Brontide

Chapter Twelve

I felt my feet land on the cobbled pavement of Diagon Alley and I dropped my trunk upon impact, Nestor's empty cage rattling noisily against the ground. I quickly gathered my things before looking up at the building in front of me, Fred unlocking the front door. The lights were off but along the front of the building, underneath a big, silly looking model of the twins, were the words Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Plastered to the front windows were posters advertising all sorts of things, including, "Headless Hats: Your Friends Will Lose Their Minds!" There were signs for their Wonder Witch products, which included love potions and blemish removers. Posters for Skiving Snackboxes, Patented Daydream Charms and Canary Creams were also illuminated by the moonlight, and the longer I looked at the exterior of their shop, the more ecstatic I became. 

They led us inside and George said "Lumos", the room lighting up in front of us. The walls were painted the same magenta color as their robes, and in the middle of the room was a spiraling staircase painted an even more violent orange than the twin's hair. I grinned; it was so typical of them to go against the norm. There was a landing above us that allowed for more shop space, and they'd started installing shelves along the walls, though nothing was stocked yet. The floors were wooden and there was a till and checkout counter towards the back of the store. As I slowly climbed up the staircase, running my hand along the winding railing, I tried to imagine what the room would look like when it was all finished. It was open for a lot of possibilities and I really couldn't wait to get started.

"I love it," I called down to them, observing the first-floor landing. The back of the huge Weasley twin model could be seen from one of the windows, and I couldn't help but grin at how cheesy they really were to have put it up in the first place.

"You better, because you'll be spending a lot of your time here," Fred called back.

I leaned over the railing, staring down at him. "Says who?"

"Says your bosses," he and George said together cheekily.

I rolled my eyes. "It's been almost eight years, and I'm still not used to you doing the weird twin thing."

"Well, get used to it already," George chuckled.

Rae was looking around below me, coming to a stop in front of a door that said Employees Only. "What's in here?" she asked.

"That's the storage room," George told her.

"Come back down, Cass," Fred called, "you can't get to the flat from up there."

I made my way back down the staircase and dragged my trunk over to the storage room, flicking my wand and extinguishing the store lights. There were stacks of boxes labeled with different products, some of which I hadn't even heard of. In the back of the room was a narrower spiral staircase that we ascended, the twins helping us with our trunks. After much winding in circles, we came to a small landing and a door that they unlocked, letting us into their flat.

It appeared to be larger than I initially expected. The first thing I saw was the sitting room, which was fairly roomy and housed two comfy-looking leather sofas. On the far left side of the room was a fireplace with a mantelpiece above it. The walls of the flat were a basic white, with the occasional smudge of some sort of substance or ash from a minor explosion lingering on it. To the right was a doorway that led to the kitchen, with cabinets full of what I hoped to be food, a kitchen table with four chairs set up and even more explosion marks streaking across the walls, giving me a looming sense that I'd be cooking a lot. On the far wall of the sitting room, next to the hallway was the bathroom, which was pretty small but it had the essentials. Then, next to the kitchen but before the hallway was Fred's room, and the first door in the hallway was George's room. Across from that was a tiny closet, along with one final door that sat at the very end of the hall.