Chapter 152: Hogwarts' first snow of 1990.
Fred and George spent the whole walk imagining how to squeeze a fortune out of the Ministry of Magic, and no wonder they were so excited.
After all, this was a huge deal worth nearly twenty thousand Galleons.
For two twelve-year-olds who had always been rather strapped for cash, it was an incredible stroke of luck.
The Weasley family might not have been poor, but they certainly were not well-off.
Arthur Weasley's Ministry of Magic salary barely supported seven children. Mrs. Weasley had to count every penny whenever she went to Diagon Alley, and their textbooks and school robes were almost all secondhand.
In the original story, even Ron's wand had been secondhand.
Of course, the Weasley family's poverty had something to do with their spending habits, but the fact remained that the Weasley brothers really did not have much money to spare.
Things had only really started looking up for Fred and George last year, when they saved nearly two hundred Galleons from selling prank products.
Since the start of this term, the joke products and Flying Letter Notebooks they sold through Gerald's House of Dreamweavers had been bringing them nearly sixty Galleons a week.
Now they could earn more in a single weekend than their father made in a month, and that feeling put a spring in their steps as they walked down the corridor.
But even all those earnings combined might not amount to a fraction of this order. How could they not be excited?
And Gerald had brought them all of this. Their admiration for him had reached its peak.
"Remember, once you've agreed on the deal, have the Ministry pay a deposit first-at least thirty percent. For an order this big, raw materials and labor won't come cheap.