Author's note: this was fun! it's one of our patented 'in which many witty things are said and very little is done' chapters. we like them far too much, and fred and george are entertaining to work with. draco is too, of course, but he doesn't have a twin, so he can't bounce back and forth like fred and george do! -grins-
Disclaimer: if it's midnight here, then it's seven in the morning in england, where JK Rowling lives. if she's clever, she'll be asleep. i'm not. therefore, i cannot be her.
--kyra


Brilliant

"Hello Mrs. Weasley. Sorry to burst in on you like this, but we need to find Fred and George. Are they here?"

Mrs. Weasley stared at Harry for a long moment, then shifted her gaze to Draco. She frowned, badly trying to conceal her shock. Harry scowled, tired of everyone's prejudices against Draco. He conveniently forgot that, until recently, he had shared those prejudices.

"Yes it's Draco. Yes he's with me. No we don't hate each other. Yes it's a long story. Yes we're in trouble. Are Fred and George there?"

Mrs. Weasley stared for a moment longer, than seemed to regain her customary composure. "Come in. Fred and George are in their room. I'll go call them. You two can sit in the living room, if you like." She turned and bustled off, leaving Harry and Draco on the doorstep.

"That was friendly," Draco commented dryly.

Harry sighed. "I should have expected that," he muttered. "It's not like your family and Ron's are on very good terms, after all." He crossed the threshold into the house, Draco trailing behind him. They saw no one as they made their way towards the living room, which was odd. There were so many Weasleys living in the house that they should have met at least one of them. Harry frowned. "I wonder where everyone is."

Draco shrugged. "I can only assume they have more important things to do."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

Draco snorted. "You really must stop spending so much time around me," he drawled. "It's staining your flawless Gryffindor character."

Harry eyed him with no little amusement. "You can't have it both ways," he informed his love. "Either you keep me with you and don't let me out of your sight, or you banish me for the sake of my character."

Draco shrugged. "Were I a good person, I would choose the latter. As it is…" he let the sentence trail off, and Harry grinned.

"Then it's a good thing you're in Slytherin, isn't it? You would never have made it in Gryffindor. Self-sacrifice is one of our prime virtues."

"So I've gathered," Draco agreed dryly. "Though many of you seem to take that to extremes."

Harry shrugged. "You're saying that there aren't Slytherins who go in the other direction?"

Draco shrugged back. "No one's perfect," he conceded. "But many of us get fairly close."

Harry snorted. "That's what you think. I know a good many people, starting with everyone in this house, who would disagree."

"Their loss."

"Don't tell them that."

"Don't tell us what?"

Both Harry and Draco turned to find Fred and George leaning against opposite sides of the doorframe wearing identical expressions on their faces.

"Mum said you wanted us," Fred explained.

"She didn't seem terribly coherent," George added.

"Mind telling us what's going on?"

"And what you need us for?"

Draco grimaced. "Do they always do that?" he murmured to Harry.

Harry glanced at him. "Do what?"

"Take turns. It's extremely disconcerting."

"They're twins. What do you expect?"

"Some semblance of coherency, at least."

"Sorry." Harry turned back to Fred and George, who hadn't moved. He sighed. "It's complicated," he warned.

"When is it not, with you?" Fred demanded. "Go on, spill. We won't help you unless we know what it is you want us to do."

Harry shrugged. "You asked for it," he said, then launched into a detailed description of their current problem, doing his best to leave out his relationship with Draco. He didn't know if the twins were ready for that.

Unfortunately for him, Fred and George were no fools. "And him?" George asked, nodding at Draco. "Where does he come into the story?"

"Apart from the fact that it's his father chasing you, of course," Fred clarified.

"Exactly," George agreed, nodding at Fred. "More specifically, what kind of…

"Partnership," Fred supplied.

"Partnership have the two of you formed without us to keep an eye on you."

"Though we think we can guess," Fred added, looking from Harry to Draco.

"Then why bother asking?" Draco demanded.

"Because we like seeing you squirm," was the prompt reply. They both turned their eyes on Harry. "Well?"

Harry shrugged. "What do you want me to say?" he demanded.

