Backflips and Butterflies
A/N:This story is my response to hondagirl's "First Love" challenge. It's a bit rambling, but basically it's a Fred/Angelina/George fic from Angelina's POV, detailing the most important moments of Angelina's love life to date… And I must warn you that it gets a bit cheesy. Reviews are very welcome (hint, hint!)!
Enjoy!
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My first love was incredible. He was sweet and funny and slightly crazy. He made me feel light and dizzy and breathless all at once. When I was with him, my face hurt from smiling and I got an ache in my stomach from laughing so much. Being with him was like a dream, but at the same time, nothing had ever felt more real. His lips tasted like Sugar Quills and he smelled like adventure. For the first time in my life, someone made me feel noticed for something other than my Quidditch abilities.
That someone was Fred Weasley.
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"Fred!" I squealed. "Everybody's staring."
"So?"
"Put me down, you idiot!" I managed to choke out between spluttering gasps of laughter.
"You're no fun," Fred pouted, putting my two feet safely back on the dancefloor. A twinkle of mischief danced in his brilliant blue eyes. I thrust my arms around his neck and beamed up at him, drinking in the blueness.
"Well, you're fun enough for both of us," I whispered in his ear. "But you nearly decapitated Professor Flitwick throwing me around the place like that. It's the Yule Ball, not a girlfriend-tossing competition."
"Fine, you win. Don't you ever get tired of being right?" teased Fred, grinning down at me with that goofy little grin that made my stomach do backflips. That worried me. I'd never meant for that to happen. The backflips, I mean. I was sixteen years old. I had exams next year. I was supposed to be focusing on my future, not getting involved in some adolescent romance. I wasn't supposed to be falling for anyone. Least of all Fred Weasley. He was a friend, a joker, a team-mate. He was not… first love material.
And yet, backflips.
"Knut for them?"
"What?" I asked, jolting out of my internal emotional struggle. Fred was looking down at me, a tiny frown line puckering his forehead with concern. Self-consciously, I reached up to tuck a stray braid of hair behind my ear. My fingers brushed against the freesia Fred had tucked into my hair when he'd met me in the common room before the Ball, and a tingling sensation ran up my arm. I shook my head slightly, as though dislodging a pesky fly, and looked at Fred again.
"You were miles away. Everything alright?"
"Fine, fine," I breezed, wishing I didn't sound quite so hysterical. "It's just a little warm in here… Could we maybe go for a walk?"
I must have looked like I was about to faint, because he nodded immediately without any wisecracks. As the Weird Sisters struck up his favourite song, Fred out his hands on my shoulders and steered me out of the Great Hall and out into the grounds. At the touch of his skin, even through the silky blue fabric of my dress robes, a thousand electric shocks rippled through me.
Trees in which real fairies fluttered flanked the winding path leading down into the grounds. A cold breeze rustled the branches and I shivered unintentionally, hunching up inside my dress robes. Fred pulled me into the crook of his elbow and rubbed my arm. Needless to say, the goose bumps only intensified. We wandered in silence past a swaying rosebush, from which several throaty French giggles and a gormless English voice could be heard, the huge forms of Hagrid and Madame Maxime, and a statue of Santa Claus with his reindeer.
"Alright, I can't stand this stony silence crap. Spill."
"There's nothing to tell," I replied quickly, pulling away and striding ahead of him. I could feel my cheeks heating up beneath my coffee-coloured skin and ran a frantic, trembling hand through my long, dark braids. My fingers touched the freesia again, and I pulled it from my hair. I stared down at it, sitting in the palm of my hand. The backflips started again and my pace quickened as I strived to put more distance between us. Attempting to stop my stomach's gymnastics.
"Ang, come back!" Fred called plaintively. "Ang, don't make me chase you. You know you can't run in heels!"
Reluctantly, I turned around to face him. He stood there, pale under the shimmering lights the fairies were giving off, his red hair sticking up in every direction. His eyes, those perfect blue eyes, searched my face without any trace of a joke. His dark dress robes looked wonderful on him, but maybe I was biased. That was the problem. The way I was feeling, I would have thought anything looked good on him.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled, shamefaced.
"S'okay. But seriously Ang, tell me what's wrong. And you're not allowed to say nothing because you've been a bag of nerves all night. You won't stop fidgeting with that flower I gave you, you keep drifting off into your own little world and now you won't even look at me properly."
"It's not important, I-"
"Angelina Johnson, don't lie to me. I know you better than Hermione knows Hogwarts: A History."
"That's just it!" I exploded. "This. Us. It's too much. Too close. It was just supposed to be casual when we started going out. I thought it'd be a bit of a laugh, you know, no strings attached. But now we're going to the Yule Bal together, and we know everything about each other. You know when something's up with me and I can describe every detail of your appearance and it's impossible to focus on anything for long because everything reminds me of you and- and my stomach won't stop doing these stupid backflips and I'm freaking out because- because I think I'm in love with you!"
