It was Sunday now, and while Harry had been made to spend an hour that morning cleaning out cauldrons, chopping ingredients, and refilling the student potions cupboard as detention, he was feeling pretty good because his father had promised to take him to Hogsmead for some new clothing, of which Harry was in desperate need. When he'd bought clothes over the summer, he'd only gotten a few things, and now winter was upon them, as Harry was forcefully reminded the moment they stepped foot outside to go into town, and found that the first snow had fallen overnight.

It was early and they hadn't eaten breakfast yet, but Harry didn't complain because Severus said they would get something in Hogsmead. Harry was in no rush, he found that he actually enjoyed spending time with his father, and he enjoyed spending time in Hogsmead even more. At the train station at the edge of the village, Severus handed Harry a sack of money so it wouldn't appear to anyone as if Severus was buying it, there were still death eaters out there after all. If any of them saw Harry and Severus, Severus could tell the dark lord that he had been made to take ‘pampered Potter' by Dumbledore, and play it off as to how much Dumbledore really trusted him with ‘the golden boy'. Voldemort had come to expect these things after ‘placing' Severus in the position of Hogwarts spy for so many years.

There was a small Quidditch store at the other end of town, nothing as grand as the one in Diagonalley, but it still held the newest racing brooms, and Harry was able to convince his father to go there first and then work their way back towards Hogwarts. Harry eyed the Blue Zephyr for a few moments before going to look at the Lightning bolt. It too was blue like the Zephyr, but it was more of a sharp electric blue. He asked the shop owner a few questions about it before they left, and headed to the men's clothing store. His father had already told them on the way there that the goal was to spend all of the money in the pouch, so Harry didn't complain or fight when he was told to go back and get more clothes several times. He almost felt overwhelmed by the number of garments they'd gotten. By the looks if it, he'd be able to change twice a day and still not go through all of his clothes in a week. It made him happy, though he didn't admit it.

Purchases shrunk, they made their way to a little café that Harry hadn't been previously aware of down a side street, and got four hot sandwiches to go, along with a mug of coffee and a mug of steaming hot pumpkin hot chocolate. They drank the hot chocolate on the way back up to the castle, and when it was gone, Harry ate his sandwich as he trudged through the snow, happy that his feet were still warm and dry and for the most part so was he.

"Why'd we get 2 extra sandwiches?" Harry asked once they got back into the castle and down into the dungeons.

"For Draco and Mr. Weasley."

Harry raised his brows, and allowed himself to be steered into a brewing room a few doors down from his father's quarters, where Ron and Draco waited at a table hunched over a piece of parchment reading.

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked. He was a little disappointed for a moment, because he'd thought he would be spending the day just with his father, but in the next few moments he didn't feel so bad.

"Got lunch Uncle Severus?" Draco asked, and reached out for the bag he was being handed.

"We're going to make potions," Ron said in reply to Harry as Draco dug through the bag and pulled out one of the hot roast beef sandwiches before handing the bag to Ron.

"We're not still in detention, are we?" Harry asked.

"No stupid," Draco said. "We're going to make potions to sell. We reckon we can make the money for another broom by the time Gryffindor plays Ravenclaw before Christmas break."

"How? It took us ages to make enough for the first broom."

"You will be selling some of what we make around school, and the rest will be sold to an apothecary in France that sells potions to Beaxbatons."

Harry raised his brows and Draco spent a few moments telling him that they'd saturated the market at Hogwarts and they'd sold the idea of selling certain desirable potions to the apothecary there so they could make money selling at Beaxbatons.

"And we're making two special batches of hair cream for Triple W for Fred and George. One that makes your hair invisible, and another that changes colors randomly throughout the day. They're paying extra though so we had to promise not to sell those formulas anywhere else."

Harry looked around. "You're all doing this so I can have a broom?"

"Yeah," Ron said. "Because you're too stubborn to spend your money on yourself."

Harry opened his mouth and then closed it again. He wasn't sure what to say. His friends were smiling though and a glance at his father showed him a little smirk there too.

"Is that what those two galleons were for?" Harry asked Ron, and Ron, mouth full of sandwich gave him a thumbs up.

"I made another four Galleons while you were busy not helping me," Draco said, swallowing the last of his sandwich, so that gives us 6 to start."

Harry knew it wasn't Christmas yet, but as they worked together in the dungeons, brewing, laughing, and joking, Harry really felt like it was. His father showed them how to brew several new potions, and at any given time if Harry looked around the little room, there were sixteen or more little cauldrons simmering and bubbling. Whenever a line of them finished, they set themselves up assembly line style, one person tinning potions, another adding labels, another cleaning cauldrons, and another starting a new batch of potions in the cleaned cauldrons. All in all, it had been one of the best days in Harry's remembrance, and he hardly noticed the cravings for dirt at all.

When they were done, there were over 200 tins of invisible hair cream and 100 of rainbow for Fred and George, 2 large boxes of potions, hair creams, ointments, gels, and invisible ink to send to France, and 50 new tins of Slytherin and Hufflepuff colored hair creams to sell at Hogwarts. Draco was the one who had decided to only make 50, so they could raise the price because of a limited supply. They also had about 100 jars of invisible ink to sell around the school, Severus' idea. Harry wanted to stick around in the dungeons and spend the evening with his father and friends, but was too excited to start selling what they'd made and went to the Great Hall for dinner with Ron and Draco to start peddling their good. Even Hermione and Ginny had gotten in on the selling action by making posters for Harry while he was down in the dungeons.

