Scratches (Fred Weasley)

(78) Hogsmeade Havoc

"Okay, so what's on that list of yours?" inquired Florence as she walked with the Weasley twins. It was still incredibly hard for her to catch up to them, even if they were walking at a considerably normal pace. Florence was nowhere near short in terms of height, but she might as well be when she's with the twins. Fred flipped the piece of parchment, showing her a variety of Zonko's products that she's never heard of in her life.

He laughed at her confusion, "Don't worry, love, after today you'll be well-versed in all of the prank toys."

"Maybe it's your handwriting that she doesn't quite understand, Freddie." George joked

"You were the one who wrote the list last night." he retorted.

"It's not the handwriting, okay? The handwriting  fine, Fred, I mean George, since he wrote it..." Florence reassured the two, "Believe me I've seen messier handwritings, like Nicolai's for example. Hers looks like a chicken just scratched the parchment with ink."

"That's pretty harsh, Flo."

"Harsh...We've insulted each other far worse than that. So, anyways, what's an.." she peered at the parchment, "...Inflatable tongue? What does it do?"

"Do you remember in our first year, when Madame Hooch was teaching us how to get on a broom and such?"

She partially did, although it was kind of hard to forget. That day was when she discovered her love for flying, that later on developed into a passion for Quidditch. But ofcourse, it was also a day that was brandished as one of the very first tricks that the Weasley twins had up their sleeves.

"George...or Fred, I dunno, either one of you, ate a wild berry and your tongue was swelling massively." Florence recalled, "Madame Hooch panicked a lot and dismissed the rest of us—wait, you two used an Inflatable Tongue, didn't you?" her eyes widened in realization.

"Correct. You catch on pretty quick, love. I hope it's not a mistake to trust you with our prank secrets." said Fred, the three nearly to the joke shop.

"Exploit your secrets? Does that even sound like me?"

"Nicolai told me that you sold Xander out to his sister for three chocolate chip cookies." George chuckled, "I'm not very sure that you're bribe-proof, Flo."

"In my defense, I was starving. I needed those cookies."

Zonko's was never too crowded with people that you won't have any difficulty in checking out their products for as long as you wished. George grabbed a basket from the pile near the door, cradling it in his arms as they went over to the first aisle, where the dungbombs and stink pellets usually were at. She observed them as they scooped up an armful. The twins spent their money without remorse when it came to the first few aisles, but as they neared the far  right corner of the shop, they became more selective.

Florence had also noticed the tiny notepad that George had in his hand, jotting down a few things every once in a while, which made her skeptical.

"Wow, I've never seen you two take so much notes, not even in class. What's it for?"

"You see, Flo," explained George as he put down a fragile-looking box back onto it's shelf, "We don't just shop at Zonko's. We draw inspiration from it."

"Yeah. George and I plan on putting up our own joke shop someday. We have a few original products in mind, ofcourse, some of them we've been working on for the past few months. Slowly but surely."

Florence was in awe of the way they had spoken about this shared dream of theirs. There was always something that a person was passionate about, and she had never quite seen the twins converse about something so dedicatedly in the times that she's spent with the two of them.