"But lately, the two of them seem to have run into some trouble."
Seeing that Leonard seemed interested, Hermione continued, "I heard they've stopped taking orders recently, and their last few transactions have been moving very slowly."
The moment he heard that, Leonard guessed the problem was probably with their supply line. George and Fred no longer had a way to get the materials needed for their orders, so they could only fall back on the old route and buy at higher prices from Mundungus.
It looked like the two of them had no intention of backing out of their deals. If they did that, they would probably lose every bit of money they had earned.
As for why their supply line had broken down, Leonard had already guessed that too.
The channel Leonard had originally given George and Fred led directly to Midgard. At the time, the werewolf handling business had been Wilder, the werewolf merchant Midgard had nearly torn apart.
Unfortunately, he and his die-hard followers had already been purged, so naturally George and Fred's contact with that side had been cut off as well.
The matter was so minor that Midgard had forgotten to mention it to Leonard, and Leonard himself had never even thought in that direction.
As for George and Fred, they were probably so overwhelmed by their orders that they had forgotten to mention it to Leonard too.
This had to be dealt with. If George and Fred kept getting delayed like this, then when exactly were the flying robes ever going to get improved?
After exchanging a few pleasantries with Hermione, Leonard sent her away, completely ignoring the resentful look she gave him.
Then he opened the map and looked for George and Fred.
...
By the courtyard fountain, warm sunlight fell over George and Fred, but that gentle light brought them no warmth at all, nor could it ease their thoroughly chilled hearts.
"George, I finished adding up the bills," Fred said heavily, holding a thick stack of invoices.
"Don't tell me yet. Let me recover first," George said with a grief-stricken face, covering his eyes.
"Face reality. We brought this on ourselves, after all." Fred sighed and set the bills down beside George. "If only we hadn't tried to make money through that channel."
If they had not been thinking about profit, they probably would have told Leonard right away that the channel had failed, instead of hesitating this long, hiding the truth, and paying out of pocket to fulfill the orders. As a result, not only had they lost all their time for further research, they had nearly emptied their savings too.
It made them feel as though they had sunk into a bottomless swamp and could not climb back out.
"How many orders are we still short on?" George mourned for a bit longer, then finally forced himself to face reality.
"One pound of dragon claw powder, and two bottles of love potion. Damn it, all of it is contraband." Fred cursed under his breath.
Dragon claw powder could temporarily raise intelligence and memory, which was why it was banned during exams. As for love potion, that went without saying. Get caught with it, and at the very least you lost fifty House points.
So no normal supplier was going to sell those things to students.
"And none of it is cheap. Buying it from that damned Mundungus is even worse." George ground his teeth, wishing he could bite the bloodsucking Mundungus himself.
The bastard not only sold them goods at ridiculous prices, he also bought their Acromantula venom at dirt-cheap rates, making the twins' already miserable finances even worse.
"Maybe we should just go to Leonard after all. He might know why that merchant disappeared all of a sudden," Fred said.
He felt like he was reaching his limit.
"Wait a little longer," George said, unwilling to trouble Leonard, since this mess was one they had caused themselves. "If it really comes to it, we can borrow some money first."
"But from who?" Fred clawed at his hair in frustration. "This isn't a small amount."
"The only one who can lend us that much is probably Mundungus. Sure, his interest is outrageous, but if we can improve the flying robes a bit more, we should be able to get the next batch of funding from Leonard."
George made up his mind. "No matter what, we have to finish these orders!"
"So you'd rather take out a loan from a loan shark than come explain things to me properly?"
A faint, ghostly voice suddenly drifted into their ears.
"Ah!" George and Fred screamed in fright like a pair of startled marmots.
They stared in horror at the suddenly appeared Leonard and asked in unison, "When did you get here?"
"Since the part where you started talking about your orders." Leonard sat down beside George. "Dragon claw powder and love potion? You two are really getting creative..."
Just listening to the two of them made them sound like a smuggling ring.
George and Fred both looked embarrassed. After all, the channel Leonard had given them was supposed to let them buy raw materials cheaply, not make money off it.
"Sorry, Leonard." Since the man himself had heard everything, George and Fred could hardly keep pretending. "We used your channel to make money."
"Stop looking so miserable. I don't care how you use that channel." Leonard shrugged. "When it stopped working, you should have told me."
George and Fred did not dare say anything.
"But I really didn't expect you two to keep trying to fulfill those orders. Why not just cancel them? Then you wouldn't have had to spend so much money, or even think about borrowing from Mundungus. I remember you saying he was a thief with no morals." Leonard patted George on the shoulder.
"I don't really know why. We just feel like once you're doing business, you shouldn't go back on your word," George said awkwardly.
With money involved, he felt like the way he and his brother dealt with Leonard could no longer be treated like an ordinary classmate relationship. So he did not dare joke around, and instead wore the rare expression of someone being completely serious.
Fred was the same. George swore he had never seen Fred sit that straight.
Of course, another reason was that neither of them was remotely in the mood for jokes right now.
"That's actually a pretty good quality." Leonard pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to them. "Here's another channel. The person who handled things for you before seems to have gotten into trouble, which is why you couldn't reach him."
"So that's what happened." George snatched the paper, glanced at the contact information, and instantly threw himself at Leonard. "I'm so touched!"
Leonard nimbly dodged aside and watched George plunge headfirst into the flowerbed. Fred pointed at the humiliated George and burst out laughing, only to get tackled by George the next second.
At last, the two brothers looked cheerful again.