A/N: Alright, so I have a bit of explaining to do in regards to this…
I had a… nightmare this morning. I started crying the moment I woke up. That isn't really important but I hope some may understand why I had to write this…
You will notice that the dialog in this story is indicated via Italics and not quotation marks. It just felt right.
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Harry Potter and all affiliated characters, etc.
Ron refused to believe it.
Harry, Bill and Charlie didn't care either way, they loved the twins.
Ginny simply wished they'd spend more time with her.
The rest of the family believed Molly and were disgusted by it.
They spend too much time together, Molly would argue.
They're twins, Charlie would shoot back, though it fell on deaf ears.
They're always wondering off for long periods of time, Percy would point out loftily.
They're young and looking for new ideas for pranks, Bill would respond, though it fell on deaf ears.
They refuse to tell us what they do when they're alone, Arthur would sigh.
How is that proof, Harry would ask testily, they're teenagers. Though this too would fall on deaf ears.
Me? I just wanted to get to know them.
I first met Fred and George Weasley at a camp ground the family were visiting for a holiday. I was instantly charmed by their good looks, cheery demeanours and twin-talk.
I'd always wanted a twin. They were the closest I'd come.
It didn't take long for my "god-fearing" family to be infected by Molly's disturbing lies and every time the twins vanished on their own my family would join in the ridiculous search to uncover their "disgusting secret".
I was the one who managed to find them after one of their longest disappearances, rather by accident, to be honest.
I'd entered the small camp-hall looking for coffee when I spotted the pair, looking quite depressed, on the floor of the small kitchen. George leaned up against a cupboard and Fred's head rested in his lap. At first I could only stare, enraptured and haunted by the sorrow carved into the usually cheerful facades.
They weren't very nice to me at first but that was to be expected; they probably thought I believed their mother's insistent lying.
Disappointed you couldn't catch us in the act? George asked with a nasty sneer. I shook my head.
From outside the sounds of desperate scurrying and shouts of "have you found them yet" could be heard as the two completely unrelated families searched for those they hailed sinners.
As one the twins glanced at the door that led to the hall and finally seemed to notice that I had closed it behind me and, though I'd been standing there for at least five minutes already, hadn't made a ruckus alerting the others to my "find".
After a moment of studying the closed door Fred turned to me and patted the ground beside them in invitation. I lay down slowly, taking a chance when I rested my head on George's leg, but he didn't seem to mind.
We lay there on the kitchen floor in silence, none of us saying another word.
Neither boy seemed to notice the thick tears rolled down my cheeks as I thought of the injustice of what our families were doing to them.
We all jumped when one of the camp's maintenance guys entered the kitchen through a back door I hadn't seen before. I was on my feet in a moment to defend Fred and George but the man just shook his head.
Since y'all just lying here doing squat, why don't ya lend a hand?
He sneered as he spoke but we all knew it was just for show.
The thick-set man led us back out the door he'd entered through and somehow, though I don't think it was entirely a coincidence, we managed to avoid the notice of the still-scurrying families.
We followed the maintenance man, Barney, out of the camp-sight and up into the residential streets that surrounded it. It quickly became clear that he didn't really need any help; all he seemed to have to do was hang decorative baskets in the trees that grew in the front lawn of an extravagant-looking house, inside which he placed battery-powered lights.
We helped anyway; I secured the lights, Fred tested them and George handed them over to Barney as soon as he'd banged a nail into the tree. Once done, he pointed out that there was a university down the road and that their canteen would serve us even without student cards. It almost felt as if he were giving us an excuse to remain away from the bustling camp-sight.
We went, more for an excuse not to go back to the chaos we'd left behind than because we were hungry. The twins seemed to regain their humour the moment we entered the university, pointing out odd-looking students and professors, buying whatever caught their fancy and stealing a rather worn text-book, which somehow ended up in my possession. True to form, the pair vanished while I was eating.
Hoping I'd find them on the way, I set off to return the worn book.
I got lost at least a hundred times but at long last I found the right lecture hall and managed to hand the book over to a rather nice professor who held me up when she insisted on giving me an impromptu lesson.
