Ron and Hermione went as soon as the twins were allowed visitors. Harry had elected to stay behind because there was a good chance the twins were being watched while in the hospital, and his presence would be immediately noted, even if he was in disguise.
He spent more frustrating hours waiting for word of what happened and how the twins were.
Desperation made him send Hedwig to fetch a Daily Prophet paper, but the edition she brought back didn't have any details other than there had been several attacks on Diagon Alley and Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes had been completely destroyed, along with several other listed stores. The magical photographs in the paper showed nothing but burnt out wrecks of buildings that could have been any store, and wizards and witches wandering around looking lost.
The radio news gave unconfirmed reports that some Death Eaters had been captured, and over a dozen people had been confirmed dead. Scores more had been injured, mostly in stores that had suffered bad damaged.
From what Harry could make out from the scattered eye witness reports, up to seven different groups of Death Eaters had Apparated into different parts of Diagon Alley and started reeking havoc. The Aurors on guard patrolling the shopping district had been called away only moments before to attend a minor attack on an unnamed Ministry official, leaving the shopping district virtually undefended.
The whole raid had been well planned and coordinated. The only hitch came when the group attacking WWW met with fierce and apparently unexpected resistance. Most of that group had possibly been captured, although there were conflicting reports of how that had happened.
Harry was too worried to concentrate on blasting targets, so sat in the kitchen with the radio and listened to the same reports over and over again. By the time Ron and Hermione returned, Harry knew them all, word for word.
"How are they?" he immediately asked.
"They are going to be fine," Ron answered, as he headed for the fridge.
"Fred lost his favourite pinkie finger when one of his fireworks went off while he was holding it, and George was struck on the head by a beam falling off the front of the shop," Hermione added. "Luckily they found the finger and have been able to glue it back on, although Fred says it will never be the same and is considering making the other one his favourite; seems quite cut-up about it really."
Ron returned with a plate full of left overs and a sandwich already in his mouth.
"Boaf got it wif loads o spells," said Ron unintelligibly.
"Yes, both did get hit with loads of spells," Hermione clarified. "Luckily none were very damaging and didn't hit them with full force. The shields hats and gloves, and those Dragon-hide suits, probably saved their lives."
"And the store?" asked Harry, immensely relieved at the unscathed escape of his friends, favourite finger notwithstanding.
"They didn't seem too worried about it, but they have asked, that since they are going to be kept in hospital for a couple of days, could we go over and clean it up a bit for them. For some reason, they asked if you in particular could help Harry. Any idea why?"
Harry was stumped.
"Maybe they want you to keep Mundungus out, Harry. Apparently he is scared of you since you had a go at him in Hogsmeade," said Ron, this time without a mouthful of food. "Remember, when he was selling Sirius's stuff?"
Harry and Hermione just looked at each other, stunned.
"Mundungus-" said Harry.
"In Hogsmeade-" said Hermione.
"-Selling Sirius's stolen property," they both said together.
Hermione turned her head to look directly at Ron, who was once again stuffing his face, oblivious to their reaction to his words.
"Ron, you are brilliant," she said.
Ron stopped chewing.
"Eh?"
"Yeah, Ron," added Harry grinning. "I think that was probably the best bit of deduction you have ever performed."
"Huh?"
Once they had filled Ron in on his accidental discovery, they started making their plans. Mundungus was, to the best of their knowledge, still in prison for impersonating an Inferi. Hermione would try to get permission for Harry to visit by using his agreement with the Minister, and the cover story of trying to recover the stolen Black property.
While she was doing that, Ron and Harry would visit the Diagon Alley store and see what repairs they could possibly make, and what stock they could salvage. According to Fred and George, most of it should be safe, although they didn't explain why they thought this would be the case.
"Something about some precautions they took recently. Probably put extra wards on the store room or something," said Ron.
Discussing their plans and the attack a bit more, Harry started to get the niggling feeling he was missing something again.
He grabbed a sheet of paper and drew a rough sketch of Diagon alley, then marked the first stores that had been attacked, according to the eye witnesses who had spoken on the radio or were reported in the paper.
There wasn't a pattern, but the spread of the Death Eaters wasn't evenly spaced.
"It looks like they were targeting specific places," Harry said. "Look at the list of stores destroyed. Every one of them was right where a group appeared, and yet most of the stores nearby suffered only a bit of damage. They destroyed their target shop, but then just started shooting around randomly. The minute any organised resistance showed up, they took off."
Hermione was impressed by Harry's logic, but not convinced.
"It certainly looks that way from what you are saying, but what have those stores got in common?"
