Fred woke up and reached across the bed to give Angelina a hug. She wasn’t on her side of the bed, which was odd. He always woke up before she did. He slowly opened his eyes, and realized he wasn’t in his own bed either. Somehow he had ended up in George’s room, which had things thrown all over the place. Fred liked things in their place. George always was messier then him. He must have had more firewhiskey the night before then he had thought. Fred could have sworn he fell asleep cuddling up next to Angelina.
Fred went out into the hallway and into the bathroom of the suite he shared with George and Angelina. Angelina had moved in two months earlier- she had a job down at Quality Quidditch Supplies. She was scheduled to start training as a healer in the fall at St. Mungo’s. Fred splashed some water on his face, and looked in the mirror. He started in surprise. George’s face, with the scar from a bludger over his left eyebrow, was staring back at him. He ran down the hall to his door, and barged into his own room.
“George? Wake up, and get away from my fiancée!” Fred stated loudly.
Angelina started upright, and Fred watched his own body jerk upright.
“George, get out of our room! NEVER come barging into the room like that!” shrieked Angelina.
“I’m Fred, not George!” he began. “Somehow George is in my body, and I am in George’s,” Fred said with a shutter.
“Haha, I’m not putting up with any jokes this early in the morning. Get out!” Angelina said throwing a pillow at him.
Meanwhile, George was scrambling out of the bed and stuttered, “B...but he’s right, ah I’m George! I went to sleep in my room last night and woke up here!”
“It must have been the new creams we were testing yesterday. You know that nothing happened when we tried them,” Fred explained as he guided George away from Angelina, and down the hall to the kitchen.
Angelina was staring in shock at the two of them. Fred could tell she thought this was some new joke, but neither of them was laughing, that was a rare occurrence.
Fred looked into his brother’s eyes. They had to find some way to get back to their respective bodies. Fred had a weird ache in his right arm, which was the arm that Bill broke on George when he pushed him off a broom during a Quidditch match a few years earlier. George probably didn’t even notice it anymore. It really bothered Fred. George started picking at his fingers, which he did when he was thinking hard. They were trying to make a candy that could work as a disguise, something to make your nose grow longer, or hair change colors. Somehow instead of morphing Fred and George to disguise them, they had swapped bodies instead. It was supposed to work for only eight hours, and Fred was hoping that was how long it truly did work because he wanted to live life as himself, not his brother! Being twins, they shared a lot- but bodies? That was going a bit far!
He watched as George started chewing on his fingers. Fred slapped his hand down. He did not want his fingers sore when he did go back to it, as his fingers were currently aching from his brother’s bad habit. It was extremely eerie to look across the counter and see himself.
“I guess that the Poly creams worked after all,” George said with a grin. “They just didn’t work the way we had planned. The time release feature seems to have taken longer to kick in then we thought. It was funny seeing the look on Angelina’s face just now- she still didn’t believe you, even when you escorted me from your room.”
Angelina came into the kitchen and watched George picking at his fingers. He looked up at her with his normal grin.
“Wow, you really did trade bodies. It is weird seeing George’s grin on your face Fred. You never could grin like that. Your entire face lights up when you smile. You both get that twinkle in your eye though,” she looked back and forth between them.
Fred walked over and tried to put his arm around her. She knocked his arm away, and ducked away adding, “That is just too weird. I’m sorry Fred, but I just can’t get over “George” trying to get close to me.”
Fred looked at Angelina with a hurt look. He was already feeling out of place in George’s body, but then it didn’t help that George was a little taller then he was by half an inch. That height threw off his perspective by making everything seem shorter.
“How long do you think this will last?” Angelina asked, looking from one to the other.
“Well, it is supposed to last eight hours. It was supposed to start right away, but that didn’t happen. I guess we will just have to wait and see,” George said with a grin. “I wonder if anyone else will notice, without us telling them.”
Fred apparated into his mother’s house with George right beside him. Ginny was at the counter washing some vegetables for dinner. She turned and waved and went back to her work.
“How has the shop been doing? Should be pretty good, people need reasons to laugh and to get away from the stresses in their lives!” Ginny added the vegetables to the stew on the stove.
“Things are going well. We have a new line about to come out dealing with shields and armor. We have most the bugs worked out of them, but a few still need some tweaking,” Fred said with a smile.
“The mail order counter has been busier then the store though. People are just afraid to go out since the Death Eaters have been seen in public,” added George chewing his finger.
Ginny turned and eyed them up and down. “What is wrong with you guys? You haven’t tricked me into confusing you in years, but you are acting like each other just now, not yourselves!”
Fred looked at George, and shrugged. “Well…actually our latest project went wrong. “
Somehow we swapped bodies. We hope it is a temporary thing. I’m glad that someone other then us noticed.”
“Wow…,” Ginny looked shocked, then she started to giggle. “Bet that was a surprise to Angelina this morning.”
“She actually didn’t believe us at first. I barged into the bedroom to get George away from her. I thought he’d react badly to waking up in bed next to her,” Fred grinned.
Mrs. Weasley walked into the room and greeted her sons with a hug. Then she turned to Fred, “Could you help me with some potions this afternoon? I need to brew some anti-doxy potion for Grimauld Place. They seem to be coming back, lousy pests!”
“You need George for that. I’ll help, but he was always better at potions then me. I’m better at Charms,” he said.
“Come off it George! I know my sons by now. Quit trying to play those old games. I would have thought you’d have out grown them by now,” she said in exasperation.
“They’ve managed to swap bodies with some of their new experiments,” Ginny explained with a giggle.
Molly looked at her in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’d believe an old trick like that.”
“Look at them! Fred doesn’t chew his fingers. George doesn’t run his hands through his hair like that. They have distinct habits. That explanation makes sense,” Ginny added in all seriousness.
Molly studied her sons for a minute. She noticed Fred slouching like George did when he was in trouble. George was nervously running his hands through his hair like Fred normally did. “Hhhmmmm, maybe your right…”
“She is mom,” George and Fred said in unison.
“At least some things never change,” Molly added with a smile.
Later that afternoon, Fred and George sat drowsily on the couch. They had helped their mother with lots of different chores, totally convincing her that they had swapped bodies.
Both drifted to sleep, and woke with a start. Fred had ended up on the opposite side of the couch then he had started. He looked down and realized he had on the clothes that George had on that morning. He felt the familiar ache in his left ankle from countless sprains from running around with George. It felt good to be back in his body. He then noticed that his fingers were sore. George hadn’t heeded his warning not to bite them.
He turned and elbowed George in the ribs. “I told you not to bite my fingers!”
George woke with a grunt. “Wha…”
“We are back to normal,” Fred said with a laugh.
“Oh, good! I was getting tired of your ankle aching,” George said with a grin.
“Let’s go tell everyone the good news. We need to figure out what went wrong. Let’s get back to the lab,” Fred answered with a grin of his own.