“So…what is it supposed to do, exactly?” In Harry’s more than slightly nervous hand sat what appeared to be a perfectly innocent candy. Knowing Fred and George, it was doubtless anything but.

“Supposed to do? Supposed to do?” Fred clasped a hand over his heart with an expression of mortal anguish and shock. It rather reminded Harry of the time last summer that he’d come down to breakfast in his Snitch pajama pants. Aunt Petunia’d nearly had a heart attack on the spot.

“What the magnificent Lovability Lozenge does,” George corrected him, “is a very complicated little bit of illusory magic positively guaranteed to make your worst enemies adore you.”

Harry eyed him wryly. “Even my worst enemy?”

“Well…maybe not your worst enemy,” Fred agreed. “But anybody a few notches shy of the most evil homicidal dark lord in recorded magical history—absolutely.”

“But what does it do to them?”

“Basically, whenever they look at you, they’ll see the person they love the most,” George announced triumphantly.

Harry snorted. “I don’t think it’ll work on Snape,” he said. “He hates everybody.”

“Hey,” Fred pointed out, “can’t hurt to try, can it?”

“Yes, it can!” a harried female voice objected from the other side of the room. Hermione had stood half out of her seat and was brandishing her quill at the lot of them in her most professorial manner.

“Don’t you think about it for a moment, Harry. Colin Creevey was in the hospital wing for half a week when they tested one of their stupid concoctions on him.”

“It was a modified Puking Pastille,” George confided to Harry. “Might’ve worked a little better than we expected—”

“—But really, it’s not as though that’s a bad thing—”

“—You’d not believe how many OWL and NEWT students we’ve got asking about them—”

“—Positively raking in the Galleons—”

“Honestly, you two!” Hermione half-shrieked. “Peddling about half-tested products without Ministry approval! If I was a prefect—”

“Which you aren’t.” Fred gave her a smug look, and Hermione snapped her mouth shut irritably, crossing her arms.

“Someday, Fred Weasley,” she ground out.

“I’m George,” said Fred. “Really, Hermione, can’t you tell us apart yet?”

“You’re not either,” Hermione barked, flouncing back into her seat and stabbing the quill into her ink well. “You’ve only got two medium-size freckles on the left side of your nose. George has got three.”

A startled Ron looked up from his Astronomy chart, mouth hanging open. Harry nearly dropped the Lovability Lozenge. Fred and George shared an impressed glance. “Merlin,” Fred marveled, “she’s better than Mum!”

“Look, er,” Harry finally said, “I’m not especially sure this is a good idea…”

“Most intelligent thing that boy has said all day,” Ron’s bracelet suddenly chimed in happily. “There’s a lad that knows how to keep himself out of danger. Take note, Weasley!”

Ron snorted, scratching away awkwardly at his chart with his left hand (the bracelet had thrown an almighty fit when he attempted to use his natural writing hand). “You’ve obviously not met Harry.”

“Not that I don’t trust you lot or anything,” Harry added hastily, before either twin could even pretend to take offense. “But you know Snape! He’ll probably knock off about a hundred House points and curse me clear to the hospital wing to boot. Assuming he actually loves anybody.”

“Well…” the twins muttered reluctantly.

“He might have a point at that,” George allowed.

“Fine, then, fine,” Fred said cheerfully, not to be deterred. “Let’s just try it out on one of us, then. Where’s the harm in that?”

Hermione muttered something nasty under her breath and practically stabbed into the parchment with her quill tip. Ron’s bracelet, however, more than made up for her comparative restraint. “WHERE’S THE HARM IN THAT? WHERE’S THE HARM IN THAT? IS THERE EVEN A BRAIN IN YOUR THICK—”

“Silencio!” A yellow jet of light burst out of Harry’s wand, immediately silencing the bracelet, which nonetheless continued to wriggle in comic fury on Ron’s wrist. The owner of said wrist lapsed back in his chair with a sigh of relief.

“Right then,” Harry said, feeling a sudden reckless abandon. “Who shall we try it out on?”

Hermione shot him a death glare. “It’s on your own head, Harry James Potter.”

Harry, in a profound demonstration of his fourth-year maturity, stuck out his tongue at her. “You know, just for that, I think I’ll try it out on you,” he announced.

She gasped, her quill swerving on the parchment. “Don’t you even think about it!”

“Too late,” he said glibly. “How’s it work, I just eat it?” He turned to Fred and George.

“Yep, and make sure you’re looking straight at her.”

“Harry James Potter, don’t you dare—”

With a gleeful grin, he tossed the Lovability Lozenge up and caught it deftly in his mouth.

Hermione shrieked and lunged towards him out of her seat, wand at the ready, only to have Ron seize her with both hands. The bracelet could be heard screeching faintly through the fading Silencio charm.

“Come on, Hermione,” Harry said mischievously, chewing with relish, “are you a Gryffindor or not?”

Ron, who had heard the complete account of the Potions incident, fell back across the table in hysterical laughter, sending an ink well flying. Hermione wrenched her arm free of his grip, her hand clenched furiously around her wand. “I’ll get you for this, see if I don’t,” she practically growled.

“Shush!” hissed Fred and George, who had rapt eyes only for Harry. Even Ron grew quiet as Harry finally swallowed the lozenge. He narrowed his eyes at Hermione, who returned the favor with seething interest.

“Well?” Ron demanded. “What do you see, Hermione?”

“I don’t see a thing,” she told him shortly. “It’s just Harry same as always.”

There was a moment of silence before she suddenly blushed deep red, at about the same time as Fred and George keeled over in laughter. “Harry and Hermione—”

“—Sittin’ in a tree—”

“S-N-O-G—”

“Just you stop it!” she cried desperately, as Harry backed up a step with a suddenly nervous grin. “I positively do not like him!”

Ron, who was looking a tad bit stricken, snickered despite himself.

“No—I meant—oh, you ruddy well know what I meant!” She smacked Ron soundly with her wand.

Harry cleared his throat. “Er—seriously, Hermione, you don’t—”

“No!” She glared at him even more murderously than before. “I am very positively certain that I do not fancy you!”

“Oh?” crowed Fred. “Who do you fancy then?”

She blushed again. “That’s not the point! The point is, your stupid candy doesn’t work! It didn’t do anything—not anything at…all…”

She had turned to face Harry again, and as her voice trailed off, her eyes widened, and the embarrassment and anger disappeared from her expression altogether.

“Hermione, are you all—oh. Erm…” Ron’s voice too trailed away as he followed Hermione’s stare to Harry.

The grin on Harry’s face got rather stiff all of a sudden. Glancing to either side, he saw expressions of first surprise, then mischievous delight morph into being on Fred and George’s identical faces. “What?” he asked warily.

“I told you so,” Ron’s bracelet said smugly, the charm finally worn off.