Harry sighed and admitted he had absolutely no idea, but he was certain there was a purpose behind the attack other than randomly sowing the seeds of terror.
"Maybe it had something to do with who owned them?" he suggested. "Probably all half-bloods, or blood traitors, or something lame like that."
The Death Eaters that had been caught were almost all ones from the WWW attack. Instead of staying inside and hiding, like many of the doomed store owners had done, Fred, George and a couple of customers had fought back using products and items right off the shelves.
A portable swap, complete with alligators, had almost killed two attackers, while fireworks and several other semi-dangerous jokes had knocked out or incapacitated another four. Only one of their attackers had escaped, although he had somehow been forced to eat a Turkey-Delight and Apparated away while still in the shape of the giant bird.
"Do we know who it was that got caught?" asked Harry, hoping it was somebody he knew, like Draco Malfoy.
"Nope. Fred says Flint was the one that got away," Ron told him. "Aurors took the rest away for questioning before either of them got a decent chance to question them, which is probably a good thing, cause you don't want to be around the twins if they are angry at you, and they were pretty angry."
"Well I certainly hope there is an investigation into how easily those stores were destroyed," said Hermione. "Part of their rent goes to anti-fire wards and other protections. It took a lot longer and a lot more magic for the Twin's store to be destroyed than any of the others, and from what you say you heard in the eye-witness reports, it sounds like nothing even slowed down the other fires."
Harry snorted with suppressed disgust, knowing that, in the end, the best they would find would be a corrupt or incompetent ministry official failing to make sure the warding was up to scratch.
Early the next day, Ron and Harry appeared behind the Leaky Cauldron and walked to the store. All through the alley they could see signs of the attack, but not in the way Harry had expected. Most of the debris had been cleared away, and instead of looking like a war zone, the atmosphere was one of a busy construction site rather than a former battle field.
Damaged stores were already undergoing repairs. Crews of workwizards were magically raising walls and windows into place while others attached them. There were even crowds of curious onlookers watching some of the larger works.
"Didn't expect things to get started so soon," commented Ron. "They must have had good insurance."
Harry nodded and they kept walking. He noted the absence of any of the old faded ministry posters covering windows, that many store appeared to have recently been painted or cleaned up, and that there were fewer of the previously abandoned shops sitting empty.
WWW had completely collapsed, though. Walking over the rubble, Harry couldn't make out a single thing.
Ron was devastated.
"They might was well just start again," he said, throwing down the single piece of merchandise he had found, a Headless Hat from the window display. "It's all just rubbish now."
Harry couldn't understand it. Everything was gone. What could the twins possibly expect him to do about it?
He kicked away some of the burnt timbers, and noticed the doorframe of the shop's front door lying, unburnt, underneath. It stood out against the rest of the blackened remains like a gleaming light post.
"Ron, give me a hand here," he called, clearing away more of the rubbish covering the door.
With Ron's help they were soon standing over the virtually untouched front door of WWW.
"This doesn't look right," he said, bending down to examine the door closer. "How could this have survived?"
Through a spot he wiped clean on the glass of the door, Harry caught a glimpse of the old store, just like it used to look. He shook his head and looked again. It was still there. He pressed his face up against the glass and could clearly see the whole store, intact and untouched, behind the glass.
Ron was just as confused as he was.
They stood it up and could still see the shop behind. Ron tried to open the door, but it was locked. For no particular reason, Harry tried it, and it opened. He quickly slammed it shut.
"We don't want anybody to see this," he explained to Ron.
An hour later the whole burnt out, wreck of the shop was enclosed in magically transfigured walls, just like the other construction sites. Nobody could see in over the ten foot high walls.
Harry opened the door again and stepped through, wand out and ready, while Ron held it open and stood guard.
Inside, the store was a bit dirty and smoke damaged, but otherwise unhurt. Stock had been knocked off the shelves, probably in the panic to get out of the store when the attack started, but no major damage was visible. The large windows showed the underside of the debris covering them.
"Brilliant!" said Ron, when Harry showed him. "It's like the door and windows are a portal and the store is someplace else. The door probably only opened to you because you are a part owner. That's why the twins wanted you here, bloody show offs."
With better knowledge of what needed to be done, Ron and Harry set about transfiguring a new store front. They were able to buy a lot of new material from the other construction sites who had brought in large quantities during the night. It was expensive, but Harry figured it was worth the cost to have the store open again as soon as possible.
The apartment the Twins had been staying in was a total loss though, and Harry agreed with Ron that it was low on their priority list.
