Leaving home with Gred and Forge
Disclaimer: My first disclaimer! Yey! I don't own these characters! xD
Novae-Rog: I have wanted to write fanfiction for a long time, but I never had any good ideas. This one came to me on a role-play whim yesterday so I wrote it up. It is my first real fanfiction. I hope you like it. Please tell me how I may improve.
George carefully folded his dragon-skin jacket into his small case and brought down the lid. He scanned the small, dusty room he shared with his twin for any other items he might have forgotten to pack. Seeing nothing he required immediately, he closed the latch on his case and dropped it by his bed.
He glanced back over his shoulder at the room that he had lived in for so long. He remembered when he and Fred had first received this bedroom. They had been six years old at the time, and they had up until that day been residing in what was now Ginny's bedroom. At first they had been reluctant to move to one of the higher rooms in the house, they had been intrigued by the idea that they could make it entirely their own space. In their old bedroom, they had been forced to keep it tidy, keep the walls clear, and make their beds. This new room, however, had been a fresh start. They could do whatever they liked with it; it was Their Territory (mercy on any who dared enter!).
They had plastered the walls with various photographs, Quidditch posters and other momentums, such as scarves, leaflets, sweet wrappers and whatever else held their interest. He remembered stepping back to admire their work that summer's day, posters shining from the afternoon sunlight through the window, and scarves bound tightly to the rafters at the top of the room. Looking at it now, George saw the scarves were frayed and sagging, and the posters were dusty and torn at the edges.
He remembered sitting with Fred atop the rafters, happily looking at their new room from a great height. Their mother had always nagged them about climbing on the rafters, how they should be careful, they might fall. It had seemed a great height, when he was six years old; looking at it now, it really wasn't so high.
He looked over at the mirror on the opposite wall, and recalled himself and Fred pulling faces into it, sometimes eyes-wide and tongue-lolling faces, sometimes identical mischievous grins, as they got ready to plot their next great prank.
The mirror was cracked across the top-left corner, George noticed. When they were eleven and had just finished their first term at Hogwarts, they had tried to invent a spell to re-paper the walls. It hadn't worked, of course, and the "spell" had zipped around the room, bounced off the mirror and smashed right through the opposite wall.
The wall had been easily fixed, after they had received many loud, angry-sounding lectures (during which they had tried their best to disguise their laughter as coughing") from their mother about 'Their Responsibilities'. Fred and George had insisted on keeping the chipped glass in the mirror, just to look at it and remember what great fun it was to cause such wreckage.
All he saw in the mirror now was an older boy, pale face illuminated by the morning sunlight, and long red hair thrown carelessly over his jacket shoulders. He stuck his tongue out at his reflection, just for the fun of it.
"OY!! Are you nearly ready?" the voice made George jump, and he quickly put his tongue back in his mouth. He moved his eyes from the mirror and to his suitcase, grabbing it by the handle. Fred emerged in the doorway, looking expectantly at his brother.
"Yes, nearly. I was just picking up some last minute bits," George said, picking his suitcase up by the handle and dragging it nearer to the door.
"Okay. Don't forget anything," Fred said, swinging in the doorframe before turning to leave.
"Fred… what if there are some things we can't take with us? Things that are important?"
"Like… what?" Fred asked, looking confused. He moved to stand next to George, he too looking at his reflection in the mirror.
"Um… the rafters," George said stupidly. Fred sniggered and rested his chin on his brother's shoulder. "I'm sure it can be arranged," he said, the familiar cheeky grin crossing his face. "What about the walk-in closet? And some of the floorboards, perhaps?"
"Yes, and the bathroom sink, if you please." George grinned, and they both laughed.
"Well… it's not as if we're leaving forever, I mean… we can come back, any time. Mum's said so. About twenty thousand times. Since nine o-clock." Fred recited this information as if it were second nature. They both grinned at their mother's predictability.
"Well… I just wonder, are we really ready? To live alone? Y'know, with the war starting, and all…" George mused, cursing himself for sounding more bothered than he had originally intended.
"We're not alone, you git," Fred said, rolling his eyes and throwing his arm over his brother's shoulders. "We're going together? This technically rules out the possibility of being 'alone'."
"I know. But there won't be mother's great cooking, or Quidditch with the others in the back yard, or afternoons in the old oak tree…" George started.
"…or loud obnoxious arguments, or people telling us what to do, or us being forced to do regular household chores against our wills." Fred finished. "It's all good, Georgie. And we can come back any time, you know. Any time. Any at all. Whenever we like. Whatever time of day. Just like mother said."
George laughed at his brother's imitation of their mother. "If we don't like the flat, we can come back here. It'll be easy to get to the shop each morning by Floo. Okay? We just have to give it a test run, right, Georgie Porgie?" Fred asked, holding his brother by the shoulders and looking him directly in the eye.
"Right. And if you call me Georgie Porgie ever again I reserve the right to flush your head down the toilet. Agreed?"
"Agreed." Fred grinned. "We'd better hurry up, or the landlord might get irate. We still have to endure mother, remember!" Fred reminded George, and they both pulled mock-horror faces at each other.
"What an ugly pair," George announced, looking at their faces in the cracked mirror.
"Thanks for the compliment!" snickered Fred, not even bothering to feign being insulted.
"FRED! GEORGE! GET A MOVE ON!" their mother's voice was heard from downstairs.
"Indeed, we should." Fred mused. "I'll see you downstairs in a few minutes, okay?" and with that, he disapparated.
George picked up his suitcase and checked his appearance one last time in the mirror. As he turned to leave, George could have sworn he saw a pair of 6-year-old red-headed twins giggling back at him.
Ende
Novae-Rog: Thank you for taking the time to read this! I love yoooou! xD -Hands you chocolate and cookies-