Jo

Fred

George grabbed Fred's arm and firmly steered him away from the hospital doors.

'What are you doing, mate? She's a muggle, geddit. A muggle! You showed her one of our most magical fireworks, you talk about the Order, Disapparating, Death Eaters and who knows what, and now you send her off to a muggle hospital without modifying their memories like they must have done to all the other villagers. Are you crazy?' George said fiercely.

'Hey, you talked about them with me, George!' Fred replied indignantly. George rolled his eyes.

'I know, but –'

'What, are you worried that she'll go telling people about wands and magic?' Fred asked angrily.

'That's exactly what I'm worried about, Fred, and you should be worried about it too!' George exclaimed looking frustrated.

'Well what did you want us to do?' Fred shot back.

'Take her to some experienced Order member and get her fixed up.' George snapped. 'I didn't want you to try and deal with it yourself. But now she's in the hospital, so we're just going to have to follow up.'

Fred was fuming. He had no excuse for what he'd done, yet he knew he couldn't have done what George said was the smart thing to do. To top that, it was the first time in a long time that he and his twin had actually argued about something important.

There had been something different about Jo, something that made him think that he could tell her all about the way he lived. And she would understand it. Just the way she'd realized that his tricks were beyond muggles and how she noticed something different about Fred and George told him that.

He heard George take a deep breath and saw a cloud come from his mouth.

'All I have to say is, you got us into what could turn into a mess,' George said quietly. 'I'm not going to tell anyone in the Order about her, and neither are you.'

No muggle was in sight. They simultaneously turned around and disappeared with a crack.

Fred

Fred and George appeared in the snow covered Burrow. They heard a shriek when they walked through the door and had their breath taken away in a bone-crushing hug.

'Oh Fred! And George! I was so worried about you! I heard about what happened in the village! Are you two all right? The others have been helping get ready for lunch, so they don't know about it…did you two fight at all?' Mrs. Weasley asked looking relieved.

George exchanged a quick look with Fred. He understood what it meant immediately. Should they tell the truth or not? Since George had asked for Fred's opinion, he decided to take it upon himself to answer.

'Yeah…George and I fought off one and came home,' he said evasively. All he'd said was the truth, just not the full truth.

Mrs. Weasley looked at them questioningly but left Fred's explanation there.

'Well come sit down, boys. Everyone's getting ready to eat. Don't forget to put the gnome on the tree…' Mrs. Weasley said briskly, sounding more like her usual self. 'Ron! Harry! Go and put the cutlery on the table!'

'We already did!' bellowed Ron from inside the house.

Mrs. Weasley placed two swift kisses on their cheeks and bustled back to the kitchen shouting more instructions.

'Close shave Gred,' muttered George.

'After lunch, I'm going to go see where Jo is and –,' started Fred.

'- modify her memory, right?' finished George raising an eyebrow.

'After I talk to her.'

'What on earth would you want to talk to her about, except how you can't stop drooling over her?'

'Oh come on Forge, I'm not that bad,' Fred said grinning.

'Yeah, right. Okay, but I'm coming with you.'

Jo

Jo woke up feeling much better except for a small pain in her abdomen. Her right arm was in a sling, so she reached over with her left to pick up her watch. It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon. A friendly looking nurse walked towards her.

'Hello dearie! The doctor will come see you in a few minutes, and after she's talked to you, you may go,' she said kindly.

'All right,' Jo said brightly. As soon as she got out of the hospital, she'd find more about what happened earlier that day.

The doctor, who was a middle-aged woman, came in to instruct Jo on how to take care of her arm and ribs and gave her some pain killers. At last Jo could leave. When she walked out through the lobby, no red heads were there. They didn't wait. But then she remembered what day it was. The twins must have gone back home to their houses for Christmas lunch.

She realized how hungry she was, and decided to drop by a store and pick up a sandwich. She felt in her pocket for a pound or two and felt nothing. It suddenly hit her that the store's cash register must have burnt up in the fire. Her heart pounded as she realized any money that she'd earned was gone, and she had nowhere to go.

Jo

It was a bright, sunny day, perfect for Easter. If only the situation had been nicer. Jo and the other children in the orphanage lined up for daily inspection. The number of children living there had been declining quickly, and only six children remained, including Jo's best friend Sally. The two nine-year olds had grown up together and were almost like twins except for appearance. Jo wasn't a selfish person, but she was always secretly glad whenever adults came and never picked up Sally. It pinched a bit when she thought that Sally would miss Jo as much as Jo would miss Sally if Jo were to get picked up.

After saying prayers and eating a meager breakfast, Sally and Jo went out to pick flowers to place in the fusty building. A posh car drove down the lane to the orphanage, and the two girls saw a well-to-do couple get out of the front seats. Jo perked up at once. Who was going to get picked up today?

Trying to look inconspicuous, the two crept closer to the entrance of the orphanage and tried to hear more of the conversation going on in Matron's office.

