Code Orange
"So," Leigh started, turning the pages in her notebook to the first blank one available before pushing it in front of her slightly. With another flick of her wand, her quill rose from its location on the desk and moved to hover above the notebook, ready to take notes of the meeting. "Let's begin and get this meeting over with," she said to the twins, before quickly facing the quill and mumbling 'don't write that down'. The quill remained still in return.
"I've been thinking of how to structure these meetings," Leigh continued. "From what I understand, the point is to keep track of the products and ultimately assess the risk of those, and the consequences if they were to be used on Hogwarts grounds." The twins looked at each other before returning their gaze to Leigh with a combined shrug and nod. They didn't seem to know completely either, or perhaps (most likely) they didn't really care.
"When is the shop set to open?" She asked instead, knowing it hadn't opened yet.
"Soon enough," George replied vaguely, a sparkle in his eye. "Got a grand opening planned and everything."
"Going to be wicked. Limited edition fireworks, new range of Skiving Snackboxes, you name it," Fred continued proudly, and Leigh's expression gradually changed into one of distaste.
"Right..," she trailed off, clearly not into the idea of more students using candy to fake sickness to get out of class. And fireworks within school walls - absolutely not. "Are you able to compile a complete list of the products you'll offer when you open?" She asked.
George moved to stand up. "Aha, already one step ahead of you there! Give me a second," he said and moved towards a bag located by the brooms.
As George rummaged around the bag trying to find said product list, Fred instead leaned forward, again reaching out to grab the arithmancy book and peeking into it. "Arithmancy," he said, and for once it looked like his brain might actually be working. "Something to do with predicting the future, right?" He looked at her, waiting for her answer.
She hummed slightly. "Kind of," she mumbled.
Fred nodded to himself. "Hermione always used to go on about it when she visited the burrow," he continued. "Ancient runes and all. Seemed terribly confusing."
Leigh shrugged. "I think it's fascinating."
"Clearly," Fred's eyes gleamed playfully as he looked at her. "Tell me something about the future then," he said with a smirk.
She couldn't help but roll her eyes lightly. "It's not like that. It's not complete rubbish like divination. It has a mathematical basis, and there's a lot of usage of number charts, for example. Rather than predicting the future at large, it can be used to predict certain trends in the future," she explained. She couldn't help it – she adored the subject and would speak about it to anyone and anything who would listen.
Surprisingly, Fred seemed to listen to what she had to say and nodded slightly when she had finished her explanation. With a big smile on his face, he looked from her book to her face before parting his lips again. "Nerd."
Leigh was unsure what to respond really. Instinctively she returned a nervous, loopy grin and, at the loss of words, opted to reply with a quiet "Shut up."
Fred seemed pleased with her reaction, and soon George was back with a piece of parchment held in his hand. "Product list with individual descriptions," he claimed in a chipper voice as he passed the list to Leigh.
The next 45 minutes or so were spent going over the items, with the twins presenting them excitedly and Leigh being a downer bringing up security concerns and risks to students. While prank items weren't something Leigh was particularly interested in, she had to admit some of them were clever and innovative, especially the ones which weren't created with pranks in mind. Apparently the twins had branched out quite a bit. Their company started with purely prank items, sick-candy and fireworks, but had developed to accompany a range of purposes. Leigh was informed they had even catered to a request by the Ministry of Magic, who had ordered 500 shield hats for staff protection prior to the battle.
As for the grand opening of the shop, the twins had planned countless new items and events taking place in the surrounding area in Hogsmeade. They had spoken with the owner of the Three Broomsticks who had agreed to have an outside area where butterbeer would be served, and had even planned some musical act to perform at the event. All in all they hoped it would help lift both students' and other wizards and witches' spirits, as well as make the shop open with a boom. Also, the end of September would still have some of that 'late-summer-vibe', as George so eloquently put it.
They decided to schedule another meeting in a few days, just to keep track of the planning. In the meantime, Leigh was set to report back to McGonagall. Why McGonagall couldn't have these brief meetings with the twins herself, Leigh didn't know. It felt like a waste of time when it would take just as long for McGonagall to listen to Leigh as it would her listening to the Weasleys. Although maybe it had more to do with discretion. To see the Weasley twins run in and out of the Headmistress' office, with another purpose than pranking, might make the products all of a sudden seem...uncool.
Leigh stood up, picking up her quill, which had made notes in her notebook for the last hour, and started gathering her books in preparation to leave the room and get back to her comfy, warm common room.
The twins raised themselves from their chairs, with George being the first to move towards the open window to exit using one of the stolen brooms. "Pleasure to have this magnificent meeting with you," George did a dramatic bow, grin cladding his face, before he hoisted the bag over his shoulder, prepared to leave.
