After discovering that Fred apparently had powers to make body changing drugs, it didn't take Chris and him long to find an empty building a few streets away from the shelter where they were staying, and to set up a basic lab. They had brainstormed ideas, coming up with harmless body mutations and letting Fred's power tell them how to make it happen. Of course, Fred had some ideas from his and George's collection that they had started at Hogwarts, and he figured that, just as with the extendable ears, these potions he made could do roughly what the original had done just in a slightly different way. In addition, as they now had a lab type set up and a thing called a bunsen burner, Fred suggested they try making some sweets or foods instead of just pouring the potions into drinks. They spent all of their free time working on these ideas, and after about three days they had made some Fever Fudge, Shimmering Silver Salt (this was based on the Shimmering Silver Salt Drops back home but Chris had said people wouldn't be likely to accept salt flavoured sweets here and that it'd be better to just make salt - leaving Fred unsure as to whether the effects would be the same), Ton-Tongue Toffees, You-No-Poo (which Fred snickered to himself about all the time and Chris couldn't understand why it was so funny) and - Fred's personal favourite - Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men. The latter had come about from a combination of the quidditch game in Fred's fourth year at Hogwarts when Lockhart had tried to fix Harry's broken arm and seeing these big tubes that had long bits of thin material that blew around, waving crazily in the wind, apparently - judging by the faces on these tubes - meant to be arms.

After some debate on whether they should test things on themselves first and how much trouble they'd get into if this went wrong they decided to go down to the yard where the kids hung out while the parents were working, with a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man. There was always one kid on the outside in any group - easy prey. Fred decided that was a terrible way to think of a child and that guinea pig was a much cuter name for it. There was a kid that looked about first year age playing hopscotch on her own, Fred and Chris went and sat by the fence watching the kids for a bit. The girl playing hopscotch had blond hair in pigtails and a dirty looking dress; although no one really had clean clothes. Fred had been borrowing clothes from the emergency supply in the shelter, as no shops were open for him to buy new ones for himself. The girl sat to take a break from her hopping.

"Hey, would you like a candy?" Chris asked her, offering the almost empty bag.

"You've only got one left and everyone knows not to take things from strangers, especially in this city." She said, eyeing the bag all the same.

"Well we've had enough and we're hardly strangers, you've seen us at the shelter haven't you? I'm Fred, this is Chris. What's your name?"

"Chloe."

"Well, Chloe, now we all know each other's names I'd say we're not strangers anymore." Fred smiled at her and gave her a little wink.

She reached out gingerly and took the bag with the one Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man in it. She took it out of the bag and looked at it, smelling it before putting it into her mouth. She chewed and looked like she was enjoying the taste. That was good, it meant the slightly odd taste of Fred's potions was masked by the taste of the sweet.

As she enjoyed the little tube-man shaped jelly she swung her legs around behind her so that she was lying on her stomach and rested her head on her hands, waving her legs in the air and gazing off into the distance. All of a sudden she squeaked as her forehead hit the gelatinous pile of flesh that had once been her arms. Fred had to admit he was quite glad that her head had been cushioned by the squidginess and that she hadn't actually smacked her forehead into the tarmac. She didn't move for a second, shell shocked and not understanding what had happened. She lifted her head slightly and stared at the flesh coloured snakes on the ground in front of her. He saw her back working as she tried to push herself up with her arms but couldn't. She screamed, rolled onto her back and sat up. She stared at Fred and Chris who were both trying very hard not to laugh at the wacky waving arm flailing girl in front of them. It took her a couple of tries but she got to her feet and glared at them. A few of the other kids had looked around at her scream and seen her struggle to get up, fleshy tubes flopping about her body. They seemed too afraid to come any closer but were watching attentively from a distance.

"THIS IS WHY MOMMY SAID NEVER TO TAKE THINGS FROM STRANGERS, ISN'T IT?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY ARMS?"

Fred and Chris looked at each other, feeling slightly guilty but also biting their lips together at the sight of the boneless arms flailing around the girl's sides. Fred decided to take this one, as it was largely his fault they'd got into this.

