Chapter 203: Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes' New Masterpiece
Duncan brought Neville back to the work shed, dragged over a chair, settled into a comfortable position, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
The Thunderbird's courtship dance was fairly complicated and quite strenuous; teaching Kray was even more tiring than dancing alone, so he was a bit fatigued at the moment. He glanced at the clock on the wall; it was not yet eight o'clock, and he could not help asking, "Why are you back so early today? Isn't it busy over there?"
Neville smacked his forehead as if suddenly remembering something, and said excitedly, "We've successfully made the gadget we wanted!"
"Oh?" Duncan, who had been slumped in the chair, straightened up and said with interest, "Did you bring it over? Quick, let me have a look."
"Mm-hmm." Neville nodded quickly and carefully took a paper box from his pocket; inside were several red and blue sweets. He circled his fingers in the box, then picked up a red sweet and introduced it to Duncan with delight. "As long as you eat this sweet and wait a few seconds, you'll turn into that frightening appearance we had some time ago—like this..."
Neville tossed the sweet into his mouth, chewed a few times, and swallowed it in one gulp. After a moment, Neville's face slowly turned red, his skin loosened, and, under the pull of gravity, began to droop. He looked like melting ice cream or a wobbly jelly, standing there askew, with his features and limbs sliding out of place.
It looked no different from the aberrations in horror films. If you were walking alone in the castle corridor and, in the dim lighting, happened to run into this unawares, it would be enough to frighten you into a tap-dance. Neville turned in a circle to show Duncan, flinging the sagging flesh on his body so that it made sharp slap-slap sounds, his eyeballs rolling round and round in their sockets.
"If you want to turn back, you just need to eat the blue sweet." Neville's muffled voice came out from a mouth blocked by his upper lip; he raised his hand to pick up that blue sweet from the box. But all the flesh of his hand had pooled at the end, so he could not muster any strength; he tried for ages and still failed.
"Duncan, could you give me a hand?" Neville held the box out to Duncan, a little embarrassed.
"No problem." Duncan smiled, picked up a sweet, frowned as he looked at Neville, and, with effort, lifted Neville's drooping facial skin. Then he did his best to line up Neville's lips and teeth, and forcibly shoved the sweet in. "Didn't you consider this problem during your research?"
"That does seem a bit troublesome; we'll study it again in a couple of days..." Neville mumbled indistinctly. His slack flesh began to tighten; the drooping bits gradually returned to their original places, and his features recovered, turning him back into a normal person. Neville rubbed his face, let out a breath, and asked Duncan expectantly, "What do you think of these sweets?"
Duncan said with a smile, "Overall they're not bad. If you solve that problem, anyone with a taste for the grotesque will be willing to pay for them."
"Mm-hmm!" Neville nodded vigorously. "I'll tell Fred tomorrow. They're still testing today; I don't know whether they'll discover any new problems."
"How do they plan to test?" Duncan asked curiously, faintly feeling that the "testing" Neville mentioned did not sound like a good thing.
Neville suddenly clapped a hand over his own mouth, annoyance flashing in his eyes, as if blaming himself for saying the wrong thing. But then he thought about it: Duncan was their nominal boss; they were all one family, so it was fine to tell him. So he lowered his head to stare at the crack in the floor and said in a very small voice, "They've long been ready. They want to go frighten Filch tonight..."
"They're really going to do that? They didn't invent this gadget just for tonight, did they? Honestly, they never let people relax!" Duncan frowned.
Deliberately playing tricks on a member of the school staff, if discovered, could very well bring very serious punishment, even expulsion. If not for that, Filch, as a Squib, would never dare to be so overbearing in the school, making most people afraid of him. That crowd of energetic young witches and wizards who did not know the height of the sky would have long since waved their wands and blasted him into the air with all sorts of spells!
A heavy cloud drifted over and covered the bright full moon in the sky, and the corridors of Hogwarts Castle grew even gloomier and dimmer. Only the flames flickering on lampstands set far apart threw down spots of dusky yellow light, barely letting one make out the way.
The portrait at the entrance to the Gryffindor common room was pushed open, the snot bubble floating at the tip of the Fat Lady's nose popped, and she was startled awake from her dream in an instant.
"Who is it? Roaming about instead of sleeping in the middle of the night!" The Fat Lady stood up from her chair and shouted hoarsely. But no one answered; a stronger force came from behind and rudely banged her frame against the wall, and the Fat Lady cursed a few more times.
Two furtive figures crept out of the portrait hole, and one of them said in a low voice, "Fred, careful. If Filch or a professor catches us the moment we step out, our test plan will be ruined!"
"I know, I know." Fred cautiously looked around the corridor; once he was sure no one was there, he waved a hand and slipped behind a statue.
George followed behind Fred, craned his neck to look into the distance, and asked in a whisper, "Where do you think Filch is patrolling right now?"
"Based on my understanding of him..." Fred stroked his chin, a thoughtful look on his face. "He must be at..."
"The forbidden area on the fourth floor!" Fred and George said in unison, then shook hands happily and praised each other, "You're brilliant!"
The Weasley twins tiptoed along the corridor for a stretch, then looked left and right and turned onto the spiral staircase leading up. Reaching the corner near the fourth floor, Fred and George stopped; they held their breath and listened intently. Soft footsteps drifted from afar, and the twins' eyes lit up at once.
"Filch really is here!" they said excitedly.
"Let's act quickly. Did you bring the sweets?" George said.
"Of course. How could I forget something this important!" Fred nodded and slapped a red sweet into George's palm.
"Brilliant!" George said with delight. "Let Filch enjoy the surprise we've prepared for him!"
"I guarantee he'll fall in love with us and won't forget us for days!" Fred grinned and swallowed the sweet in one gulp.
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