It looked as though every item in the shop had been destroyed. Pulled off the shelves and strewn about the floor were piles and piles of broken boxes, splintered products, rivers of sticky potions and smashed glass. There was not an inch of space visible beneath the mountainous mess, and as George looked down in horror, he saw that he and Fred were both standing amid a quagmire of melted sweets.
"Ugh!" He lifted a foot experimentally, and a thick streamer of purple gunge came with it. "What is all this?"
Fred was looking angrily around, turning to examine the door behind them. "Lock's melted," he said. "They didn't even bother to clean up after themselves."
"But why destroy stuff…?" George said, still gaping at the scene before him. "If you've managed to get in - to get past the security spells - why smash everything? Why not steal it and sell it on?"
He shuffled away from where he had landed, trudging through the swamp of damaged goods. He reached the till and saw that the draw was open, but the smooth silver tray was still full of gold pieces. "They didn't even take any money," he muttered.
His twin moved over to join him, still looking thunderous. "Will you be able to repair it?" he asked through gritted teeth.
George nodded. "Most of it, I don't know. The potions I don't think we can get back, but most of the other stuff…" He, too, gritted his teeth as he surveyed the wreckage. "Hang on a minute," he said suddenly. "The flat -!"
He dashed up the rickety staircase and burst through the door into his bedroom. The chaos was equal to downstairs. With a sickening jolt of horror, George noted the bedcovers ripped to shreds, mattresses turned upside-down, the torn paper and broken items littering the wooden floor. It was all he could do to stop tears spilling from his eyes. It was one thing to trash the shop… it was quite another to burgle his home.
"What? What is it?" Fred came running in behind him, looking pale. "Oh no…"
George felt so angry he could barely speak. He glared at the room, at the tattered clothing and the ruptured boxes, the remains of Fred's letters spread like confetti over the mess. "Nothing stolen, and not just the shop… It was him, wasn't it?" He whirled round to face Fred, looking livid. "The man who killed Bandersnatch, the one who stole the Snitches and caught us breaking into the shop - he recognised me and thought he'd teach me a lesson for messing with his business! This is a warning, isn't it? He knew I could repair all of this stuff in here; if he was really searching for something he could've cleaned it all up himself and hope I'd never notice - but no. He left it like this to show me what he's capable of. He destroyed all of my stuff for -" He stopped, and his face, so scarlet with anger, whitened. "The book…" He stared around wildly, his eyes frisking every surface. "The little book - the one we stole. That's what he went back to Bandersnatch's for! He remembered he'd left it, or wanted to check, or something - he went back to get it and we took it and that's what he was looking for here!"
Fred gulped, and his eyes flicked to the staircase. "Good job you took it with you then, isn't it?"
George let out a long sigh and closed his eyes. "Yeah," he breathed. "But -" he opened looked around again, and tugged his wand from his robes. "That just means he'll be back. Like I said - this is a warning. This is him telling me that he might not have found what he was looking for, but that's not going to stop him." He pointed his wand at the room and cried, "Restituo!*."
Instantly, objects began flying around the room, some of the broken things putting themselves back together, others merely resting on a shelf still in little pieces. The bedcovers once more lay across the twin beds, the letters were made whole again and returned to their shoebox, and George's clothes were all folded smartly and stacked at the end of his bed. The room looked neater and tidier than George had ever seen it.
"We can use Angelina's spell later to see what it used to be like," George said, stepping cautiously about the room and examining his handiwork. "But I don't think I could face it looking that way anymore." He paused at a shelf, noting a selection of bottles which had been returned to their original state, but were now devoid of any contents. "There are some things that spell can't do," he muttered. "It'll be the same downstairs. We won't be able to get the potions or sweets back… Merlin, it'll take ages to make more of them."
Anger stole over him again as he found a heap of gold metalwork lying crumpled on the top shelf. It was the smashed remains of the watch he had been given on his seventeenth birthday, and was obviously beyond repair. He clenched his fists as he stood staring at it, his eyes level with the shining tangle of cogs and springs. He turned round. "I'm going to find him," he announced, his jaw set. "I'm going to hunt him down, I'm going to help Angelina, and I'm going to find the man who did this - the man who won't stop at killing someone to get what he wants."
"Agreed," said Fred quietly, and he looked every bit as determined as his twin.
George strode over to the door to the staircase, then said, "Write a letter to Lee, will you? Just sign it from me. We haven't got an owl, so you'll have to use the Floo network. It's best he's prepared, in case the bastard who did this knows he was involved as well." He rattled down the stairs, calling as he went, "I'm going to see what I can do to repair the damage."
An hour and a half later, Lee stood in the doorway to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, watching George direct objects back to their places with his wand. The spell that had so quickly restored order to his bedroom had not worked as fast downstairs, and George was spending a lengthy amount of time sorting through the debris, repairing what could be repaired and vanishing what could not. He was keeping a list of everything that needed replacing, which was growing longer by the minute.
"Do you want a hand?" asked Lee, surveying the scene in shock. "I came as quick as I could, as soon as I got the letter. Thought it was Fred's handwriting at first," he laughed, then stopped himself.
"Yeah, well," said George, standing up and looking round at his friend. "I was a bit shaken up when I wrote it." He shook his head. "I didn't realise how much damage was irreversible. Half our stock can't be repaired."
"Have you told anyone?" Lee stepped into the shop, where George had cleared a broad pathway down the centre. Most of the mended stock was back on the shelves, and many of the splintered tables and stands had been put back together. There was still a lot missing, however, and it was these sizeable gaps that Lee indicated when he said, "The Ministry, or something? Don't they have some sort of compensation for these - situations?"
George shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "But I don't think I want to get the Ministry involved. They'd ask if I had any idea who did it, and I'm pretty sure I do, but fat lot of good it'll do telling them."
"Why?" Lee looked slightly nervous as he moved further into the room. "You don't think -?"
"Yep." George flicked his wand at a heap of tattered Headless Hats, and they sewed themselves back together before sitting neatly on a stand. "No question. He didn't take anything - I've checked a hundred times to make sure - and he left all this mess as a warning, I'm certain of it. He's telling us to back off."
Lee folded his arms. "And are you? Going to back off, I mean?"
George raised his eyebrows. "Not bloody likely." He crossed to the shop desk and settled himself into the newly-repaired chair behind it. "If he wants a fight, we'll give him one. I'm not going to let him destroy my shop and burgle my house and kill a man and upset Angelina -" He stopped himself abruptly, and coughed to hide this unwarranted pause. "I mean - if he thinks he can get away with it, he's got another thing coming."
"'Ear 'ear," said Lee, grinning. "Although, I ought to tell you something that might make you a bit more wary…" He reached inside his robes pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, which George recognised as coming from the Daily Prophet. "Yours wasn't the only break-in this weekend. Someone smashed-up Rustin and Splinter's on Friday night, apparently it happened just before the whole business at Bandersnatch's." He handed George the article, and George regarded it with narrowed eyes.
"Rustin and Splinter's…" he said slowly. "The Wizarding antiques shop?"
"Very same," said Lee. "Says they didn't take anything, just made a hell of a mess. Thank Merlin's backside neither of the old geezers were in on Friday night - Jasper Rustin Jr. had gone home for the weekend and Davey Splinter was out for a drink. You reckon it was the same guy?"
"Oh yeah." George nodded, his gaze sweeping over the article. "But - hang on. Why an antiques shop? And why make a point out of robbing them? Do you think they linked him to Bandersnatch as well?"
He asked these same questions to Fred an hour later, after Lee had agreed he'd stay with his parents for a few days and had left George to put the finishing touches on restoring the shop. Fred gave him exactly the same answer as Lee had.
"No idea," he said lamely, looking rather helpless. "It seems completely random, doesn't it? Quidditch store, joke shop, antiques place - if we didn't know that two of these targets had been keeping an eye on Mr. Mysterious we'd have nothing to go on at all. Give me the article."
George passed him the clipping from the Prophet and Fred stuck it in his scrapbook. He tapped the page idly, evidently thinking. "You know," he said eventually, "I can't help feeling that all of this - the burglaries, the Snitches, me coming back - has got something to do with… Dumbledore. I just get the feeling that it does. It was him coming to meet me again, telling me we're on the right track."
"Well," sighed George. "Knowing Dumbledore - or rather, not knowing him well enough - I'd say you're probably right. But how are we going to find out?" He sat down on his bed, facing Fred, and rested his chin on his hand. He stared around at the room, noting that it was now slightly more empty than before as many of his damaged things had been vanished. The broken watch, however, still retained pride of place on his top shelf, even though he knew it would never tick again.
After a moment, his eyes alighted on the books by Fred's bed. There, amid a pile of battered paperbacks, lay the little scorched book they had rescued from Bandersnatch's fire - the thing that had caused all this trouble in the first place. George had now tried on several occasions to make sense of what was written inside, but so much of it was faded or destroyed that it would take hours just to read one page. He had decided that that was a job for Fred. As his gaze moved away, however, he caught sight of another book nestled underneath the pile - the faded children's version of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. His eyes grew wider.
"Wait a minute -" he said, grabbing the book from Fred's bedside table. "Just wait a minute. Fred - I can't believe I forgot - don't you remember? We were there when Hermione was given that rune book! It wasn't for translation practise or anything, it was left for her in the will of -"
"- Albus Dumbledore," finished Fred, with a look of awe on his face. "No way. No way! Ha! Oh, this is too good. So - the reason why I'm here is from a book that Dumbledore gave Hermione in his will. In that mysterious, don't-know-what-the-hell-he's-on-about, typical-Dumbledore way that had all of us stumped!"
"Hang on a second, hang on." George held up a hand. "Jumping to conclusions a bit, don't you think? How do we even know that when Dumbledore gave that book to Hermione it had anything to do with The Tale of the Three Brothers? Or you, for that matter?"
"We don't," said Fred simply. "But we can always ask Hermione."
George laughed. "Oh yeah - that would make for a nice conversation. 'Hi, Hermione - I've been having visions of my dead twin and I wondered if it had anything to do with that book Dumbledore gave you in his will?'"
"I'm not a vision," Fred groaned. "Unless you count me being a vision of loveliness."
"I don't," George told him. "Look - let's just keep things at a level of reality for the moment, shall we? There's a huge possibility that the fact that you found a book of children's stories and believe them to be linked to you, and the fact that Hermione happened to have a copy left to her by Dumbledore, might all just be one big, fat coincidence."
Fred narrowed his eyes, then pointed a finger at George with a mock-serious look on his face. He put on a deep, gravelly voice. "Maybe, buster," he said. "But I don't believe in coincidences."
*Restituo means 'restore' in Latin. I felt that reparo might not quite cover it in this case, nor would a spell for 'tidying'. The point of this spell is to restore the place back to normal, by repairing what can be repaired and putting it back in its rightful place. I couldn't remember one like this being used in the books (the closest was scourgify and that wasn't appropriate), so if anyone can think of any others that work better, I might change it.