The morning after the Order meeting, Sirius was approached by Fred and George Weasley at the breakfast table. He had been planning to work on another guest bedroom that day; they had managed to get three detoxified, but each had taken a longer time than the last between the creatures that inhabited them and the constant comings and goings of Order members from the house. The one Sirius was planning to tackle next displayed signs fairly consistent with habitation by a ghoul, and he wasn't looking forward to it very much; so when Fred and George sat down on either side of him and pulled their chairs close, he was almost grateful. Then he saw the look on Molly's face and whispered to the twins "if you're here for something your mother wouldn't like, you'd better disappear. Meet me in the library after breakfast."
The twins scooched away post haste in their respective chairs and ate breakfast as though he wasn't there. They left promptly upon finishing, and Sirius helped Molly clear things away. She had worked an overnight guard duty shift and went to bed right after the kitchen was cleaned up; she was back on duty at four that afternoon. Sirius was quite grateful; he knew if she had been any less tired, Molly would almost certainly have inquired what the twins wanted.
He left the kitchen and went to the library, which was on the third floor two doors down from Ron's room. Soon to be Harry's room, too, he reminded himself, and felt as he always did that familiar swoop of happiness in his chest. He couldn't wait to see his godson again.
The library had not been touched yet but had seemed fairly clean and devoid of creatures and dark magic when Remus and Sirius had done their initial vetting of each room in the house. Upon entering he saw that Fred and George had drawn up chairs at the largest of the three tables in the room; they had some spare parchment and quills on the table, and were talking in low voices. When they saw him they fell silent; both the boys were uncharacteristically serious.
"So what do you need?" asked Sirius. Although he had spent more time with them in the week or so since he'd been drawn out of his depressive reverie, he still didn't know the Weasley twins exceedingly well, and wondered why they would come to him for something. Fred spoke up at last, once Sirius had taken the third chair they had pulled up for him.
"We're going into our final year at Hogwarts, Sirius," he said, and his brown eyes were focused and calm as he met Sirius's gaze. Mum has been hounding us about our careers for some time now. To be quite frank, our parents won't be able to support so many of us kids for much longer; once we're done at Hogwarts George and I will need to support ourselves, whether at home or in our own place." George nodded and Sirius looked over to him; his eyes matched Fred's, serious and thoughtful. "Mum is pushing us to be Aurors, or go into any type of work at the Ministry," George said. "And really, she's quite right from a practical point of view. Those jobs pay well and are secure." Fred took over again. "But they're not for us. Even if the Ministry wasn't a bunch of morons right now" – here Sirius broke out laughing so hard at the unexpected sleight he even surprised himself – "we're still not cut out for the old nine to five."
"So what I'm hearing is that you know you need money, you just don't want to make it the regular way," said Sirius. "I follow. What's your idea that you don't want your mum to know about?" Fred and George grinned at each other and Sirius could tell they were pleased at how well he had reached the conclusion they had wanted him to come to.
"Well what we really want to do is open up a joke shop." This was said simultaneously; Sirius smiled. "But what's stopping you? I can tell something is." "Well," said George, "we don't really have any way to buy a storefront right now and get things started." Sirius felt a sinking feeling. "Oh boys, I'm sorry but I don't have access to much gold right now. You're right, my family is rich, but my mother managed to put a lot of roadblocks up to my inheriting the whole fortune…" Fred cut him off before he could go further. "Oh, no Sirius, we would never! I promise you, we would never beg for money from someone." Sirius knew that much about the Weasleys; he had actually assumed the twins just needed a loan.
"We actually have quite a bit of investment capital, Sirius. What I meant by not having a way was the fact we're still in school for another year." Said George. "Ah I see. Well why not wait until next year then?" "Quite frankly," said Fred, "We would like to help mum and dad a bit – even if it's a bit sneakily when needed – and we'd also like to be in a spot where we're ready to invest what we have in a business that's already on the way to success. We have free time this summer and we'll have more this year as well, we'd like to get started."
Sirius doubted they'd have much free time when they were studying for N.E.W.T.'s, but he kept his mouth shut. There were more pressing questions than that. "Wait, boys. How did you come across investment capital, and how much is it?" They exchanged a look with each other before answering him. "One thousand galleons." Sirius's eyes grew large. "Where did you get it?" They exchanged another look and he knew they were weighing their options. "You have to promise never to tell anyone about this," said Fred. "Is it illegal?" asked Sirius. "No," said the twins together. "Alright, I won't tell." "Harry gave it to us, it was his Triwizard winnings," they said together.
Sirius sat for a moment without saying anything. The twins watched him, both apprehensive how he would react. Sirius realized that Harry probably wanted as little to do with that money as possible. If he spent it himself he would likely see it as dishonoring the Diggory boy; he probably didn't truly feel it belonged to him. He imagined the Diggory's had forced it upon him, also not wanting it. By giving it to the twins Harry most likely felt as though the gold could still do some good in the world, and he wouldn't have to feel guilty spending it.
"That's fantastic, boys," he said, and the twins sighed in relief at the same time. "Have you spent any of it yet?" "Not a dime," said Fred. We want to have a plan first. You're the only person we could think of who has actually made products sort of like we want to make, so we thought we'd ask you if you could think of a way we can get a business started without a physical store."
