Chapter 20

Fred woke up on Monday to an owl sitting on his face, which was definitely a first. As Angelina was at Hogwarts and Kat had moved back to her actual house rather than staying at Grimmauld place, Fred had moved into George's room, which meant that Lee had a room all to himself. Fred hadn't wanted to leave George alone, as he'd been getting more and more ill every hour. Mrs. Weasley kept saying that he shouldn't have gone to the station, but Fred didn't see what difference it made. In his opinion, the 'fresh' London air would surely help rather than worsen his brother's illness. Mrs. Weasley had contacted St Mungo's again and they'd had a response immediately saying that they'd send someone over.

But Fred was not expecting his daughter's owl to be sitting on his head and pecking his nose when he woke up. Groaning, he sat up and took the letter off the owl's leg. Slightly worried, he unfolded the letter and scanned it. He sighed in relief and put it down next to him. Molly was only telling him that she'd been sorted into Gryffindor. He smiled as he read that James had been helping her find her way around the school. As George was on the bed, Fred had been sleeping in the armchair by the window, which wasn't at all comfortable. Not that Fred minded. He got up and walked over to the bed where his brother lay. George didn't stir at all when his brother sat on the edge of the bed. Fred placed his hand on George's forehead and quickly removed it again, feeling as though his hand had just been placed into a furnace. He desperately hoped that the healers at St Mungo's could help George, it was horrible seeing him so lifeless and pale.

Fred crept to the kitchen and got a glass of water and a cool damp, cloth. No one else was in the there when he went down so, figuring that they must still be asleep, he snuck silently back up the stairs and returned to George's room. His brother was still lying motionless on the bed when Fred opened the door, so Fred had to literally force him to drink the water by tilting back his head and trickling it down his throat. George's mouth closed as he swallowed and Fred unwrapped the bandage from around his head.

The guilt that drowned Fred was almost as sickening as the sight of the wound on George's head. For only a few days, everything had been perfect for the twins. Back to normal. But now, Fred understood how his whole family must have felt for the last twenty years. Looking at his brother, skin pale and clammy, with shallow breath and dangerously faint pulse, was as horrifying as looking at his dead body.

For the last few days, all Fred had done was look after George and work on new products for the joke shop. Alone, he'd developed and finished models for a variety of products. Fire Fungus was a small mushroom that acted like a candle and produced any scent that the user wishes it to. There had been some interesting smells coming from the twin's room for a while, but they seemed to have sorted it out. Other products included Personal Mood Clouds, which were small microclimates that followed the user around and changed to reflect their mood, and Bad Hair Spray, which was designed to give a serious case of bedhead with only one spray. Several copies of the products were sitting on the window sill as Fred began work on his new idea, Vruit and Fegetables, which were raw vegetables disguised to look like pieces of delicious fruit. He was hoping to give someone a surprise with his first product, an onion orange.

Just as he was about to try to transform the first onion's appearance, the door opened and Mrs. Weasley came in holding a barn owl on her arm.

"Molly's in Gryffindor," she said.

"I know, I got a letter from her this morning."

"Angelina's worried about you and your brother. She's asking after you," Mrs. Weasley continued, handing Fred the letter, "How is George?" she asked when he had lowered the letter.

"Terrible," Fred sighed. "I tried to give him some water this morning, but I ended up forcing it down his throat. When are the healers coming?"

"Later today, hopefully. I was just beginning to enjoy everything being back to how it used to be, too."

"Well, with any hope, it won't be long before everything is back to normal for good. Is everyone else alright? No more injuries or illnesses?"

"No, I checked on everyone this morning. They're all fine."

"Good."

"I asked the healers if they'd take a look at you too, just so you know."

"Please tell me I misheard that."

"I'm afraid not. I can't have you getting as ill as George, we need a laugh around here."

Fred got up and picked up a can of Bad Hair Spray from the window-sill.

"If you want a laugh, spray this over someone's hair next time you see them."

"What is it?" Mrs. Weasley asked suspiciously- she'd never fully trusted the twin's products.

"Bad Hair Spray. I promise it isn't dangerous, I invented it myself. It just gives whoever's hair is sprayed with it the messiest hair imaginable."

"How long does it last?"

"Twenty-four hours exactly, but it begins to wear off after twenty."

Still looking uncertain, Mrs. Weasley left the room, holding the spray. While this probably should have made Fred feel better, he actually found himself sitting on the floor again, staring at his un-transfigured onion and feeling rather miserable. If even his mother was willing to use one of his joke products, things really were serious. She'd never encourage them to use their inventions, especially around the house, yet now she was walking away with every intention of using one herself.

