Harry and Hermione settled down in their magical education and were having steady progress while being cautious not to show outstanding talents in anything other than healing so as to not be monitored. Their healing lessons had already progressed to the stage where they could now try to reverse some basic spell disasters like accidental explosions and fire. They had mostly completed runes taught in their third years and their grasp on basics was also starting to build strongly.
Hermione had already arranged ten different books in which she recorded every little mistake or possible correction that she found, separated by subjects. In some subjects like charm and potions she was even a year ahead and in an unseen scenario she had been praised by Snape when instead of following the recommended reciepe she made some subtle changes and increased the strength of a potion.
Apart from Hermione, Harry had also been praised in a few classes that required exceptional magic power such as transfiguration and his personal favourite defense against the dark arts. Harry after being treated had a much larger magic pool and his control over his emotions had also given him a finer control over his magic but harry managed to keep it only to the point where it was slightly greater than rest and not exceptionally powerful.
The weasley twins had also completed their product, which when kept on a person can help them change their facial features to at least fifteen different combinations and permutations. Harry had no idea when he gave them this task that the twins would go so far and beyond logic to create a product which could revolutionize the very being of pranks and in stronger terms spying. The named the product THE JOKER.
Just like the name suggest a joker is a person who hides behind a mask but people appreciate the mask more than the person inside, the product in a similar way would hide the person under a mask which could not be more real. In order to be successful in creating this product the weasley twins had spent close to fifteen hundred galleons, including research material, similar products, spell work foundation by experts and the actual cost to make the perfected product.
Initially when they had spent five hundred Galleons without having anything to show for it they thought harry would be angry but when Harry smiled and asked them to not worry and that he had complete confidence in them, they once again continued with a renewed vigor and the results were mindblowing.
The product was a box with fifteen sides and the size of a dice. They had extensively researched and came to a conclusion that in order to be as close to a metamorphmagus they had to make a product that could help change not the whole face but rather the features on a face and because the rest had failed to think outside of the box the previous products had either failed or met with a bad reception in the market. One had to give it to the twins when it came to thinking about a solution from an angle which was never seen before.
After they had a base to build upon, they personally went on to correspond with the only known metamorphmagus in the country, Nymphadora Tonks. They had personally known her since she was in the same class as their older brother Charlie and in addition their parents were friends so they had easier excess in gaining her help to answer questions pertaining to the ability. They found out that she hardly did a full body transformation and would only change certain features to help her solve the problem that she was facing. This had formed the base of multiple face idea.
After having a rough sketch they had sent requests for spell work creation required to connect the product and its features such that the one who has its ownership could transform it on their faces. This process alone had taken two months to perfect. After this they had started to categorise the basic features that they would need and after much discussion among the twins, Harry and hermione they had selected hair to be the first trial run.
The first prototype was a square box with six different shades of hair on each side, they had decided that Fred would take on the first ownership and so he placed his own thumb print on the top of the box, it was the same mechanism as a fingerprint lock, and kept the device in his pocket. The device had a registration cooldown of two hours before use and as it was the first attempt it could only be used once for each color and last for a hour.
It was very fun to watch everyone's faces when Fred turned up with different hair colour everyday for breakfast and once he had waited until he was in the potions classroom and then transformed his hair the very moment that Snape had come on his table and Snape had failed to reverse it and was hecka confused on what was going on. This had certainly reached the ears of every teacher and they had made it so that for the last three days every teacher would try to undo, what they had assumed was a spell, during breakfast and failed spectacularly.
Professor McGonagall had even went on to reprimand the twins that whatever they had done to themselves they better not make the same mistake on anyone else or she would personally write their expulsion forms and that she would take Fred to St. Mungo's on sunday to see that it is treated. Rather than the product itself, the twins were more proud of the turmoil they had caused in the whole school, typical of the twins.
After the initial success, the twins started by creating the basic models for ears, teeth, nose, lips and eyes. The success of these then lead to the first final product prototype which had fifteen sides with ears, nose, lips, eyes and hair each occupying three spots. This helped a person use this product in which he could select on these fifteen choices without restriction, meaning one could have purple hair, pointy ears, lavender eyes and a sharp nose, a funny visual but brilliant nonetheless. They had also extended the time limit for up to six hours along with each side having usage for upto five times.
The one who was the most affected was Hermione, who after seeing the product finally understood the meaning of genius, because she knew that the makers of this amazing product were the worst students in their own classes. She finally understood the need to not only follow but question and this lead to an unexpected benefit for Harry as he had always been trying to slightly modify the by book Hermione. This had also lead to increase in pranks by the twins.
THE JOKER was finally completed on the last week of march and was all set to debut on the national prank day, April 1st the April Fool's day.