(Untitled)

[boom_meup]

"George!" he yelled, hurtling down the stairs to the adjoining door. "George! You awake?" As usual, the door was open and Fred raced through it.

It was the morning afternoon after the 742nd reunion and Fred had just gotten The Daily Profit. The newspaper clutched in his hand, he found his twin sitting at the table. Well, sitting was a loose

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[george_goesboom]

That last (supposedly comedic, though definitely not hilarious in any way as far at the painfully throbbing mush of brain matter that currently took up entirely too much room inside his skull was concerned) shout taking the form of his name finally had George's head jerking up from its comfortable resting place on the cool wooden table. He blinked wildly at his surroundings, hurriedly trying to gather his wits back up.

"Huh, wah, believe it?" he muttered instinctively. It took a few more moments of blinking before he could actually focus in on the text that had just been shoved in his face, and another few silent seconds before what his eyes were capturing actually connected with his brain. When they finally did, his bloodshot eyes widened, his muddled thoughts suddenly racing as he leaned in to skim the rest of the article. "Bloody...what the...merlin's..."

[boom_meup]

Fred heaved down into the chair beside George, pulling the cold eggs toward him. Taking a mouthful, he said "Happy bloody reunion."

He swallowed and shook his head. And then stopped as the clanging inside increased. "Who would do that to Parvati?" Fred was actually devastated. He'd grown pretty close to the younger Griffyndor when they were growing up.

[george_goesboom]

"Bloody..." George muttered again, still trying to get his muddled thoughts back into some kind of relative hungover (whatever it was that they had combined to create that hellish concoction he had spent too much of the previous evening consumer should never be broguht together again) order.

His gaze flickered with a kind of distant confusion between his stolen eggs and the Daily Prophet's blazing headline. "I mean...she was pretty sloshed last I saw her, but how...what even...fucking..."

[boom_meup]

"Fuck," Fred agreed, before putting his own head down on the table. When he spoke again, it was muffled, his lips pressing into the wooden surface. "....bloody..... kill 'em... self.... fuck."

He rocked his head back and forth. It hurt, but not as much as... "Merlin... Vati? Seriously?"

It wasn't right. This shouldn't be happening again.

[george_goesboom]

Just when he'd thought the days of curious deaths and mindless violence were behind them, the news had brought on a haze of confusion completely unrelated to the night's overindulgent festivities. It all seemed annoyingly surreal.

"So," he mumbled, leaning his head back down on the table next to Fred's. It seemed like the only reaonsable thing to do, all things considered. "Now what."

[boom_meup]

"Now....." Fred half attempted to pull his head off the table before realising it was just too much work.

"Now," he repeated, "now we hope this has nothing to do with anything, was just a horrible horrible thing that happened and we can go to her funeral and mourn and move on with our lives."

Even as he said it Fred didn't believe it. Something deep down said this was the start of something horrible. What kind of horrible, he didn't know. But it was horrible. He took a deep breath and peeled his head off the table to look blearily at George.

[george_goesboom]

As his muddled brain continued trying to process the news (hopefully via osmosis, considering how intently he seemed to be mashing his face into the open newspaper), George couldn't quite bring himself to peel his own head off the table. Because he knew that if he looked up and met Fred's gaze, he would see his own doubt, his own dark conviction that something terrible and not at all random was indeed going on reflected back at him. And that wasn't something he was prepared to handle just yet, at least not while he still felt as if his head was stuck in the nauseating loop of a washer's spinning cycle.

"So," he mumbled after a few beats of silence, stubbly face stil stubbornly pressed flat into the dreadful news of the morning, "how was the rest of your night, then?" Hell, if there was one thing George was good at, it was a properly awkward chance of subject.

[boom_meup]

It was a change of subject that Fred was more than happy to take. After such an entertaining and intoxicating night, the morning's news sure was a downer.

"You'll never guess who I ran into," he chuckled, "Allie freaking Gonzales. And she lives right by The Leaky Cauldron, if you can believe it. What about you?"

Fred's head found the table again. It was just too much energy to keep it held up.

[george_goesboom]

"No kidding?" A bit of enthusiasm leaked back into his voice at the mention of their former schoolmate bombshell. He had some fond memories of the girl, it certainly would be nice to see her again. "We'll have to have her over some time

[boom_meup]

Fred smiled. They certainly were twins in every sense of the word. "Yeah, pretty sure I've let that one slip as we'll," he admitted, vaguely remembering bringing it up with Angelina.

Angelina!

Had George seen her? "Oh yeah!" Fred muttered excitedly, watching with envious eyes as his brother picked at the cold eggs, "Angie is home...." He let the words hang in the air for George to make of them what he would.

And what was there to make of them. Just because she was home and they'd spoken and he'd asked her to stay with him and.... But it didn't matter, she'd refused. She'd rather stay at a bloody hotel than with him. He must have really messed up.

[george_goesboom]

George nodded slowly as he chewed, struggling to work his way through the murk that his memory of most of the previous night. "I vaguely remember nearly tackling her with a violent sort of hug, yes."

He glanced up at Fred, pushed the plate of eggs his way and raised an eyebrow. He knew what heavy hanging words were when he heard then. "And how does that make you feel?" he asked, not quite rolling his eyes.

[boom_meup]

A slightly mischievous glint overtook Fred's eyes. "Well," he began slowly, "she did spend the night...." He let the words hang in the air a full minute before continuing.

"I mean, there's no way I could let her stay in a hotel, that wouldn't be very gentlemanly." The ginger hair fell forward as he turned his head towards George. "She's gone back to Hogsmede now."

Another full minute before the realisation hit. "Flip, that's right where...!" This time he caught George's eye.

[george_goesboom]

Oh, the neverending tangled tale that was Fred and Angelina's. If George hadn't cared so much for the both of them, he would have stopped trying to bother himself with them years ago.

The realization dawned on him at about the pace. His eyes widened slightly, a spark of panic momentarily flaring before rationalization kicked in. "Bloody...well, she's got to be fine, right? We'd've heard otherwise. Right?"

[boom_meup]

Fred was already on his feet to get dressed. Hangover be damned, she could be hurt! "Would we have?" But he refused to believe it. He was about to pass into his flat when he heard someone knocking on his door.

"Someone's at my door," he said, sounding worried, to George.

[ooc. Ange has put up a post that she's knocking on the door. Thought they'd tie in well together! Feel free to hop in!]