"The world's gone mad," Fred muttered to himself.

"That's the truest thing I've heard in a long time," said a very weak voice from the other side of the room.

"I'm afraid you are mistaken," Fred said, grinning, "Someone told you yesterday that you looked ill."

"I still don't believe that," George said sarcastically, "I can't see anything wrong with me."

"Well, I'd be very surprised if you could see your own forehead."

"What did my forehead do to you?"

"Your forehead needs a shower. It's filthy."

George laughed, "What's that?" he said, eyes fixed on the letter.

"It's from Angelina," Fred said. He got up and handed the letter to George, who read it silently.

"Please tell me that you'll write back telling her that I'm fine."

"But that would be a lie."

George swung his legs out of bed and Fred glared at him, "What are you doing?"

"Getting up," George said, standing shakily and moving towards the windowsill.

"When you fall over, I promise, I will laugh at you."

"What are all these?"

"New joke shop products I came up with. That's a Fire Fungus, it's a bit like a scented candle, but you can make it smell however good or bad you want it to. There are over a hundred different scents."

"And this?"

"Personal Mood Cloud."

"Which is…"

"Let's just say that if I gave one to the people in this house, the entire place would be flooded with rainwater in about an hour. They sense how someone is feeling and turn the emotion into a weather."

"So, if someone was feeling very happy, they'd have a personal sunshine above their head?"

"And if they were very angry they'd have a mini tornado," Fred confirmed.

George picked up the last item on the window sill, "So, this is?"

"Bad Hair Spray. With any luck, you'll see what that does at some point today," Fred said, winking.

Getting down the stairs was a slower process than usual. Fred could tell that George was trying to walk as normally as he could, but he almost tripped several times and Fred had horrible images of his brother tumbling down two flights of stairs.

"What did you mean when you said that I'd see what Bad Hair Spray did?"

"I gave a can to mum," Fred said cheekily.

"Does she know what it does?"

"Yes."

"And she agreed to use it?" George whistled, "The world has gone mad."

The two of them finally reached the bottom of the wooden stairs and entered the kitchen where everyone was sitting, eating breakfast. When she saw her dad, Roxanne jumped up, beaming, and ran towards him. She tackled George in a hug that almost knocked him off his feet.

"Where's your brother?" George asked, looking around the table.

"He went to work with Uncle Ron and Grandad. Apparently, he thinks that because he's called Fred Weasley too, then nobody will notice the difference between him and the actual Uncle Fred."

"What a smart idea," Fred said sarcastically, "The only problem is that he's about half the height of me and has never run a shop before."

"Once you see past that, I'm sure no one will notice a thing," George said.

It was at that moment when Mrs. Weasley hurried into the kitchen. She didn't notice George at first, walking straight past him, but half way to an empty seat, she stopped and turned around.

"Ah, there you are, mum," Fred said cheerfully, ignoring the glares she was sending George, "I don't suppose you have any hairspray, do you? I can't find any anywhere and my hair isn't behaving very well this morning."

It was possibly the most un-Mrs. Weasley thing that anyone had ever witnessed.

"Oh, yes dear, I'll just run and get some for you now," she said, grinning mischievously and leaving the room.

She returned a few minutes later with the can of Bad Hair Spray gripped in her hand and she passed it to Fred who styled his hair in the most peculiar way possible and removed the lid from the can. Pretending to press the nozzle, he raised the can to his hair, but his finger didn't actually touch the top of the bottle.

"Are you sure there's some in here, mum? It seems to be empty," Fred said, trying desperately not to laugh.

"Does it really? How odd, I used it just this morning." She took the can back off him.

She shook it and listened for the slosh of liquid inside and then turned so the nozzle was facing the back of Ginny's head. Ginny, who was paying no attention whatsoever, got a bit of a surprise when the soft spray hit her hair. She didn't even have time to raise a hand before poof, her hair was sticking up in every angle possible.

Fred, George and Mrs. Weasley burst out laughing and were quickly followed by everyone but Ginny. Her head looked rather like a recently exploded ginger firework. The roots of her hair were tatty and tangled and the ends had split. No one could control their laughter as Ginny leapt to her feet and stormed out the room, but not without flashing a rude gesture at Fred and George, who had almost fallen off their chairs because they were laughing so much. Mrs. Weasley, still chuckling, placed two plates of scrambled eggs in front of the twins, which they demolished quickly. Just as they had finished, Ginny returned, looking- if possible- more ridiculous than before.

