With a muffled 'boom,' the foundations of the Burrow shuddered gently then settled back in place, as only a magically anchored building could do.

Molly Weasley, with a fractious daughter settled on her hip, charged frantically up the stairs towards the origins of the explosion. Reaching the top of a rickety stairway, she tugged open the door and drew a deep breath at the sight in front of her.

The twins' bedroom was, to put it simply, a disaster zone. Their ceiling bore a freshly applied chrysanthemum of soot, the aesthetic qualities of which Molly was in no mood to admire. A tiny battered cauldron was hung precariously from the edge of a table by a piece of rather charred string, over a couple of lit candle-ends. A glass marble had apparently ricocheted off the table-leg, cracked a mug now laying in pieces on the floor and then imbedded itself in the plaster walls. It was still smoking faintly.

The twins themselves looked up guiltily at their mother from under blackened eyebrows, then exchanged glances. As she started to turn purple, they hastened to interrupt before she could start to yell.

"We're sorry, mum," "we didn't think this would happen," "we're not that stupid to do it if we did" (at this, one of them elbowed the other in the ribs) "but it'll never happen again, honest!" "Not that we wanted it to explode this time, either…"Swiftly trading off the phrases was a technique perfected by the twins when their mother was in one of her swelling moods. It didn't do to pause for breath…

Unfortunately for the young redheads, it wasn't a technique that always worked. This, apparently, was one of the times it wouldn't.

As soon as the twins stopped babbling and she had assessed the damage, Molly entered the fray. "What on earth happened to this room? Isn't it enough that you live in a pigsty as it is without attempting to blow the rest of us halfway across the Atlantic! And what were you doing that could possibly cause this kind of explosion!"

By the end of her diatribe, the boys were looking sheepishly at each other. It seemed like they'd have to come clean, no matter how much they might not want to…

"Well, we wanted to get you a birthday present." "Since you've got so much to do," "which translates to 'so much to forget'," "we thought we'd get you a remembrall." "But those are expensive!" "So," announced the twin closest to the wall, "we thought we'd make you one!" He plucked the marble from its spider-web of cracks and presented it to a decidedly unimpressed Molly Weasley with a nervous smile.

"It didn't work," the other added, unhelpfully. "I told you those newt's eyes were a bad idea," he hissed at his twin, nudging the suspended cauldron. The weakened string chose that moment to snap, tumbling a sticky mass of 'potion ingredients' over the carpet and snuffing the candles with a sizzle.

"Um. Oops?" The small redhead giggled nervously and slowly started to edge behind his brother.

Their mother just rubbed her free hand across her temple, trying to ease the starting headache. "That's it. You know the deal. Mrs. Scower's is under the kitchen sink. This is all cleaned up before dinner time or forget about it being 'dinner' time for you two…"

Whilst it might have been a nice thought, her boys needed to learn some responsibility for their actions. So without any guilt at all she left them staring dismally at their tip of a bedroom and went to settle her youngest in her bed. Little Ginny wouldn't grow up to make messes like that. Two hellions in the family were more than enough...