Chapter 2 – Stat's Entertainment

All major events think they need a witty catchphrase, a pithy epitaph by which they can be remembered and referred to by in years hence. In fact, they are dead wrong. What they really need is a big fireworks display. Possibly with free barbecued confection and sweet chilli sauce.

In the wizarding world, two young entrepreneurs wanted to change all that. Fred and George Weasley were on a mission. All was progressing well, since they had permission to obtain all the rare, dangerous, illegal and import-controlled goods they needed, or possibly just liked the sound of. Having a father who was the Minister of Magic did come in handy after all.

They were making great and important headway in their work, creating novel and ingenious ideas for the aforementioned celebration. They had done plenty of research in this area when creating Weasleys' Wildfire Whizz-bangs (5 galleons for the Basic Blaze box) and had realised that work could be fun. This work and play do mix attitude would be the cause of their downfall. But that's beside the point.

Oh, wait, no, I was on the point (A/N: it's a miracle! Cue heavenly chorus of Handel). Isn't that surprising?

Anyway, rumours were abounding about what they were cooking up, and if the rumours were anything to judge by, which they usually aren't, it was going to be a party of special magnificence.

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Severus Snape, having retired from teaching, prowling and victimising children at Hogwarts, (although he did occasionally snap and shout at random children in the street) moved permanently to his gite in the South of France, after having it completely decontaminated, taking the Heir to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black with him. He had surprised everyone and himself with this decision, but on reflection, he realised he had grown rather fond of the Gryffindor in much the same way one loves an old hapless dog that still tries to be youthful and puppy-like even though it's old enough and big enough to have some common sense and a shred of dignity.

Anyway, the point that we attempted to make at the beginning of the last paragraph, but got rather distracted by the life of our favourite evil ex-potions master (or ex-evil potions master) still has not been made. This is it. Despite being a film buff, Severus Snape actually liked the Matrix Reloaded. Well, someone had to, all the money it made couldn't have been from deluded fans of the first one. So he had yet to learn the painful lesson that over-hyped things always leave you disappointed.

With this in mind, he returned to England, sans mangy mutt, because you can only spend so much time with someone before making an error in a certain lycanthrope's Wolfsbane potion becomes far too tempting.  Just to get said mangy mutt where it really hurts.  The celebration was clearly going to involve fireworks. Fred and George had far too much experience at blowing things up. Giving them permission to do so was like giving Hagrid the charge of a dragon incubator.

You must remember, at this point, Severus Snape was thought of on a scale of mild dislike (the Hufflepuffs) to downright loathing (the Gryffindors) by twenty plus years of students and parents alike that had been traumatised during potions. Add to that the reputation of being a Death Eater, and not even an Order of Merlin First Class and a whole room in the Museum of People Who Were Really Rather Useful in Getting Rid of Voldemort can do much for your PR.

With all this in mind, he went in disguise. Being a spy, he was rather used to this, and remained relatively relaxed even whilst ready to snap to action in a second. He decided to stick to his strengths. His chief weapon had always been surprise, surprise and fear… his two main weapons were fear and surprise and a ruthless disregard for other people's feelings... his three main weapons were fear, surprise, a ruthless disregard for other people's feelings and an almost fanatical devotion to whoever offered him the best deal… his four main weapons were fear, surprise, a ruthless disregard for other people's feelings and an almost fanatical devotion to whoever offered him the best deal and a natty locomotive strategy…so amongst his weapons were… With this in mind, and before the issue is once again sidetracked by us, the author, we will tell you he decided to go in a nice red uniform. Suffice to say, no one noticed him at all. It felt like a fitting tribute to the Boy-Who-Lived and his cultural references.  No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition, possibly because no-one notices them.

The red outfit and corresponding honey blonde ringlets, as well as the judiciously  applied tanning charms were another reason for not talking Sirius Black with him. The only thing that stopped him looking just like Severus Snape with a fake tan, a wig and red robes was his smile. No one believed that Professor Snape could smile. It was a statistical impossibility (Hermione had done t-tests, f-tests and even a Chi-squared for good measure and p was definitely less that 0.00001). Which shows exactly how much faith we should put in statistics.