Fred closed the distance between us in a second, taking my hand in his. "Well, that makes two of us, because I love you too. And you think I'm not freaking out? In case you haven't noticed, I don't have a serious bone in my body. But when I'm with you I notice things I wouldn't normally notice and I feel things I've never dreamt of feeling. I feel like I could spend the rest of my life with you, Angelina Johnson. You're stubborn and competitive and a better Quidditch player than me and you're grumpy in the morning, but I really think I could."
"People don't marry their first love, Fred. That only happens in fairy tales. That isn't how the story goes, not in the real world." I was saying the words, but inside I was screaming something else entirely.
Fred's hands crept up and stroked my face. Suddenly his lips were pressing against mine and the backflips were happening again. But I didn't care anymore. I only cared about how this was bliss, how I had been stupid to ever be scared of how I was feeling right now, how I felt like I could stay like this for ever.
"That's OK," Fred muttered between kisses. "Marriage is overrated anyway. All that fuss over a little piece of paper. We don't need that. Or, if we do, screw tradition. I've never been one for tradition anyway."
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I was vaguely aware of the blood trickling down my face, of the burn slicing through my arm where my shirt was singed away, of the dull thud of pain in my leg, of Alicia and Oliver holding me upright. But it was as though I had split in two and all those feelings were connected to another me.
The part of me that was still me was busy being ripped apart from the inside out.
My feet barely touched the ground as I ran through the Great Hall. I passed row upon row of bodies, some of the dead faces familiar, some not. They barely even registered.
My breath was catching in my chest. Every inch of me was shaking. I could hear Oliver and Alicia calling my name. I ignored them, searching the survivor's faces desperately. Hopelessly. I caught sight of a crowd of red-haired people gathered in the middle of a row of corpses to my left. I hurtled towards them, attempting to see who they were shielding as they crumpled over the body lying between them. Then somebody moved and I came to a shuddering, shocked stop.
"Fred."
The word wrenched itself from my unwilling mouth. I spoke quietly, but my voice still carried. It was the only word spoken in the entire Hall. Everything else was just sobbing and screaming. The painof a thousand tortures filled me.
"FRED!"
And I was pushing Harry and Hermione out of the way, falling to the ground on my sore leg and not even noticing. My trembling hands were scrabbling for the face that looked like it was sleeping. He was still smiling. I think that's why it hurt so much. He looked like he might jump up at any moment and yell "Gotcha!" But the tiny part of me that was remaining logical through the destruction knew that Fred would never pull another prank.
That logical part also knew that I was an intruder in a family's grief. That I was just getting in the way of George, who was kneeling at his twin's head, and Mrs Weasley, lying across her son's stomach, and all the other Weasley's sitting around Fred's fallen form in various stages of shock and grief. The logical part knew I was being insensitive. The broken part didn't care.
Salty tears were mingling with the blood streaking my face so that the sharp, rusty taste dripped into my mouth. It was harder than ever to breathe. His hair was all over his face, sticking to his forehead with a mixture of grime and congealed blood. I brushed the red strands away from the delicate skin of his eyelids. I think it was touching the hair that I'd ruffled affectionately so often that did it.
The logical part forced the broken part to realise what was happening.
What little composure I'd had left deserted me. In the middle of the Final Battle, surrounded by the bodies of loved ones whose loss would hit me later, I fell against the cold stone of his chest. Pressing my cheek to the hollow at the base of his neck and screaming silently as realisation washed over me. I was flooded by reality. Drowned in my loss.
People don't marry their first love.
I'd sure as hell been right about that.
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I had no idea how it had happened. It's always like that, isn't it? You get involved in something without realising it, and before you know it you're knee deep in drama with no way out.
I remembered exactly how it had started…
"George?" I called, trying to disguise the fear in my voice. I knocked on the door of Number 93, Dagon Alley. "George, it's me, Angelina. Open up."
Nothing. I was used to it by now. I'd been knocking for over a month now, to no avail. I'd had enough of it. Extracting my wand from the pocket of my jeans, I rapped on the lock and muttered "Alohomora." The door swung open, and I took a tentative step inside.
Weasley's Wizard Wheezes had been shut up since the Final Battle. As I looked around now, I saw that nothing had been done to keep the shop in any sort of order. Boxes were tipped over on their sides, the brightly-coloured contents spilling onto the dusty floor. Products were falling off the shelves. Several bottles of WonderWitch products lay shattered on the floor, the fumes from their contents making me feel dizzy.
I stuck my head in the door of the office. Stacks of order forms spilled over on every available surface. Several paper airplane memos fluttered near the ceiling, where a light bulb was flickering irritatingly. I flicked my wand at it, and the lighting settled. I hated seeing the place like this. It was Fred's baby. He wouldn't have wanted it to end up like this.
