FIC: In The Box, Fred/Hermione, R
Title: In the Box
Author: rose_whispers
Pairing: Fred/Hermione
Rating: R
Word count: 7471
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
Summary: Through the spectre of death and the horror of war, Fred Weasley can't move past his desire for Hermione
Warnings: character death
A/N: A gift fic for inell. Thank you to my fantastic beta, thescarletwoman :)
"She had to know what was in the box. One day she lifted the lid¬ and out flew plagues innumerable, sorrow and mischief for mankind. In terror Pandora clapped the lid down, but too late. One good thing, however, was there¬: Hope. It was the only good the casket had held among the many evils, and it remains to this day mankind's sole comfort in misfortune."
- Edith Hamilton, Mythology
I Misery
It has all been released into the world. Everything minds can dream up, everything that should have remained in nightmares. Muggles don't understand the increase in natural disasters and unnatural violence. Mobs and murders, tornadoes and tidal waves, measures escalate on all sides. The Death Eaters fight dirty, but the Order is hardly pure either. The good guys are all learning or re-learning the hardest lesson: you do what is necessary, no matter the cost. There is no room for intellectualizing. There is no room for guilt.
Fred Weasley pretends he has no guilt. He makes believe that two years later, he doesn't still wake up screaming from dreams where half of him is missing, where he's split right down the middle. One arm. One leg. Half a brain. No heart. He never bleeds in the dreams, though. George bled enough for them both.
It's been two Christmases without George. Fred tells himself that it's all right to feel again, that it's all right to laugh. That it's all right to want her. He's wanted her for years, after all, with varying intensity. He tries not to think about how he nearly kissed her at the funeral, how he ended up crying in her arms instead, his tears slowly shadowing the cotton of her healer's robe. Lime had darkened to forest green, and Fred had been so lost, so bewildered, curling into the foetal position with his head in her lap, her fingers carding through his hair slowly, methodically. She was the only one who understood that he didn't want empty words of sympathy parroted at him. He needed silence to begin to get used to the lack of an identical voice weaving with his own, a counterpoint of comedy, a melody of mischief. He didn't see how it was fair to either George or himself that he still breathed without his twin.
She didn't leave his side that weekend. When they were in crowds of people, she endured his horrible puns, his tasteless jokes desperately trying to break to the surface through the sea of comforting, killing voices that threatened to drown him. She held him through the night, her small body coiling around him, her hair tickling his lips, his tears only coming when he was alone with her.
He wonders if he should have been ashamed of crying in front of her. He is ashamed that he still thinks about what her hair smells like. She'd only been nineteen that weekend but she'd been the most mature one there. Maybe they taught empathy where she'd trained as a healer.
He ignores the mutters that he is almost Snapelike these days in his motivations, obsessed with creating destruction in new and more ingenious, more diabolical ways. Mischief can be dangerous when it's all grown up, especially if nurtured properly. What Fred unleashes upon the world, in the name of all that is good and light, in the spirit of blackest vengeance, is as twisted, pain-inducing, and terror-inspiring as anything Voldemort's side can devise.
Of course, he also continues to make and sell talking house elf heads, fake dragon dung, and patented daydream charms. One cannot have a properly festering dark side without a light-hearted exterior. And so life continues, as is its habit. He maintains their business. The Death Eaters attack. The Order counters, often with Fred's inventions. And Fred tries not to want Hermione Granger.
II Pestilence
"Sometimes I don't know whether to be impressed or afraid of you two," Hermione Granger said, examining the obsidian box in her hands.
"Just don't open that in here and you can think whatever you want," George said with a wink.
"They only need to be fed the samples and they're good to go," Fred added.
Hermione looked at them thoughtfully. "Did Hagrid help you with these?"
"He gave us a tip or two," Fred said.
"We make an excellent team."
"'Course, he thought they were cute."
"Whereas we find them intensely repulsive."
"You created them!" Hermione said, biting back something suspiciously like a laugh. "You bred them!"
"They have fangs, wings, and eight double-jointed, hairy legs," Fred enumerated, counting them off on his callused fingers. "We don't exactly want them to call us 'Mummy', do we?"
"We do not," George supplied. "And anyway, we aren't half as poisonous as they are."
"Though we do bite," Fred said with a grin. To his astonishment, Hermione blushed. Some girls looked like tomatoes when they blushed, he reflected, but Hermione looked modest and innocent and lovely. Some distant part of his brain piped up helpfully, 'Thank god she's seventeen now," but he shut it down quickly. Now was definitely not the time to have thoughts in that direction.
"Do you have the hair and skin samples?" George asked, businesslike because one of them had to be.
"I have Nott's," she replied immediately.
"What'd you have to do to-"
"Don't ask."
Fred shut up, but he was torn between curiosity at just what she'd done and being too shocked to want to know. "We'll get the others at the meeting?" he asked instead. She inclined her head in affirmation.
"Excellent," George said. "Then we'll simply feed the samples to these little beauties-"
"-perform a ritual of questionable legality or two-"
"And voila! Beastly little bugs who will only go after the owners of those samples."
Hermione shuddered. "I know we're only using them to sniff out Death Eaters so that we can arrest and question them," she said carefully, her fingers skittering across the top of the box. Something inside skittered along with her. "But what if they find them before we can get to them?"
Fred and George exchanged a look but remained silent.
"Tell me," she insisted, voice rising. "After what I did to get Nott's hair and skin, I've a right to know."
George arched an eyebrow at Fred, who shrugged. "The ritual makes them hungry," George said.
"Ravenous, but only for more of the sample tissue."
"They'll devour people," she said quietly, horrified. The twins nodded. "My god, what are we releasing?"
"Exactly what we need to release," George said solemnly.
"It'll be bloody, but we'll get there before anyone's eaten alive," added Fred.
"What if something goes wrong and they turn on the wrong people?" she demanded, one hand on her hip, her eyes glittering and narrowed.
"They won't," George said.
"We know what we're doing."
"We've done the research."
Fred hesitated. "You could look over the rituals, if you'd like."
George nodded enthusiastically. "Just to be sure."
She ran a hand through her hair as she considered. "All right, bring it all to the meeting tonight."
Fred and George saluted and barked in unison, "Yes Ma'am!"
She rolled her eyes and handed the box of beasties back before Disapparating without a word to either of them.
George grinned. "Smart, brother. If she looks it over, she won't be at us about the bloody rituals."
Fred blinked. It was rare when he and his twin were out of sync, but that hadn't been his intention at all. "Plus, if she does see something wrong-"
"She won't. We've done our homework."
Fred nodded. They certainly had done. And this weapon might just help them turn the tide of the war.
III Plague
"Oh god," George whispered, one hand clenching at his stomach as they stared down at the corpse. Fingers flexed, spine contorted into an S so unnaturally that he didn't look real. Couldn't look real, couldn't be real, not with his own blood slowly drying in his gaping, empty hole of a mouth. Gaping, empty husk of a person.
"Fuck!" George screamed, kicking the letterbox, recoiling both from the pain it incurred and the clanging noise as it reverberated.
"Damn you, Dung," Fred seethed. "Why didn't you take the inoculation? We told you!"
George's hand landed on Fred's shoulder. "We should never have-"
"It was necessary," Fred said through gritted teeth. "You heard the statistics, how many of them we got. The whole Nott family, MacNair, everyone in Azkaban including Lucius bloody Malfoy-"
"And including the people who were in prison because they were pickpockets," George interrupted. "Or being held on suspicion- what if now was the time they'd taken Hagrid away?"
Fred shivered. "We knew when we helped design it what the consequences might be."
"I didn't think-"
"We knew, George. There were always going to be casualties, but this was too important. We needed a wide-range attack if we wanted to gain any footing at all, and we did the best we could- we got the vaccine into the Muggle water supply, we got it into our own. The only people really hit were his supporters."
"And Mundungus Fletcher," George said, crouching next to the corpse. He reached out to close Dung's open, staring, unseeing eyes. The dead man's glacial skin made his stomach churn, the eyelids so brittle and frozen that they wouldn't budge. George felt the ice burning deep inside him, erupting, and he flung himself away from the body. He doubled over retching, spitting up bile and maybe a little blood, bitter and tangy and he wanted to die for causing so much death.
Fred fell to his knees next to his twin. He waited until George stopped heaving and discreetly cast a cleansing charm to remove the mess, and another to get the taste out of George's mouth.
"Go home," Fred said firmly.
"I'm all right," George insisted, falling heavily into a sitting position.
"You're not."
"Am."
"George, please, you've cleaned up my messes loads of times. Remember that first raid?"
George's head dropped onto Fred's shoulder and for just a moment Fred felt eight years old again, sitting just like this as they awaited their latest punishment for their latest misdemeanour.
"Are you sure?" George's voice was very small.
Fred caught him in a fierce, hard hug. "Go. I'll take care of it."
They stood up silently and George Disapparated with a queasy, grateful grimace.