Sirius wasn't sure the Marauders Map would have had a place in a joke shop, but he could see where the twins would need to go to someone who had also frequented Zonko's just as much as they had during his school years. Which brought another question to mind. "How would you be different than Zonko's? Don't they kind of have the market on joke products?" George laughed aloud. "Ah Sirius, we have ideas for things that will make Zonko's look like an amateur establishment. Trick quills that write wacky things, or that can help you on a test! A firework that never goes out! The ultimate love potion, guaranteed to end in marriage! A hat that makes your head vanish when you put it on! A powder that, with just a pinch thrown on the ground, can make an entire corridor go dark!" At the end of this list Sirius realized the twins were once again speaking at the same time, in perfect harmony. Their eyes were sparkling and they leaned forward in their seats towards him.
"Okay, understood. So you have ideas for new products, the gold to invest, and a year before you want a store. What kind of demographic are you marketing to then?" He grabbed a quill and parchment and began writing. "Oh students for sure," said Fred. "We should be able to branch out more once we're out of school, but for now a lot of our ideas are all based around Hogwarts life." "Have you made any of these products yet? Or just hypothesized them?"
The twins exchanged another look. "Well…" they got up from their chairs and motioned Sirius to come with them. He followed them to their room, carrying the writing supplies. Once inside, Fred locked the door and then George opened the closet. Inside were probably two dozen boxes of varying shapes and sizes; the twins began removing them, pulling out their contents and giving Sirius brief descriptions. "Quill prototypes, we nicked some extra quills one year and started charming them….look, this one will write in red if you're misspelling a word!" "Ton-tongue toffees, we enchanted some Honeydukes candy, tried it on Harry's cousin. That went poorly." "Here are the hats, look! They mostly work, but sometimes your head reappears after three minutes." Sirius was genuinely impressed. He sat down on one of the beds and began to scribble on the parchment as the twins continued to go through their creations. At last he finished and cried out "come here and look!"
Fred and George put down their joke items and came to stand on either side of him. At the top of the parchment he had written "Weasley's Wizard Wheezes" in large letters. "Just an idea, but I like the alliteration and it gives the idea they'll be wheezing, they'll laugh so hard, right? Change it if you want." The parchment went on.
Sirius had outlined a mail order company for Hogwarts students. "You perfect an item, you begin to market it. You'll need a few months to test products, so you might not be able to provide products for order right off the bat, but by October you should have a few things you can make money off of. A storefront in Diagon Alley is 170 galleons per month, and you'll want at least 500 galleons to furnish your store, make enough product to sell, and hire a few employees. So if you spend about 200 galleons on your mail order service, you'd still have enough of those winnings left to get your shop up and running for about two months before you'll absolutely have to be turning a profit."
There was no response from the twins and Sirius thought maybe the idea had flopped. Then he looked left and right and found they were both gaping at the parchment, with growing grins on their faces. "It's brilliant!" crowed Fred once he had found words again. "Why didn't we think of mail order?" George whooped. "We can start completely in house, just fellow students. No shipping to worry about, just hand them the product. Then as siblings and friends start to hear about us we can start sending out product wherever we need it to go, until we're able to open the store!" "Exactly," said Sirius. "Start small, test one or two products, spend as little money as you can. Once you have a product that's completely solid, start selling it and use the money you're making to begin more testing and production."
The twins were so excited. They went over further specifics; Sirius recommended using students who consented as test subjects. "Give them a few sickles or something. A first year will do anything for a couple coins," and the twins thought that was genius as well.
They went through all the things that the twins had experimented with or created and chose one idea that was already mostly formulated and just needed perfecting, and would also be less expensive to begin producing – a range of sweets that would make students ill enough to be excused from class, but not ill enough to be able to pursue other things that may be of greater interest. Fred and George were having trouble with them so had set them aside; it was difficult to make a student vomit just once, for instance, or their nose only bleed for a minute or two. Sirius, upon hearing the idea, was able to suggest a two part sweet – one part that induced the illness, and one part that stopped it. The idea was accepted with gratitude and they worked on the ins and outs for a bit before Sirius redirected them back to the general business plan.
"You'll have until school begins to get these ready for testing, but I may have limited time in the next few weeks depending on what Dumbledore needs next for the house." So they left the sweets in a box near the bed and Sirius drew up a sheet that broke down the costs of marketing something like them for a few months, what they might be able to charge and accordingly what they could expect to make. At that point he realized that it was already half past three in the afternoon and he would have to scramble to have food ready for the people who were getting off of and going on guard duty at four o' clock. He tidied up the room with them, putting all their boxes back in the closet and locking it, and they accompanied him back downstairs to help with dinner, feeling guilty for having kept him all day.
Molly asked what they had done when she came down to eat before leaving; Sirius said that everyone had been busy with their laundry and cleaning chores that day so he had just done some straightening up in his and Remus's rooms. She looked disappointed but accepted the alibi without issue. As soon as the meal was over, Sirius sent the twins off to get every available piece of clothing laundered, lest Molly find out he had been lying.
As the twins' footsteps faded up the stairs and out of the kitchen, Sirius wondered if he had done the right thing. Remus came downstairs; he had just finished guard duty and had gone up to shower and change after eating. "What are you lost in thought over Padfoot?" "Oh nothing," Sirius dismissed him. "Remus, do you think if we – all the Marauders – had gone into business together, say making enchanted things like the map, do you think we would have made it?"
"Oh Padfoot, who knows? Why even think about things like that?" Remus looked sad. "Just curiosity I guess, wondering if life had gone differently where we might all be I suppose." Inside, though, he was hoping with all his might that the Weasley twins would be more successful in their post-graduation pursuits than he and all his friends had been.