A/N: Hellooo, sorry this took so long to publish- had a pretty hectic week moving into a new house and casually meeting the 'real' Dean Thomas and the Weasley twins (aka. Alfie Enouch and Oliver and James Phelps. CASUAL) last Wednesday. Sooo yes. Everything is planned now and the next part is going to be chock-a-block with crazy emotional shizz and revealed secrets, but first you have this bit which is setting things up for...well, who knows? ;) Thanks for the continued support guysssss, enjoy!


Chapter 7- Nothing changes, nothing stays the same.

The shop that used to be Weasley's Wizard Wheezes stood, somber and bashful, in the space of Number 93 Diagon Alley- looking rather as though it wished it could blend in with the more delicately paint shop fronts beside it. It's bright orange façade was peeling and slightly grubby, the life behind it's windows subdued, whilst the absence of bangs and cheers and whoops emanating from the interior gave the whole place a slumped, tired air.

It was not, in short, the place that Annie remembered passing- craning her neck to peer curiously at the hubbub and chaos inside- in the summer of her 6th year.

George stopped teasing Annie for what he termed as her 'horrendous penchant for half-developed Neanderthals' the moment he spotted it, his mocking expression becoming grim as he surveyed the place he had worked so hard to create. It seemed to Leanne to not be a sign of his renewed passion or purpose, more a show of regret, as he resigned himself to the inevitable, crumbling deterioration of passing time. The sudden silence brought all three of them- living and transparent- back to the solemnity that Leanne's encounter with McLaggen had left in it's wake; a brooding, stormy raincloud that had swung back in front of the weak winter sun.

Fred was shaking his pale head with his eyes closed, as though seeing the shop in that state was causing him physical pain. "What a dump. How could he let it get this bad?"

"Grief." Annie said quietly, watching George's hands flex indecisively as he hovered by the front door, eventually clenching his jaw and swinging the door forward with his head held high. "And a fair amount of laziness too, I expect."

She followed inside, trying hard to not look too closely at the battered and empty shelves and the single high-pitched squeal of delight from the one young boy in there, which rang unnaturally through the hush of the place. Without breaking his stride, George headed for the spiral staircase that cut up through the centre of the shop- taking the metal rungs three at a time as he climbed and ignoring the voices that started shouting his name.

Taller and ganglier than his brother, Ron Weasley positively leapt over the counter that he had been manning, the hopeful tone of his smile making Leanne feel incredibly awkward. "Oi! A 'hello' would be nice!"

"Shut up, Ron." Rumbled George's distant, echoing reply. "And Annie, stop dawdling, or else you might find yourself forced into a conversation with him and your mind doesn't need any more numbing."

"Lousy git." Ron muttered, making a rude hand gesture at the ceiling before straightening his slightly too small magenta staff robes and glancing over at Leanne. "So that makes you Annie, then? The girl that's been holding George hostage for the past two weeks. Well I say hostage, but we're more than happy for you to keep him, so don't waste parchment on the ransom note."

Fred peered closely at his younger brother, who stared right back through him. "He looks a bit peaky, don't you think? Tired. This ugly bugger needs all the beauty sleep he can get anyway, but other than that…Not bad."

Ron carried on speaking over Fred, unable as he was to hear or see Fred at all. "Mum loves you, she reckons you've been sent from Merlin's own shining backside to bring George back to us." Ron wrinkled his long nose, but peered inquisitively at Annie as she shifted her weight uneasily from foot to foot.

"He just needed someone to talk to, I think." Leanne said eventually, hoping that she didn't sound sickly sweet and patronizing. With a small smile, she moved towards the bottom of the spiral staircase, intending to follow George before Ron could start asking questions.

"You were at Hogwarts." Ron said suddenly, as her back turned. "I recognize your face. You fought with us. You were there when… when…"

"Yes, I was." Annie didn't turn back, but she had heard the break in Ron's voice, knew the scene that he was remembering. The air filled with dust and rubble and broken bits of stone, broken bits of people, the screams of the survivors when the handsome red-head was unearthed… "I'm sorry for your loss."

She began to climb, an anxious Fred scrabbling up the stairs next to her, his face full of confusion and mouth full of inquires which she was forced to ignore. "You were where? What was he talking about? I thought you didn't know my family, that you hadn't seen them that night? Annie!"

"Annie!" George called out irritably, in a spooky unison with his brother.

"Keep your ginger weave on, I'm coming!" She bellowed back, finally mounting the last few stairs that led her up to a trapdoor in the shop's ceiling.

Heaving the door upwards on its heavy hinges, Annie climbed awkwardly through the hole in the floor. Underneath her hands the wooden boards felt grimy and cold and when she brushed herself down, grey snow fell sleepily back onto its original resting place. The flat was large, decorated in a warm and homely fashion with squashy sofas and armchairs and a large, brightly colored wool rug. The fireplace was squat, and with the cluttered collection of framed photographs and trinkets on it's mantle, appeared almost to be weighed down by it's load.

One picture in particular caught Leanne's eye; slightly off center but with pride of place at the front of the busy group. It was the pair of them together, with haircuts that looked as though they had been carved out from around a bowl and freckles standing out starkly against their pink cheeks, grinning identically at the camera and tussling playfully with each other when the photographer looked away.

"This is nice. How old were you there?"

