Fred and George cornered Evelyn at the bend of the third-floor corridor.
To be exact, Evelyn was leaning against the wall with one leg extended, tripping Fred as he passed by.
Fred stumbled half a step, turned around to look down at her combat boots, and instantly grinned.
“Evie, your way of ambushing people is looking more and more like a Dark wizard’s!”
“Who taught you?” George popped his head out from behind.
“Self-taught.”
Evelyn pulled her foot back, drew a brown paper bag out of her inner robe pocket, and waved it in front of them.
“Got a minute?”
Fred and George stared at the bag in unison.
Fred sniffed the air.
“Not explosives.”
George sniffed as well.
“Not food.”
“It’s money.”
The two redheads stood straight at the same time.
Fred: (✧ω✧)
“Go on.”
***
Evelyn pushed open the door to an abandoned classroom and slipped inside.
The twins exchanged a glance and followed right behind her.
The desks in the classroom had been pushed against the walls, leaving a wide open space in the middle.
Evelyn turned the paper bag upside down over the only table without a wobbly leg, dumping out a pile of colorful trinkets.
Fred picked up a red plastic tube with a balloon fitted over the end.
“What’s this?”
“Whoopee cushion, Muggle classic.
Sit on it and it makes a realistic sound—adjustable volume and selectable pitch!”
George picked up a clear plastic box containing a brown piece of rubber.
“How about this?”
“Fake dog poop.
Ninety-five percent visual accuracy.
Squishy bounce when stepped on, comes with a free bottle of stink spray.”
George: (⊙ᗜ⊙)
Fred pulled a small box of white powder out from the bottom of the paper bag.
A skull was printed on the label.
“Sneezing powder?”
“Upgraded version.
Muggle chemical synthesis.
Allergen concentration is three times Zonko’s version, lasts twice as long, and is immune to magical barriers.”
Fred popped the lid open and leaned in for a sniff.
Three seconds later, he sneezed seven times in a row, each one blowing his red hair backward.
Fred: (>᷄ε<᷅; Achoo!
Achoo!
Achoo!)
George laughed so hard he crouched on the floor.
Evelyn handed over a handkerchief.
“There’s more.”
She pulled a folded sheet of parchment out of another pocket and laid it flat on the table.
A table was drawn on it in neat handwriting, divided into three columns: Item Name, Cost, and Suggested Retail Price.
Fred wiped his nose, leaned in, and scanned the chart.
“Whoopee cushion, cost: two Bronze Knuts, price: five Sickles?”
“There’s nothing like this in the wizarding world.
Rarity drives the price up.”
George stood up, pointing his finger at the line for the fake dog poop.
“Cost: one Bronze Knut, price: three Sickles?”
“The deluxe version with stink spray is eight Sickles.”
Fred flipped the parchment over; there was writing on the back as well.
“Invisible ink pens, mini rubber snakes, bouncing fake spiders, screaming candy boxes…
Where did you get all these tricks?”
“Supply chain secret.”
Evelyn leaned against the table, folding her arms across her chest.
“Here’s my issue.
I can source the goods and figure out the pricing, but as a first-year Hufflepuff, I can’t build a distribution network or handle client outreach.”
Fred and George exchanged a look.
Evelyn had seen that look on the train.
Whenever the Weasley twins smelled business, a sharp light glinted in their eyes at the exact same frequency.
“You need us,” Fred said.
“I need your contacts, your daily routes, and that map.”
George’s grin diminished slightly.
“How do you know about the map?”
“You said on the train that you know every secret passage in Hogwarts.
You couldn’t manage that without a map.”
Fred whistled.
“Sharp eye!”
“Not observation—deduction.
You can’t afford much from Zonko’s, yet your prank supplies never run dry.
That means you either have another supplier or you’re making them yourselves.”
Evelyn tapped the pile of goods on the table.
“I supply exclusive merchandise—Muggle prank items never before seen in the wizarding world.
You provide the distribution network and delivery routes.
A sixty-forty split on profits.”
“Sixty-forty?
Who gets sixty, who gets forty?” Fred asked.
Fred: (ꐦ⊙ᗝ⊙??)
“On what grounds?”
“On the grounds that the merchandise is mine.