Fred looked at the corpse next to him, allowing himself to feel ill now. "Fuck, Dung, I'm so, so sorry." Clenched in Dung's hand was what looked like a Muggle letter, and Fred pried it away carefully. He didn't recognize the address, and he hadn't a clue if the letter was personal or for the Order. But Mundungus Fletcher had died while trying to mail it, infected by something the Weasley twins had helped bring into being. The least he could do was drop it into the letterbox, completing Dung's final act.
Just another misdemeanour, he told himself resolutely as he prepared his friend's body. Just another mess to clean up. He felt nearly as sick as George by the time Dung's body had been sent to St. Honoria's Mortuary. He just wanted to go home and sleep for a week, but he knew he had to check in with the Order first. He was tempted to take the Knight Bus to Godric's Hollow, but he understood that it was stupid to use public transportation to get to the Order's hidden headquarters. He gathered himself, focusing his concentration away from his heavy limbs and heavier heart. He Apparated away from this desecrated space, reappearing in Harry's kitchen.
Harry himself was seated at the table, cradling his head in his hands. Fred poked him in the arm. "It's done."
Harry didn't look up. "What will I do if she dies?"
Fred froze, an awful sensation wriggling down his spine. "What's that, Harry?"
The bespectacled young man looked up, his green eyes bloodshot and framed with tears. "She's the brains. What'll we do without her? She's my best friend, her and Ron. I can't lose anyone else."
"Hermione?" Fred asked. He wondered if it was his turn to throw up now. The room seemed so tiny, the walls pressing in against him.
Harry crumpled against the table again. "Seems five percent or so of everyone vaccinated reacted badly to it."
"Where- St. Mungo's?" Fred demanded. His weariness was washed away on a tidal wave of adrenaline. Harry nodded minutely and Fred Apparated directly to the hospital, appearing in the waiting room and nearly tripping over a man whose leg had been transfigured into an immense ashwinder. He leaped sideways from the man, who blushed deeply, but Fred didn't notice. His heart was racing as he thought about Hermione. How would the world keep going if Hermione Granger wasn't in it? Who would help with strategy? Who would share a secret smile with him when his mum served them chocolate cake?
"Hermione Granger- vere is she?"
Fred looked up in surprise at the admittance desk just in time to see Viktor Krum hunching his way toward the healer there, his expression thunderous. Ah. Right. The boyfriend. Fred squelched the immediate urge to hex him to tiny, bloody pieces. Dimly, he heard the nurse say something about a full recovery expected. His hands were shaking, but his vision was clearing again. All that mattered now was to make sure that Hermione was all right.
IV Hope
When you wake up wondering if you'll do so again tomorrow, Fred reflects, you know you're in a bad place. Fred can't help himself as he watches the sky outside his window light on fire in a way that makes him never want to manufacture fireworks again. How does air go up in flames?
Fred wonders a lot of things as he goes through his morning routine, moving like an Inferius through his flat above the shop. He wonders about life and death and the causes to which people give themselves as he brushes his teeth and hair. He questions devotion and loyalty as he pulls on a pair of black trousers and a navy long-sleeved T-shirt. But mostly, this morning, he ponders whether sending her a birthday gift is a wise idea, given that he's never done so in the past. But she's twenty-three years old today, and he remembers how once she'd said she never thought she'd live past twenty-two. Christ, George hadn't. Twenty-three is something to celebrate, and if they can do nothing else, they've got to rejoice whenever they can. This is the one thing left to them, taking joy wherever they can, gleaning hope for better days from that joy. Hope that one day the horrors will cease. Hope that one day maybe Hermione will think of him as more than just a silly friend.
He's been working on his gift for her for the last couple of weeks, modifying the existing charm into something uniquely suited to her, and he is pleased with the results. He holds up the Patented Daydream Charm box that contains his gift for her, touching the lid softly and giving himself one indulgent moment to imagine her opening it, her expression opening too into one of delight. Her lips opening beneath his. He doesn't need a daydream charm like this because this is his fantasy, one he has no trouble slipping into.
He calls Janus, his owl, to take the gift to Hermione- he doesn’t need a card to go with it as she'll know who it's from when she sees it, and anyway, he wouldn't know what to write. The owl flutters from his perch just as a knock sounds on the door. Fred frowns. Only a handful of people are able to Apparate directly through his wards to his flat door, and one of them is dead.
"Fred?" a female voice calls. Her voice. Good god.
"Come in," Fred says, flicking his wand at the door to remove the locking charms, and Hermione steps into his flat.
He can't help the warmth on his cheeks- his thoughts about her just now have not been the purest. "Hermione!"
She doesn't look like she understands what she's doing here, and she blurts, "It's my birthday." She blushes too.
"I know," he says, walking forward to meet her. "Do come in."
She toes out of her shoes and shrugs off her black outer robes. He takes them from her, draping them across a chair.
"It's my birthday and Harry's off in Madagascar and I didn't really want a proper party anyway, even if Ron and Parvati did say they'd Floo 'round tonight, but... You know?"
"Of course." He plucks the box off the kitchen counter and holds it out to her. "Happy birthday. I was just about to send this off to you."
She barely looks at the gift, flinging her arms around his neck. "You've never given me something for my birthday before."
Fred closes his eyes, his heart pounding as he holds her close. He is unwilling to let go just yet, even if this is nothing but a friendly hug. "It's... I made it for you. The daydream will key itself to your deepest desire and play out from there."
"Fred, that's remarkable. Thank you." She pulls back a little, still resting in his embrace.
He doesn't answer. For once he doesn't have a snappy comeback.
"I wanted to come here so badly," she says, her voice quavering a little. "I don't even know why, I just... I needed to see you, Fred."
He hasn't held her like this since George's funeral so many years ago. Though then it was her holding him. "I'm happy you're here."
"Are you?"
"I'm always happy to see you." He releases her at last and steps back. "You should realise that."
"Fred, I don't know what I'd have done these last few years without you," she says, wiping away a tear.
"Please, you've kept me going," he mutters, ignoring that wheedling voice in his head telling him he shouldn't want to touch her, that he shouldn't live while George is dead. As much to shut the voice up as anything else, if there is even a reason at all past the fact that she's standing before him looking so beautiful/fierce/vulnerable, so very Hermione, he inclines forward. Her eyes widen but she doesn't run away. She leans toward him, lips parted the tiniest bit.
The first brush is barely a kiss at all, just a moving meeting of lips that slide away from each other, followed by a gasp that he thinks comes from her. His whole body tingles and he realises in the moment after he kisses her that he's never truly believed he would have the opportunity. It's been an unattainable hope, nothing more, but now that it's happened, it seems the most natural thing in the world to weave his fingers through her mass of untidy, perfect hair and lean down once again, a more certain connection this time, her arms winding around his neck, her low whimper encouraging them both. He traces her bottom lip with his tongue and she shudders, parting her lips further. He slides his tongue inside, his hand moving restlessly up and down her spine, and she arches against him, caressing her tongue against his. Kiss melds into kiss, neither bothering to speak, to articulate what their actions are already conveying. His fingers reach beneath her blouse of their own accord, seeking warm skin, and they both moan as he skims across her back, touching every place he can.
She breaks the kiss in order to grab the hem of his shirt and yank it over his head, and he lifts his arms up obligingly. He tosses the shirt away and turns back to see her methodically unbuttoning her blouse, parting the fabric to reveal a plain white bra. Fred isn't sure he's seen anything so sexy in his entire life, and he captures her mouth again before she can finish, the blouse gathering at her elbows as she surrenders to his relentless kisses.
Her arms around his waist, she tugs him toward his bed. He pauses, framing her face with his hands. He's wanted her for so many years, he isn't entirely sure that he isn't imagining this.
"Hermione," he says raggedly.
"Yes," she whispers, pressing a chaste, determined kiss against his lips. "Yes."
He nods and wraps his arms around her waist, lifting her straight off the ground and carrying her across the open loft space to his bed. He seats her on the edge and falls to his knees, running his hands down her thighs, trying to remember if he's ever seen her wearing jeans before. He wants so many things right now, to kiss her lips, her throat, her breasts. He wants to bury himself inside her, to take her hard and fast. To love her gently and worshipfully. He fumbles at her fly- zippers are such odd Muggle inventions- as she lifts her hips up to allow him to peel the jeans away. He strips her as he crouches between her legs, dropping her jeans a foot away and removing her socks. He places a kiss on the inside of each ankle and she shivers.
Fred looks up at her, perched on the side of his bed in only her bra and black cotton knickers, his exquisitely aching arousal making itself truly known to him as he looks at her. He dances his fingertips upward, stroking her calves, the backs of her knees, and inward along her thighs, dusting her pale skin with kisses.
"You are so beautiful," he whispers. He looks up into her wide eyes and she shakes her head. He brushes his thumb against her damp knickers and she moans softly.
"You are," he insists. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of her knickers and pauses, looking up at her. No matter what he wants, he won't push her any further than she will willingly go with him. She nods and lifts up again, allowing him to draw her knickers from her body.