When someone politely (but persistently) inquired if he was a Snape (the genetic mutation that had produced THAT nose had to be rarer than winning the lottery) he simply replied in his best (which was, suffice to say much better than Harry's) Scouse accent that indeed he was a Snape, but due to his penchant for smiling, pleasantries, the colour red and PVC he was something of a black sheep in the family. Or possibly, given the family in question, a white sheep. Given the dark, brooding nature of the family Snape, the only way to effectively rebel was to do the unthinkable – become a redcoat at Butlins. This cover story was, he judged, fantastical enough to be true.

Thus, with a plot device or two, some comic buffoonery, a dash of panache and a Monty Python tribute, Severus Snape was back in England watching the fireworks.

The opening salvo was bright and noisy, as fireworks usually are, although, since this was Fred and George, one can never be too sure, and should never be afraid to state the obvious. Things progressed, as they are apt to do, to a score of classical music. We'd like to say they weren't predictable enough to use the 1812 Overture, but we'd be lying. Not that they knew it was famous, they liked it because it was loud. The grand finale was magnificent, perfectly executed and well ordered. To an outsider at least.

Behind the scenes, things were, as always a little chaotic and on the verge of getting pear shaped. The twins were running around frantically trying to hold everything together with copious amounts of energy and a little magic. Unfortunately, while the twins had planned everything with military precision, they overlooked one factor – people are stupid.

It only took one nameless and nondescript worker. You know the kind, a bit slow to catch on, ignored in the chaos and not given step-by-step instructions. This lack of communication inadvertently leads to the ruin of the best laid plans and occasionally, if you're particularly unlucky, the covering of all the lands in a second darkness. Disaster of one magnitude or another is almost inevitable.

So it was this time, when an unspecified underling placed two dubiously legal, alright highly illegal, pyrotechnics next two each other. This usually wouldn't matter, in fact, had it been any other two fireworks, it wouldn't have, but it wasn't. These fireworks shouldn't even have been in the same county as each other, let alone placed together and set on fire.

The resulting explosion (fortunately high up in the air) soon became known as the spectacle of the century, usurping the projection of Harry's glasses into the night air moments before into second place. The sky turned a glorious mauve, tinged with metallic blue. As the spectators ooohed and aaaahed as spectators are wont to do, Mayan pictographs appeared, representing the Battle of Troy (the Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean version, not the real one). Which was odd since the Maya were a South American civilization, and not harmless fruit at all. (A/N: Brad who??)

Unfortunately, the smoke remained on the ground and mixed to form a chocking pea green substance which, as any Londoner could tell you, does not bode well. When Fred and George were called forth for a standing ovation, they were conspicuously absent. It got rather awkward at the time, but a search party later revealed they had a pretty good reason for not being present. They were lying on the ground in an unceremonious heap, unconscious.

The healers at St Mungos did their utmost, but there is usually a reason why banned substances are banned. Namely that they are dangerous. Fred and George's brilliant careers appeared to be tragically cut short. Whilst their bodies would heal, the smoke had rendered them totally and utterly mad. Fortunately, the wizarding world also had patents, and Fred and George, and by extension, the entire Weasley clan grew richer and richer since their whole range of products (and many others that had been meticulously planned but were not yet available for purchase) were in higher demand than ever. Their overheads went down too. As their fortune grew, the twins became more and more unmanageable.

It is perhaps little more than an interesting footnote (unless of course you are a medic, closet or otherwise) that their conditions varied relative to one another. One of the twins was always a dreamy eccentric with disrupted formal speech patterns and a tendency to go off at a tangent, whilst the other headed towards the sociopathic-needing-restraints end of the spectrum. It's probably our disinterested intellectual curiosity telling you this, but it may be a plot device, you'll just have to wait and see…

Of greater note was the fact that Severus Snape went home from another over-hyped event not disappointed and with a grudging respect for the twins' pyromaniac tendencies. Drawing on his arsenal of weapons which no one ever expects (though we don't know why, since a leopard never changes its spots) his ruthless disregard for other people's feelings allowed him to be rather amused.

Fred and George Weasley had finally been hoisted on their own petards.

REFERENCES:

Lord of the Rings

Monty Python. No prizes for guessing which sketch.