I don't mind when she yells at my friends- I want to yell at my friends sometimes.
"Be quiet!" A girl yelled as she helped herself into Fred and George's compartment on the Hogwarts Express.
"Excuse you." Fred said.
"Just be quiet, all right. If anyone asks, I've been in here the entire ride." The girl said, helping herself to a seat.
Right then, the door to the compartment flew open.
"You! You bloody did this to my face!" An older boy yelled at the girl.
The boy was not graced with a nice looking face, and it was made worse by the fact that his nose was turned upside down. Fred and George snorted at the sight.
"How do you know it was me?" The girl asked innocently. "I'm just a first year, I don't know any magic."
"Because you look like the only girl dumb enough to do this."
"I've been here the entire ride."
"I saw you do it!" The boy exclaimed.
"Marcus, I don't think it was her." A voice from behind the boy said.
"I do!"
"It can't have been," George piped up, "she really has been here for the entire ride."
"If she's been here then what's her name?" The boy they now knew was named Marcus asked.
The twins were dumbfounded.
"Molly." Fred answered with the only name he could think of.
"Great—what are their names?" Marcus asked the girl.
"Er…" she looked at the twins, "Francis and Greg." She answered confidently.
Marcus narrowed his eyes at her. "Fine. But if I find out this was you, it's your death."
"Probably, if you keep breathing on me. Your mouth is absolutely foul-smelling."
Marcus lunged for the girl when the compartment door slammed shut, right on his face.
"How'd you do that?" The girl asked the twins.
"We have five siblings. You learn to shut doors." George said. "How'd you do that to his nose?"
"I found it in this book." The girl said, pulling about a book from her bag.
"1001 Magical Pranks and Jokes for You and Your Friends. Sounds cheesy." Fred said.
"It is, but it has some great bits of magic."
"Can we borrow this?" Fred asked.
"Sure." She handed the book to him without even thinking. "My name's Ivy, by the way. But thanks for covering for me."
"We're Fred," George pointed to his brother, "and George."
"Oh! So that's what your jumpers stand for." The twins looked down at their sweaters, one with a large "F" knitted into it, and the other with a "G."
"Good guess." George said. "Are you a first year?"
"Yes."
"Us, too. What house you reckon you'll be in?" Fred asked.
"My mum was a Ravenclaw, so I know she's hoping for that. Hufflepuff sounds sort of cool." Ivy said.
"With that stunt you pulled, you'll probably be a Gryffindor. Like us."
"You'll be all right by yourself for the rest of the night?"
"Rosie, I've been here for a few years now." Ivy said to the older woman.
"But it's Saturday, and that's our busiest night of the week. I don't want you to be overwhelmed." Madame Rosmerta said.
"It's a blizzard out there, I'm sure I'll be fine."
"Well, if you're—"
"Fuck!" Ivy shouted. She ducked behind the bar.
Madame Rosmerta looked at the customers who had just Apparated in and instantly recognized the identical redheads.
"Hello, Fred, George. What brings you two here in the middle of a storm?" Rosmerta asked.
"We're looking for Ivy, actually." One of them explained, but Rosmerta was unsure which twin said it.
"Oh, Ivy?" Rosmerta said through gritted teeth. "She around here somewhere." Rosmerta kicked Ivy. It wasn't too hard that Ivy was injured, but hard enough that she made a sound.
"Ow, fuck!" Ivy exclaimed.
"There she is! Ivy, these two gentlemen are looking for you."
Ivy stood up. "Er, yes. Hello, boys." She greeted as she fixed her hair and shirt.
"You shouldn't hide behind bars, Ivy. A customer would think you're avoiding them." George said.
"Well, then," Rosmerta said. She looked around the empty bar. "Feel free to overcharge, Ivy. I'm leaving. Good night, boys." Rosmerta said with a wink before she Disapparated.
As soon as Madame Rosmerta was gone, Ivy grabbed three shot glasses, laid them on the bar, filled them with firewhisky, and took all three in one fluid movement.
"Was that all that necessary?" George asked.
"You two look like you want to talk business, so I need to get in a business state of mind." Ivy said. Her throat burned, but she felt less anxious to see her old friends.
