a/n: Thanks to Griffindor Drummer for pointing out an oops. This is the revised edition where George says his seventh year instead of the fifth. Hope that made sense.

Chapter 7: A Tour of the Lab

"Your pick, Sparky. What are we going to do next?" They had finished their picnic and were climbing down the tree, the picnic basket floating down lazily beside them.

George shrugged, but was struck by a sudden idea. Remembering Hermione's reactions to their pranks at school but also about the Singing Sweets and Ginny's engagement party, he forced himself to make the offer. "Would you like to see our lab for the shop?"

She grinned at him, causing him to smile back in relief. "That sounds fantastic! Lead the way."

"Pot o' Gold Coins? What do these do?" Hermione asked George twenty minutes later.

A mischievous grin made its way across George's face. "That depends entirely on what you do with them. What we have so far is that it forces you into an absolutely awful "American trying to be Irish" accent as long as it's in your pocket. But what we're going for is more of a…" George paused to think how to describe it. "Basically we're trying to figure out a way to turn people into leprechauns temporarily. You know, foot high wearing green and such."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "And how is that coming for you?"

He smirked. "Still in the testing phases, sadly. Our last test subject just grew clovers out of his ears."

"Why do I get the feeling that test subject was you?" Hermione commented dryly.

He shook his head. "It was Fred, actually. The day before his wedding, in fact. I've never seen him in such a panic. Katie thought it was hilarious! She still won't let him live it down."

Hermione pictured the green clovers coming out of the red-head's ears and put a hand over her mouth to cover a laugh.

George caught it and smirked again. "I know, it's fantastic blackmail, is it not?"

"What's fantastic blackmail?" Fred asked as he walked in. Then he spotted what they were standing next to and his face heated. "Oh, that." Then he shrugged. "Oh, well. How many other weddings can you say the groom had built-in greenery?"

"You couldn't get it off for the wedding?" Hermione asked with her hand over her mouth, trying but not succeeding at covering another laugh.

"Nope," George chimed in. "He had to wear one of those hats with the flaps over the ears. Too bad for him the hat fell off at the reception."

"Yeah, no thanks to you," Fred mumbled.

George put on an innocent face. "I'll have you know it was entirely Ginny's fault."

"But you probably put her up to it," Fred said, good-naturedly glaring at his twin.

"Actually, you have your darling wife to thank for that," George replied, his grin spreading even wider at Fred's shocked face.

"She what?!" Fred exclaimed then went in search of his wife, so he missed George's quiet comment to Hermione.

"All I did was give her the idea."

His comment so surprised her that she let out a huge laugh before she could stop herself. The eyes she turned to him danced merrily as her shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. "You're horrible, you know that?"

He winked at her. "I know, but he loves me anyway."

Before she could reply to that, he swept her off for the remainder of the tour, showing her a plethora of pranks that were still in the works—fake wands that sprouted flowers every time a spell was cast, ink bottles that would walk away on their own, quills that shook when you wrote, and lemon drops that would turn someone into a menagerie of animals if ingested. "We've been trying to get Dumbledore on that one for years," George commented after showing Hermione the lemon drops. "He's always managed to evade us so far, but these are the newest batch of them."

Half an hour later, the tour concluded and Hermione turned to him with a determined glint in her eye.

"You know what you need?"

Not prepared for this question, George just blinked at her for a second. "Um, no. what do we need?"

"A rubber ducky."

"A what?"

"A rubber ducky!" She exclaimed, beginning to warm up to her subject. "It's a Muggle bath toy! Little kids use it, mostly, and easily amused adults. I'm one of them. Easily amused, that is. Not a rubber ducky. Anyway, it squeaks and floats on the water, but I'd bet you can get it to dye people's skin colors and—what?" She stopped, seeing the strange look on his face. He was looking at her as if she had grown another head.

He shook his head in disbelief. "I just can't believe I'm hearing this from the girl who threw such a fit my seventh year when we were pranking all those students."

"That was because I didn't think you should have been testing them on the students. This is completely different. Now I'm on the plotting end of things."

A slow grin spread across his face and he ushered her to one of the nearby chairs. "Tell me everything you know about these rubber duckies!" He grabbed the nearest piece of paper and began taking meticulous notes as she began describing rubber duckies again.