"Harry?" Ron asked after dinner that night when they'd nearly sold out of the ink and Hufflepuff hair gel.

"Yeah?"

"That invisible hair gel we made for Fred and George... it will make your hair go invisible. Recon if we spread it on the rest of our body it would make the rest of you invisible?"

"Huh," Harry thought about it. "Don't know, recon we should try?"

"Uh yeah, imagine the pranks we can pull if we're invisible and without your cloak."

Ron climbed under his bed and pulled out the only tin they'd saved for themselves. Draco had a tin as well.

"Go on, you first."

Ron took a glob of the clear gel and spread it on his shoulder, watching closely, and gasped when his shoulder disappeared after a few moments. "I hope it's not permanent."

"We could start calling you Swiss Ron."

"Shut it." Ron held out the tin to Harry and they got to work covering themselves. When they were done, there wasn't anything left in the tin.

"Can you see me?"

"No, can you see me?" Harry waited, and then said, "I can't see you shaking your head."

"Oh right, no, you're good."

They laughed then and opened the door to sneak down into the common room where they planned on scaring as many people as possible. Unfortunately ghosts were common there at Hogwarts, so they couldn't pretend to be some entity. They could have fun randomly going up behind people and tapping them on the shoulder or knocking books off of desks though. It was only a few minutes before the entire common room was up out of their seats and looking around, trying to figure out what was going on, and Ron and Harry hurried out through the portrait hole to see who else they could prank.

Down through the castle they pranked first, second and third years who had straggled after curfew, scared Pansy Parkinson outside the girl's loo on the second floor, and made professor McGonagall shout in surprise outside her office. They had just come down the steps into the Entrance Hall when they heard a throat clear and turned to see Severus staring at them with his arms crossed. "What is the meaning of this?"

Harry and Ron stayed quiet, but chanced a look at each other only to find that they were visible again... well, sort of. Harry stared at Ron as he stood there almost completely naked. The only thing he appeared to have on was underwear.

"Blimy Harry, you're starkers!" Ron said in surprise then as a gaggle of Hufflepuff girls came out of the Great Hall and began to laugh. Harry looked down and took in a breath. He only had underwear on too. It felt like the rest of his clothes were still there, but apparently they'd remained invisible.

"I take it you tried the invisible gel on your entire bodies?" Severus asked. Harry felt exposed and the girls were still there laughing. He wanted to get away but he knew his father wasn't going to allow it. This was punishment, he decided.

"We might have," Harry said, trying not to sound too guilty, but he couldn't help himself and a little laugh escaped. He raised his brows.

"S' not funny Harry, where are our clothes?"

"Your clothes will be invisible for some time yet," Severus said. That gel reacts different to different things." Harry thought he was going to say something else, but suddenly his arm shot out to his right and grabbed on to something, though Harry wasn't sure what until he heard Draco's voice protest. "Mr. Malfoy," Severus said. "You can wait here until yours wears off too.

Harry thought that his father was getting rather a lot of enjoyment out of embarrassing them then, because some more Hufflepuffs came out of the entrance to their hallway next to the Entrance Hall, and Professor McGonagall had just appeared at the top of the stairs and given a little gasp, which only made Severus' smile grow larger.

Harry crossed his arms, trying to cover his chest up, which still hadn't grown as much hair as Ron's, and Ron had taken to covering his front even though he had underwear.

"What is going on here Severus?"

"Misters Weasley, Potter, and Malfoy decided to concoct an invisibility potion, which they have now discovered makes their clothing invisible for longer than it does their bodies." As if to prove a point, Draco suddenly materialized wearing nothing but Slytherin green boxers with a golden snitch pattern. He took Ron's stance and covered his front with his hands, making the Hufflepuffs gathered there, mostly girls, laugh harder.

"Can we go now sir?" Draco asked, looking cross.

"Wait just a moment," McGonagall said, descending the stairs. "Which one of you was responsible for scaring me outside my office?"

Ron raised his hand before dropping it again to cover himself quickly.

"And am I to assume that if I go to the common room I'll find a house full of frightened Gryffindors?"

Harry blew air up at his hair. "They're Gryffindor, they're not scared."

She motioned with her fingers for the boys to come to her. "You can just march straight up through the castle as you are then and straight through the common room, where you will stand and apologize to your housemates before going to put on new clothes."

"Better hurry Minerva," Severus said with a smile. "The gel may wear off on their clothes soon."

She ushered them off and Harry turned back to give a halfhearted glare at his father, who was giving Draco a similar questioning, still standing there in the Entrance Hall.

As Harry climbed into bed that night, still embarrassed at the laughs and cat calls they'd received upon entering Gryffindor common room, he couldn't feel mad. It had still been a good day, even if it had been an embarrassing one, and they'd earned twenty five Galleons. They were halfway to his new broom. He fell asleep not craving the dirt at all.