As if embarrassed at last to have him so close, she tugs on his shoulder and he stands, crawling onto the bed to kneel before her. She rises onto her knees as well, facing him, so close that their breath mingles between them. She wraps one hand around the nape of his neck and pulls him into a heated kiss, and he thinks he could come right now if he wasn't exerting quite so much self-control. Her tongue strokes the roof of his mouth, her other hand cradling his cheek, and he thinks he should have shaved this morning because his stubble must feel rough to her soft skin.
Slowly, he traces a wandering path down her abdomen, moving by feel instead of sight, his eyes closed as he loses himself in kiss and touch and the taste of need that is palpable between them. His fingers encounter soft curls of hair and venture further downward to find heat and moistness. She tenses, her breath hitching at his initial touch. He caresses her lightly, teasingly, and she breaks the kiss, her forehead resting against his. He opens his eyes again to watch her flushed face. His other hand rubs soothing circles against her lower back, and he finds her clit with a gentle brush of his index finger.
Her eyes fly open at the startling stimulation. "God yes," she whimpers, kissing his jawbone.
Bolstered, he continues his exploration, intoxicated by the sensation of her liquid heat and the noises emanating involuntarily from her throat. Her lips move restlessly against his neck, his shoulder, his collarbone, as he circles her clit with his thumb and strokes her more deeply with his fingers. She is quivering, panting, her hips moving back against his fingers, and his trousers are ridiculously constrictive. Coated in her own arousal, he slides his index finger into her and she cries out sharply, a few incoherent syllables spilling from her lips. Her nails bite into his back as he pulls out deliberately and pushes back in. She is clinging to him, her face pressed into the crook of his neck, and he adds a second finger, continuing his unhurried rhythm. The heel of his hand moves against her clit, rubbing her as his fingers move in and out. She falls apart in his arms, swallowing a scream as her release claims her, whispering his name with each sobbing breath.
Fred gathers her close, holding her as tightly as she holds him, rocking her unconsciously as she comes back to herself.
"All right?" he asks, surprised that his own voice is shaky from this unexpected intensity and his barely suppressed need.
"That was... I'm just..."
She is flustered and mussed and he's never seen anything so arousing before. He kisses her gently, and she smiles up at him, a genuine, glowing smile. She makes quick work of his fly and he shimmies out of his trousers. The cool air hits his heated skin and to distract himself, he runs his hands over her cotton-covered breasts. Her eyes flutter closed, and she reaches behind herself to unhook the clasp. He smoothes the straps off her shoulders and the bra joins the other items of clothing on the floor. He palms her breasts reverently as he kneels before her, both of them completely nude at last. Her hands meander over his pectorals, his sides, his stomach, and he rubs his thumbs across her nipples, watching in fascination as they peak and harden.
"Fred," she breathes, tumbling backward and catching him by the wrists, pulling him down with her. "Please."
"Yes," he hisses, his stomach dropping as his arousal spikes. She wraps her legs around his waist and he stretches out on top of her, aligning himself and pushing into her. He groans harshly and she cries out, her back arching. He needs to stop, to deep breathe, to gain control of himself again. She urges him forward until he is seated inside her, both of them gasping. He slides one hand under her head to cradle her, her naked breasts rubbing against his chest, her arms twined around his back.
"Oh god, Hermione," he growls, his hips beginning to move almost in spite of himself. The pleasure is too intense, the sensation of Hermione all around him, tight and willing and needy. As he drives into her, her hips meeting his thrust for thrust, he knows it will be over far too quickly. He captures her mouth, sucking in her tongue and her whimpers, until his climax overtakes him and he comes groaning her name.
"Too soon," he murmurs apologetically and she shakes her head.
"Perfect," she counters.
He can feel her tight muscles around him, and without pulling out of her he props himself up on one elbow, his free hand snaking down her body to find her clit again.
"Fred!" she cries in surprise. "You don't have to-"
"I want you to come for me again," he says, stroking her clit determinedly, kissing her collarbone. "Come for me, love."
Hermione's hips buck frantically against his as his touches accelerate, and she contracts around him. It is the most extraordinary sensation, and it would be enough to drive him mad if he weren't already so spent. She writhes against him and climaxes with a moan. Regretfully, he slips out of her, and he rolls to the side, keeping her in the circle of his arms. She cuddles against him, breathing deeply.
"Happy birthday, love," Fred says.
She kisses his chin. "That daydream charm you gave me- I don't think I need it anymore. I've... I've waited for such a long time for you."
He can't help his foolish grin. As long as he has this, her and him on his bed, limbs draped over each other, heartbeats in sync, everything will be all right. They can hold onto this hope, keep it close, and Fred knows it will preserve them until the untold evils outside these walls disappear.
V Famine
Four of them languished in the damned cottage, and despite the fact that they'd been asserting their maturity from the moment they'd turned seventeen, Fred wondered why the hell there wasn't an adult present to check up on them all. He moved his little red token in a zigzag across the board, trying to imagine that it didn't look edible. Muggle plastics weren't food. He never thought he'd be in a position where he'd have to remind himself forcefully of that fact.
"You're supposed to say 'king me'," Hermione told him, frowning at the board.
"King me," Fred said obediently. A rumble from her stomach underscored his grin, and she flushed.
"Sorry."
"Mine does it too."
"This is ridiculous!" she burst out, sweeping the checkers off the board with a frustrated flourish. They clattered to the floor, the noise echoing off the stone walls. "It's medieval! It's archaic!"
"It's remarkably effective," Fred said.
Her anger leaked out of her and she slumped in her chair. "Marauding hordes of monsters and complex new curses we can deal with. But causing widespread famine is insane."
Fred shook his head, trying to remember when in his twenty years of life he'd ever been the rational one in the room. "They get to punish all Muggles and all of the magic folk who aren't on their side. They weaken us by cutting off the food supply."
"And then they can pick us off easily." She grimaced. "It makes a twisted kind of sense. I just wish we knew how they were doing it! Then we could counter it."
"This is why they're winning, you know," Fred mused.
"What is?" She calmly began to reset the checkerboard.
He leaned forward. "When we attack, we target as few people as possible." He plucked two black checkers off the table. Hermione snatched them from him.
"Of course. We don't want to cause unnecessary collateral damage."
"And they immediately recover," Fred said as she replaced the two black pieces on the board. "But when they attack, it's wide-range." He flicked his wand. All of the red checkers, plus the same two black ones flew off the board.
"They lose a few and we lose everything," Hermione said, studying the board.
"And we can't recover," Fred agreed grimly. "Game over."
"One little raid versus an entire famine." She swished her own wand and the checkers returned to their rightful places. "What do you think we should do?"
"We can't be afraid of blanket attacks," he said. "But first we should concentrate on surviving this."
"Where's George?"
"Upstairs with Ginny." Fred moved a checker. "You know she's not even seventeen yet? She hasn't seen anything- she hasn't even had a chance to, and now-"
Hermione rested a hand on top of Fred's. Her skin was soft, her touch softer. "We'll get through this, all of us."
Fred took a deep breath, trying to feed on her optimism. His stomach growled instead, and they both burst out laughing.
"Only two hours 'til daily rations, right?" he asked with forced cheeriness.
Hermione glanced around the kitchen and then got up, moving slowly to conserve energy and strength. She knelt and lifted a loose stone out of the floor. Fred watched eagerly as she removed a slice of chocolate birthday cake from the hidey-hole.
"Where'd you get that?" he demanded, deeply impressed.
"It was supposed to be for Harry's birthday," she said, dropping into her chair and putting the plate on the middle of the checkerboard. "But he won't be by here any time soon. So we might as well eat it in his honour, don't you think? Accio two forks."
Fred didn't need any further coaxing. They both caught the flying cutlery and dug in with guilty abandon. Just the two of them and their secret and an empty box where a slice of chocolate cake used to be.
VI Crime
The sport didn't seem particularly exciting to Fred, but then, he wasn't really there for the purpose of entertainment. Only one ball between all the players, only one net for each team to guard- how did they keep from getting hopelessly bored? And while he understood on an intellectual level that there couldn't actually be brooms, the players seemed anchored down, held captive by gravity, sluggish so low to the ground.
The Muggles around him certainly didn't seem to mind, though. Boisterous shouts ballooned through the air, unfettered chatter and laughter mingling in a tumultuous, joyous background. Fred shot a quirked smile across the aisle and received an identical one. George winked at him before moving further down the rows toward the field. Fred sighed dramatically. If he could do anything right now, he and George would be slipping vanishing snakes into women's hair and switching Muggles' snacks for Eyepopping Popcorn or their latest invention, Cottoning-on Candy. Fred smiled- wouldn't that cause a riot if everyone consumed some and could instantly intuit the feelings of the people around them for half a minute or so?
