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Hermione tinkered happily with her newest project in the backroom of Weasley Wizard Wheezes. Today it was a spell for speed-reading. She read quite fast already, but this would help her research immensely if she got it right.
This wasn’t the career choice anyone had expected from her, but it was the one that made her happy after a couple of years of pointless paper pushing in the Ministry. She had a contract with the twins now — she developed at least one joke product per month, helped them with things when they got stuck, and otherwise they left her to her own devices, researching and creating as she wished — potions, spells, magical items, whatever struck her fancy. It was perfect.
Of course, sharing a workspace with Fred and George was chaotic at best. Some days it could be downright terrible. Though she tried to ignore them, she heard a classic, “Bottoms up!” from the duo as they undoubtedly tested whichever potion they were working on today.
To her surprise, that wasn’t followed by a crow of excitement or twin groans that it hadn’t worked. Instead, there were tiny giggles. Had they shrunk themselves? Or maybe just their heads? As she was at a stopping point anyway, Hermione turned to see what they were up to.
Her jaw dropped as she saw two little boys, barely older than toddlers, giggling at each other in the oversized clothes Fred and George had been wearing that morning. “Oh Merlin!” she exclaimed, drawing their attention. “How long does this last?”
The identical little boys looked at her quizzically, but didn’t give a real answer. “My-nee!” one of them cried, toddling forward and then tripping on the clothes around his ankles. He immediately burst into tears as he fell, hard, to the ground.
Operating purely on instinct, trying to get past the shock of seeing the two of them like this, Hermione rushed to the one on the ground. Based on the clothes, she thought this one was Fred. “Shhh! It’s okay!” she said, pulling the little guy into her lap as she settled on the floor next to them. He held up a finger that had gotten scraped on the way down.
“Boo-boo,” he said morosely.
As anyone would do with a little one, she leaned down and kissed it, earning her a watery smile. The other twin, George she was almost certain, tugged at her shirt. “My-nee, Help!” he said, an edge of panic in his tiny voice.
“Help with what?” she asked.
He looked frustrated as his young brain tried to make words that were too much for his mouth. In the end, little George waved his hand up and down at himself and Fred.
“You need my help getting back to your regular age?” she asked.
The little boy nodded vigorously, though Fred just giggled, tugging at her curls. “Fred, stop that,” she admonished gently, not sure if he knew better or not since they seemed constricted by what they would have been able to do at whatever age this was.
“Does it wear off soon?” Hermione asked. That would be the easiest.
George shook his head solemnly.
“Does it ever wear off?”
He shook his head again.
“You permanently de-aged yourselves into preschoolers?” Hermione huffed.
“Well they would grow back up over time, Hermione,” came the voice of their friend Lee. He was minding the shop today but had apparently come to the back room for more stock. “Besides, a bit of aging potion should fix them right up.”
George nodded. Fred pulled at her curls again.
“Perfect. I can make one of those easily,” Hermione said in relief. “Can you take the two of them?”
“Out into the shop?” They would have a field day out there!” Lee declared. “Take them to Molly. She’ll know exactly how to handle them.”
“Oh! I should have thought of that,” Hermione declared as Fred hopped off her lap. She took each of their hands and said, “We’ll floo to the Burrow and your Mum can watch you while I make the potion.”
Suddenly George shook his head, sitting back down.
“What? Why not?” Hermione demanded.
“No floo,” George demanded, looking both embarrassed and adamant.
Slowly, she said, “Okay…. We can just apparate.”
“Not with ones that young, you can’t,” Lee said. “It’s not safe.”
“So I have to force them through the floo when they don’t want to go?” she asked.
“Or walk or fly a broomstick,” he suggested with amusement.
Well she wasn’t doing that. They would have to go through the floo even if George didn’t like it. “Come on, Georgie,” she coaxed. “It will be fine.”
“Gorge no floo,” Fred said, stepping out of his pants and trousers, standing only in the oversized t-shirt. Hermione wanted to get onto him for it, but seeing George doing the same, she realized it was really the only way they were going to be able to walk around without falling all the time.
To her surprise, it was Lee who said, “Keep your pants on, mate, I’ll spell them down to size.” A few minutes later and they were wearing clothes that fit once again, their bodies covered appropriately. “Hope they don’t need nappies,” Lee muttered.
Hermione took Fred by the hand, scooped up George in her other arm, and headed for the floo. George began kicking and screaming, having a full blown tantrum the closer they got. He really didn’t like the floo at this age.
She soon found out why as he vomited spectacularly all over the three of them when they were whirling between floos. They tumbled out in a stinky, disgusting mess when they finally arrived at the floo of the Burrow with George and now Fred, too, wailing.
Bustling could be heard from the kitchen as Molly rushed in to see who had arrived so loudly. She gasped when she saw them. “My own little Fred and George!” she cried, her magic cleaning the three of them of George’s sick and all the soot before she pulled the two little boys into her arms.
“How in the world did this happen?” she asked Hermione, laughing as the boys peppered her face with kisses.
“I’m not really sure. They were creating something and took a potion that de-aged them. They can’t seem to tell me much.”
“I should think not. They’re about two at this stage, and they were barely talking except to each other in twin speak when they were this age,” Molly explained.
“George seems to remember things, but can only answer yes or no questions, and just by nodding or shaking his head,” Hermione told her.
“Well, that makes sense,” Molly said, making Hermione feel immensely relieved.
“So I thought we could just brew an aging potion for them, but I can’t do that and watch them at the same time,” Hermione explained.
