The Silver Envelope

Minibogs

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

"Honestly, we might just elope," Ginny said darkly as she caught another bat from the cage. Fake though they were, the bats flapped around on their own, adding extra chaos to the sensory nightmare that Weasley's Wizard Wheezes had always proudly been.
Hermione had arrived early at the store to help set up for their Halloween event. She had taken a half day just for the occasion, and she had arrived that afternoon pleasantly surprised to find that Ginny had done the same. While Ginny was setting up decorations, Hermione was using her wand to make sweets fly through the air and tuck themselves into hiding places throughout the room for patrons to find as they shopped and partied that night.
"You can't do that!" Hermione protested. "Your mother would never forgive you. Actually, I would never forgive you," she added, as though that settled the matter.
Ginny scoffed, deftly swatting away a bat that was attempting to tangle itself in her long, red hair.
"You're right, but I've just about had it with all the wedding stuff. I don't know who's worse: mum or the press.
Ginny had been in the paper rather a lot, recently. The Chosen One getting married to a member of the Holyhead Harpies was big news. Ginny had been on the cover of Witch Weekly twice in the last year, and the attention was still growing.
Normally, Hermione would offer her help in planning the wedding, but at the moment, she had her hands full with work. The vote was coming up soon, and she still had plenty of campaigning and negotiating to do for the SOCKS Act. Even coming here for this afternoon had been a stretch for her. With a wave of her wand, she distributed the last of the sweets and crumpled up the empty bag.
"It's only a few more months. Then you'll be free to run off on your honeymoon and de-stress," Hermione said reassuringly.
"I can't wait," Ginny groaned longingly.
"Can't wait for what?" George asked, walking into the room.
"Can't wait for my bleeding wedding to be over and done with," Ginny answered.
George grinned.
"Isn't it supposed to be the happiest day of your life? You being the bride and all," he teased.
"I dunno. Maybe I should ask Angelina if it was for her. Oh wait..." Ginny said with an evil smile.
"you'd have to actually marry her first."
George shrunk a bit and turned away, mumbling something about it not being the right moment
yet.
"Coward," Ginny called after him.
Hermione suppressed a laugh. She couldn't judge George, considering that she, too, was currently avoiding getting engaged.
"Is everything ready out here?" Ron said as he walked in from the back room. He was dressed in his usual work attire: lurid purple robes.
"I think so," Hermione said. "Are you finally going to show us what you two are launching tonight?"
Ron looked over at George, who shrugged.
"Why not give them a sneak peek?" he said.
Ginny went to collect Harry from outside, where he was handing out flyers for the event to passersby. The five of them crammed into the back room together, which was a dark area that was mostly full of boxes and odd-looking, in-progress experiments. One table, however, was laden with a small, mysterious wooden trunk, about the size of a loaf of bread.
"That's not going to punch me if I open it, is it?" Hermione asked.
"Not this time," George said. "Alright, everyone. Tonight, we'll be launching the hottest new party game this season: Minibogs!"
"Minibogs?" Ginny repeated.
"They're miniature boggarts," Ron explained.
Hermione, Ginny, and Harry all exchanged wary glances.
"Isn't that a bit.. terrifying?" Hermione said.
"No, no, it isn't!" Ron insisted. "See, it's not like an actual boggart."
"Though we did formulate the magic based on real boggarts," George added. "It's taken us almost two years to get it right, but we finally achieved it about a month ago."
"See, with a normal boggart, it figures out what you're most afraid of, and imitates that, right?" Ron said. Everyone nodded in understanding.
"And to defeat it, you have to change it into something funny, because it hates laughter, right?"
Again, everyone nodded.
"Well, with Minibogs, instead of becoming the thing you most fear, it becomes the funniest thing you fear. Minibogs thrive on laughter rather than dread," Ron finished.