Chapter 45
"I could tell you myself."
Six heads snapped to the bed where Sirius was grinning at them happily, "I'd shake your hand," Sirius continued, "But-" he nodded his head to his restrained limbs.
Lupin leant down and wrapped him in a hug tearfully. Bianca stepped forward, smiling.
Sirius faked fear and pressed himself into his bed, "It's Voldemort's daughter!" he said jokingly, "Does anyone have a pillow? Or a chocolate frog?"
"Will you ever let that go?" Bianca laughed.
"Absolutely not."
"But I saved your life!"
"And I'm very grateful," Sirius promised, "But it was still hilarious."
"So what do you think?" George asked the healer who was still standing with a mix of emotions on his face, "Mass murderer material?"
The healer gulped and shook his head, "You're all with Harry Potter," he stuttered, "You're friends with him?"
The group gave a collective nod of confirmation, "How did you figure that out?"
The healer pointed at Bianca, "You're You-Know-Who's daughter, that's what he said. My little brother goes to Hogwarts with you. He says you're nothing like what the papers say- apparently, you're quite nice." He paused, "Not that I've seen any proof of that so far."
"I am sorry," Bianca said, "I just needed to see him."
"You care about me that much, eh?" Sirius asked raising his eyebrows suggestively.
"Oh no," Bianca laughed, "But Harry's been going crazy."
Sirius' face paled. "Don't worry," Bianca said, "I'll write to him now."
"I doubt you'll be in here much longer," the healer told Sirius, "Once we've checked everything over, I'll find a way to get you out of here."
Bianca, Fred and George thanked the healer and left. Lupin and Tonks promised to stay with Sirius until he was released to make sure everything went smoothly and he didn't get sent back to prison.
"That was fabulous," Fred told her as they walked back to Diagon Alley.
"It was horrible," Bianca said.
George laughed, "But Sirius is ok, now."
Bianca nodded in relief and the three walked the rest of the way, hand-in-hand in silence until they reached the shop. George pulled out the keys and opened the front door so the three were standing in the porch.
"Flat or shop?" Fred asked.
"Shop," Bianca said excitedly and followed the twins down the stairs, away from the flat door.
"You can see the storage any time," Fred said, trying to pass it off as though it was unimportant and not really revealing that the real reason was that they'd hidden the pygmy puffs there so Bianca wouldn't see them until she'd met her own pet. The boys led her right down to the shop floor and then George covered her eyes with his hands while Fred opened the door. He kept her blinded until he'd pulled her so she was standing inside the entrance- the place you could see the shop's full glory.
"Three-" Fred said.
"Two-" George continued.
"One!" they said together and George removed his hands.
Bianca gasped. She'd never seen anything so colourful and joyful in her life. It was impossible not to grin as she looked around. Not one surface was dull or boring- each covered with either an array of products or some bright, bold colour. Every wall was different, one bright green, one hot pink. Everything clashed with each other but also worked together beautifully.
"It's wonderful," she gasped.
The boys whisked her around the room, showing her everything they'd done. By the time they'd walked around the full floor, she felt completely ready to burst with pride. She jumped at them both and wrapped her arms around them.
"It's wonderful! I've never seen anything like it!" she gushed, "I'm so proud of you! You've even made an office look fun!"
"You haven't seen the front yet," George took her hand and pulled her out the front door, pausing only to unlock it.
The boys had kept it completely covered which had caused much confusion but also much anticipation amongst the wizarding community. Together, the twins lifted their wands, and the sheets which had been covering the shop vanished.
Bianca's mouth fell open. People walking along the alley stopped what they were doing and turned to look in amazement. Fred and George grinned proudly. It was easily the most eye-catching shop on the street. It screamed colour and happiness. There was a huge sign that read- 'Opens tomorrow!' along with multiple other advertisements for products and different things.
"Would you look at that?" George said, "We've made Bianca speechless!"
Fred tore his eyes away from the shop and turned to look at Bianca. She was staring, open-mouthed, at the shop, her eyes sparkling like a child's at Christmas as they flitted from place to place, absorbing everything there was to see. A few minutes later, when she was in the same position, the twins laughed and George picked her up to carry her back inside while Fred called out to passers-by, telling them all loudly to come and see the shop. Bianca fought against George's hold, wishing she could stay and admire their work forever, but he dragged her inside. Once Fred was in too and the door was locked, they made their way back up the stairs and into the flat.
"What are all those?" Bianca pointed to the muggle electric appliances.
"We'll tell you later," Fred brushed her off, "We need to show you something."
"Now," George said seriously, "I know we said we wouldn't touch the flat except our rooms, but Fred and I decided that we'd do a little bit extra."
"Please, don't be upset," Fred led her towards her room, "Obviously you can change it if you don't like it, but we really did try."