“Oh, of course not. They’re a handful at this age — any age, really, but perhaps especially when they were too young to know any better. You can watch them here while I run out and get the potion made,” Molly declared, grabbing her purse.
“Oh!” Hermione cried. “Well, I… I thought I would—”
“It’s so sweet of you to take care of them, dear. Make sure you watch them both — otherwise one will be up to something while you have an eye on the other. I’ll be back within an hour,” Molly said, stepping into the floo and calling out for the apothecary before Hermione could protest further. Fred began giggling again.
It was only an hour. Hermione could handle them for that long, she thought as she stared at the fireplace where Molly had just disappeared. When she turned back around, she was alone in the room.
Merlin, help her.
She heard a noise in the kitchen and rushed for the room. By the time she arrived, all the flour in Molly’s overfilled pantry was on the floor, the counters, across the table, and completely covering the two monstrous little twins.
“Play ghost, My-nee!” Fred shouted.
“What are you thinking?” she demanded. “You know better than this!” But in fact, she wasn’t sure of that. The longer they were in their de-aged bodies, the harder it would be for them to think like adults.
“Ghost!” Fred said gleefully while George giggled with him.
“We’re going to have to take a bath now,” Hermione said, completely forgetting that she could whisk it away from them with magic. Even if she had thought of it, getting the flour out of their hair would be impossible without washing.
“No bath!” Fred shouted with a glare. “Ghost! Woooo!”
Giving up on him for the moment, Hermione turned to tell George they would do his bath first… but he was gone. Oh no. Molly had warned her not to let them divide.
Well, one positive of having a toddler covered in flour was that he wasn’t hard to follow. She found George in the sitting room with a tin of biscuits half gone. Merlin, she hoped that hadn’t been full. It couldn’t have been. How would he have eaten them so quickly?
Hermione got George up into her arms and headed back to the kitchen only to realize that Fred was now missing, no doubt hiding from the bath and causing more terror somewhere else. Sighing in frustration, she followed the new trail up the stairs. Who knew what mischief he had gotten into up in one of the bedrooms.
Then the explosions started, along with the gleeful cries of “Boom! Boom! Boom!” She could hear Fred’s hands clapping in between the fireworks going off and she raced to make it to the twins’ room before he caught himself on fire or burned the Burrow to the ground.
He was sitting in the middle of the room, still covered in flour, with an enormous box of fireworks strewn about, hitting them together to make them alight. It was a feature of some of the WWW fireworks — thankfully the smaller ones. She ducked as a firework came straight for her, making its way over her head and bouncing down the stairs. Molly was going to kill her.
“Frederick Gideon Weasley!” Hermione yelled at him, so upset she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with him. He looked up, a pout immediately gracing his previously grinning face and some of Hermione’s ire released. How could you stay mad at them when they were so bloody cute?
“No more!” she cried, grabbing the little boy and tucking him under her arm so that he couldn’t run away from her. “We are taking a bath and then I’ll come back and banish these fireworks away.”
She couldn’t get the door closed without releasing one of them, which she wasn’t about to do, so the other fireworks escaped, too. With a huff, Hermione decided she didn’t care and hauled the twins into the bathroom.
Spelling the door locked, she had soon wrestled both twins into the bath. Somehow, more of the water seemed to end up on her and all over the bathroom than actually got on the two little boys — George, who was having a fine time splashing about and Fred who was throwing a tantrum and splashing water about.
With relief, Hermione heard the floo activate downstairs. Well, it was relief until she thought of the mess they had left downstairs and how ashamed she was that she hadn’t been able to do better. She rushed to get the last of the flour out of their hair, dried them with a spell, and tried to tug them back into their clothes.
Unfortunately, with a burst of magic that Hermione wasn’t certain was accidental, Fred unlocked the door and was gone. When she turned to catch him, George slipped past her as well. Now there were two identical, naked terrors running down the stairs, laughing hysterically as Hermione chased them, hoping none of them slipped on the flour trail.
“Hold it!” Molly screeched at the bottom of the stairs, and the boys miraculously came to an abrupt halt. Hermione stormed the rest of the way down the stairs, arriving out of breath and with red cheeks, their clothes still clutched in her hands.
“Now, you boys will put your clothes back on right now or I’m giving you this aging potion in front of Hermione with you both naked,” Molly threatened.
With round eyes, the twins turned and put their hands out for the clothing. She helped George into his while Molly helped Fred. As they worked, Hermione tried to apologize. “I’m so sorry everything is such a mess. I couldn’t—”
“Don’t worry about it, Hermione. I’m impressed the house is still standing the way I remember these two. Flour and fireworks can be cleaned up easily enough.”
“But I tried—”
“And you did a lovely job, dear. No harm done.” Turning to the boys, Molly said, “Now, you’re going to take this potion like good boys.”
Fred started to protest, so his Mum held his nose while she tipped the potion down his throat. Seeing this, George reluctantly took his himself.
In moments, the two young men were standing before them, just as they had been that morning, laughing at their adventures for the day, even as they blushed and bashfully looked away from Hermione.
“Sorry about all that,” George apologized to her. “The potion was supposed to make your body shrink until you take the antidote, but we must have gotten it too close to a de-aging potion. It was so frustrating to lose the ability to communicate with you!”
“No harm done,” Hermione found herself saying, but added, “As long as you are cleaning up this mess.”
Molly laughed at that one. “Yes, flour and fireworks are definitely better when cleaned up by the ones who made the mess.