Who: Gred and Forge Where: Their shop When: Friday, after closing (backdated) What: This is top secret twin stuff, nothing to see here, move along...
They did their best thinking while hyper, working on fumes and exhausted beyond all reason. They also did some pretty brilliant thinking when drunk, hopped up on sugar, and after very ill-advised cups of coffee.
While all of this was true and they certainly were in need of a few brilliant ideas, there were also serious matters weighing them down. It was getting to the point where Fred would soon have difficulty recognizing his twin. Neither he nor George had ever worn stress particularly well; the only way Fred knew to deal with it was to pretend that it wasn't there at all, and George wasn't very different in that regard. And everything that had been going on with Roxy and Malfoy -- Draco -- really was quite stressful.
Fred had no doubt that George would make a great father. But the fact of the matter was that he was only twenty-one, and wasn't ready yet. He was especially not ready to have a teenager for a daughter.
Which was why Fred locked the door to the shop and then turned an almost malicious smirk upon his twin brother. They needed some fun. Maybe to get drunk, maybe to have their annual (still very ill-advised) coffee, or maybe to chat like hens (or was it cluck like hens, he never could quite get that one straight) to put all of this serious parental-adult-stressful business behind them and get back to doing fun stuff. Like inventing things.
"Spill," he said, as he approached the cash desk with his arms crossed over his chest. "You're not fooling anyone and you're definitely not fooling me. We're going to have this out, put it all out there, and then get back to the good old times, yeah? So spill."