George rolled his eyes. "Have you shagged him yet?"

"No."

"Do you have plans to do so in the near future?"

"Probably not."

"Were you planning on shagging Gin before you got… involved with him?"

"No!"

"Good." Fred nodded his satisfaction. "Otherwise we might have to hurt you, and that would make Ron sad."

"And we wouldn't want to do that," Fred put in.

Draco scowled. "Can we please get back to the actual point of this conversation?"

Fred and George looked at each other. "I wasn't aware that this conversation had a point," George commented.

"That's because we got sidetracked by Harry and Malfoy's… relationship," Fred reminded him.

"Ah, of course." They both turned to look at the younger boys. "So, why exactly do you need our help?"

"We need to get to Tonks' parents house," Harry said bluntly. "And we need to get there as soon as possible."

Fred nodded. "I see. So you came to us? Why?"

"If anyone can yet us there, it's you two. Don't tell me you haven't invented some kind of Apparating device or something."

Fred and George exchanged another look. "Can we trust them?" George asked.

"It is Harry," Fred pointed out.

"Yeah, but what about him?" George demanded, nodding at Draco.

"I have a name," Draco muttered darkly.

The twins ignored him. "We would be one-upping the bastard," Fred said pensively. "That would be worth it."

"True," George agreed. "And it would give us an opportunity to test the things…"

They nodded, then turned back to face Harry and Draco. "We'll do it," Fred proclaimed. "C'mon."

"Where are we going?" Draco demanded warily.

"To our shop, of course," George said. "You think we keep merchandise here? Mum would throw it out like a shot!"

Draco grimaced slightly, but didn't comment further, only stood up and shook his robes into some semblance of order. Harry followed suit, not caring about the state of his robes. He looked at Fred and George. "Floo Powder? I can't Apparate, and Draco's never been there."

Fred and George glanced at each other, then shook their heads. "Don't bother. We'll go side-along." They moved towards the two, George heading for Harry and Fred towards Draco. Draco eyed the tall redhead with no little disgust, but he refrained from commenting.

Fred and George each grasped one of their passenger's hands, then grinned. Without any further ceremony, the world disappeared around them, reforming moments later into the back of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Fred and Draco immediately moved away from each other.

George beckoned for them to follow. He led them even farther into the shop, then down a concealed set of stairs into a dark room. A rapid spell lit the chandelier.

"This is our workshop," Fred proclaimed.

"We don't let just anyone down here," George added. "You two should feel honored."

"I can hardly believe my luck," Draco muttered dryly. Harry scowled at him.

"So what is it that you have for us?" Harry asked, turning his attention back to the twins.

Fred moved to one of the shelves and removed a small bag. He tossed it to George, who caught it deftly. George motioned the two closer and upended the bag into his palm. Four small silver balls rolled into his hand.

"These," George proclaimed, "are our newest invention: apparating apparatuses."

"They haven't been completely tested yet," Fred added, appearing at George's shoulder. "But we're 96 percent sure they're safe, give or take a couple percentage points."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "96 percent certain?" he asked. "Why not 100?"

"We haven't tested them on anyone but us first," George explained. "They work fine for us, but we don't know if they have adverse effects on anyone else."

"Nasty side-effects, for instance," Fred clarified.

"Yet you're still offering them to us?" Harry wanted to know.

George nodded. "If you agree to be our testers."

"What would that entail?" Draco demanded.

"Not much." Fred assured him. "You'd just have to write to us when you get to Tonks' parents house to let us know how it worked."

That reminded Harry that Hedwig was still missing, and he grimaced. Well, she was clever. She'd find him eventually, and, anyway, he had other ways of communicating. Still, it was unnerving, to be cut off from communicating with his friends like that.

"We'll take them," Harry proclaimed. "How do they work?"


Author's note 2: Attentive readers may remember apparating apparatuses from Emeral Fog. I was too lazy to invent another device for the twins to use, and it works perfectly well for the purposes of this story. For a full description, you can check in chapter... um... 2 or 3 of Emerald, but you shouldn't need to. I'll explain them more in the next Harry chapter.
--Tamara