He opened the door and let her in. For the third time in the past hour, her eyes lit up with glee. The room suited her perfectly. The twins had taken the time to make sure every piece of furniture matched and that the colours would work together properly. They'd spent hours moving her possessions from the Burrow and positioning them in her new room.
"You did so well!" she kissed them both on the cheek, "I love it."
"We got you something else you might love too," George grinned and disappeared to his room, returning a few seconds later holding three fluffy balls of happy fur. Fred took his own pygmy puff from his twin, allowing it to scurry up so that it sat on his head like a bird in a nest. He then took Bianca's and handed it to her. She took it with a delighted look on her face and cuddled it to her face where it nuzzled her gently.
"What is it?" she asked in a voice at least four octaves higher than usual.
"A pygmy puff," George said, laughing as his own pet ran around his shoulders.
"We bred them," Fred said, "Come on, we'll show you the rest."
The boys led her back down the stairs and into the storage floor where the rest of the puffs were playing with each other. They took their time explaining how they'd come to own so many adorable creatures, before moving them all back down to their place in the shop.
"We're selling them," George told her, "We figured they'd go to better homes than they were in with that horrible breeder with customers."
As soon as she had seen the pygmy puffs, Bianca ran upstairs to write to Harry and explain everything that had happened at St Mungo's. She sent the letter with one of the twins' owls and joined them back in the flat so they could explain what all the strange new objects were. They told her all about Muggle London and everything they'd seen and bought there.
"They have loads of places to eat," Fred said, "So we thought that, seeing as we're all together again now, that we could go out for dinner somewhere and try a Muggle restaurant. Especially seeing as we don't even have a kitchen table yet so George and I have been eating off plates from the Burrow on the floor."
"We'll go shopping tomorrow," Bianca suggested, "If you aren't too tired after work."
"Excellent," George clapped his hands together, "Now, how about food? I'm starving."
They all quickly got changed, left their pygmy puffs together in Fred's room and headed out the flat and into Muggle London. George explained to her all about the different kinds of eating places they'd come across and the three wandered around for a while before deciding on a small Italian restaurant. Being too scared to order different things, they all ordered a plain pizza with a jug of water for sharing and then had some ice cream for dessert. It was nothing exotic or exciting, but it was tasty all the same and they had the place bookmarked to come back to because they knew it was nice there.
When Fred, George and Bianca left the restaurant a few hours later, it was getting late so it was dark outside. Knowing how loud and rowdy some areas of London could be at night, Fred and George took the direct route back to the Leaky Cauldron- a path they knew very well. Fred let them all back into the flat, locking every door behind him and then joined George and Bianca sitting on the floor in the living room space.
"We need a sofa," George groaned, "Flopping onto the floor after a lovely meal isn't quite as nice as flopping onto a nice, comfy sofa."
Fred hummed his agreement and stretched, "I'm exhausted," he yawned, "And we've got to be up early to sort the shop out, Georgie."
George nodded, hauled himself to his feet and all three retired to bed. Falling asleep came easily now they were together again, knowing that only a wall separated unlike the hundreds of miles and country border which had previously been the case.
While Bianca had been at Hogwarts, the twins had fallen into an easy routine. They would get up at the same time and while Fred cooked breakfast, George would shower and get ready. They'd eat together on the floor of the kitchen and then George would wash up while Fred got ready. Then, they'd either do chores around the flat, work in the shop or go out for the day. For dinner, George would cook with Fred 'helping'. They had quickly discovered that Fred wasn't capable of cooking anything other than the basics needed for breakfast, so if they wanted to enjoy something edible for dinner, it had to be George at the stove. For the twins, although it was much too adult for their liking, it worked well; they split jobs fairly if they didn't do them together.
The morning of the shop's grand opening was chaotic. The boys were so used to their little routine that it wasn't until Bianca stumbled into the kitchen while they were eating that they realised Fred hadn't cooked enough breakfast for her and that they were running half an hour later than they had planned. From that point, all three of them ran around manically, between their rooms, up and down stairs to the shop and out onto the street for advertising.
They all dressed in identical magenta robes- Bianca was helping in the shop until she had a job, hopefully as a healer, secured elsewhere and the twins were used to things. Somehow, they managed to have everything sorted in time for opening. The twins had huge plans and so when the clock struck nine, Fred flung open the doors and George discreetly lit a set of fireworks before joining his brother in the doorway. That way, any photographs taken by reporters showed both the boys grinning proudly underneath their shop and surrounded by explosions of light. Bianca had hidden herself amongst the crowds to snap a quick photo of them to keep in the flat before sneaking in and posing with them- the boys had insisted.