But they weren't here to play practical jokes and give their father a permanent aneurysm. They and a half dozen other Order members were spread throughout the stadium, none of them with a clue what they were looking for. The tip off had been incomplete and sketchy at best, and all Fred knew was that something was going down today in this stadium. The Death Eaters had never out-and-out attacked a sitting group of Muggles before, but Fred supposed it could only have been a matter of time. McGonagall had been adamant about protecting these innocents from whatever Voldemort's army had concocted. Fred supposed that was a good enough reason not to test out their Butt-Biting Cushions. At least for today.
He caught sight of Hermione and Ron across the field. They both waved, and Fred waved back, crushing that odd stab of jealousy he always felt when he saw them. He didn't think they were together anymore, but they'd been on-again off-again for a year and sometimes it was difficult to tell. And damn it, Fred shouldn't want her like this, not after all this time, not since she was sixteen years old and George had teased him mercilessly for his infatuation. He kept telling himself that his stupid crush was waning, but it wasn't true. And even now she was Ron's, always had been, and Fred would never infringe on that. Charm Ron's fingernails to fall out? Sure. Transfigure his porridge into a bowl full of baby spiders? Absolutely. But steal his girl? Not a chance.
George punched him in the arm on his way by and said knowingly, "You ever going to ask her out?"
"Don't know what you're talking about," Fred said unconvincingly.
"You know they've called it quits for good."
"Who would that be?"
George laughed. "Don't be daft, brother. You-"
A whistle shrilled through the air and a low rumble of protest from the crowd followed it, cutting George off. Fred watched one of the players slouching off the field for some kind of penalty. One of the man's team-mates, scowling hugely, ran up behind the Muggle referee in his funny black-and-white striped shirt and slammed him across the back of the head. The ref went down hard, hitting the ground and moaning, and someone form the other team smashed the heel of his hand into another player's nose.
Fred and George exchanged curious looks as a ripple of irritated disapproval echoed through the crowd. Fred shook his head- he'd had no idea that Muggles were so bloody touchy about sports. And speaking of the touch, a short, thoroughly reputable looking man two rows in front of them was clumsily riffling through a young blonde's purse. Amateur, Fred thought with a smirk, not at all surprised when she spun around and clocked him, wincing and shaking her hand at the impact. He wasn't expecting the little man, however, to snatch her purse anyway and hurtle up the aisle. He blinked. Had George slipped some new product to these people after all?
But no, George was racing up the aisle after the pickpocket. The older man twisted off through the crowd, just out of George's grasp, and George turned back around to Fred, his quizzical expression sliding off his face as his eyes widened. He gestured madly and Fred ducked instinctively, just in time to miss someone's boot slicing through the air where his head had been but moments before. What the hell was wrong with these people?
He ducked again to miss a projectile beer bottle, which shattered against a woman's face. A louder shriek drowned out her scream, and Fred and George glanced at the football field, right in time to see two men in blue uniforms trampling a man in red with their spiky-soled shoes. He lay face down, bleeding into the torn grass. Everywhere Fred looked, he saw blood and heard shouts. Fistfights, people filching wallets and running, a tall man throwing a middle-aged woman over the back of a seat and tearing at her trousers as she squirmed uselessly in his grasp.
"Hey!" Fred and George shouted simultaneously, and without thinking Fred whipped out his wand and hollered, "Impedimenta!" He saw his bolt of blue energy meeting its twin from George's wand and perforating the hubbub around them enough to throw the woman's attacker off her.
The people around them were in a frenzy as Fred waded through the fighting, roiling mob, George at his side. "Is this the thing the tip was referring to, do you suppose?"
"Safe bet," George said. "What the hell have those bastards done to these people- oi! Stop that, you lot!" He pulled two children who were trying to strangle each other apart.
Kingsley Shacklebolt ripped by them, shouting, "They're vandalising everything they can get their hands on!"
"And stealing the cars!" Tonks added as she dashed by in the other direction.
Three explosive noises shattered the air and a number of the Muggles threw themselves to the ground, terrified. A Muggle teenager toppled down the grey cement steps. Fred jumped out of the way, freezing as he saw the way the boy's face had been blown away.
"George!" Fred shouted, his tone conveying the rest of his unspoken question- What the hell are we supposed to do now?
George opened his mouth to reply when the old man appeared before him, his eyes glinting as wildly as the blade of his knife. Neither twin had time to react before the knife, driven by supernatural strength, had made two deep, jagged incisions through George's stomach. Shock and pain blended on George's face, and Fred couldn’t move, couldn't reach out to catch his brother, his twin, as he fell, as waves of blood pulsed out of the stab wounds, drenching his shirt, fabric wet and shiny and clinging to his ruined torso. And he certainly couldn't get out of the way when the man turned on him, his knife bloody and closing in, Fred's only thought, "At least if he stabs me too, we'll still be the same." He barely noticed the slight young woman with the untamed hair throwing herself between him and his assailant, strange syllables catapulting from her lips followed nearly instantly by an arrow of concentrated crimson energy that splintered the old man's wrist. He howled as the knife soared in one direction and his hand twisted off in the other.
"Fred, come on!" Hermione cried, tugging at his elbow.
Snapping out of his trance, Fred scrambled over the row of seats where George had tumbled. He knew the moment he touched his twin that George was dead. It seemed as though every ounce of blood in him had seeped out of the two horrific gashes, staining the cement a slippery scarlet.
Cradling the body that was identical to his own in his arms, Fred shivered. He couldn't see the chaos around him, the fervour that had somehow been sparked in the Muggles they'd come here to protect. He could only see two plain wooden boxes in his mind. He was vaguely aware of her small, strong hands on his hips and the disconcerting displacement of Side-Along-Apparition. He could only see those two boxes. One for George. One for him.
VII Strife
It has all been released into the world. Everything minds can dream up, everything that should have remained in nightmares. Fred feels sometimes that he is moving through a dream world. A world of dreams. Friends fall, family members are lost. The Muggle world is the battleground now. Muggles are used as pawns and victims and weapons, and the Order is spread thinner than ever as they try desperately to protect the unsuspecting non-wizarding populace. Fred and George were always the oddsmakers: place your money in the box and your bet in the ledger. But neither of them could have known to lay odds on the internal divisions, Moody's failed coup against McGongall, whole factions of Order supporters allying with one or the other and fighting amongst themselves. He thinks that maybe when Percy deserted the family all those years ago, he sparked some kind of trend. A house divided, as they say. As much infighting within houses as between them, and it seems that the war against Voldemort has become secondary for many. Maybe, he thinks, it's easier to concentrate on factions within your own side than the looming chaos the other side is bringing to your doorstep.
Death tolls drag themselves ever higher, body by body by soul by soul, and it isn't clear yet if the struggles they're all engaged in are a natural response to the war or some devilish initiative of the Death Eaters. Fred is nearly glad that George didn't live to see their parents antagonized by the Diggory family, or the screaming matches between Ron and Harry. That he didn't have to live with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products being used to intimidate and harm people who should have all been on the same side, united. Unity is the one thing that Fred is sure of. Unity, and that he feels whole again now that she is at his side. That if everyone could experience what he feels when he is with her, they could win the war without breaking a sweat. Dumbledore said it again and again: love is the most powerful weapon the Order possesses. Love is the key to victory. And love is what has flooded through him, filled him up, all because of her.
He tiptoes through the shop's storage room until he is standing behind her as she surveys his latest innovations. A range of Vol-D-Fart Magical Whoopee Cushions squat next to his freshly cultivated Skin-Shredding Saffron. He covers her eyes and she barely flinches in surprise, resting her hands on her hips.
"Unhand me, Fred Weasley."
"Not a chance," Fred says, releasing her only long enough to wrap his arms around her waist. She melts against him, her back to his chest, his cheek resting gently against her head. She criss-crosses her arms over his, fingers combing through the light ginger hair on his forearms.
"Hogwarts won't be safe from flatulence again," she says, mock-critically, and he chuckles.
"And Dobby should be by any time to pick up the saffron."
"I worry about him distributing it to all the Death Eater households," she sighs, tightening her grip. "What if their house elves don't trust him?"
"He belonged to the Malfoys once upon a time," Fred reminds her, rocking her tenderly. "He knows how to navigate the house elf network, I'm sure. Besides, he volunteered."
"Fred! He'd do anything Harry wanted him to do and you know it!"
Fred kisses the top of her head. "These days, we could all learn a trick or two from him in that regard."
Turning in his arms, he thinks she is going to admonish him but instead she tilts upward for a kiss. "I love you," she says and he leans down to oblige her.
He reaches into his pocket as their lips touch sweetly. He'd been planning on waiting until dinner tonight, but Fred has always preferred spontaneity anyway. He finds the small velvet box and grasps it tightly, thinking of the ring inside with its specially designed sparkling diamond-and-moonstone setting. He drops to one knee with a wink when they part. Her eyes grow as wide as galleons, and he knows- he knows- that they will make it through this time of hell on earth together. The ring and the hope they share are what they will cling to, no matter what else has been unleashed into the world.
