actions, so I didn’t say anything. His brown eyes darted around, taking in every inch of my face, and I looked down, knowing that if he kept doing that, I’d probably turn a deep red. Slowly, Fred’s hand reached up and tilted my face back up towards him.

He slowly leant in, and I felt his breath land on my face. My throat nearly clenched up from nervousness as the air got caught in it. I closed my eyes as he got closer to me, not being able to take his questioning look anymore. I’m pretty sure he took that as a go ahead, because he then pulled me closer to him, only centre metres part from each other now.

“Hey guys, I was just wondering –“

Fred and I jumped apart, not even letting out arms touch, though we both sat unblushingly. George stood in the doorway to our room, watching us.

“You were wondering?” Fred said.

“I was wondering if you guys wanted to work on the Love Potions...”

“Yeah, that’d be great,” I said, glancing sideways at Fred and smirking a little.

-

“I knew it!” I yelled, punching the air. “You always get away with stuff!”

“They were bound to clear you,” said Hermione, who had looked positively faint with anxiety all day, and was now holding a shaking hand over her eyes, “there was no case against you, none at all.”

“Everyone seems quite relieved, though, considering you all knew I’d get off,” said Harry, smiling.
Mrs Weasley was wiping her face on her apron, and the twins and Ginny were doing a kind of war dance to a chant that went: “He got off, he got off, he got off...”

“That’s enough! Settle down!” shouted Mr Weasley, though he too was smiling. “Listen, Sirius, Lucius Malfoy was at the Ministry –“

“What?” said Sirius sharply.

“He got off, he got off, he got off...”

“Be quiet, you three! Yes, we saw him talking to Fudge on Level Nine, then they went up to Fudge’s office together. Dumbledore ought to know.”

“Absolutely,” said Sirius. “We’ll tell him, don’t worry.”

“Well, I’d better get going, there’s a vomiting toilet waiting for me in Bethnal Green. Molly, I’ll be late, I’m covering for Tonks, but Kingsley might be dropping in for dinner –“

“He got off, he got off, he got off...”

“That’s enough – Fred – George – Ginny!” said Mrs Weasley, as Mr Weasley left the kitchen. “Harry, dear, come and sit down, have some lunch, you hardly ate breakfast.”

“Course, once Dumbledore turned up on your side, there was no way they were going to convict you,” said Ron happily, now dishing great mounds of mashed potato on to everyone’s plates.

“Yeah, he swung it for me,” said Harry. “I wish he’d talked to me, though. Or even looked at me.”
Out of nowhere, Harry clapped his head to his scar.

“What’s up?” said Hermione, looking alarmed.

“Scar,” Harry mumbled. “But it’s nothing... it happens all the time now...”

No one else had noticed a thing; all of them were now helping themselves to food while gloating over Harry’s narrow escape; the twins and Ginny were still singing, and it brought a smile to my face. Hermione looked rather anxious, but before she could say anything, Ron had said happily, “I bet Dumbledore turns up this evening, to celebrate with us, you know.”

“I don’t think he’ll be able to, Ron,” said Mrs Weasley, setting a huge plate of roast chicken down in front of Harry. “He’s really very busy at the moment."

“HE GOT OFF, HE GOT OFF, HE GOT OFF...”

“SHUT UP!” roared Mrs Weasley.