Your secret passage map helps transport goods, but without goods, a secret passage is just an empty corridor.”
George squatted down, lifting the piece of fake dog poop up to inspect it against the candlelight.
The texture of the rubber was truly unprecedented in the wizarding world; every ridge looked frighteningly lifelike.
“Fred.”
“Yeah?”
“She has a point.”
Fred put his hands on his hips and stared at Evelyn for five seconds.
“Fifty-fifty.”
“Sixty-forty.”
“Fifty-fifty!
Or we’ll research Muggle novelty items ourselves.”
“You won’t figure it out.
The sneezing powder’s chemical formula has seventeen ingredients, six of which have no equivalent in the wizarding world.”
Fred opened his mouth, then shut it again.
George put the fake dog poop back on the table, stood up, and brushed off his trousers.
“Fifty-five to forty-five.”
Evelyn tilted her head.
“We get the extra half-percent as a footwork fee,” George added.
Fred whipped around to look at him.
“George, whose side are you on?”
“Money’s side.”
George: (¬‿¬)
Evelyn went silent for two seconds, then extended her right hand.
“Deal.
But on three conditions.”
“Name them.”
“First, no sales to anyone below second year.
Second-years and up only, to keep the supply source from being traced back to me.”
“Reasonable.”
“Second, all products are branded under your Weasley name.
My name doesn’t appear at any point in the process.”
Fred raised an eyebrow.
“You want to be the mastermind behind the scenes?”
“I want to be a mastermind behind the scenes with zero leverage held against me.
Snape is already keeping an eye on me.
If he catches wind of an underground business network on top of that, he’ll dock my points into the next century.”
“And third?”
Evelyn reached into the bottom of the paper bag for one final item and set it in the middle of the table.
It was a palm-sized box printed with a line of fancy script.
Fred picked it up and read it out, his expression shifting.
“Quick-Acting Tongue-Stretching Toffees?”
“A Muggle-world prototype.
Eat one and your tongue temporarily changes color for twenty minutes.
Red, blue, green—three flavors to choose from.”
George snatched the box and flipped it over to check the ingredient list.
“How much does this go for in the Muggle world?”
“A box of ten, equivalent to less than two Bronze Knuts.”
“And in Hogwarts?”
“Ten Sickles each.”
Fred pressed the box to his chest, his expression as solemn as if taking a sacred oath.
Fred: (☆ω☆)
“Miss Valentine, from this day forth, you are the most important partner in our enterprise!”
“Drop the melodrama.
Down to business.
When can the first batch go out?”
George was already pulling out a sheet of old parchment.
He tapped the surface with his wand and muttered an incantation under his breath.
Dense lines and ink dots emerged on the paper.
Corridors, secret passages, hidden doors—the entire framework of Hogwarts unrolled before them on the table.
George ran his finger across three routes.
“This one leads to the storage room behind Gryffindor Tower—Cedric doesn’t pass it on his prefect patrol.”
“This connects to the back door of the Ravenclaw study room, completely empty on Friday nights.”
“This is the shortest, cutting straight to the dungeon corridor.
It can cover Slytherin’s lower years.”
Evelyn: (ᗒᗕ✧)
“You sell to Slytherin too?”
“Only a fool turns down money,” Fred declared righteously.
“Malfoy’s cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, bought twelve boxes of Nosebleed Nougat from us last term,” George added.
“They used them to skip class.”
Evelyn looked at the layout of the Slytherin dungeons on the map and tapped her fingers twice on the tabletop.
“First batch: distribute twenty whoopee cushions, fifteen pieces of fake dog poop, and thirty boxes of tongue-changing toffees.
Hold back the sneezing powder for now—we’ll push it as our premium line once our reputation builds.”
Fred jotted things down rapidly on a sheet of paper.
George circled the three routes on the map in red ink, annotating them with time windows.
Evelyn pulled a cloth sack from her innermost robe pocket and untied the drawstring.
Inside, three neat rows of items were lined up, each individually wrapped in brown kraft paper.
“First batch of samples.
Test the market tonight.
Focus on observing the purchasing intent and price sensitivity of second through fourth years.”
Fred stowed the cloth sack and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with George before the table.
“One more thing,” Fred said, dropping his voice half a notch.