Fin
Author: rose_whispers
Pairing: Fred/Hermione
Rating: R
Word count: 7471
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
Summary: Through the spectre of death and the horror of war, Fred Weasley can't move past his desire for Hermione
Warnings: character death
A/N: A gift fic for inell. Thank you to my fantastic beta, thescarletwoman :)
"She had to know what was in the box. One day she lifted the lid¬ and out flew plagues innumerable, sorrow and mischief for mankind. In terror Pandora clapped the lid down, but too late. One good thing, however, was there¬: Hope. It was the only good the casket had held among the many evils, and it remains to this day mankind's sole comfort in misfortune."
- Edith Hamilton, Mythology
I Misery
It has all been released into the world. Everything minds can dream up, everything that should have remained in nightmares. Muggles don't understand the increase in natural disasters and unnatural violence. Mobs and murders, tornadoes and tidal waves, measures escalate on all sides. The Death Eaters fight dirty, but the Order is hardly pure either. The good guys are all learning or re-learning the hardest lesson: you do what is necessary, no matter the cost. There is no room for intellectualizing. There is no room for guilt.
Fred Weasley pretends he has no guilt. He makes believe that two years later, he doesn't still wake up screaming from dreams where half of him is missing, where he's split right down the middle. One arm. One leg. Half a brain. No heart. He never bleeds in the dreams, though. George bled enough for them both.
It's been two Christmases without George. Fred tells himself that it's all right to feel again, that it's all right to laugh. That it's all right to want her. He's wanted her for years, after all, with varying intensity. He tries not to think about how he nearly kissed her at the funeral, how he ended up crying in her arms instead, his tears slowly shadowing the cotton of her healer's robe. Lime had darkened to forest green, and Fred had been so lost, so bewildered, curling into the foetal position with his head in her lap, her fingers carding through his hair slowly, methodically. She was the only one who understood that he didn't want empty words of sympathy parroted at him. He needed silence to begin to get used to the lack of an identical voice weaving with his own, a counterpoint of comedy, a melody of mischief. He didn't see how it was fair to either George or himself that he still breathed without his twin.
She didn't leave his side that weekend. When they were in crowds of people, she endured his horrible puns, his tasteless jokes desperately trying to break to the surface through the sea of comforting, killing voices that threatened to drown him. She held him through the night, her small body coiling around him, her hair tickling his lips, his tears only coming when he was alone with her.
He wonders if he should have been ashamed of crying in front of her. He is ashamed that he still thinks about what her hair smells like. She'd only been nineteen that weekend but she'd been the most mature one there. Maybe they taught empathy where she'd trained as a healer.
He ignores the mutters that he is almost Snapelike these days in his motivations, obsessed with creating destruction in new and more ingenious, more diabolical ways. Mischief can be dangerous when it's all grown up, especially if nurtured properly. What Fred unleashes upon the world, in the name of all that is good and light, in the spirit of blackest vengeance, is as twisted, pain-inducing, and terror-inspiring as anything Voldemort's side can devise.
Of course, he also continues to make and sell talking house elf heads, fake dragon dung, and patented daydream charms. One cannot have a properly festering dark side without a light-hearted exterior. And so life continues, as is its habit. He maintains their business. The Death Eaters attack. The Order counters, often with Fred's inventions. And Fred tries not to want Hermione Granger.
II Pestilence
"Sometimes I don't know whether to be impressed or afraid of you two," Hermione Granger said, examining the obsidian box in her hands.
"Just don't open that in here and you can think whatever you want," George said with a wink.
"They only need to be fed the samples and they're good to go," Fred added.
Hermione looked at them thoughtfully. "Did Hagrid help you with these?"
"He gave us a tip or two," Fred said.
"We make an excellent team."
"'Course, he thought they were cute."
"Whereas we find them intensely repulsive."
"You created them!" Hermione said, biting back something suspiciously like a laugh. "You bred them!"
"They have fangs, wings, and eight double-jointed, hairy legs," Fred enumerated, counting them off on his callused fingers. "We don't exactly want them to call us 'Mummy', do we?"
"We do not," George supplied. "And anyway, we aren't half as poisonous as they are."
"Though we do bite," Fred said with a grin. To his astonishment, Hermione blushed. Some girls looked like tomatoes when they blushed, he reflected, but Hermione looked modest and innocent and lovely. Some distant part of his brain piped up helpfully, 'Thank god she's seventeen now," but he shut it down quickly. Now was definitely not the time to have thoughts in that direction.
"Do you have the hair and skin samples?" George asked, businesslike because one of them had to be.
"I have Nott's," she replied immediately.
"What'd you have to do to-"
"Don't ask."
Fred shut up, but he was torn between curiosity at just what she'd done and being too shocked to want to know. "We'll get the others at the meeting?" he asked instead. She inclined her head in affirmation.
"Excellent," George said. "Then we'll simply feed the samples to these little beauties-"
"-perform a ritual of questionable legality or two-"
"And voila! Beastly little bugs who will only go after the owners of those samples."
Hermione shuddered. "I know we're only using them to sniff out Death Eaters so that we can arrest and question them," she said carefully, her fingers skittering across the top of the box. Something inside skittered along with her. "But what if they find them before we can get to them?"
Fred and George exchanged a look but remained silent.
"Tell me," she insisted, voice rising. "After what I did to get Nott's hair and skin, I've a right to know."
George arched an eyebrow at Fred, who shrugged. "The ritual makes them hungry," George said.
"Ravenous, but only for more of the sample tissue."
"They'll devour people," she said quietly, horrified. The twins nodded. "My god, what are we releasing?"
"Exactly what we need to release," George said solemnly.
"It'll be bloody, but we'll get there before anyone's eaten alive," added Fred.
"What if something goes wrong and they turn on the wrong people?" she demanded, one hand on her hip, her eyes glittering and narrowed.
"They won't," George said.
"We know what we're doing."
"We've done the research."
Fred hesitated. "You could look over the rituals, if you'd like."
George nodded enthusiastically. "Just to be sure."
She ran a hand through her hair as she considered. "All right, bring it all to the meeting tonight."
Fred and George saluted and barked in unison, "Yes Ma'am!"
She rolled her eyes and handed the box of beasties back before Disapparating without a word to either of them.
George grinned. "Smart, brother. If she looks it over, she won't be at us about the bloody rituals."
Fred blinked. It was rare when he and his twin were out of sync, but that hadn't been his intention at all. "Plus, if she does see something wrong-"
"She won't. We've done our homework."
Fred nodded. They certainly had done. And this weapon might just help them turn the tide of the war.
III Plague
"Oh god," George whispered, one hand clenching at his stomach as they stared down at the corpse. Fingers flexed, spine contorted into an S so unnaturally that he didn't look real. Couldn't look real, couldn't be real, not with his own blood slowly drying in his gaping, empty hole of a mouth. Gaping, empty husk of a person.
"Fuck!" George screamed, kicking the letterbox, recoiling both from the pain it incurred and the clanging noise as it reverberated.
"Damn you, Dung," Fred seethed. "Why didn't you take the inoculation? We told you!"
George's hand landed on Fred's shoulder. "We should never have-"
"It was necessary," Fred said through gritted teeth. "You heard the statistics, how many of them we got. The whole Nott family, MacNair, everyone in Azkaban including Lucius bloody Malfoy-"
"And including the people who were in prison because they were pickpockets," George interrupted. "Or being held on suspicion- what if now was the time they'd taken Hagrid away?"
Fred shivered. "We knew when we helped design it what the consequences might be."
"I didn't think-"
"We knew, George. There were always going to be casualties, but this was too important. We needed a wide-range attack if we wanted to gain any footing at all, and we did the best we could- we got the vaccine into the Muggle water supply, we got it into our own. The only people really hit were his supporters."
"And Mundungus Fletcher," George said, crouching next to the corpse. He reached out to close Dung's open, staring, unseeing eyes. The dead man's glacial skin made his stomach churn, the eyelids so brittle and frozen that they wouldn't budge. George felt the ice burning deep inside him, erupting, and he flung himself away from the body. He doubled over retching, spitting up bile and maybe a little blood, bitter and tangy and he wanted to die for causing so much death.
Fred fell to his knees next to his twin. He waited until George stopped heaving and discreetly cast a cleansing charm to remove the mess, and another to get the taste out of George's mouth.
"Go home," Fred said firmly.
"I'm all right," George insisted, falling heavily into a sitting position.
"You're not."
"Am."
"George, please, you've cleaned up my messes loads of times. Remember that first raid?"
George's head dropped onto Fred's shoulder and for just a moment Fred felt eight years old again, sitting just like this as they awaited their latest punishment for their latest misdemeanour.
"Are you sure?" George's voice was very small.
Fred caught him in a fierce, hard hug. "Go. I'll take care of it."
They stood up silently and George Disapparated with a queasy, grateful grimace.