I dashed around the shop in a streak of long black hair and denim jeans, waving my wand this way and that until the place looked right again. I restocked the shelves and filed away the order forms in the red filing cabinet in the corner of the office. I Vanished the ruined products and replaced them with stuff from the storeroom. Eventually, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes looked something like it did when Fred and George ran it together. Then I turned my attention to the problem that was George.
"George?" I called again, climbing the stairs nervously. "George, are you here?"
Upstairs was a lot cleaner than downstairs. As though nobody spent much time here at all. I crept softly along the landing, wand out in front of me.
And then I heard the moan.
I reached out with a shaking hand and pushed open the door to Fred's bedroom. The blinds were closed clumsily, so that a shard of harsh light flooded in through the grimy window. Dozens of moving photos gazed down from the walls, the inhabitants grinning down at me. Several shots of the Gryffindor Quidditch team after winning the Cup in our fifth year. A newspaper clipping from the opening of the jokeshop, the twins arm in arm and grinning from ear to ear. A messy group shot from a birthday party. Fred and I, entwined in each other, revolving slowly on the spot at the Yule Ball.
And lying on the bedspread was George Weasley.
I could smell the Firewhiskey from the doorway. An almost empty bottle hung loosely in his slack grasp as his arm dangled off the bed. His clothes smelled like sweat, cigarettes, and stale vomit. His mouth was lopsided and there was several weeks worth of stubble on his chin. His blue eyes were cloudy and unfocused. And he was crying, grimy tears forming jagged, meandering rivers down his cheeks. He didn't notice me.
"Fred," he whispered. "Fred, why did you leave me? I can't do it without you. I need you. Fred… Fred… Fred…"
The bottle fell from his hand, spilling what little alcohol there was left onto the red carpet. The sobbing increased to a hysterical wailing. He sunk his head into Fred's pillow and screamed.
Without realising it, without even thinking, I was by his side. I rolled him over onto his back and hauled him upright. He stared gormlessly at me, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide with confusion.
"Ang-Angelina…." His speech was slurred and almost incoherent. I flopped down on the bed beside him.
"Yeah George, it's me, Angelina. How much have you had to drink?"
"I dunno… A lot?"
"Thought so. You're an idiot, do you know that?"
George flinched, and his face crumpled. He crumpled back onto the pillow, hands on his head. "I just want to stop hurting. I can't- I can't make it stop, I can't make it go away… It's driving me insane."
Call me soft, but I felt bad for him. I took him by the arm again and picked him up, putting one arm consolingly around his shoulders. "I know you do. I felt like that for ages. I didn't come out of the house for weeks, wouldn't speak to anyone. I felt just like you do. I just wanted it all to stop. I loved him too, you know."
"H-how did you make it stop?" George whispered, sounding hoarse and sad all at once.
I smiled sadly. "I realised something. I realised that Fred wouldn't have wanted me moping. He didn't like seriousness, Fred. He loved life, and he would have wanted me to live mine, even without him. I think he would have wanted that for you, too."
"I guess," he muttered tiredly. "But it isn't that easy. I can't get him out of my head."
"You don't need to," I said gently, rubbing his arm. "You just need to remember the good things instead of the bad, that's all. Alicia helped me to do that, she was really great about it. Friends make it easier."
"I don't have anyone like Alicia. Fred was my best friend. And I've screwed everything up at home. I missed the funeral. They all hate me."
"I bet they don't," I whispered. "But… I could help, if you like. I mean, if you wanted someone to talk to…"
My voice faded into nothingness and a tense silence fell between us. I was afraid to look at him, afraid I'd said the wrong thing and upset him even more. And then, George cleared his throat. I took a chance and looked up. The tiniest of smiles played on his lips, and a little bit of light had returned to his blue eyes.
"I'd like that."
That was how it started. After that, I dropped by every day. Most of the time, George was either drunk or hung-over. At least for the first few weeks. Eventually, he became adequate company. We talked about Fred a lot, about things he'd said that made us laugh or funny moments when he'd got his comeuppance. I brought coffee the first few times, then sandwiches, then ingredients for dinner. Soon I was eating with him every day. Sometimes we went for a walk, other times we just sat cross-legged on the floor of the joke shop, talking.
After a couple of months, George asked me to help him get the shop up and running again. I agreed. Then he relapsed, and I moved into Fred's bedroom to help him through it, so he would have someone close by. I never moved back out.
When I'd been sharing the flat with him for almost six months, George wrote a letter to his mum. An apology. He wrote one to every member of his family. His dad, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Ron and Ginny. All seven of them replied, accepting his apologies unconditionally. He was so happy he cried, picking me up and twirling me around the whole shop.
"It's Mum's birthday next week," he told me, grabbing me in a bone-crushing hug. "They're having a party, and they want me to go."
