Fred and George looked at each other in amazement. “Did Harry just give us a thousand Galleons?” George asked incredulously.

“I think he did,” Fred said, still in shock. “He’s mental.”

“Must be,” George agreed. “But ... a thousand Galleons?”

“Put it in your trunk, quick,” said Fred, thinking quickly. “We don’t want Mum seeing it and asking questions.”

“Definitely not,” George said, opening his trunk quickly and stuffing the bag inside it. “Wow. A thousand Galleons. Just think what we could do with that!”

“One thing’s for sure,” Fred said seriously. “We can afford to get started on the joke shop now. Like he said, it’ll probably be needed.”

Fred had no idea how they managed to get home without their mother suspecting something was afoot, but they did. If she did notice anything, it seemed that their behaviour wasn’t much different from the normal joking and playing around, so even though their minds were going at a million miles an hour they didn’t let anything slip outwardly. Finally, they were back at the Burrow and inside their room, the door not only closed but locked to ensure no one saw what they were doing.

“Right, let’s take a look at it,” Fred said, pulling his brother’s trunk open. Until he saw it for himself, he’d never quite believe there were a thousand Galleons in there, just for their use.

“What do you think?” George asked, pulling one out and inspecting it closely. “Legit?”

Fred put one in his mouth and bit down on it. “Seems to be. Though I don’t often get to taste Galleons so I don’t really have much to compare it to.”

“Good point,” George said. “Wanna count them?”

“I don’t think Harry would have ripped us off,” Fred said, thinking about it. “Though, I guess, the Triwizard people might have ripped him off. Guess we should, just to make sure.”

Slowly, methodically, the twins started putting the Galleons into piles of ten, then grouping those into sets of a hundred. Eventually there were exactly ten groups, not a Galleon more or less. Just seeing that much gold in their house, let alone in their room, was enough to make their heads spin.

“Well,” George said eventually. “It’s a thousand, all right. What’ll we do with it?”

“Make stuff, of course,” Fred retorted. “Think of the supplies and ingredients we can get with this!”

“And we might have enough to actually start up a shopfront,” George said. “We can look into that, right?”

Suddenly Fred thought of something and froze. “We have to be careful, though. Mum and Dad can’t get a whiff of this, otherwise we’ll never get started.”

George sobered dramatically. “You’re right,” he said. “I can just see Mum. She’d be a nightmare.”

“And she’d probably tell us to work hard and get our NEWTs and follow Dad and Percy into the Ministry.” Fred groaned. “I’d rather die.”

“So we tell no one,” George said firmly. “And we spend the summer working on new products with stuff we buy from this gold.”

“Sounds good to me,” Fred agreed. “Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, here we come!”

George grinned and fished in the wardrobe for a bit, eventually pulling out two dusty bottles of Butterbeer and handing one to Fred. “To Harry,” he said, opening his bottle and raising it in the air.

Fred nodded, grinning as the world of invention and opportunity rose before him. With Harry’s gold, everything was possible. Gone were the days of living without and making do; ahead was excitement and boundless possibilities. Solemnly he too opened his bottle and raised it to his brother. “To Harry.”