"I'm really sorry, Chloe, we got it from a bio-tinker who said it'd be fun to give it to a kid and see what happened. He promised it'd be safe, you'll be fine - the bones will come back… He didn't say much just that it'd be a bit of… 'arm'less fun." Fred couldn't suppress the grin.

Chris clapped a hand over his mouth as he tried to suppress a snort.

Chloe looked livid. "'Arm'less fun?! You're making jokes about this? You just took something from a strange bio-tinker and gave it to a strange child you don't know in the hopes of getting a laugh out of it? I could get you kicked out of the shelter for this, you know. It could have done anything to me! My mommy will kill you two."

"Hey, it's ok we knew it was safe, we knew it wasn't going to kill you. We just wanted to lighten the mood around here, it's getting a bit gloomy what with all the death and destruction around."

"So you thought you'd create more destruction? Very funny." She spun, her arms swinging around her and slapping against the side of her body from the momentum of the spin. Some of the other children who had been watching sniggered and she glared at them.

Chris and Fred marked that prank/experiment as a success and headed back to their abandoned building to make notes and to chat about ideas for their next prank.

An hour or so later they headed back to the shelter, but as they approached they could hear someone screaming in agony. They looked at each other, slightly perplexed, and hurried in to see what was going on. A lovely looking pale older woman with long, dark wavy hair looked up from a bedside as they entered.

"YOU!" She accused, although they weren't positive what they were being accused of. "You gave my daughter candy that did this to her!"

Ah.

Well, they could have guessed that was it, but you never know. They paled slightly in the face of this woman's fierce anger, she had a ferociousness that suddenly reminded Fred of his own mother the morning he, George and Ron had flown the car to Surrey to rescue Harry. That was not a memory he wanted to have prodded into life.

"Hello, Ma'am, we only gave her-"

"I know what you did! She told me all about it when she came up to me in tears with no bones in her arms!"

Right.

"Well it was only a bit of fun, floppy arms for an hour or so and then hey presto you have your arms back to normal. She should be fine by now."

"Fine? FINE? The only thing I have left after the havoc the Endbringer caused is my baby girl, and she is lying here in agony and nobody knows why!"

That was when Fred realised the agonised screaming was coming from the bed where Chloe lay.

Oh.

Shit.

What had he not thought of? What had he not remembered? He thought back to the incident that had inspired him. Harry had been in pain with a broken arm and Professor Lockhart had tried to fix it but had removed the bones instead and the pain had gone. Then he'd spent a night in the hospital wing drinking… Oh… Oh no. Why hadn't he seen this coming? Of course! How else would the bones get back? Just magically appear? Even Madam Pomfrey couldn't do that.

"Er… I'm terribly sorry ma'am, maybe if my friend and I could have a moment outside we could find the bio-tinker and get him to explain…?"

"You two are not leaving my sight! Anything you need to say to each other can be said here."

"Well… The thing is, I'm wondering if maybe instead of the bones just magically reappearing after the thing wears off, maybe she has to actually regrow her bones."

"Oh my god," Chris said, "So you mean it'd be like growing pains only a hundred times faster and a hundred times more painful? Shit I'm sorry kid we really didn't want to put you through that. If we'd had any idea…"

"That you didn't have any idea and still gave it to her is at least just as bad if not worse!"

"You're right. We're sorry ma'am."

Fred caught, out of the corner of his eye, Lisa watching him with her usual puzzled look. He almost wished she'd just ask him what she wanted to know. She watched the scene from a doorway as her eyes darted from him to Chris to the girl writhing in pain.

The sounds of Chloe's screams haunted them through the evening as she had to regrow the bones in her arms. This part was definitely not funny. They'd both been placed on duty for the worst jobs there were in the shelter with some of Lisa's soldiers watching them while they worked, and parents gave them the evil eye and made sure their kids wouldn't talk to them or ever accept anything they offered. Ok, so that had gone wrong and possibly a bit far. But Fred liked to see the positives and from every mistake comes a lesson, so he wasn't too bothered and took their punishments in stride, grinning at everyone he saw with as bright a smile as he ever had. Maybe trying it on a kid had been the wrong tack, people were extra protective of their kids here, apparently… So maybe next time it'd have to be an adult…

It didn't take long for Fred and Chris to be plotting again whenever they could snatch a moment together out of earshot of their guard. Chris wanted to try the Shimmering Silver Salt on someone - making them shimmer wouldn't be bad it'd just be a bit weird. They both decided they'd better not make it blatantly from them - they didn't want to be kicked out of the shelter. People would probably guess it was them, but with no evidence they couldn't very well kick them out. And so it was that they took some of the salt-like substance back to the shelter one evening and put it in a small salt shaker on a table.