"That's great!" I gasped, massaging my ribs.
"Will you come with me?"
I stared at him for a minute, then nodded wordlessly. George grinned and kissed my forehead. Something stirred in my stomach. Not a backflip. It felt more like… fluttering.
We went to the party. Everything went well. The Weasleys thanked me for taking care of George. Everything was good.
The day of Fred's anniversary, we went to his grave together. We brought some of the photos from his bedroom walls. We stood at the white marble headstone for about an hour, alternating between speaking aloud and musing silently. We both cried a little. When it started to get dark, George gave me his coat and we walked back to Number 93 together.
Back in the flat, we sat cross-legged on the bed which had once been Fred's and was now mine. We each held one of the twins' fireworks in our hands, and as one, we ignited them. They blazed brightly above us, a fitting tribute to Fred Weasley.
"You've really helped me this past year Angelina," said George in a small voice.
"Yeah, you've been a good friend to me too," I murmured back.
"No, I mean… It's like I was in a really dark place when Fred … you know. I didn't think I'd ever get out of there. And then you came along and- and everything was bright again. You make things better, Angelina."
And before I understood what was happening, before I could stop him, George had leaned across and pressed his lips to mine. It should have felt wrong. I should have felt horrible and disgusted and hated myself for letting him kiss me. I should have felt guilty about what I was doing, letting the twin brother of my first love kiss me like this.
But I didn't. Like I said, it started off innocently. And now this was happening. I was kissing George Weasley, and it didn't feel awful at all. It felt right. Somewhere along the road, I had fallen in love with a Weasley twin all over again. But it was this twin now.
The fluttering feeling in my stomach identified itself. Butterflies.
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"I have butterflies," I whispered to Alicia Wood as she adjusted the bodice on my dress.
"It's normal," she assured me, pinning back a stray curl with precision. "You look beautiful, Ang."
"I don't feel beautiful. I feel like a monster. I shouldn't be marrying George. I loved Fred, what must his family think of me?" I muttered miserably.
Alicia frowned and sat me down on the stool I had stood on as she made the last minute adjustments to my dress. She stood in front of me, arms akimbo, her light-brown curls framing a face that was scowling. Even in her lilac bridesmaid's dress she looked positively scary.
"Do you love George Weasley?"
"Yes, of course, but-"
"Does his family know that?"
"I think so, but Fred-"
"How does it feel when he kisses you?"
"Different," I whispered, hugging the frothy skirt of my dress to me. "With Fred, there were backflips. Now, it's more like…"
"Butterflies," Alicia finished, nodding smugly. "That seals it."
"What? I don't understand, how-"
"I got backflips with Kenneth Towler," explained my best friend. "You remember him, don't you?"
"Yeah, he was your first boyfriend."
"Exactly. With him, there were backflips." She paused and crouched down in front of me, stroking the ring on her left hand. "With Oliver, there are butterflies."
"Oh." Now I got it. Butterflies meant the real thing. Backflips were for crazy teenage love.
"Exactly. Now, come on. You can't be late for your own wedding."
And with practised efficiency, Alicia pulled me to my feet and smoothed down the gauzy fabric of my wedding dress. Tears sparkled in her eyes and I could see my own nervous face reflected in them. I smiled slightly. I was getting married.
Alicia helped me walk to the opening in the marquee and deposited me on my father's arm before walking over to Katie and Ron, who was best man. Dad beamed at me and gave me a quick, one-armed hug.
"You're perfect," he murmured in my pearl-studded ear. I grinned at him as a single tear ran the length of my cheek.
Is this alright, Fred? I thought desperately, gazing up at the cloudless blue sky. The brilliant golden sun seemed to wink down at me and for a moment I imagined Fred whispering in my ear.
Oh, go on then, if you must. It's nice to see you two smiling again. Mind you, that might change when you meet Auntie Muriel. Don't listen to anything that old bat says. Except if she says you can't walk in heels. You know that's true.
I stifled a laugh as the band struck up the bridal march. Dad tugged my arm and we began the procession to the top of the aisle. Several faces jumped out at me- Mum and Mrs. Weasley, sobbing into lace handkerchiefs, Oliver beaming from ear to ear and pointing Alicia out to their daughter, the entire flame-haired Weasley clan nodding approvingly as though to calm my fears. I could hear people whispering about my dress, cooing over Teddy and Victoire, the pageboy and flower girl, clapping softly as the last strains of the music faded away.
But they were in the background. I only had eyes for George Weasley, standing nervously beside the tufty-haired wizard who would be acting as the minister today. His brilliant blue eyes danced with vim and vigour as he fidgeted with the freesia in his button-hole. Then he caught my eye and winked, a broad grin spreading across the face I loved so much. The butterflies started to dance again as I floated to his side.
I had been right, all those years ago.
People don't marry their first love.
They marry their true love.