[2] The Great Orangenie | FRED WEASLEY

Chapter Twenty Four

Since the start of the year, Fred and George had been juggling a lot of things which meant their time to start another passion project was limited. Selling and creating their products (complete with dramatic displays) took a little while to plan whilst having actual girlfriends and the Defence classes took a bit out of it too.

Surprisingly, N.E.W.Ts didn't factor in at all.

Still, they were good at fitting in things so they picked up old books and piece of papers as sneakily as they could with the intent of trying them when they found the time. Due to all the distractions, it was a few weeks before they actually found an evening they could dedicate to practising,

He'd spent a nice lunch with Aubrey, discussing how weird Pineapples were but when he'd invited her to join them, she politely refused. What with N.E.W.Ts, an annoying bout of homework and the horrible realisation that her parents may have committed some awful crime, she'd decided to leave the old magic to him. She'd been in somewhat of a bad mood after Umbridge deducted twenty points for looking grumpy in the corridors, especially when her parents completely ignored her last letter, forcing her to write up a very angry follow up. So, when she said she needed the evening, just to work, he left her.

That evening had been quite busy thanks to Quidditch Practice combined with a full hour of product demonstrations. So far they'd found a winning formula that people loved: one of them would take a bite out of one end of the Puking Pastille, vomit spectacularly into a bucket the other one was holding before forcing the antidote half down their throat, stopping the puking much to the crowd's amusement. It was dirty work but was earning them quite a bit so it was hard to complain. Still, it did leave them little time to head to the library that evening.

"Your throat alright?" George asked as Lee handed him the bucket, the vomit thankfully vanished out of it.

Fred nodded, even though his throat was starting to slightly burn a little, "Yeah, not bad ... you'll do it tomorrow though, right?"

"Yeah, 'course," George nodded, putting the box of Puking Pastilles back into their demonstration Skiving Snackbox. Whilst he was proud of the product, the result of two summers of hard work, the thing he was most proud of was the packaging. On the side, was a tiny little Kenny, a little homage to the events of the year before.

"You well enough to go and um ..." George shrugged, "Work on new products tonight?"

"Do you need me to distract Saskia?" Lee asked, from his seat where he sat leisurely watching them.

"Nah, Aubrey's hanging out with her tonight."

"Ah, shame," Lee shrugged, "She makes the worst puns at the best times, it's bloody brilliant. And she tells me I'm a beautiful human if I'm sad, really brings up a guy in his low moments, you get me?"

"I do, Lee, I get you."

The two bid goodbye to their friend, dashing up to the dorm to collect the papers and spells they'd accumulated over the past few weeks all leading up to tonight. Both were excited, dashing out of the dorms with distracted grins on their faces.

"Do you reckon it's easy to swap minds?" George grinned, "It's probably not but imagine that in a product - "

"GEORGE! FRED!" They both turned around to see Lexy emerging from a corridor. She gave a small wave, the two walking back a little way to meet her, "Th-thanks for walking back ... I ran!"

"And we're very proud of you."

"We can tell by your tomato red face."

The twins had very different answers to her statement (Fred's earnt him a scowl).