CHERRY, george weasley

051, cherry approves!

AFTER BREAKFAST, MOLLY TURNED TO Cerise and gave her a gentle smile. Everyone had already gone to get ready to get rid of the doxy's, but Molly had asked if Cerise could stay behind. "I understand I've been too... easy on you," Molly said, as Cerise helped her clean up, "So, you can help with dinner, but I refuse to let you help clean up the house."

Cerise frowned. "Please can I help?" She said, "It's so boring not doing anything —"

Molly caught Remus' eyes, he gave her a nod of his head making the woman sigh. "I suppose you can," she said, passing her a cloth, "Make sure that's tied around your mouth and nose," she then passed her a bottle filled with black liquid with a nozzle at the end.

Cerise quickly ran upstairs and into the drawing room. Loralei and Elijah glanced at her in confusion, "Girl," Loralei said, shaking her head, "If Mrs. Weasley finds you helping —"

"I'm allowed to help," Cerise stated with a grin. "Remus convinced Molly to let me. I don't know how, though."

Elijah wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Where's Jay, then?" He asked curiously.

"Remus," Cerise said, giving them both a tight-lipped smile, despite the fact that they couldn't see the bottom half of her face due to the cloth.

"Cover your faces and take a spray," Molly said to Harry and Ron, "It's Doxycide. I've never seen an infestation this bad — what that house-elf's been doing for the last ten years—"

Cerise had forgotten all about SPEW, until she saw the look on Hermione's face as Molly spoke. "Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage—"

"You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione," Sirius said, entering the room with a bag of dead rats in his hand. Seeing Harry's confused look, he said, "I've just been feeding Buckbeak, I keep him upstairs in my mother's bedroom. Anyway... This writing desk..."

He dropped the bag of rats into an armchair, and then bent over to examine the locked cabinet which was shaking slightly. "Well, Molly, I'm pretty sure this is a boggart," he said as he peered through the keyhold, "but perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shifty at it before we let it out — Knowing my mother, it could be something much worse."

"Right you are, Sirius," Molly said in a light, polite voice. Cerise exchanged a glance with Loralei, it was obvious that Molly and Sirius hadn't forgotten the disagreement they had the night before.

A loud, clanging bell sounded from downstairs, immediately followed but the screams and wails from Walburga. Cerise heard Jay start to cry, and her eyes widened. Loralei grabbed her hand to stop the girl from running downstairs and grabbing Jay.

"He's fine," Loralei told her, "Remus has him, remember?"

Cerise nodded, a look of relief washing over her face. "I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!" Sirius said as he hurried out of the room. His footsteps thundered down the stairs as Walburga's screeches continued to echo throughout the house.

"Close the door, please, Harry," Molly said, giving a worried look Cerise's way. "Right, you lot, you need to be careful, because doxys bite and their teeth are poisonous. I've got a bottle of antidote here, but I'd rather nobody needed it." She straightened herself up and stood in front of the curtains, beckoning the kids forward. "When I say the word, start spraying immediately. They'll come flying out at us, I expect, but it says on the sprays one good squirt will paralyse them. When they're immobilized, just throw them in this bucket... Alright — Squirt!"

Immediately, Cerise began squirting at the doxys and throwing them into the bucket. She had sprayed at least ten doxys by the time Molly was screaming at Fred, "Fred, what are you doing? Spray that at once and throw it away!"

Fred was holding a struggling doxy between his finger and thumb. Cerise could hear Loralei giggling as Fred spoke, "Right-o." He sprayed it in the face and threw it in his pocket.

Cerise eyed him weirdly. "One of our shitty joke products," Fred told Cerise in a hushed whisper as George seemed to be whispering to Harry. "We're making Skiving Snackboxes."

"What are they?" Cerise wondered quietly as she and Fred continued to spray doxys and threw them into the bucket.

"A range of sweets that can make you ill," Fred informed Cerise, glancing at Molly to make sure she wasn't listening. "Not seriously ill, just ill enough so people can get out of class when they feel like it. It's what George and I have been doing all summer. They're double-ended, colour-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 makes you return to full fitness, allowing 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. They still need a bit of work. At the moment our testers are having a bit of trouble stopping themselves puking long enough to swallow the purple end."

Cerise snorted, "Testers?"

"Yeah," Fred said, "George, Loralei and me. We take it in turns — Loralei done the fainting fancies, George and I tried the Nosebleed Nougat. Mum thought we'd been duelling."

Cerise pursed her lips. "Oh!" She exclaimed, before lowering her voice as everyone glanced her way. "I remember that day... How are you getting the money for this then? Because you need to buy, like, a premises or something."

Fred grinned. "Well, we've put ads in The Daily Prophet — Mum doesn't read that anymore because of all the lies." He whispered, spraying another doxy and putting it into the bucket. "And the money Harry won from the Tri..."

He noticed the way her face fell and cut himself off. "He gave it to me and George." Fred gave Cerise a worried look. "Are you okay?"

She nodded. "Y'know, I'm happy that you and George are going through with this... joke shop idea." She said to him, "I know I said they were shitty joke products, but that was out of spite. I do find them entertaining."

Fred's eyes lit up and he ran to George, who looked at him weirdly. "Cerise approved of the joke shop," he told George quietly.

George beamed brightly. "Cherry approves?" He repeated. Hearing this, Cerise let out a small laugh and shook her head.

Molly removed her scarf and sat on the armchair, immediately springing up with a cry of disgust. She had sat on the dead rats. "I think we'll tackle those after lunch." She pointed to the dusty glass-fonted cabinets that were crammed with an odd assortment of objects

The doorbell rang again, and they all looked at Molly. "Stay here," she told them firmly, grabbing the bag of dead rats as Walburga's screeches started up again. Jay started crying, and Cerise stiffened. He was okay, he was with Remus... "I'll bring up some sandwiches."