"We wanted to talk about the other day." Fred said. He and George sat at the bar. Ivy poured three butterbeers.
"What about it?" Ivy said.
"We felt that we haven't been very fair to you." George admitted.
"Oh, really? What gave you that impression?" Ivy said bitterly.
"Don't—don't do this to us, all right?" Fred said.
"Do what?"
"What you always do. You get angry and you never say anything about it, so it just simmers inside of you until you do something ridiculous and dangerous. Remember sixth year?" George posited.
"Or fifth year—"
"—and third—"
"—fourth—"
"—second—"
"—even seventh year—"
"All right! I get it. Fine. Talk, or whatever you came here to do."
"Listen, we've been really preoccupied with restoring our shop—"
"—and proposing—" George added.
"Yes, and with Angie and Katie—"
"—You've proposed to Katie?" Ivy interjected.
"What? No! Why?"
"You just made it sound like it, is all. So much has happened over the last few years, there's bound to be a few things that I'm not privy to."
"What I've been trying to say is that it's unfair that we haven't been paying attention to you and we want you to just unload it all on us." Fred finished.
"All of it?"
"Everything." George said.
"Right here?"
The twins looked around the empty bar. "Yes." They said in unison.
"All right." Ivy said. She had another shot of firewhisky. She felt the burn in her throat feed down to her stomach. She was ready to talk.
"Katie and I are finally dating!" Fred exclaimed excitedly. He motioned for a round of butterbeers as he joined his friends at the Leaky Cauldron.
The war against Voldemort and his Death Eaters was over and now the wizarding world was in its tenth day of celebrating.
Not that no one had lost anything, however. Families and friends were devastated. But overall, everyone had something to celebrate about.
"You and Katie? I didn't even know you were interested in her." George said.
"Yeah, I thought you and—" Lee Jordan was cut off by Ivy, who had just sat down with her friends.
"Ivy, what's wrong?" George asked once he noticed that his friend was crying.
"My dad—he—" She was uncontrollably weeping. Her loud sobs caused such a ruckus, anyone in the Leaky Cauldron who knew Ivy was surrounding the table.
Except Fred and George, who were becoming more and more distracted that any available guy was hitting on their girlfriends, who were sitting at the bar.
Ginny noticed this and angrily dismissed her brothers to go save their girlfriends.
So many people surrounded Ivy that she wouldn't notice if Fred and George were there or not.
But Ivy noticed. She remembered.
She'd never forget that, on the day her father died, her best friends weren't there to tell her that everything would be ok. That he's in a better place. She was left to be consoled by strangers.
She had never felt so empty before. Everything was lost.
"I'm so sorry, Ivy." Fred said, vulnerable and honest.
"It's not just that." She said. "You both ignored me for an entire year. You were either busy rebuilding your shop or with your girlfriends and I was all alone. You didn't even ask me for help when I thought, after we left Hogwarts, we'd be in everything together. I know you guys are closer to each other than anyone could ever be, but I had thought I was at least as close as someone could get with you both. I didn't realize that that's not what you wanted from me." She said.
"I lost my job almost as soon as I got it. Rosmerta was Imperiused right after she hired me. I thought you guys would hire me, but you just went on as if everything was ok. And then the war really started—I had to run. I had to. And you both just let me go. You didn't offer help or to come with. You let me go by myself. And then, when I came back, when it was all over, there was no, 'Thank Merlin you're alive!' or 'I'm sorry your parents are fucking dead.' Everything was, 'I'm getting married!' 'The shops doing great!' 'I promise we'll all go out real soon.' Then you have the nerve to ask how I am, that it must be hard adjusting?!"
"And I'm sorry if I'm rambling or ranting or not even making sense, but for four years, it has felt like you two moved on and everything is ok and there's no room for me in your perfect future."
"You know we don't have to stay for the entire ball, right?" Ivy said, breaking the silence between her and George.
"I'm having fun, though." George said flatly.
"You're not. You've been staring at Angie all night."
Ivy and George were seated at a table alongside the dance floor at the Yule Ball.
