Name: Ashes to Ashes

Colour: Ashen grey

Pairing: Fred Weasley/Bellatrix Lestrange,

Summary: There is something in older woman that makes Fred Weasley offer his nonexistent innocence to the rattlesnake mama.

Frellatrix, Magical!AU with no Voldemort, background George Weasley/Verity

A/N: This starts my collection for 'A-Z Challenge' at HPFC. All these 26 drabbles/short fics are based on different colours and each colour has a different pairing. This is my first try writing Frellatrix, even though I've shipped it quite some time. As for the other challenges/competitions: this is for the 'Rare Pairings Challenge' at HPFC.

"Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,

Show me a woman that a man can trust.

Snakes on the desert and fish in the sea,

A rattlesnake mama made a sucker out of me"

– 'Ashes To Ashes, Dust To Dust' by Woody Guthrie

Ashes to Ashes

Let me tell you how I actually met this rattlesnake mama to begin with.

It happened couple years ago when I was still young and innocent. If I had ever been innocent but young I was anyway. The O.W.L.s were long gone and since Georgie and I had politely said no to the academic career there were no N.E.W.T.s to study for. And thanks to Harry and his generosity, George and I had finally had the money we needed to fulfil our dream.

Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes had been our best idea since we had discovered pranking.

Though George and I are practically inseparable – like Siamese twins without that whole Siamese part – I had left him to spend time with this girl, Verity. She was a nice girl, with quite extensive knowledge of our products. And I knew Georgie had a thing for blondes so what else could have I had done than leave them converse about the working hours and whatnots.

So I went wandering around Diagon Alley and before I knew it had wandered a bit too for.

I mean, Knockturn Alley, whatever could go wrong?

I was a little lost and what's a better way to get your sense of direction back into order than having a pint. I could have picked the place to say a bit better, though. I mean, if Leaky Cauldron was considered shady, this pub was downright rotten.

That was when I first saw Madam Bellatrix Lestrange. She caught my eye in a flash. She was tall for a woman, with long and curly black hair that fell in thick layers over her shoulders and down her back. In the dim lighting of the pub her face appeared as ashen grey and her darkly rouged lips were almost black in my eyes. She was dressed in all black – the corset, the bodice, sleeves, and the skirt. All black, nothing else.

And something in that hot, older woman made me shudder. She wasn't just beautiful. She was intimidating. She glared me from under her long, dark eye-lashes when I sat down next to her. I had no particular idea what to say to her; how to approach her without making myself look like a fool.

Well, I think my poor pick up lines weren't apt to warm her up but at least I made her laugh. She treated me a drink once I told her I was of age, and then told me to go home to grow up.

And that's what I did, for the time being.

"What's up with you, Fred?" George asked when we lay in our beds that night. I had always been able to talk with George about everything and I knew I could be honest with him. He sat up and looked over the room and straight at me. "Freddie, my buddy, old pal," he prompted and tossed a pillow at me. "Tell your brother."

I caught the pillow before it hit me. I grinned at George and he quizzically raised his brows.

"Well, Georgie," I said. "I think I'm in love."

I remember coming to that dirty old pub few times just to be disappointed to notice she wasn't there. It was like trying to expect the unexpected. Sometimes the bartender told me she had left already. Or that he hadn't seen her in days, which was always the worst of all options.

But then again, the days when she happened to feel like coming to the pub were wonderful. We talked a lot, flirted a little, and she let me understand she could reciprocate my feelings. I was completely smitten by her.

"Well, Freddie," she cooed that one fateful day, running her finger down my cheek. "Would you like to go with me somewhere… more private?"

She licked her lips teasingly and I nodded shakily. I had slept with Angelina once so I couldn't be called completely inexperienced even though our first time was never mentioned afterwards. I had even watched those very instructive muggle movies Dad had hidden in the attic. But this was going to be different. Well of course it was going be different. Bellatrix was old enough to be my mother. She had the experience I couldn't even dream of having.

And it was such a turn on. Girls of my own age had never really, you know, been worth my time.

"Sit down," she whispered in my ear before she kissed her way down and opened my belt buckle. "And let Mama Bella make you see stars."

It continued almost two months like that. We met at the pub, drink few shots, apparated somewhere, and had rough, mind-blowing sex. But then the meetings stopped, just like that. I tried to contact her through the bartender and other customers at that filthy pub but either they knew nothing or they simply were just unwilling to share their knowledge about Bellatrix Lestrange.

She had vanished into thin air, like ashes to wind.

Apparently she had been married this whole time and been only looking for someone to toy with and I had been there but that's something I can never know for sure.

I had been in love with her. I had been young and foolish and still not innocent, you should note that. And even though I had in the end made a fool out of myself, I yet haven't met a woman who would rival the rattlesnake mama.

After all, she taught me a thing or two.