Using the stronger beams for structural posts, they slowly built a frame to hold the window and door in place. From then it was almost a simple matter to fill in the gaps with a combination of transfigured and new materials. It only took a couple of hours to have a new, if slightly crooked, shop front ready to go.
Harry wiped the sweat from his magically altered long hair and commented that he could really do with a butterbeer.
"Call Winky and ask her to get you one," suggested Ron.
Harry hadn't heard from Winky, Dobby or Kreacher since they had gone to Hogwarts. He figured it was worth a try, but just not with Winky first.
"Dobby," he called.
A second later a loud crack announced the arrival of the elf.
"How is Winky?" he asked, once the excitable elf had calmed down.
"Winky is being much better. She is using magic again and helping in the kitchens at Hogwarts. She is feeling happy to return to Harry Potter soon!"
"And Kreacher?"
Dobby's smile quickly turned into a frown.
"Kreacher is bad elf. He is wanting to die rather than server Harry Potter. Dobby and other elves is keeping him alive, but we is not liking it."
Harry wasn't sure how he felt about this, but he knew he wanted a butterbeer.
"Dobby, could I employ you for a day to help us out and get some butterbeers and food?"
"Dobby will be proud to work for Harry Potter sir. He is not taking all his days off and is saving them up."
"Great Dobby, can you get us some beers and a sandwich please?" Ron asked, on hearing the elf's declaration.
Dobby disappeared with a loud crack.
Harry smiled at Ron and they went back to building, confident the elf would be back soon. The shop still needed side and back walls and a roof, if it was ever going to maintain the illusion it had before.
Several minutes passed before another loud crack signalled the return of Dobby. Before Harry could turn to look, there were lots of loud cracks. He spun about in a panic, but all he saw were house-elves, a lot of house-elves.
"Dobby is sorry for taking so long, Mr Wheezy sir," Dobby said, passing a beer and a plate piled with sandwiches to Ron. "But Mistress McGonagall asked Dobby what he is doing, and then insisted he takes other elves to help out."
Harry was still staring at the bottle Dobby pressed into his hand when the elves rushed into the building remains and started clearing it away.
From then on the work got a lot easier for Ron and Harry. They were needed to direct the elves and to transfigure any materials or tools needed, but the elves moved and shifted and cleaned everything much better then the boys could have. They even managed to straighten the front of the store up so well that it was almost indistinguishable from the original shop.
For a fleeting moment, a legend from Harry's past rose unbidden in his mind. Once, long ago when he still slept in the cupboard at Privet Drive, he had discovered the door was unlocked and snuck out early in the morning to secretly watch a television show. He had turned the sound almost totally off, so that nobody would be awoken, but managed to see just about the whole thing before hearing one of the Dursley's stirring and quickly running back to his cot to pretend to still be asleep. In the show, a fat man in a furry red suit had hundreds of elves working for him, building all kinds of gifts and toys to give children.
The mass of elves flowing over the worksite, happily building and repairing as they went, reminded Harry of that TV show so much that he nearly burst out laughing at the thought. Trying to explain to Ron proved futile though, as Ron just couldn't see the humour in it.
Ron and Harry both made sure to shake hands with and sincerely thank by name each and every soot-blackened elf before they left.
"Yous is welcome, young masters," one old elf said. "We's not working very hard when young masters are's away, so today is a good day."
This pronouncement was greeted with a round of affirmation by the elves.
Dobby stayed behind when the other elves left to help clean up the inside of the store, a task that didn't take very long at all.
Thanking Dobby, and forcing the elf to take payment for his help, they were about to leave when the owners of WWW entered through the front door.
"Look what we have here then, my nine fingered brother," said George, the bandages still enshrouding his head giving his identity away. "It would appear a couple of house-elves have gotten all big and strong and spend the day fixing our store."
"Indeed," replied Fred. "Merlin knows those that lay-about younger brother of ours and his attention seeking friend could not have managed to perform a tenth of the work we see before us."
"Oi," objected Ron, apparently forgetting that he and Harry had not even really done that much.
"Ah, perhaps we are mistaken-" said George.
"Yes, such eloquence can only come from the youngest male of our clan, despite the long hair and strange facial growth he seems to have acquired."
Harry couldn't help but laugh and shook hands with two, being extra careful of Fred's not quite healed pinkie.
"What are you too doing out of hospital so soon?" asked Ron.
"We had a bit of a disagreement-"
"More of a run in really-"
"With a particularly persistent ward matron-"
"Who, by the way, also possess a truly terrifying collection of Muggle needles-"
"And a penchants to use them-"
"Unnatural that-"
"Definitely not healthy-"
"Not when my buttocks are involved, that's for sure-"
"But back to the story-"
"Were we telling a story?"
