Chapter Two

Hermione arrived at the shop prearranged time the following day. She was relieved to see that Fred was there as promised, albeit looking more than a bit worse for wear. She kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk. "Wasn't sure if you'd be here."

Fred shrugged. "Made an agreement, didn't I?" Without another word, he turned and unlocked the front door. They went inside and Hermione froze at the sight that lay before them. The shop was in complete disarray – bottles broken, boxes tossed about, displays smashed to bits.

"Bastards," snarled Fred under his breath.

Hermione stared in disbelief. "Vandals?"

Fred shook his head and walked further into the room. "Bloody Death Eaters." He shoved a piece of debris out of his way. "They ransacked the Burrow as well once they realized where Ron was. Looking for anything that might lead them to Harry."

He squatted down to pick up a piece of broken wood before tossing it aside. "Thankfully, we anticipated this. We didn't have a lot of time before going underground but we were able to put most of the really valuable stuff under a special protection spell for safe keeping." Fred's voice caught. "I wanted to make it so it would require both George and I to release it. He wouldn't let me. Said just in case….." He was unable to finish the sentence.

Hermione knelt to look him in the eye. "So – where do we start?"

Fred met her gaze, stood and squared his shoulders. "First, we see if that spell held up like Georgie and I hoped it would."

Hermione followed Fred to a door leading downstairs to the lab where he and George had developed many of their products. "Mind your step," cautioned Fred. He stopped halfway down and flicked his wand. "Lumos."

The room illuminated and was shown to be in much the same state as the shop upstairs. "Oh, Fred," Hermione said sadly.

Fred pushed a broken stool out of the way. "It's actually not that bad. We stored away most of the good stuff before leaving. We left just enough of our old school equipment out to make them feel like they had accomplished something."

He crossed to the far side of the room and searched for a precise point on the wall. She watched as he counted a certain number of stones down and across before resting his hand on a specific spot. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Veritas se revelet," he whispered.

Instantly the stones before him began transforming into a heavy wooden door, with large metal hinges but no visible handle. He tapped it lightly four times with his wand and it swung open to reveal a snug room, no bigger than a broom closet. As they stepped inside, Fred shoulders relaxed. "It worked."

Along the walls were a couple of shelves, one containing neatly arranged samples of product and lab equipment and the other filled with carefully labeled scrolls and ledgers. Two small filing cabinets were nestled in next to the door.

Fred went to the cabinets first and exhaled when they appeared to be intact. Noticing Hermione's questioning look, he explained, "These contain copies of all the information on our customers and suppliers. We didn't want anyone to be targeted because of us."

He gestured towards the shelf with the bottles and boxes. "Ingredients that we knew would be difficult to come by the way things were going." He pointed to the large, unmarked cartons stacked on the filing cabinets. "Prototypes and samples of the Defense against the Dark Arts line. Didn't want them getting hold of those either."

He reached for the shelf holding the series of large leather bound volumes and ran his finger along the spines until he found what he was looking for. He pulled down two of them and handed one to Hermione. "Right. Best start by cleaning upstairs and seeing if anything is salvageable. We can then compare that list to the most recent inventory to see where we need to begin in regards to replacing products."

Hermione opened the book and started to flip through the pages. Her eyes widened in surprise. "Fred! These are..." She stopped short.

"Are what?"

She stammered. "S- so well organized!"

His face flushed in indignation. "What did you expect, Granger? We may have sold jokes and pranks but we took this business very seriously. This was our life's work!"

Hermione dropped her eyes. "I guess I just never thought..."

Fred gave her a cold stare. "What? That George and I would be capable of this? That we were too 'pathetically dimwitted'?"

"No!' She clutched the ledger with one hand pushed her hair behind her ear with the other. "I-I just never appreciated the amount of effort you and George must have put into the business side of things. You always seemed to be having so much fun that it never occurred to me that must have also been a lot of hard work."

She stood there biting her lip and considering her next words before resolutely stepping forward and extending her hand. "I am truly sorry. Start over?"

Fred eyed her carefully before silently shaking her hand. Hermione nodded sharply. "Right. Let's get cleaning then, shall we?"