“Hmm?”
“Hogsmeade.”
“Isn’t that restricted to third-years and above?”
“Take a secret passage, no permission slip required.
Right behind the one-eyed witch statue on the third floor, there’s a tunnel straight to Honeydukes.”
George took over.
“There’s a back alley in Hogsmeade that used to be a hub for black-market potion ingredient traders.
Nobody manages it now, but the storefronts are still there.”
Evelyn’s eyes lit up.
“What are you suggesting?”
Fred clapped a hand on her shoulder, offering a deeply sincere grin.
“Evie, the castle market has a low ceiling.
There are only a few hundred students in total—one sweep of their pocket money and they’re sucked dry.”
George put a hand on her other shoulder.
“Hogsmeade is different.
There are adult wizards, visiting tourists, and upperclassmen flooding in on weekends.”
Fred and George simultaneously tightened their grip on her shoulders.
“We need a foothold.”
Evelyn glanced left, then right.
Both hands felt quite heavy.
“Are you proposing a franchise expansion?”
“We’re talking to you about the Hogsmeade underground black market.”
George: (˘ω˘)
Footsteps echoed from the end of the corridor.
All three looked up at once.
Fred swept away the map, George shoved the sack into his robes, and Evelyn snuffed out the candle on the table with a quick kick.
In the darkness, the three leaned against the wall, holding their breath.
The footsteps passed the classroom door without stopping.
It was Filch’s cat.
Mrs.
Norris’s claws scraped twice against the flagstones as her shadow glided past beneath the crack of the door.
Fred waited until the shadow drifted away before breathing a sigh of relief.
“First delivery is set for tomorrow after lunch.
Gryffindor Tower storage room.
The password is ‘Slugs’.”
“Who came up with that password?”
“Me,” Fred said, puffing out his chest.
“Change it.
That’s disgusting.”
“What should it be then?”
Evelyn thought for a moment.
“Long Live Galleons.”
Fred and George gave her two thumbs up simultaneously.
The three filed out of the classroom one after another, parting ways at the corridor junction.
The twins headed toward Gryffindor Tower, while Evelyn turned into the Hufflepuff basement passage.
She had taken six steps when Fred’s voice drifted over from behind, kept low.
“Evie.”
Evelyn turned around.
Fred and George stood side-by-side at the far end of the corridor, shoulder to shoulder, torchlight casting their silhouettes from behind.
“Next time you’re out night-strolling, bring us along,” Fred said.
“It’s not safe walking the corridors alone at night,” George said.
Evelyn tilted her head.
“The most dangerous thing in Hogwarts is me.”
“Then we’ll protect Hogwarts!”
Fred laughed, grabbing George as they turned into the stairwell.
Evelyn stood where she was, listening to the overlapping footsteps running upstairs, fading into the distance.
She glanced down at her System panel.
[Ding!
Business Partnership Agreement reached: Hogwarts Underground Black Market officially established.]
[Mischief Points +180!
Current Total: 1740.]
[New Long-Term Quest: Expand the underground black market to Hogsmeade and establish an off-campus base.
Reward: Unlock the “Commercial Empire” exclusive shelf in the System Store.]
Evelyn closed the panel, her boots clicking against the flagstones as she descended into the basement.
When she reached the entrance to Hufflepuff, a voice piped up from a picture frame on the wall.
The Fat Friar’s translucent head poked out from the edge of the frame, his face beaming with fond concern.
“My dear Miss Valentine, out so late?”
“Just a stroll, Friar.”
“Stay safe!
Ah, by the way, those roasted chicken wings you made last time—could you teach Winky to add a touch of rosemary?”
Evelyn tapped the barrel wall and spoke the password.
Before the lid swung open, she heard a faint meow echoing from deep down the corridor.
Mrs.
Norris sat on a stone pedestal ten paces away, her amber eyes staring straight at her.
Behind the cat, Filch’s approaching footsteps were drawing closer.
Evelyn slid through the passage, and the barrel lid slammed shut behind her with a thud.
From outside the barrel wall, Filch’s muffled voice filtered in.
“Mrs.
Norris?
What have you found?”
The cat let out a long meow, trailing off with an inquisitive pitch.