Fred looked at the corpse next to him, allowing himself to feel ill now. "Fuck, Dung, I'm so, so sorry." Clenched in Dung's hand was what looked like a Muggle letter, and Fred pried it away carefully. He didn't recognize the address, and he hadn't a clue if the letter was personal or for the Order. But Mundungus Fletcher had died while trying to mail it, infected by something the Weasley twins had helped bring into being. The least he could do was drop it into the letterbox, completing Dung's final act.
Just another misdemeanour, he told himself resolutely as he prepared his friend's body. Just another mess to clean up. He felt nearly as sick as George by the time Dung's body had been sent to St. Honoria's Mortuary. He just wanted to go home and sleep for a week, but he knew he had to check in with the Order first. He was tempted to take the Knight Bus to Godric's Hollow, but he understood that it was stupid to use public transportation to get to the Order's hidden headquarters. He gathered himself, focusing his concentration away from his heavy limbs and heavier heart. He Apparated away from this desecrated space, reappearing in Harry's kitchen.
Harry himself was seated at the table, cradling his head in his hands. Fred poked him in the arm. "It's done."
Harry didn't look up. "What will I do if she dies?"
Fred froze, an awful sensation wriggling down his spine. "What's that, Harry?"
The bespectacled young man looked up, his green eyes bloodshot and framed with tears. "She's the brains. What'll we do without her? She's my best friend, her and Ron. I can't lose anyone else."
"Hermione?" Fred asked. He wondered if it was his turn to throw up now. The room seemed so tiny, the walls pressing in against him.
Harry crumpled against the table again. "Seems five percent or so of everyone vaccinated reacted badly to it."
"Where- St. Mungo's?" Fred demanded. His weariness was washed away on a tidal wave of adrenaline. Harry nodded minutely and Fred Apparated directly to the hospital, appearing in the waiting room and nearly tripping over a man whose leg had been transfigured into an immense ashwinder. He leaped sideways from the man, who blushed deeply, but Fred didn't notice. His heart was racing as he thought about Hermione. How would the world keep going if Hermione Granger wasn't in it? Who would help with strategy? Who would share a secret smile with him when his mum served them chocolate cake?
"Hermione Granger- vere is she?"
Fred looked up in surprise at the admittance desk just in time to see Viktor Krum hunching his way toward the healer there, his expression thunderous. Ah. Right. The boyfriend. Fred squelched the immediate urge to hex him to tiny, bloody pieces. Dimly, he heard the nurse say something about a full recovery expected. His hands were shaking, but his vision was clearing again. All that mattered now was to make sure that Hermione was all right.
IV Hope
When you wake up wondering if you'll do so again tomorrow, Fred reflects, you know you're in a bad place. Fred can't help himself as he watches the sky outside his window light on fire in a way that makes him never want to manufacture fireworks again. How does air go up in flames?
Fred wonders a lot of things as he goes through his morning routine, moving like an Inferius through his flat above the shop. He wonders about life and death and the causes to which people give themselves as he brushes his teeth and hair. He questions devotion and loyalty as he pulls on a pair of black trousers and a navy long-sleeved T-shirt. But mostly, this morning, he ponders whether sending her a birthday gift is a wise idea, given that he's never done so in the past. But she's twenty-three years old today, and he remembers how once she'd said she never thought she'd live past twenty-two. Christ, George hadn't. Twenty-three is something to celebrate, and if they can do nothing else, they've got to rejoice whenever they can. This is the one thing left to them, taking joy wherever they can, gleaning hope for better days from that joy. Hope that one day the horrors will cease. Hope that one day maybe Hermione will think of him as more than just a silly friend.
He's been working on his gift for her for the last couple of weeks, modifying the existing charm into something uniquely suited to her, and he is pleased with the results. He holds up the Patented Daydream Charm box that contains his gift for her, touching the lid softly and giving himself one indulgent moment to imagine her opening it, her expression opening too into one of delight. Her lips opening beneath his. He doesn't need a daydream charm like this because this is his fantasy, one he has no trouble slipping into.
He calls Janus, his owl, to take the gift to Hermione- he doesn’t need a card to go with it as she'll know who it's from when she sees it, and anyway, he wouldn't know what to write. The owl flutters from his perch just as a knock sounds on the door. Fred frowns. Only a handful of people are able to Apparate directly through his wards to his flat door, and one of them is dead.
"Fred?" a female voice calls. Her voice. Good god.
"Come in," Fred says, flicking his wand at the door to remove the locking charms, and Hermione steps into his flat.
He can't help the warmth on his cheeks- his thoughts about her just now have not been the purest. "Hermione!"
She doesn't look like she understands what she's doing here, and she blurts, "It's my birthday." She blushes too.
"I know," he says, walking forward to meet her. "Do come in."
She toes out of her shoes and shrugs off her black outer robes. He takes them from her, draping them across a chair.
"It's my birthday and Harry's off in Madagascar and I didn't really want a proper party anyway, even if Ron and Parvati did say they'd Floo 'round tonight, but... You know?"
"Of course." He plucks the box off the kitchen counter and holds it out to her. "Happy birthday. I was just about to send this off to you."
She barely looks at the gift, flinging her arms around his neck. "You've never given me something for my birthday before."
Fred closes his eyes, his heart pounding as he holds her close. He is unwilling to let go just yet, even if this is nothing but a friendly hug. "It's... I made it for you. The daydream will key itself to your deepest desire and play out from there."
"Fred, that's remarkable. Thank you." She pulls back a little, still resting in his embrace.
He doesn't answer. For once he doesn't have a snappy comeback.
"I wanted to come here so badly," she says, her voice quavering a little. "I don't even know why, I just... I needed to see you, Fred."
He hasn't held her like this since George's funeral so many years ago. Though then it was her holding him. "I'm happy you're here."
"Are you?"
"I'm always happy to see you." He releases her at last and steps back. "You should realise that."
"Fred, I don't know what I'd have done these last few years without you," she says, wiping away a tear.
"Please, you've kept me going," he mutters, ignoring that wheedling voice in his head telling him he shouldn't want to touch her, that he shouldn't live while George is dead. As much to shut the voice up as anything else, if there is even a reason at all past the fact that she's standing before him looking so beautiful/fierce/vulnerable, so very Hermione, he inclines forward. Her eyes widen but she doesn't run away. She leans toward him, lips parted the tiniest bit.
The first brush is barely a kiss at all, just a moving meeting of lips that slide away from each other, followed by a gasp that he thinks comes from her. His whole body tingles and he realises in the moment after he kisses her that he's never truly believed he would have the opportunity. It's been an unattainable hope, nothing more, but now that it's happened, it seems the most natural thing in the world to weave his fingers through her mass of untidy, perfect hair and lean down once again, a more certain connection this time, her arms winding around his neck, her low whimper encouraging them both. He traces her bottom lip with his tongue and she shudders, parting her lips further. He slides his tongue inside, his hand moving restlessly up and down her spine, and she arches against him, caressing her tongue against his. Kiss melds into kiss, neither bothering to speak, to articulate what their actions are already conveying. His fingers reach beneath her blouse of their own accord, seeking warm skin, and they both moan as he skims across her back, touching every place he can.
She breaks the kiss in order to grab the hem of his shirt and yank it over his head, and he lifts his arms up obligingly. He tosses the shirt away and turns back to see her methodically unbuttoning her blouse, parting the fabric to reveal a plain white bra. Fred isn't sure he's seen anything so sexy in his entire life, and he captures her mouth again before she can finish, the blouse gathering at her elbows as she surrenders to his relentless kisses.
Her arms around his waist, she tugs him toward his bed. He pauses, framing her face with his hands. He's wanted her for so many years, he isn't entirely sure that he isn't imagining this.
"Hermione," he says raggedly.
"Yes," she whispers, pressing a chaste, determined kiss against his lips. "Yes."
He nods and wraps his arms around her waist, lifting her straight off the ground and carrying her across the open loft space to his bed. He seats her on the edge and falls to his knees, running his hands down her thighs, trying to remember if he's ever seen her wearing jeans before. He wants so many things right now, to kiss her lips, her throat, her breasts. He wants to bury himself inside her, to take her hard and fast. To love her gently and worshipfully. He fumbles at her fly- zippers are such odd Muggle inventions- as she lifts her hips up to allow him to peel the jeans away. He strips her as he crouches between her legs, dropping her jeans a foot away and removing her socks. He places a kiss on the inside of each ankle and she shivers.
Fred looks up at her, perched on the side of his bed in only her bra and black cotton knickers, his exquisitely aching arousal making itself truly known to him as he looks at her. He dances his fingertips upward, stroking her calves, the backs of her knees, and inward along her thighs, dusting her pale skin with kisses.
"You are so beautiful," he whispers. He looks up into her wide eyes and she shakes her head. He brushes his thumb against her damp knickers and she moans softly.
"You are," he insists. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of her knickers and pauses, looking up at her. No matter what he wants, he won't push her any further than she will willingly go with him. She nods and lifts up again, allowing him to draw her knickers from her body.
