Chapter Text
Even Molly and Arthur came to help with the setup of the twins’ new store. Molly took over most of the cleaning, first of the store and then of the apartment above it. Luna helped her, not out of a desire to clean, but to spend some quality time with her future mother-in-law. Ginny also helped with that part at Molly’s insistence. Damon and Cedric, the best at transfiguration, helped Fred get all the decor and theme set up while George directed everyone else with the stocking. The basement would be their workshop and lab with two floors for the store and then the two above it for the apartment.
Molly, Arthur, and Ginny fell off around dinnertime, though Molly did bring dinner back for everyone else still working. Luna and Neville left at the same time, detouring to Castle Black to grab their trunks before heading home. Sirius was forced to leave then too with the excuse of taking them as though they needed it, but he was still supposed to be resting. The rest of them kept going until midnight when they were finally finished. The store looked amazing. Like a chaotically demented fun house. Just the way they wanted it. Plenty of color and noise and flash. They thanked everyone for their help and handed out a few galleons to pay for it. They were a business after all and they insisted on setting that tone from the off. Store finally ready, the terrible twosome headed up to their now spotless apartment to get at least a little bit of unpacking done before they crashed.
Cedric, rather than go home, was happy to accept the twins’ spare bedroom for the night. He would rather face the house that had so many memories in the light of day when he was fresh. Not that he would end up being there long. He woke up to the sound of the twins moving around, having forgotten to set his silencing charm, so he went ahead and grabbed his stuff to head home and unpack. He’d agreed to work for the twins’ shop for the first month of summer while waiting for his newt results so he could start his apprenticeship. That would get them through the initial rush and give them time to give adequate attention to hiring someone more permanent. The rest of the group would be picking up hours here and there too since they were all of age to work.
He was there for about an hour and had only gotten the basics unpacked and put away before he got the frantic floo call that had him rushing back. Business had clearly hit the ground running. The store was packed, half the shelves were empty, George had a line winding around the store to the register while Fred frantically tried to keep the shelves stocked. It was a good thing they had much more inventory than they thought they’d need to start with. Cedric was just trying to figure out which one he should be helping first when the floo flared again, disgorging Damon, Enzo, and Bonnie, so he motioned them to help Fred restock while he went to open the second register and help George with the line.
By the time the rush slowed down around mid-afternoon, it felt like half the wizarding world had been through the store. And half the stock they’d planned to last for the first month was already gone. The twins were scared to trust the slowdown, so didn’t send anyone home just yet, but they did take lunch/dinner breaks by twos and when traffic was still at a reasonable point, they offered any of the help that wanted to go home or they could stay and watch the store while the twins got a head start on making up some more of the most popular items. Cedric wanted to get home and finish unpacking and Bonnie had plans to spend sometime with Neville so they took off, but Damon and Enzo had no problem taking care of the store.
Since Damon wouldn’t be sixteen for another two weeks, couldn’t legally run the register, which meant that Enzo took care of that while Damon greeted the customers, helped them find what they were looking for, and kept the restocking done up until closing time at six. Which ended up being closer to six thirty before they got the last of the customers out. Enzo worked on getting the registers closed out while Damon did the last of the restocking and straightening up, throwing a few cleaning charms along the way before the two of them went down to the basement to drag the mad scientists away from their work. They were shocked at the time, having lost complete track of it, but they had a few whole cases of the skiving snackboxes made up and a crapload of whizbangs, the two best sellers, ready to go into the storeroom. Damon and Enzo stuck around long enough to move those up before calling it a night and heading home just in time for dinner.
When they got there, they found Dumbledore joining them for the meal, much to their surprise, until he brought up the subject. “Sirius and Remus told me that your occlumency is good now?” he asked them.
“Yes, sir,” Damon answered first. “We’ve been working on it for years now.”
“The books you loaned me last year definitely helped with direction though,” Bonnie added, going with the story that they’d been working it long before that to explain how the skill that took years to master was done a year and a half after they’d gotten the books.
“All four of you believe you have mastered it?” he asked skeptically.
“The twins and Luna too,” Neville told him. “Cedric is almost there too.”
“He’d been working on it for a few years too before we showed him the books last summer to help him focus his efforts better,” Enzo chimed in.
“I presume you don’t mind if I test your abilities?” Dumbledore asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Not at all,” Damon met the man’s eyes, volunteering to go first. He felt the pressure against his shields that he’d modeled after the Hogwarts wards and just smirked as the pressure increased. The next increase gave him a bit of a wince until the final one crashed through. But that was just the cue for the animals to attack and was as far as the headmaster got before he blinked and shook his head, back in his own mind.
“Impressive,” Dumbledore said earnestly.
“If you had managed to get past that level you would have found the castle doors protected by a sphinx who asks riddles that are complete nonsense and then a couple other traps after that,” Damon told him.
“Quite thorough,” Dumbledore nodded. “I had to use all my strength just to get through the first layer. I believe it is safe to say that your mind is perfectly secure.”
“I’ll go next,” Enzo offered, meeting the man’s eyes.
Dumbledore found shields just as strong around the castle. He didn’t find it odd that they both used Hogwarts. He wouldn’t be surprised if most people did given the meaning it had for the vast majority of their world that had gone there. As with Damon, he just barely made it through the shields before he was surrounded by dragons as owls dive bombed him and an uncomfortable phoenix song making him feel afraid filled the air and he withdrew. “Do you have protections beyond that as well?”
“As soon as you touch the castle doors, a trap door will drop you into a labyrinth that has no exit,” Enzo smirked.
“Also impressive,” Dumbledore nodded before turning to Bonnie. Her shields weren’t as strong and he was able to get through them easier, but then found himself completely confounded as the path to Hogwarts seemed to keep getting longer the closer he walked and he kept finding himself confused as to where he was going and which direction it was. If he didn’t know any better he would swear he was lost in the mind of a Slytherin.
Once he finally withdrew, Bonnie smirked at him. “You’re lucky you didn’t try leaving the path. You might have ended up even more lost.”
“Definitely an adequate defense,” Dumbledore chuckled. “And you, my boy?” he turned to Neville who met his eyes. The shields were about the same strength as his girlfriend’s, a level below Damon and Enzo’s, but as soon as he made it through, a solid stone wall popped up in front of him that was just as difficult to get through. And then another one. After that one, he was just too mentally drained to make it any farther and made his way out of the mind. “How many of those do you have?” he asked amusedly. That was exactly what he would expect from a Gryffindor.
“Twelve. Every few feet until the castle. And I could bring up the other walls back behind you to trap you there too,” Neville told him.
“I must say, I am quite proud of all of you children for the impeccable occlumency. Bravo,” Dumbledore said before asking Neville, “Do you have your grandmother’s permission to join the order?” While there were very few people who weren’t in the order that knew of it’s existence, she was one of them since her son and daughter-in-law had been members.
“Only after my birthday,” Neville told him. They’d had quite the discussion about it. She didn’t want him to join at all, and wanted to keep him home again this summer even, but he put his foot down and refused to be treated like a child anymore. He was almost sixteen and would be of age next summer. It wasn’t until he asked her what kind of son he would be if he ran away from the fight that his parents gave their lives for that she finally caved. He would be allowed to work at the shop before then, and go to the alley, but only during the day and only if she knew exactly what time he would be home. And after his birthday, he could join the order.