A youngish man sat down opposite them and shook a bit of the Shimmering Silver Salt over his chips. He looked at the pair of them and smiled.

"So, you guys like to pull pranks, huh?"

They looked at each other, eyes widening slightly as they tried to stifle their snickers.

"Yeah I find pranks can be a great way to lighten a mood - provided they don't go wrong of course," Fred replied, having the grace to look slightly guilty.

"Yeah that one did go a bit far, maybe keep it to sausage fingers and buckets of water… Probably safer." He lifted another chip to his mouth as he spoke.

Fred noticed there was something slightly silvery around the man's features and wondered how much he'd need to eat before it became noticeable enough for him to see it.

"I'm Nathan, or Nate if you're feeling friendly. Where are you guys from?"

Fred and Chris introduced themselves and chatted amicably with Nate as the man ate his salted chips. He batted absently at a couple of moths that flew into his head.

As the Shimmering silver light around him grew stronger he looked at his hands, then at the other two with suspicion in his eyes.

"Did you two put something in the food? I swear my hands are glowing."

"No of course not! We wouldn't dare pull something like that after the last one. Besides, I don't see anyone else glowing… Did you pick something up outside maybe?"

"I didn't eat or drink anything out of the ordinary." He batted at a few more moths. "What the hell are these moths at me for?"

It seemed a small eclipse was gathering, flying at Nate, bumping into his head and body as if he were a candle or a backlit screen.

Uh oh.

Another unforeseen effect of one of their drugs? Fred hoped to Merlin that this wouldn't be as bad a side effect as the bone regrowth. Maybe all of them had other side effects... Damn. Maybe pranking with them wouldn't be as easy and fun as first imagined.

Nate got up and beckoned for Fred and Chris to come outside with him. When they got out of the door a larger eclipse of moths from around the city almost mobbed him as he glowed with the silver light of the moon. The two younger men were slightly alarmed at the… Well they couldn't really call it an attack, but something like that.

"What did you two do? Do you not learn from your mistakes?"

"We didn't, how could we make this happen?"

"Maybe your bio-tinker friend?"

Oh, so Chloe had shared that bit too. Well maybe Fred would accidentally get a name for himself out of this. The pranking bio-tinker. A pranker? A prinker? No… That sounded ridiculous. His thoughts were derailed by Nate making a guttural noise almost like a growl. The moths were covering him now.

"Get them off me!"

"We don't know how, this wasn't us! Although, if this were the work of the same tinker the sweet came from, my guess is you'd just have to wait until it wears off…" Fred admitted, feeling that maybe he'd been a little bit gung-ho with the whole thing, not having spent enough time trying to understand this magic or what the consequences would be of what he was making. He was, afterall, just feeding people things he'd made but didn't understand where the recipes came from or have any idea what was really going into it. He'd have to have a word with Chris about their operating procedure. He could vaguely see Nate glowering at them through the throng of moths around him. He didn't look happy. Fred hoped this would be something to laugh about very soon, as they really didn't need more hate from people in the shelter.

Taylor settled down in her bunk in her shelter, thinking over her day's hard labour, she automatically reached out and felt for her power, taking note of the bugs in the surrounding area and anything she deemed dangerous or threatening. As she lay there, wondering about her future - with or without The Undersiders - she suddenly felt a pull. She was immediately on alert, feeling out through her bugs. She noticed the strangest thing; all of the moths in one area seemed to be attracted to one spot, and as they found what they were attracted to she found it was a man. All these moths thronging to surround this man, the attraction felt almost the same as the attraction they had to the moon, but it was to this man. She made a mental note to investigate at a later date.

Being so caught up in her thoughts, Taylor hardly noticed about an hour later when the moths continued their natural behaviour and left the man alone, as if forgotten.