Just as Leigh was about to exit the room, uttering a quiet 'bye' as she did so, Fred's voice rang out, stopping his brother from leaving the room just yet. "Give me a second, George. Code orange," he said before following Leigh towards the door, the smirk present on his lips soon being returned by his twin.
Leigh was confused as Fred stepped out into the corridor with her, looking both ways before sneakily following Leigh down the corridor. He pushed his white sleeves up to his elbows as if preparing himself for something.
"What are you doing?" Leigh asked with furrowed brows and squinting eyes, suspicious to say the least.
Fred shrugged with a grin, quickly looking behind him before falling in step with Leigh. "Fixing my sleeves. Is a man not allowed to look his best?"
"A man, sure," Leigh shot back, looking him up and down to convey her point. A playfully offended gasp was heard from his direction in response.
To say Leigh was not convinced Fred had innocent intentions was an understatement. "Look, I don't know what you think you're doing but I want no involvement in it whatsoever–"
"Sh!" Fred's abrupt hushing interrupted her, and before she had time to react, she was pulled by her robes into a shadow-y corner of the corridor. She looked up at the tall twin beside her with a scowl, and he returned a cheeky smile as he pressed a finger to his lips. A few students walked past and didn't seem to notice them.
"Unbelievable," Leigh muttered to herself.
Fred shook his head slightly beside her, leaning against the stone wall behind them both. "You're incredibly bad at this," he whispered. "Unfathomably bad."
"Whatever this is, I'm not interested!" She retorted, imitating his tone.
Again, Fred's hand reached out to grasp the arm of her robes, pulling her along as they started walking down the corridor again. With a silent summoning spell, the book on the top of the pile Leigh was carrying flew into Fred's hand, who opened it quickly before huddling closer to her and bending down to pretend to look into it.
It was obvious that Fred tried his best to hide his face and blend in with the students in the corridor, and Leigh couldn't help but find it amusing. He was freakishly tall with flaming hair. Anyone could see he was one of the twins, and definitely that he was a Weasley.
"You look ridiculous," Leigh confessed after staying silent for too long, a small mocking smile growing at her lips.
Fred glanced down at her, that gleam still present in his eye. "Just trying to match the one beside me." Not giving her time to reply, he immediately parted his lips again. "Aha! Perfect..," Fred drifted off as he came to a stop, reaching an arm out in front of Leigh to make sure she did the same. They were quite close to the Gryffindor common room, and she saw Ron chatting with some classmates further ahead, the group probably getting ready to go to today's dinner in the great hall.
The borrowed book was returned to the top of Leigh's pile, and Fred instead shoved a hand down the pocket of his trousers, apparently looking for something.
Finally, his hand rose from his trouser pocket, and his fist opened to reveal black...sand. Raising an eyebrow, Leigh looked at him, unimpressed.
"Maybe this is valuable to your security assessment," Fred stated, although it was obvious that whatever was to come was for his own amusement. He delivered a grin towards Leigh, and she already regretted walking this way with him. "See you in a week."
And with that he proceeded to blow the pile of dark sand off his palm and in the direction of Ron and the group. He gave Leigh a wink before turning on his heel and making his way back towards classroom 703, where his stolen broom was ready for takeoff. With his long legs Leigh figured the walk didn't take long.
She watched as he disappeared from view and shook her head. They both seemed completely nuts - Fred perhaps a tad more than George. She turned back towards the common room, planning to drop off her books and perhaps change into a comfy sweater, when she suddenly heard a shriek echoing throughout the corridor.
With wide eyes she whipped around only to see Ron moving erratically, some of the classmates surrounding him bearing similar nervous expressions to his.
Leigh furrowed her brows in confusion, an expression which soon changed to realisation as she took a closer look at what was occurring. Small pieces of dark sand surrounded the floor by the group, and one by one they seemed to enlarge, growing in size as legs popped out on each side of the spheres. Spiders, surrounded by some form of grey mist, ran across the floor, some of them having managed to crawl up poor Ron's leg.
"Get them off me! Get them off!" Ron's high-pitched voice yelled as he shook his body uncontrollably, attempting to make the spiders fall off. "Ah!" He shrieked again, face contorting in fear.
As if summoned by the sound of her boyfriend's pained sounds, Hermione rushed through the entrance to the common room, concern plastered across her face. Her hair was in a semi-finished braid, seemingly having dropped everything to run to Ron. Her face seemed to relax slightly as she realised the mortal threat was merely a few spiders, although that was considered the worst of the worst to Ron.
Just as Hermione raised her wand, after about 2 minutes of Ron trying to writhe out of the spiders' grasp, the spiders just...disappeared. Vanished into that hovering grey mist before disappearing completely.
Leigh shook her head, having witnessed the entire scene. Of course the Weasleys did have something up their sleeves after all.