She'd clearly tried to fix her hair by brushing it down, but putting the hair brush through it had stuck it all together and it now looked like a wall sprouting vertically from her head.

"Nice hair, Ginny," Fred chortled as she came in.

"I just hope that when the healers from St Mungo's come, they check your brains out too. I'd be concerned if I were you."

"Well you're not me so you don't need to worry," Fred said.

"You always used to enjoy our jokes," George reasoned.

"And then I grew up- unlike you two. It would seem that idiots don't get any maturity or sense."

"That's weird because I would have thought that you'd need some decent brain cells if you were going to start your own business and open a shop," Fred said.

"Don't forget that you don't have any sense, Fred, so you if you think that you need brains to open a shop, you'd probably be wrong."

"But, George, you're an idiot too, so nothing you say would be sensible either!"

"Fred, I do believe we've been caught out!"

"Caught out by someone with decent brain cells too."

"You are both hilarious," Ginny said fiercely.

"Why thank you. I've been led to believe that those who are witty, are quite intelligent. You need to be clever to make good puns."

"You need to be clever to make bad puns, too," George teased.

"You'd know that, wouldn't you?" Ginny snapped.

"I don't know, I don't have enough sense," Fred said.

Harry, who had looked torn between laughing at his wife or comforting her, said, "Ginny, calm down, they were just trying to cheer everyone up, they didn't mean any harm."

"Harry's right, Ginny. If we meant harm, we would have lit a fire on your head," Fred said. "It'll begin to wear off in about twenty hours and this time tomorrow, you'll be completely fine."

"You might not be, though," Ginny grumbled.

"Now, now. It's not as though your hair has been permanently ruined," Mrs. Weasley said, collecting the breakfast plates. "The spray will wear off in a day."

"But what if I want to do something before tomorrow?"

"We all agreed yesterday that no one would go anywhere by themselves, just in case. Are either of you going to write back to Angelina?"

"I'm going to," George said.

"I'll reply to Molly and George is going to reply to Angelina and then we'll send them back together with Pepper."

The twins got up and returned to their room slightly irritated but mostly amused by how well their prank had worked, especially as their mother had helped them.

They both sat down to write their letters and then tied them to Pepper's leg. Before she flew out the open window, Pepper nibbled their fingers affectionately.

The twins spent the rest of the morning changing the appearance of vegetables into fruits, but decided that they probably shouldn't try to trick anyone else after the Bad Hair Spray fiasco that morning.

Just after lunch, three healers from St Mungo's could be seen gazing confusedly at the space between number eleven and thirteen, Grimmauld place. Mrs. Weasley hurried out to save them and returned a few moments later, leading the three healers into the kitchen.

So, after a very enjoyable morning, the twin's day definitely worsened. Most of their afternoon was spent being poked and prodded. They were given various potions, and countless spells were fired at them. After about two hours, they still hadn't managed to heal anything. Both wounds were still bleeding, and the skin around the gashes looked as infected as ever, if not more. All three of the healers looked completely perplexed.

When Mrs. Weasley came in to check on them, she was told that they had no idea what was wrong with the twins and that they doubted anything could really be done.

"Excellent," Fred said. "Does that mean we can go back to living our lives without being hassled by baffled healers?"

"Fred," Mrs. Weasley warned.

"What? We're both fine, we don't need to be treated as though we're disabled!"

"Your brother was anything but fine yesterday!"

"That was yesterday. I'm fine now. Completely fine!" George replied.

"Neither of you is fine," one of the healers said quietly. "If we don't find a cure for you, then I expect that you'll both be dead in less than a few months. The bleeding is too consistent."

"So? We still have time! We have time to find a cure, to fix it," Fred said optimistically, while his mother's face fell.

"I want both of you to check into St Mungo's tomorrow morning," the healer instructed, "We have professional equipment at the hospital, there might be something more we can do. When you arrive, say you need to speak to me, Madam Nurta."

"Right, thank you," Fred said, turning away and sighing.

Mrs. Weasley showed the healers to the front door and then returned to the boy's bedroom, tears in her eyes.

"I want both of you to go back to that island," she said, "Find the cure, I don't care what you have to do to get it. I only just got one of you back, I'm not losing both of you, not this year."

"Mother, are you feeling ok?"

"Fine," she sniffled, "Why?"

"Well, this morning, you pulled a prank on Ginny and now you want me and George to go back to that island!"

"I'm putting you in danger so you can save your own lives."

"That makes no sense."

"Please, boys. Just go. Now."

So, without another word, Fred and George disapparated to reappear on the strange island staring at each other in shock.