George was wearing the most garish dress robes possible. The main color was orange—brighter than his hair—and the robes were lined in magenta. Better was his date, Ivy, and though she looked very pretty, her dress robes were a stylized Gryffindor flag, complete with a lion along her backside.
"Fred knew I wanted to ask her." George said.
"Fred said he and I were going, so I know how you feel." Ivy patted his back.
"Yeah, but you're not madly in love with him."
Ivy swallowed hard. She and George watched Angelina Johnson, who was an absolute vision in gold, as she danced with Fred, who wore sensible and plain black dress robes.
"It's weird, you know. I thought we'd all do everything together. You, me, and Fred—we could take on the world." George said.
"Georgie, you know I've always got your back. Fred's, too."
"You should work at the shop with us. If we ever open it."
"You mean when you open it. And no matter what you need, I'm there. Even if you need me scrubbing the washboards. You guys have been my best friends since we were eleven. I'd do anything for you and Fred."
"Even go dancing with me when Freddie steals my girl."
Ivy smiled.
"You know, we'd do anything for you, too." George said.
"You're only saying that because you know that I have firewhisky hidden in my trunk."
George flashed her a winning smile and the two friends snuck out of the ball in order to go get blind drunk in the sixth-year boys' dormitory.
"We never wanted you out of our lives." George said quietly. "We wanted to take on the world with you."
"It sure fucking feels like it."
"How can we make up for that? You want to work with us? What do you need?" Fred asked.
"I don't need anything. I just wish we could hang out like we used to." Ivy said.
"Well then, let's do that," George said. He threw a handful of galleons on the bar and grabbed the bottle of firewhisky. "Our place or yours?"
-0-
"What's this?" A drunken Fred asked while rummaging through Ivy's flat. He was holding up a pair or red boxers with Quaffles on them.
"Ivy, is there a man in your life?" George asked. He and Fred examined the boxers.
"Give me those. What do you think, his name's charmed in there?" Ivy snapped.
"You're bright red." Fred grinned.
"So who is he?"
"I have something important to tell you." Ivy whispered to the twins over dinner in the Great Hall.
It was in the beginning of their fifth year at Hogwarts. Fred and George were beginning to notice what other boys have been saying about the girls at Hogwarts—especially their friend. They felt a strong urge to protect her from their friends' fantasies about her.
"What?" George asked just as quietly.
"Not here. Later." She said. The twins squirmed in their seat. They couldn't keep from knowing a secret.
"Ok, ok, ok. Calm down. Let's go." Ivy said. The three headed out of the Great Hall and to a quiet, empty corridor.
"What important thing do you have to tell us?" Fred asked. The twins looked at Ivy greedily, dying to know her secret.
"I—" she paused, uncertain of what to say, "I had sex." She said bluntly.
"What? With who?" Exclaimed the twins in unison.
"I can't tell you."
"Then we don't believe you."
"Fine. But you can't tell ANYONE. Not a soul. Promise."
"We promise."
"Oliver."
"Oliver Wood?" Fred was dumbfounded.
"Yes, Fred, Oliver Wood."
"How?"
"Are you asking me how sex works?"
"No. I think we're both wondering how this happened."
"I don't know. It was after that Quidditch game—where you two threw a party in hopes everyone would forget we lost—and he and I were talking. He told me he thought I was beautiful and we went to his room, and… well, then we had sex." Her voice tapered off at the end.
"I can't believe it." Fred said.
"Was it good?" George asked.
"It was… It was something else."
"That means it was bad." George said to Fred.
"No. It wasn't bad. It was my first time, you know. I don't know how to describe it yet."
"Will you teach us?" Fred grinned.
"You're revolting." Ivy said, but she smiled back.
"So? Who is it?" Fred repeated George's question.
"I can't tell you!" Ivy exclaimed quickly. She vanished the shorts with her wand.
"Is it Malfoy?" George joked.
"No, it isn't—I just can't tell you. It's a private thing."
"Do you like him at all?" Fred asked.
"No—I mean, he's a great guy. He really is. It's just not a romantic thing."
"How long have you been… you know?" asked George.
"Er, about four years."
"All right, George, it's clear. We have not been giving Ivy our full attention for a very long time. She's been sleeping with someone for four years and we've had no idea."