As if embarrassed at last to have him so close, she tugs on his shoulder and he stands, crawling onto the bed to kneel before her. She rises onto her knees as well, facing him, so close that their breath mingles between them. She wraps one hand around the nape of his neck and pulls him into a heated kiss, and he thinks he could come right now if he wasn't exerting quite so much self-control. Her tongue strokes the roof of his mouth, her other hand cradling his cheek, and he thinks he should have shaved this morning because his stubble must feel rough to her soft skin.
Slowly, he traces a wandering path down her abdomen, moving by feel instead of sight, his eyes closed as he loses himself in kiss and touch and the taste of need that is palpable between them. His fingers encounter soft curls of hair and venture further downward to find heat and moistness. She tenses, her breath hitching at his initial touch. He caresses her lightly, teasingly, and she breaks the kiss, her forehead resting against his. He opens his eyes again to watch her flushed face. His other hand rubs soothing circles against her lower back, and he finds her clit with a gentle brush of his index finger.
Her eyes fly open at the startling stimulation. "God yes," she whimpers, kissing his jawbone.
Bolstered, he continues his exploration, intoxicated by the sensation of her liquid heat and the noises emanating involuntarily from her throat. Her lips move restlessly against his neck, his shoulder, his collarbone, as he circles her clit with his thumb and strokes her more deeply with his fingers. She is quivering, panting, her hips moving back against his fingers, and his trousers are ridiculously constrictive. Coated in her own arousal, he slides his index finger into her and she cries out sharply, a few incoherent syllables spilling from her lips. Her nails bite into his back as he pulls out deliberately and pushes back in. She is clinging to him, her face pressed into the crook of his neck, and he adds a second finger, continuing his unhurried rhythm. The heel of his hand moves against her clit, rubbing her as his fingers move in and out. She falls apart in his arms, swallowing a scream as her release claims her, whispering his name with each sobbing breath.
Fred gathers her close, holding her as tightly as she holds him, rocking her unconsciously as she comes back to herself.
"All right?" he asks, surprised that his own voice is shaky from this unexpected intensity and his barely suppressed need.
"That was... I'm just..."
She is flustered and mussed and he's never seen anything so arousing before. He kisses her gently, and she smiles up at him, a genuine, glowing smile. She makes quick work of his fly and he shimmies out of his trousers. The cool air hits his heated skin and to distract himself, he runs his hands over her cotton-covered breasts. Her eyes flutter closed, and she reaches behind herself to unhook the clasp. He smoothes the straps off her shoulders and the bra joins the other items of clothing on the floor. He palms her breasts reverently as he kneels before her, both of them completely nude at last. Her hands meander over his pectorals, his sides, his stomach, and he rubs his thumbs across her nipples, watching in fascination as they peak and harden.
"Fred," she breathes, tumbling backward and catching him by the wrists, pulling him down with her. "Please."
"Yes," he hisses, his stomach dropping as his arousal spikes. She wraps her legs around his waist and he stretches out on top of her, aligning himself and pushing into her. He groans harshly and she cries out, her back arching. He needs to stop, to deep breathe, to gain control of himself again. She urges him forward until he is seated inside her, both of them gasping. He slides one hand under her head to cradle her, her naked breasts rubbing against his chest, her arms twined around his back.
"Oh god, Hermione," he growls, his hips beginning to move almost in spite of himself. The pleasure is too intense, the sensation of Hermione all around him, tight and willing and needy. As he drives into her, her hips meeting his thrust for thrust, he knows it will be over far too quickly. He captures her mouth, sucking in her tongue and her whimpers, until his climax overtakes him and he comes groaning her name.
"Too soon," he murmurs apologetically and she shakes her head.
"Perfect," she counters.
He can feel her tight muscles around him, and without pulling out of her he props himself up on one elbow, his free hand snaking down her body to find her clit again.
"Fred!" she cries in surprise. "You don't have to-"
"I want you to come for me again," he says, stroking her clit determinedly, kissing her collarbone. "Come for me, love."
Hermione's hips buck frantically against his as his touches accelerate, and she contracts around him. It is the most extraordinary sensation, and it would be enough to drive him mad if he weren't already so spent. She writhes against him and climaxes with a moan. Regretfully, he slips out of her, and he rolls to the side, keeping her in the circle of his arms. She cuddles against him, breathing deeply.
"Happy birthday, love," Fred says.
She kisses his chin. "That daydream charm you gave me- I don't think I need it anymore. I've... I've waited for such a long time for you."
He can't help his foolish grin. As long as he has this, her and him on his bed, limbs draped over each other, heartbeats in sync, everything will be all right. They can hold onto this hope, keep it close, and Fred knows it will preserve them until the untold evils outside these walls disappear.
V Famine
Four of them languished in the damned cottage, and despite the fact that they'd been asserting their maturity from the moment they'd turned seventeen, Fred wondered why the hell there wasn't an adult present to check up on them all. He moved his little red token in a zigzag across the board, trying to imagine that it didn't look edible. Muggle plastics weren't food. He never thought he'd be in a position where he'd have to remind himself forcefully of that fact.
"You're supposed to say 'king me'," Hermione told him, frowning at the board.
"King me," Fred said obediently. A rumble from her stomach underscored his grin, and she flushed.
"Sorry."
"Mine does it too."
"This is ridiculous!" she burst out, sweeping the checkers off the board with a frustrated flourish. They clattered to the floor, the noise echoing off the stone walls. "It's medieval! It's archaic!"
"It's remarkably effective," Fred said.
Her anger leaked out of her and she slumped in her chair. "Marauding hordes of monsters and complex new curses we can deal with. But causing widespread famine is insane."
Fred shook his head, trying to remember when in his twenty years of life he'd ever been the rational one in the room. "They get to punish all Muggles and all of the magic folk who aren't on their side. They weaken us by cutting off the food supply."
"And then they can pick us off easily." She grimaced. "It makes a twisted kind of sense. I just wish we knew how they were doing it! Then we could counter it."
"This is why they're winning, you know," Fred mused.
"What is?" She calmly began to reset the checkerboard.
He leaned forward. "When we attack, we target as few people as possible." He plucked two black checkers off the table. Hermione snatched them from him.
"Of course. We don't want to cause unnecessary collateral damage."
"And they immediately recover," Fred said as she replaced the two black pieces on the board. "But when they attack, it's wide-range." He flicked his wand. All of the red checkers, plus the same two black ones flew off the board.
"They lose a few and we lose everything," Hermione said, studying the board.
"And we can't recover," Fred agreed grimly. "Game over."
"One little raid versus an entire famine." She swished her own wand and the checkers returned to their rightful places. "What do you think we should do?"
"We can't be afraid of blanket attacks," he said. "But first we should concentrate on surviving this."
"Where's George?"
"Upstairs with Ginny." Fred moved a checker. "You know she's not even seventeen yet? She hasn't seen anything- she hasn't even had a chance to, and now-"
Hermione rested a hand on top of Fred's. Her skin was soft, her touch softer. "We'll get through this, all of us."
Fred took a deep breath, trying to feed on her optimism. His stomach growled instead, and they both burst out laughing.
"Only two hours 'til daily rations, right?" he asked with forced cheeriness.
Hermione glanced around the kitchen and then got up, moving slowly to conserve energy and strength. She knelt and lifted a loose stone out of the floor. Fred watched eagerly as she removed a slice of chocolate birthday cake from the hidey-hole.
"Where'd you get that?" he demanded, deeply impressed.
"It was supposed to be for Harry's birthday," she said, dropping into her chair and putting the plate on the middle of the checkerboard. "But he won't be by here any time soon. So we might as well eat it in his honour, don't you think? Accio two forks."
Fred didn't need any further coaxing. They both caught the flying cutlery and dug in with guilty abandon. Just the two of them and their secret and an empty box where a slice of chocolate cake used to be.
VI Crime
The sport didn't seem particularly exciting to Fred, but then, he wasn't really there for the purpose of entertainment. Only one ball between all the players, only one net for each team to guard- how did they keep from getting hopelessly bored? And while he understood on an intellectual level that there couldn't actually be brooms, the players seemed anchored down, held captive by gravity, sluggish so low to the ground.
The Muggles around him certainly didn't seem to mind, though. Boisterous shouts ballooned through the air, unfettered chatter and laughter mingling in a tumultuous, joyous background. Fred shot a quirked smile across the aisle and received an identical one. George winked at him before moving further down the rows toward the field. Fred sighed dramatically. If he could do anything right now, he and George would be slipping vanishing snakes into women's hair and switching Muggles' snacks for Eyepopping Popcorn or their latest invention, Cottoning-on Candy. Fred smiled- wouldn't that cause a riot if everyone consumed some and could instantly intuit the feelings of the people around them for half a minute or so?
