Mrs. Weasley positioned herself beside the group and raised her spray bottle.
"Ready—spray!"
Orli had barely begun when a doxy burst from the tangled curtains. Doxycide caught it squarely, freezing it mid-flight before it thudded onto the threadbare carpet. She scooped it up and tossed it into the bucket.
"Fred, what are you doing?" Mrs. Weasley shrieked. "Spray it immediately and dispose of it!"
Orli glanced over. Fred held a writhing doxy between thumb and forefinger.
"Right-o," Fred said cheerfully, quickly spraying the creature unconscious. But the instant Mrs. Weasley turned away, he slipped it into his pocket with a conspiratorial wink.
"We need doxy venom for our Skiving Snackboxes," George whispered.
"Our mail-order business is absolutely booming—we even managed a sneaky advertisement in the Daily Prophet last week, major shareholder."
"If you ask me, try The Quibbler instead," Orli whispered back. "Why fund those truth-twisting parasites at the Prophet?"
"We owe Harry for this opportunity, actually," Fred said quietly. "Ever since the Prophet started slandering Harry and Dumbledore, Mum cancelled our subscription. Now it's safe territory for us."
The doxy extermination consumed the entire afternoon. As sunset approached, Mrs. Weasley finally stripped off her face covering and collapsed into an armchair. The curtains hung silent and sodden from intensive spraying, no longer buzzing with hidden menace.
Unconscious doxies filled buckets at their feet, alongside a large bowl brimming with glossy black eggs. Crookshanks investigated the bowl while the Weasley twins eyed it with barely concealed avarice.
A decrepit house-elf shuffled through the doorway—ancient and filthy, wearing only a moldering rag secured with rotting rope. Though bald like all house-elves, coarse white hair sprouted from enormous bat-like ears, and his bulging bloodshot eyes were watery gray.
He moved as though the room's occupants were invisible, hunched and deliberate, shuffling toward the chamber's far end. His muttering carried clearly—harsh, croaking whispers like a diseased bullfrog.
"Smells like sewers and criminals' boots, nasty old blood traitor with her brats defiling my Mistress's house, oh my poor Mistress, what would she say seeing the filth they've dragged in, what would she tell old Kreacher, oh the shame, Mudbloods and werewolves and traitors and thieves, poor old Kreacher, what can he do..."
"Hello, Kreacher!" Fred called loudly, making the elf freeze mid-shuffle. Kreacher turned and performed an elaborate bow to Fred, though his expression suggested this courtesy caused him physical pain.
"Kreacher did not see young Master," he said, then added in perfectly audible tones: "Nasty blood traitor brat standing bold as brass, oh if my Mistress could see, how she would weep, and there's the Mudblood girl, Kreacher remembers her stench..."
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