'I wonder if Stinky Sam's getting picked up,' giggled Sally.

'Shush up a minute, I want to hear!' Jo whispered.

'…the papers are here for you to sign…make sure that this is the child that you want to take custody of…' Matron's voice came through the door.

They heard a pen scribbling and a different woman's voice saying:

'We did it Lloyd! When can we pick her up?' she asked.

'Her?' Jo whispered. There were only two girls in the orphanage. Sally and Jo.

The door of the office opened and the couple walked out. Sally and Jo looked at each other with scared faces. Matron bustled out and saw the two girls huddled together in a corner.

'Ah, there they are! Thick as thieves, as I told you,' said Matron briskly.

'Wait, I want to guess…Which one of you is Sally?' smiled the to-be-mother.

Jo gasped and backed away. She turned around and started running to her and Sally's room as fast as possible.

'Ah, that must be her…Poor thing; she must be scared,' said the woman's husband.

'No,' said Sally quietly. 'That's my best friend Jo. I'm Sally.'

'Pleasure to meet you! I'm Moira Clark, and this is my husband Lloyd Clark,' said Moira kindly. 'Now I think we're Mum and Dad, or whatever you prefer. We live down at…'

Jo had heard enough. Her shared room was right on top of the lobby; Sally and Jo had overheard many adoption processes through the vent that went through the two floors.

A few minutes later, Sally came running into the room, breathless.

'Can you believe it, Jo? After years and years, I'm finally getting adopted. I thought it'd never happen, and we'd turn into old maids here! They're lovely people by the sound of it. And looks, too, come to think of it. They're quite rich, and they said they'd give me pocket money every week. I'll be going to the Catholic school near their house and Daddy's to drop me off on his way to work. I have to pack up my possessions now, and then we'll go out to the ice-cream parlor,' Sally said excitedly.

Jo listened to her ramble and said nothing. Sally took no notice, though. She continuing with her endless chatter, up-ending her drawers and stuffing shirts into her small bag.

'Well, you'd best be going now,' said Jo sadly, when Sally's drawers were empty. Tears were welling up in her eyes, threatening to spill over.

'Oh, Jo! I'm going to miss you so much!' Sally said just as sadly.

They both stepped up and hugged each other at the same time.

'Me too,' said Jo said in a choked voice into her friend's shoulder. Her only real friend in the whole world was leaving her alone in the orphanage with no one to talk to, or play with, or even hang out with.

Jo and Sally walked down together to the Clarks. They beckoned their new daughter to them and with a brief word with Matron they walked towards their car.

Jo waved at Sally and Sally waved back, but Sally stopped quickly to whisper something into her mother's ear.

'Jo, dear, whenever you feel like it, give us a call and you can come over to play with Sally!' Moira said with a smile.

'Really?' Jo said suddenly happy.

'Absolutely!'

'Bye Sally!'

'Bye Jo!' Sally shouted back from the car.

For that week, everything was great. It was the next week that the bad news came.

Jo had been to visit Sally once the last week and they'd had loads of fun at the cinema. Sally and her parents had gone on vacation the next day to America because of Mr. Clark's work. A week later, they rang up the orphanage to tell Jo that Mr. Clark had gotten a job offer in the States, and was taking it. The whole family was moving, which basically meant that Jo would probably never see her friend again.

This thought proved true, because for the next almost seven years, Jo grew up without much social interaction, watching every other child come and go. When Jo was almost seventeen, Matron had come to her with news that Jo had predicted she'd hear anytime soon.

'Jo, the orphanage can't run with only one child, and that too, a child who is soon to become a legal adult.'

The orphanage moved itself to a city many miles away, but Jo decided to stay. If she barely had anything in London, how could she have anything in a city she didn't know about?

Before Matron had left, Jo requested her to give any money Jo had saved in order to start a new life. She had about thirty pounds from all the fundraisers and little birthday gifts from Matron and Sally. After moving to America, Sally had written to Jo once a week, but the rate at which the letters came to her slowly dwindled to one every two months, to none.

Jo searched everywhere for jobs in the city, where she could earn enough money to stay at a small, cheap apartment. After Sally had left, Jo hadn't much to do, so she'd spent all her spare time (which was most of her time) studying and learning everything that children in normal schools learnt. She bought third hand textbooks to learn and found herself exceeding the expectations of a child her age.

Finally she found employment at a cramped coffee store that constantly had a line of men and women ordering espressos to finish their work. Jo occasionally took a sip or two of espresso herself, finding herself worn out with the job. In about a week of sleeping in a small bed and breakfast, she'd earned enough to pay for a small flat by the river. After two more months in the coffee shop, she decided to find herself a new job that she actually enjoyed.

It was near summer that Jo got the job at the paper shop. The owner was a wizened old man, who left Jo to do most of the work. She thoroughly enjoyed her job at the shop, handling all the fresh paper and meeting new people every day. Soon all the leaves had fallen off of the trees, and it was winter once more.