Chapter 152: Joke Shop

"You can't reply to that." Lupin said to Chris and Ron. "Dumbledore warned me about this."

"But Harry will be worried." Hermione said. "He'll do something stupid if we don't tell him anything now."

Chris sighed then looked at the letter.

"When is he coming here?" she asked to Lupin. "He'll come here, right?"

"Yes. He will." Lupin replied. "Dumbledore will inform us about when we can bring Harry here."

"Alright, then." Chris nodded. "We'll wait till then. I'll not write back to him."

As soon as she said that, Hedwig peaked in her finger.

"Ouch!" Chris pulled her hand back. But Hedwig angrily hooted and peaked again. "Hedwig! Stop."

"What's she doing?" Ginny said, shocked. 

"She's going to cut your fingers off." Ron said but then Hedwig turned to him and peaked his index finger. "Ow!"

"Ron! Christina! Wait." Lupin pulled his wand out.

"No, don't hurt her." Ginny said. 

As Hedwig tried to peak Chris again, Leon came in, he must have heard Hedwig's angry hooting sounds. Leon flew around Chris's hand protectivly.

"Looks like we're about to witness a owl fight." Fred grinned. "Leon will win."

"I vote for Hedwig." George said. "Five Gallons."

"Deal."

"Shut up both of you." Mrs. Weasley said angrily. "I'm going to stunt them both."

"Mrs. Weasley stunning them can be extreme." Chris said, then she turned to Hedwig and Leon, who were really ready to fight. "Hedwig, I'll write back to Harry but not now. Be a little patient, stay here if you want, okay?"

As Chris and Hedwig's eyes met, Chris smiled at her, and she calmed a little. At least for now, the situation was under control. Though, at night, Leon didn't let Hedwig to stay in his cage, so she had to stay in Ron's owl, Pigwidgeon's cage.

Next morning, Sirius didn't return from Little Whinging, Chris didn't write anything to Harry, and Mrs. Weasley called all of them to clean the drawing room, after breakfast, as they had already cleaned the bedroons.

The drawing room was a long, high-ceilinged room on the first floor with olive-green walls covered in dirty tapestries. The carpet exhaled little clouds of dust every time someone put their foot on it and the long, moss-green velvet curtains were buzzing as though swarming with invisible bees.

"Cover your faces and take a spray," Mrs. Weasley said, pointing at some large bottles of black liquid with a nozzle at the end. "It's Doxycide. I've never seen an infestation this bad — what that house-elf's been doing for the last ten years —"

Chris saw Hermione throw a reproachful look at Mrs. Weasley at these words.

"Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage —"

"Talk plenty of nasty things, even at this age." Fred said. "Didn't he?"

Hermione opened her mouth but then decided not to reply, and started working as Mrs. Weasley instructed. 

Just then Chris noticed a locked cabinet which was shaking slightly.

"What's in there, Mrs. Weasley?" She asked.

"I think, Boggart, dear. But don't try to open it, I'll ask Mad-Eye to check it first." Mrs. Weasley said. "Right, you lot, you need to be careful, because doxies bite and their teeth are poisonous. I've got a bottle of antidote here, but I'd rather nobody needed it."

She straightened up, positioned herself squarely in front of the curtains, and beckoned them all forward.

"When I say the word, start spraying immediately," she said. "They'll come flying out at us, I expect, but it says on the sprays one good squirt will paralyze them. When they're immobilized, just throw them in this bucket."

She stepped carefully out of their line of fire and raised her own spray. "All right — squirt!"

Chris thought, it's weird that last night Mrs. Weasley was trying to stunt the owls, and now she was using sprays rather than magic. Then again maybe wand magic doesn't effect fast on Doxies. Chris decided to experiment, so she just hold the spray but didn't use it, she used magic.

As few Doxies, came towards her, their shiny beetlelike wings whirring, tiny needle-sharp teeth bared, its fairylike body covered with thick black hair and four tiny fists clenched with fury, Chris stunt them in midair and they fell, with a surprisingly loud thunk, onto the worn carpet below. Chris picked them up one by one and threw in the bucket.

"Fred, what are you doing?" said Mrs. Weasley sharply. "Spray that at once and throw it away!"

Chris looked around. Fred was holding a struggling doxy between his forefinger and thumb.

"Right-o," Fred said brightly, spraying the doxy quickly in the face so that it fainted, but the moment Mrs. Weasley's back was turned he pocketed it with a wink.

"We want to experiment with doxy venom for our Skiving Snackboxes," George told Chris under his breath. "Haven't told you yet. Harry gave us the money, he won at Triwizard Tournament."

"He.. what!" Chris moved closer to George, stunting another bunch of Doxies. 

George picked them up and whispered, "I know, we also thought he's mental. It's five hundred Gallons."

"He said we should use them for our joke shop." Fred whispered joining them. "Well we still need some money to open our own shop, but it's a start. We're working on Skiving Snackboxes, now."

Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www.novelhall.com www.webnovel.com for visiting.

"What's that?" Chris asked, looking interested.

"Range of sweets to make you ill," George whispered, keeping a wary eye on Mrs. Weasley's back. "Not seriously ill, mind, just ill enough to get you out of a class when you feel like it. Fred and I have been developing them this summer. They're double-ended, color-coded chews. If you eat the orange half of the Puking Pastilles, you throw up. Moment you've been rushed out of the lesson for the hospital wing, you swallow the purple half —"

"— which restores you to full fitness, enabling you to pursue the leisure activity of your own choice during an hour that would otherwise have been devoted to unprofitable boredom.' That's what we're putting in the adverts, anyway," whispered Fred. "But they still need a bit of work. At the moment our testers are having a bit of trouble stopping puking long enough to swallow the purple end."

"Testers?"

"Us," said Fred. "We take it in turns. George did the Fainting Fancies — we both tried the Nosebleed Nougat —"

"Mum thought we'd been dueling," said George.

"Well can I help?" Chris said with a mischievous smile. "Sounds like fun. Inventing new things. You two are really talented."

Fred and George grinned.

"That'll be great." George said.