There were a surprising amount of people who were all waiting in anticipation for the shop's opening. They'd been drawn like moths to a light towards the new, colourful building which was so unlike any other dull, barren shop on the street that they couldn't help but investigate. Not everyone came inside when the twins moved aside but instead hovered on the street uncertainly. That was fine with Fred and George. More than enough people had flooded in to keep them busy.
Throughout the day, several explosions were set off both inside the shop and outside to attract people. Every so often when someone passed through the door, a bucket of glitter would tip onto their head and change through every colour of the rainbow before dissipating into harmless, beautiful tiny fireworks. Once or twice, someone stood on a pressure pad which triggered all the lights to flicker off in the shop so that the glow in the dark paint which Fred had smeared in peculiar patterns on the walls lit up. Quite often, a poor customer would pick up an item from a shelf only to have the entire shelf collapse and drop all the products onto the floor. Of course, the shelf would repair itself and the products magically resumed their place a few minutes later, but it was still enough to scare the customer into thinking they'd caused damage to the shop on its first day of business. Back-up supplies were flying out of the enchanted chute at an unbelievable rate and at one point, George had to run upstairs to make sure there was enough stock in storage. Thankfully, with the months they'd had for preparation, the boys had made enough products to last them several weeks.
At the end of the day, Fred shut the doors and turned to look at George who was leaning tiredly against the till, head in his arms. Bianca has slumped to the floor in the pygmy puff cage and was playing with the few that remained.
"That," George breathed, "Was mental."
"It won't be like that every day," Fred said, "It's just because today was the first."
As it turned out, the first couple of weeks were just as busy as the opening. They had no idea they wizarding population was so large but they were fairly certain that every person with magical blood within London had been to look in at least once. It was only after those first few weeks that things finally calmed down, and while business was still better than they'd ever imagined, it hadn't been so mental that they had to take a nap before dinner every night. This finally gave them time to go shopping for furniture after work and once the twins had hired a lovely assistant called Verity to help out four days a week, Bianca finally had the chance to drop in her application at St Mungo's.
They'd received a letter from Lupin a few days into the holiday telling them that, with the help of the healer, they'd got Sirius out of the hospital and into Grimmauld place where the pair were currently staying. He also said that he'd written to Harry to give him an update and that Sirius was recovering well.
On one of the calmer days, they had a group of friendly visitors come in to see the shop. Lee, Angelina and Alicia poked their heads around the door and grinned at George who was standing closest to them.
"Do we have the right place?" Lee joked, "I couldn't quite tell from the outside."
"That depends what you're looking for," George replied cheekily, directing the customer he had been helping in the direction of the tills, where Fred stood with Verity, "If you're wanting the best joke shop known to the wizarding world, you're definitely in the right place."
"Really?" Angelina looked around, "I'm sure Zonko's didn't look like this last time we were here."
"Ouch," George said, "That hurt. I have something that might change your mind, though."
George vanished into the crowd to allow his friends to look around and then found them again holding several pygmy puffs. "Zonko's doesn't have these," he said with a grin. Pygmy puffs had turned out to be the shop's secret weapon. Younger children especially fell in love with them at first sight and then were eager to look around the shop to see what else they had to offer. As was the reaction of so many others, the girls squealed and ran forward to pet them. Even Lee admitted they were cute as he chuckled and patted one on George's shoulder.
"Where's Bianca?" Alicia asked, looking around the store.
"Upstairs," George said flatly, still showing off the pygmy puffs to Angie, "She doesn't really like the crowds so usually prefers to stay in the flat or making more products."
Fred wandered over from the tills, leaving Verity to man them alone, "Oh," he said in fake disgust, "Who let this lot in?"
Lee scoffed, "Nice to see you too, mate. George was just showing us your pride and joy."
"It's quite sad, really," Fred said, "We have an entire joke shop full of hilarious products and the things that sell best are these little guys."
"Sorry, mate, but I'd rather have a cute cuddly thing than a smelly dungbomb."
"We missed a trick there," George said, "We should make dungbombs that look like pygmy puffs so when someone goes to stroke it- boom!"
Fred laughed, "Brilliant."
"This place is amazing," Alicia said, "How did you think of all of these ideas?"
"We've had some of them for years," Fred said, "We just didn't quite have the skills to make them until recently."
"They're fantastic."
"If you're trying to flatter us into giving you free products, I'm afraid the answer's no," Fred said, "Although we do appreciate the compliment. Georgie, why don't you give our guests a tour, I must get back to Verity."
Business continued as usual for the rest of the day until, an hour or so before closing, Bianca came bounding down the stairs holding an envelope and jumped up to sit on the desk which held the tills. Fred looked up at her curiously as she beckoned for George to come over excitedly. Once both the twins were by her side, she waved the letter in their faces and said happily, "I've got an interview for a job at St Mungo's."