"I think so."
"Good. I like a good story."
"So do I fair brother, so do I. Anyway, we left the hospital after a certain matron-"
"Who you may recall had lots of large needles and an even larger need to use them-"
"Felt the urge to practice strange Muggle therapies on us."
"That and the fact we accidentally turned several of the bedpans into frogs."
"Several? I though you said to make it all of them."
"Did I? Well would certainly explain the acupuncturally obsessed health professional chasing us down the ward throwing amphibians."
"I suppose so, but I choose to retain my belief that she just had thing for doing that sort of thing and does it frequently to relieve the pressure."
"The frogs, or the chasing half-healed patients away?"
"Both, of course."
By the time the boys had finally gotten the story from the twin terrors, Harry felt his side was going to burst open from laughing. It was apparently a very bad idea to try and confine them to bed, or even a single building for that matter, and their usual antics had driven the healers to allow them an early discharge.
"Encouraged us to go, actually," said Fred. "Even though my pinkie is still in need of substantial care and attention, and George's head has got a bit of hole in it."
"Want to see?" Offered George, starting to remove the bandages before Ron or Harry could object.
Luckily, they convinced him to keep his head wrapped up, expressing no desire to see his 'shiny bit of skull' as he put it.
The twins were truly impressed at what Harry and Ron had achieved, even after they admitted to having a squadron of house-elves helping them.
They had asked Harry to check up on the shop, not expecting to be out of the hospital for a few days, and guessing he would figure out the door secret and be able to make sure everything was still ok, but had not expected the two boys to do much more than that. Their early escape from the hospital had been a bonus that allowed them to visit the store with an eye to finding out how soon they could be ready to trade again.
"We were planning on having a fire sale," said Fred, earning another laugh.
Discovering the store almost completely repaired threatened to put George back into hospital when he had first arrived, thinking the blow to his head was a lot more serious than he had been led to believe.
Harry told the twins about his theory of the attack being targeted at specific stores, and the twins agreed with his idea, pointing out their own store was now the major supplier of protective clothing for the Ministry of Magic and so definitely a target. No other store had been targeted by their group of attackers, who concentrated so exclusively on making sure it was burnt to the ground that their own defences were compromised.
"Something to tell the Order that is," agreed George. "We are having another meeting soon." He then shot a questioning look at Fred, and received an answering nod to the unspoken question before continuing. "There has been some, interesting, developments of late, things that we feel you should be made aware of."
"You-Know-Who has been having a bit of trouble lately," continued Fred. "Seems somebody else has been working against him and his not-so-merry-men, and he is hurting a bit from some raids against his people."
"Who?" asked Ron.
"Nobody is really sure, but the Order has been getting a fair few tip off lately. Locations of Death Eaters, warnings about attacks, that sort of thing," answered George.
"Thing is, according to this source, old what-his-face has been taking a real beating since Dumbledore died," said Fred looking intently at Harry. "And he has been loosing followers as quickly as he has been gaining them."
"It's not us," said Harry quickly. "We have been keeping out of it, honest."
George nodded. "We know that, young Harry, although it is amazing how often your name comes up when things like this happen. We just want you to know he may be looking to make another example, since he seems to have expected things to be going a bit more his way since he done away with his other main opponent."
"Are you saying he is looking for Harry?" asked Ron. "Because we already know that…"
"It's bit more serious than that, Ronald. More a case of there may be a lot of pressure for him to do the deed himself this time, instead of hiding away while a good-for-nothing scum bag like Snape does the dirty work. A few of his admirers were a bit put out by snaky not having the guts to take on the job himself, although we hear a certain ferret will never be the same again, not after a round of Crucios from the inner circle for mouthing something along those lines."
Harry nodded, not at all concerned by anything that had happened to Draco, and accepting the warning for what it was; a sincere effort to let him know to be careful. Ron was rather pleased to hear his most hated school enemy had suffered for his deeds.
"Poetic justice," said Ron. "I hope Snape has been given the same for doing the job in his place."
Ron and Harry did some shopping in the repaired store while they were there, Ron arguing the twins owed him for a days work, and Harry because they had told him to take anything he wanted for free at any time.
"Don't tell Hermione about the elves," Ron said, before they left. "You know she won't understand."
She found out, of course, and she did understand, but was none too happy about it.
"Anyway," said Harry, cutting into the elf rights lecture she was still giving an hour after Ron let slip about the help they had given. "Did you get an interview with Dung?"
"Yes," she answered. "You go tomorrow."
As the elves had said, it had been a good day.