But they weren't here to play practical jokes and give their father a permanent aneurysm. They and a half dozen other Order members were spread throughout the stadium, none of them with a clue what they were looking for. The tip off had been incomplete and sketchy at best, and all Fred knew was that something was going down today in this stadium. The Death Eaters had never out-and-out attacked a sitting group of Muggles before, but Fred supposed it could only have been a matter of time. McGonagall had been adamant about protecting these innocents from whatever Voldemort's army had concocted. Fred supposed that was a good enough reason not to test out their Butt-Biting Cushions. At least for today.
He caught sight of Hermione and Ron across the field. They both waved, and Fred waved back, crushing that odd stab of jealousy he always felt when he saw them. He didn't think they were together anymore, but they'd been on-again off-again for a year and sometimes it was difficult to tell. And damn it, Fred shouldn't want her like this, not after all this time, not since she was sixteen years old and George had teased him mercilessly for his infatuation. He kept telling himself that his stupid crush was waning, but it wasn't true. And even now she was Ron's, always had been, and Fred would never infringe on that. Charm Ron's fingernails to fall out? Sure. Transfigure his porridge into a bowl full of baby spiders? Absolutely. But steal his girl? Not a chance.
George punched him in the arm on his way by and said knowingly, "You ever going to ask her out?"
"Don't know what you're talking about," Fred said unconvincingly.
"You know they've called it quits for good."
"Who would that be?"
George laughed. "Don't be daft, brother. You-"
A whistle shrilled through the air and a low rumble of protest from the crowd followed it, cutting George off. Fred watched one of the players slouching off the field for some kind of penalty. One of the man's team-mates, scowling hugely, ran up behind the Muggle referee in his funny black-and-white striped shirt and slammed him across the back of the head. The ref went down hard, hitting the ground and moaning, and someone form the other team smashed the heel of his hand into another player's nose.
Fred and George exchanged curious looks as a ripple of irritated disapproval echoed through the crowd. Fred shook his head- he'd had no idea that Muggles were so bloody touchy about sports. And speaking of the touch, a short, thoroughly reputable looking man two rows in front of them was clumsily riffling through a young blonde's purse. Amateur, Fred thought with a smirk, not at all surprised when she spun around and clocked him, wincing and shaking her hand at the impact. He wasn't expecting the little man, however, to snatch her purse anyway and hurtle up the aisle. He blinked. Had George slipped some new product to these people after all?
But no, George was racing up the aisle after the pickpocket. The older man twisted off through the crowd, just out of George's grasp, and George turned back around to Fred, his quizzical expression sliding off his face as his eyes widened. He gestured madly and Fred ducked instinctively, just in time to miss someone's boot slicing through the air where his head had been but moments before. What the hell was wrong with these people?
He ducked again to miss a projectile beer bottle, which shattered against a woman's face. A louder shriek drowned out her scream, and Fred and George glanced at the football field, right in time to see two men in blue uniforms trampling a man in red with their spiky-soled shoes. He lay face down, bleeding into the torn grass. Everywhere Fred looked, he saw blood and heard shouts. Fistfights, people filching wallets and running, a tall man throwing a middle-aged woman over the back of a seat and tearing at her trousers as she squirmed uselessly in his grasp.
"Hey!" Fred and George shouted simultaneously, and without thinking Fred whipped out his wand and hollered, "Impedimenta!" He saw his bolt of blue energy meeting its twin from George's wand and perforating the hubbub around them enough to throw the woman's attacker off her.
The people around them were in a frenzy as Fred waded through the fighting, roiling mob, George at his side. "Is this the thing the tip was referring to, do you suppose?"
"Safe bet," George said. "What the hell have those bastards done to these people- oi! Stop that, you lot!" He pulled two children who were trying to strangle each other apart.
Kingsley Shacklebolt ripped by them, shouting, "They're vandalising everything they can get their hands on!"
"And stealing the cars!" Tonks added as she dashed by in the other direction.
Three explosive noises shattered the air and a number of the Muggles threw themselves to the ground, terrified. A Muggle teenager toppled down the grey cement steps. Fred jumped out of the way, freezing as he saw the way the boy's face had been blown away.
"George!" Fred shouted, his tone conveying the rest of his unspoken question- What the hell are we supposed to do now?
George opened his mouth to reply when the old man appeared before him, his eyes glinting as wildly as the blade of his knife. Neither twin had time to react before the knife, driven by supernatural strength, had made two deep, jagged incisions through George's stomach. Shock and pain blended on George's face, and Fred couldn’t move, couldn't reach out to catch his brother, his twin, as he fell, as waves of blood pulsed out of the stab wounds, drenching his shirt, fabric wet and shiny and clinging to his ruined torso. And he certainly couldn't get out of the way when the man turned on him, his knife bloody and closing in, Fred's only thought, "At least if he stabs me too, we'll still be the same." He barely noticed the slight young woman with the untamed hair throwing herself between him and his assailant, strange syllables catapulting from her lips followed nearly instantly by an arrow of concentrated crimson energy that splintered the old man's wrist. He howled as the knife soared in one direction and his hand twisted off in the other.
"Fred, come on!" Hermione cried, tugging at his elbow.
Snapping out of his trance, Fred scrambled over the row of seats where George had tumbled. He knew the moment he touched his twin that George was dead. It seemed as though every ounce of blood in him had seeped out of the two horrific gashes, staining the cement a slippery scarlet.
Cradling the body that was identical to his own in his arms, Fred shivered. He couldn't see the chaos around him, the fervour that had somehow been sparked in the Muggles they'd come here to protect. He could only see two plain wooden boxes in his mind. He was vaguely aware of her small, strong hands on his hips and the disconcerting displacement of Side-Along-Apparition. He could only see those two boxes. One for George. One for him.
VII Strife
It has all been released into the world. Everything minds can dream up, everything that should have remained in nightmares. Fred feels sometimes that he is moving through a dream world. A world of dreams. Friends fall, family members are lost. The Muggle world is the battleground now. Muggles are used as pawns and victims and weapons, and the Order is spread thinner than ever as they try desperately to protect the unsuspecting non-wizarding populace. Fred and George were always the oddsmakers: place your money in the box and your bet in the ledger. But neither of them could have known to lay odds on the internal divisions, Moody's failed coup against McGongall, whole factions of Order supporters allying with one or the other and fighting amongst themselves. He thinks that maybe when Percy deserted the family all those years ago, he sparked some kind of trend. A house divided, as they say. As much infighting within houses as between them, and it seems that the war against Voldemort has become secondary for many. Maybe, he thinks, it's easier to concentrate on factions within your own side than the looming chaos the other side is bringing to your doorstep.
Death tolls drag themselves ever higher, body by body by soul by soul, and it isn't clear yet if the struggles they're all engaged in are a natural response to the war or some devilish initiative of the Death Eaters. Fred is nearly glad that George didn't live to see their parents antagonized by the Diggory family, or the screaming matches between Ron and Harry. That he didn't have to live with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products being used to intimidate and harm people who should have all been on the same side, united. Unity is the one thing that Fred is sure of. Unity, and that he feels whole again now that she is at his side. That if everyone could experience what he feels when he is with her, they could win the war without breaking a sweat. Dumbledore said it again and again: love is the most powerful weapon the Order possesses. Love is the key to victory. And love is what has flooded through him, filled him up, all because of her.
He tiptoes through the shop's storage room until he is standing behind her as she surveys his latest innovations. A range of Vol-D-Fart Magical Whoopee Cushions squat next to his freshly cultivated Skin-Shredding Saffron. He covers her eyes and she barely flinches in surprise, resting her hands on her hips.
"Unhand me, Fred Weasley."
"Not a chance," Fred says, releasing her only long enough to wrap his arms around her waist. She melts against him, her back to his chest, his cheek resting gently against her head. She criss-crosses her arms over his, fingers combing through the light ginger hair on his forearms.
"Hogwarts won't be safe from flatulence again," she says, mock-critically, and he chuckles.
"And Dobby should be by any time to pick up the saffron."
"I worry about him distributing it to all the Death Eater households," she sighs, tightening her grip. "What if their house elves don't trust him?"
"He belonged to the Malfoys once upon a time," Fred reminds her, rocking her tenderly. "He knows how to navigate the house elf network, I'm sure. Besides, he volunteered."
"Fred! He'd do anything Harry wanted him to do and you know it!"
Fred kisses the top of her head. "These days, we could all learn a trick or two from him in that regard."
Turning in his arms, he thinks she is going to admonish him but instead she tilts upward for a kiss. "I love you," she says and he leans down to oblige her.
He reaches into his pocket as their lips touch sweetly. He'd been planning on waiting until dinner tonight, but Fred has always preferred spontaneity anyway. He finds the small velvet box and grasps it tightly, thinking of the ring inside with its specially designed sparkling diamond-and-moonstone setting. He drops to one knee with a wink when they part. Her eyes grow as wide as galleons, and he knows- he knows- that they will make it through this time of hell on earth together. The ring and the hope they share are what they will cling to, no matter what else has been unleashed into the world.
Fin