"What do you want to ask, Professor?"
"Let's put my business aside for a moment…"
Melvin glanced at the books spread out in front of them, then at the notes in their notebook, his tone gentle. "What are you two up to, hunkered down here?"
"Working through a tricky problem with alchemy," they replied.
"Why are you so hung up on developing a Wee-bomb?"
"Our dream is to open a joke shop, like Zonko's. Dungbombs are their signature product…"
George and Fred took turns answering, one picking up where the other left off.
"So, you're trying to make a Wee-bomb."
"Exactly!"
"How's it going?"
"We've got some new ideas."
"Tell me about them." Melvin crouched down to their level.
George and Fred felt a strange sense of ease as the distance between them and the professor shrank. For some unexplainable reason, they trusted he wouldn't rat them out to Professor McGonagall.
George relaxed and began explaining their plan. "We were stuck on how to get Muggle chemicals for ages, but then it hit us. The whole idea of a Wee-bomb is to disperse a foul-smelling substance with a bang. Ammonia and sodium aren't the only options—there are plenty of magical ingredients that could work just as well."
Fred flipped open their notebook, pointing to a rough sketch with a hint of pride. "Instead of ammonia, we can use dragon urine. Our brother Charlie works with dragons in Romania and brought back half a bottle last summer. Professor, you've probably never smelled it up close—one whiff and it's like a Hungarian Horntail rammed your brain. You'd be out of it for hours. Way worse than ammonia! As for sodium, we can swap it with Fizzing Whizzbees. They spread wide, scatter everywhere, and the explosion's harmless."
"That's a clever approach," Melvin said, nodding approvingly, though his tone shifted. "But from a product development standpoint, your design is honestly pretty flawed. If you produced this Wee-bomb, it'd be a complete flop."
"Why!?" George and Fred's eyes widened, stunned and struggling to accept the critique.
"Muggle wisdom teaches us that a successful product requires balancing multiple factors: user needs, feasibility, and market competition…" Melvin noticed their expressions growing blank and waved a hand. "Never mind, you'd probably get lost with all that. Let's break it down to two key issues with your design.
"First, cost control. Dragon urine is typically used for fertilizing magical plants or warding off animals in the wild. It's not exactly rare, but it's not cheap either—about a few Sickles per ounce. And Fizzing Whizzbees? They're already a finished product. If you're using them as raw materials, how much would your Wee-bomb cost to make? And how would you price it for sale? Keep in mind, standard Dungbombs and Fizzing Whizzbees cost about the same on the market.
"Second, your audience's mindset. Your target market is young witches and wizards, and you're making prank toys, not biochemical weapons. You've clearly thought about this to some extent, considering the safe explosive power of Fizzing Whizzbees. But you've overlooked the impact of using actual urine—not just physically, but psychologically."
George and Fred listened quietly as Professor Levent's words sank in, their thoughts clearing like a fog lifting from their minds.
Melvin tapped their notebook, his voice steady and measured. "Pranks and jokes are supposed to bring joy and laughter. Using ammonia, sure, it smells bad, but it's not actual urine. Friends might laugh it off, cast a quick Scourgify or Evanesco, and carry on having fun.
"But real urine? Imagine getting doused with it. Would a cleaning charm make it feel okay? You'd still feel gross, right? Even after a shower and a change of clothes, you'd probably feel uneasy. From the perspective of the person being pranked, would that be fun? Would the prankster feel good about it?
"A bit of mischief is fine—that's what pranks are for. But going too far or crossing a line turns it into cruel bullying. Dungbombs work because they don't actually contain real dung. By the same logic, a Wee-bomb can't use real urine, or it's no better than one of Peeves' nasty tricks. Are you two like Peeves?"
George and Fred froze, then quickly shook their heads.
Though their design had been torn apart, they didn't feel discouraged. Instead, they felt a spark of clarity, like a light had been switched on.
They'd always pulled pranks based on gut instinct, dreaming of one day opening the most brilliant joke shop, turning their wild ideas into reality and creating products everyone would love. But they'd been lost on how to make it happen, too afraid to discuss it with parents or professors, unsure where to start or what principles to follow. No one had ever explained the essence of a good prank.
Over the years, their experiences had made them think about boundaries, but no one had ever laid it out so clearly: a good prank should make both the prankster and the pranked laugh and have fun.
Professor Levent's words were like a Lumos spell, cutting through the haze and lighting a path forward.
"The product's effect is one thing; the audience's feelings are another," Melvin said with a smile. "You get it now. Scrap it and start over."
Fred drew a big X in the corner of their draft, and George, suddenly remembering, piped up, "Professor, what was it you wanted to ask us about?"
"I wanted to pick your brains about prank products," Melvin said, glancing at the Zonko's catalog. "You two know this stuff better than most. Can you think of any prank products that could affect a wizard, slow them down or hinder their actions, maybe make them nervous without them realizing what's happening? Ideally, something with a scare factor, but nothing that'd actually hurt anyone."
"Hinder their actions…"
"Scare factor…"
George and Fred flipped open the catalog, angling it to show Melvin the illustrated product descriptions.
"Our top pick: Dungbombs. Small explosion, releases a foul stench, with customizable smell intensity.
A classic bestseller: Sneakoscopes that bite noses when you touch the box.
Back-to-school special: Fizzing Whizzbees. Activate in water, can't be put out by normal spells, and the fireworks morph into dragons or phoenixes that zoom around.
Hidden gem: Jack-in-the-Box. Open it, and a fist pops out with a punch…"
They went through the entire catalog, but Melvin didn't seem impressed. "These are too playful, too well-known. Anyone familiar with Zonko's would see through them in a second."
"That just proves how great these products are!" Fred said.
"I'm sure you'll create even better ones someday," Melvin replied, shaking his head. "For now, I'll ask the other professors about this." He turned to leave.
"See you, Professor!"
As Melvin walked away, George and Fred huddled together, whispering.
"What the professor's after… sounds like he wants something like cursed Dark Magic items."
"But real Dark Magic items can actually hurt people. Maybe he means old, broken ones."
"Like that ghoul upstairs at the Burrow."
Their murmurs reached Melvin's ears, and a thoughtful look crossed his face.