After Harry's birthday celebration, where Remus had seemed to conveniently avoid me for the entire evening, he then disappeared in a hurry, leaving me to huff angrily afterwards. Soon after, however, the day of the planned trip to Diagon Alley arrived and I went with everyone in order to offer that little bit more protection, meeting Hagrid who was already there waiting for us, sent by Dumbledore to also help keep an eye on things. It was good to see him again, where he laughingly told me that my final last hurrah was still being cleaned up today and Filch was now walking around promising to murder me in my sleep one night for befouling his castle.
I thought this was hilarious, as did the others though Molly didn't seem to approve, but she kept quiet and merely hurried us all along. I stuck with Harry, Ron and Hermione alongside Hagrid, letting them go into Madam Malkins' alone to get their robes where we when saw Draco Malfoy and his mother, Narcissa leave a few minutes later, looking exceedingly sour and displeased. Malfoy jumped when he saw Hagrid and I, so I made a point to fold my arms and give him a stern look, but he didn't bother trying to make trouble, merely ducked his head and hurried away with his mother. Nasty bunch they were. Serves them right Lucius was now in Azkaban.
Anyway, after all our shopping had been accomplished, I led us all to where Fred and George had opened their shop, where Ron and Harry had to stop and stare like open mouthed idiots at the colourful explosion that lay before them, every sense being tingled in some manner with their displays alone. They even had an advertisement in the window for a constipation prank named U-NO-POO, which was a joke centred on Voldemort. "They'll be murdered in their beds." Molly whispered fearfully, staring at the advertisement in horror.
"No they won't Mrs Weasley, I've already put protection spells around the entire shop and their flat upstairs. Voldemort himself couldn't get in if he wanted to." I assured her, though she remained tight lipped and looking rather pale. "I helped set up a lot of the alarm systems, actually, break-in alarms, anti-thief jinxes, all sorts. Come on, it's even better inside." Leading the way so I could usher everyone inside, I then looked apologetically to Hagrid. "Sorry the door's so small, do you want me to make it bigger?" Chortling with a laugh, Hagrid promised he was fine out here, that he had witnessed enough of Fred and George's joke-stuff back when they were students and elected to stand guard outside so I went on in.
Everything was more or less how I remembered it last from a few weeks ago, though I noticed that they'd switched a few things around. They'd brought the school supplies to the front, probably since they expected all these students to come in looking for pranks and jokes to take with them back to Hogwarts. Clever move. There were so many people in there that it was difficult to move, but it was easy to spot the Weasleys with their bright red hair, and since Fred and George were wearing their magenta robes for uniforms…I found them pretty quickly. "Business still booming then?"
"Mia!" Fred beamed at me from where he had been showing Harry the muggle magic tricks and novelties. "Wondered where you were, get lost did you?"
"Of course not, I practically organised the entire shop myself. I know it backwards." I defended lightly then hugged him. George popped up behind us, greeting Harry and I, giving me a hug too before he brought Harry to show him the defensive items they'd recently begun developing. They were quite ingenious, Shield Hats, and now they were proceeding to make all kinds of wearable merchandise with shield charms on them to protect the wearers from minor to moderate hexes. The Ministry was snatching them up faster than the twins could make them, and had asked me recently to help them increase the strength of the shield charm so I'd promised to teach them how to create a more powerful one, since some of mine could stop a few curses, which were much more advanced than jinxes and hexes.
Fred and George eagerly showed Harry all the things they'd developed and began to pile him up with free merchandise, refusing to take his money even when he tried to insist. "Just accept it Harry, after all, you invested in this business. It gives you certain…privileges." I told him with a grin.
"Do you get anything for free too then?" He asked me and I laughed.
"I helped design some of these things. Over there you'll find miniature models of dozens of different magical creatures, muggle ones too. I got the idea from the dragons we pulled out of Bagman's pouch in the first task, remember? Look, see? There's owls, cats, unicorns, dragons, phoenixes, horses, elephants, tigers…see there's a House section there, so lions, badgers, eagles and snakes. Yes even snakes. Don't worry, they don't talk." I joked lightly. "Fred and George cycle the types every few weeks because people collect them. You'll have one breed of dragon one week and a different one the next, same with colours. One person might want a white unicorn but others might prefer a black or a gold one. Yes I know real unicorns don't come in black, but it's just for variety." I explained as I pointed them all out, the little animals all moving in their little pens. "Want one?"
"Um…well I guess I'd like a snowy owl if there's one going, for Hedwig." Harry said, looking around for one so I looked in the bird section and spotted the owl right at the back so I picked it up. It nipped at my fingers, making me hiss slightly before I then handed it over to Harry.
"If you want it to sleep, just tickle it's belly. It'll act like a normal owl, so it'll be awake at night." I explained before we then followed to where Fred and George had gone, showing Hermione and Ginny their Wonder-Witch products, though the twins were currently grilling their sister about all the boys she was apparently seeing.
"Whatever you've heard from Ron is a big fat lie." Ginny said to them sharply before picking up a little pot of Pimple Vanisher from the shelf. "What's this?"
"Guaranteed Ten-Second Pimple Vanisher. Excellent on everything from boils to blackheads, but don't change the subject." Fred quickly reverted back to his interrogating as Ginny ignored him, replacing the pot in order to continue browsing the shelves. "Are you or are you not currently going out with a boy called Dean Thomas?" Beside me I felt Harry jolt a little and I looked at him quickly, arching an eyebrow. His jaw was locked and he seemed rather tense but without even realising it himself, making me quirk an eyebrow at him curiously. I have a feeling Ginny was in for a rather interesting year this year.
Getting distracted by a bunch of kids who were trying to sneak things into their pockets, I rounded on them and ordered them to either cough up the money to pay for everything or I'd turn them all into rats. They all squeaked – ironically – and proceeded to empty out their pockets. In that moment, however, it appeared that Harry, Ron and Hermione had chosen to slip away for whatever reason, because when I turned around they were gone from where I had last seen them standing. Quickly looking around, I saw no messy mop of black hair, bushy brown or bright red which caused me to panic initially before I told myself to calm down. If they weren't in the shop, then they would have slipped out somehow. My bet is the invisibility cloak.
Checking the shop quickly, I found no trace of them so proceeded to pull something from out of my pocket that I had prepared for this very occasion. One of Harry's socks. It was clean, thankfully, and once I'd made my way to the front of the shop I discreetly pulled out my wand and tapped it. "Avenseguim." With a strong image of Harry in my mind, the sock came to life and flew at the door, making me groan. I guess they really had slipped away. Casting a disillusionment charm on myself, I opened the door and the sock flew out of it, past Hagrid before he noticed so I chased after it down the street.
It brought me to Nockturn Alley, and the closer I came to Borgin and Burkes, I heard distinctly familiar voices so I pulled the disillusionment spell off and let the sock return to my pocket, lifting my wand before making the cloak shoot up into the air, revealing the three of them clustered together though they all jumped and Hermione gasped when they felt the fabric disappear, turning to see me standing on the steps with my wand pointed at them. "You better have an excellent reason for running off like this." If my expression wasn't enough to make them afraid, my tone was.