I didn't find the twins.
I managed to get lost when I left and, though I surprisingly recognised a few of the students I passed as old friends and classmates, I still couldn't find the twins.
Being a simple muggle with no knowledge that an entirely different and rather secretive world existed, I was blissfully unaware that a war had been fought, and won, less than a year ago.
So, naturally, I really wasn't expecting my holiday to end so violently.
I had finally found my way back to the camp-sight, entirely by accident and alone, dusk following quick on my heels, when disaster struck.
My father cornered me the moment I was in sight of our tent and demanded to know where I had been the entire afternoon but before I could spin a convincing lie a crack rent the air and a group of black-clad individuals appeared, seemingly from nowhere.
Before we could blink or shout, everyone was tied up side-by-side, in a clearing near the far end of the camp-sight, the intruders yelling nonsense.
Molly just had to open her mouth.
I don't want to be tied up with them! She screamed shrilly when she realised she was pressed up against Fred, cutting a burly man off mid-tirade. They're disgusting, incestuous freaks!
The camp-grounds seemed to ring with her words and, if it hadn't been for the tight bonds, Harry might have attempted to strangle her.
Oh really? Another man hissed as he approached the twins. Well then, they'll be the first to go.
I'm not entirely sure what happened next, all I know is, time suddenly slowed to a painful crawl.
The ground began to shake as a giant, a giant, stumbled into the clearing.
Fred and George were separated from the rest of the group and tied up again in a sort of collar-and-leash manner. One of the robed individuals handed the loose end to the giant. It was obvious what about to happen.
NO! I screamed, and I wasn't the only one. The giant, after staring blankly at the rope in his hand for a few seconds, had turned. Eyes riveted, I watched with growing horror as, with only light jerk of their tether, the twins were tugged off their feet. With a slowness that I was sure was unnatural even for this lumbering idiot, the giant began drag the boys over the sharp rocks that designated camp-sight boundary.
The thick, tension-filled air amplified every sound; the rip of harsh stone renting flesh, the crack of bones forced into unnatural positions and the muted cries of pain the twins couldn't hold back.
I don't know how, but abruptly I was free and running. I didn't see the strange flashes of light behind me, nor the others that ran with me. All I could see were the twins.
I knew, before I'd even sunk to my knees beside them, that the boys I'd known for less than a day were dead.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as shaking fingers turned them over. An inhuman wail rent the failing light as torn skin and droves of blood marred the once-beautiful flesh.
I later realised that the inhuman scream had come from me.
The twins were gone.
It's been years since Fred and George died.
Although I cannot remember much of the rest of that evening, or how I ended up at in hospital, covered in blood and shaking so hard my bed shook with me, but my shrink says "it's natural after seeing those poor boys roll off the hill into those nasty rocks". I'm not sure where she got that information.
I enrolled at the university we visited that day. I have class with the nice professor who gave me that free lecture and I use the worn-out text book I gave her the very same day. I'm doing rather well even if I am constantly jazzed up on coffee and energy drinks.
It's amazing how much one gets done when you don't sleep at night.
Sometimes, when the skies are dark and my books become blurred, I wonder where that red-haired family is now and whether they miss them as much as I do. I wonder if Molly, their mother, wishes she had kept her fat trap shut. I wonder if the raven-haired man finally strangled her.
I hope he has.
I only think about that sometimes though.
Fred and George are always in my mind, whether I'm laughing with my old friends, sitting in a lecture taking notes or having a drink on the days where coffee and energy drinks don't help. I think about lying on the cold kitchen floor with them. I think about Barney making us help him with the tree-baskets. I think about the way their eyes lit up when they spotted a girl with a multi-coloured Mohawk at the university. I think about how they'd bought me a cherry ice-cream because it was pink and pink is a girl's colour.
But mostly I think about their entwined hands as they lay, dead and unmoving, upon blood-stained stone.
To this day I have never again wished that I had a twin.
I guess I have to admit that one of the characters in this is me, so I suppose this is a Mary-Sue type story, please let me know if it influences the story badly.