Fred, who was peering over Leanne's shoulder, lightly ran his ghostly fingers across the aging glass that separated himself and his brother- captured together eternally for that one moment in time. "We're eleven… thereabouts. Going to Hogwarts for the first time- see, that's Kings Cross behind us and Mum's arm waving frantically in the corner." Fred stepped around Annie to examine the other photos more closely, pointing out his favourites as he went. "From our holiday in Egypt in our fifth year- we convinced Ginny that eating powdered scarab beetle would make Harry fancy her and she did it but was sick everywhere just after this was taken which is why she looks a bit green… and that was Lee Jordan's 17th birthday. Ah yes! I'm getting off with Angelina!... Christmas…Christmas…" He stopped at a photo right at the end of the group, tucked away at the back. "Bill and Fleur's wedding."

Annie moved around to get a better look. It was a recent picture, scarcely more than a year old, judging by the length of Fred's hair and his height. George's head was wrapped up in bandages, a teaspoon stuck where his ear might have been- a factor that somehow didn't make him look any less handsome. With a jacket slung carelessly over his shoulder and Fred's violet and silver bowtie askew, they were rakish and carelessly good-looking, smiling slightly lopsidedly at each other and simultaneously turning to the camera and laughing.

Annie held the eleven-year-old Weasley boys, still wrestling in her hands, up next to the picture of- what was now- the Weasley men. "Isn't it funny how nothing changes?"

Fred was looking towards a door leading off the living area, the shadow of George moving across it every now and again. "Nothing changes." He echoed.

George kicked the door of his room open, his arms laden with an assortment of clothing, books, stacks of parchment and toiletries, and his face slowly purpling from the effort. "There you are!" he grunted, flinging his pile unceremoniously down onto the sofa. "Make yourself useful will you, start putting this stuff into boxes or something? Maybe make a cup of tea while you're at it? Thanks. You're an angel."

It seemed as though George were in a desperate hurry; his eyes flitted around the room without really taking in his surroundings, and he kept stumbling over himself in his haste to keep busy. Leanne thought she could see a thin line of blood across his bottom lip, as though he had been clamping his teeth over them to prevent the memories from escaping.

She rifled through the pile, discarding odd socks and broken quills and a tiny, bright blue Puffskein that had obviously turned feral in it's time alone and attempted to bite the tips of her fingers off when she swept it to one side. A slightly moldy packet of biscuits went into the rubbish pile as well, and she was just picking up a navy blue sweater emblazoned with a 'G', stuffed with an old pillow inside it when Fred made a grab through her with his air-light hands- it felt a little like how she imagined an electric shock would feel; an unpleasant, scoldingly hot jolt that prickled her skin all over.

"FRED! Do you mind not… spectrally groping me?"

"That's mine! I might not exactly have a solid body on which to wear it, but you can't go chucking my stuff out as well!"

"Can you read? It's got a 'G' on it you absolute-"

"It was his." George said quietly. He walked smartly back into the room, depositing another load of his assorted belongings on top of the already tottering pile. "We used to swap, to confuse people. It…used to smell like him, a bit… but that went too, after a little while. Nothing lasts… and if he just said I'm more homosexual than Dumbledore's rainbow knitting patterns, you can tell him to bloody well piss off. Where's that tea you were making, eh? Spit spot!"

Treating the tattered jumper with a little more care now, Annie removed the pillow from inside and folded it neatly alongside a set of dark purple dress robes and a vivid green dragon-hide jacket. "What did your last slave die of?" She muttered, contemplating the earlier discarded packet of biscuits before shrugging and taking them to the kitchen. Considering how often she'd nearly poisoned herself with her terrible cooking in the last few weeks, she figured a little bit of aged fondant couldn't do her too much harm.

While the kettle boiled, Annie watched Fred walking slowly around the flat and muttering to himself, touching odd objects or else just staring into space. The place felt like it had been uninhabited for too long; there were still dirty plates and mugs in the sink, so encrusted with mould that Annie had to siphon most of the grime off using magic, but the green and grey cultivations were clearly the only living things that had been in the flat for quite some time.

Selecting one of the less stale biscuits, Annie stuffed it into her mouth and carried the two mugs back into the room. George had resorted to 'Accio'-ing his most essential belongings from the pile and was stuffing them unceremoniously into a large rucksack. "At last! I'm working like a house elf here!"

Annie snorted her skepticism, swallowing the biscuit remnants in her mouth to form a sarcastic reply, but found herself unable to say anything at all as she had, in that moment, transformed into a large, yellow canary.

"I know… I can't breathe…but I….can't… breathe!" Fred panted, laughing so hard that he was supporting himself by leaning on his knees, whilst George was wiping fat tears of laughter from his eyes, roaring with mirth.

Leanne felt that if she hadn't been fluttering wildly around the room chirping incessantly, that she would have been quite touched by this rare display of happiness from both twins. As it was, however, she landed back to earth with a thump, catching her elbow on the mantelpiece as she went.

She felt the eyes of both twins on her as she straightened up, rubbing her bruised arm, the sudden silence speaking volumes. Annie raised one of her hands to brush her hair out of her eyes, before realizing that it wasn't hair that was obscuring her vision at all; but silky, butter-cup yellow feathers.

"Well…that's interesting." Fred said tentatively. "It would appear that the charm we put on the Canary Creams gets stronger the longer they're left…"

"GEORGE WEASLEY, YOU DO SOMETHING TO STOP THIS RIGHT NOW OR I'LL…I'LL…"

"Peck my arms off? Do a whoopsie on the carpet?" George suggested, still grinning, his face shining with rosy health and his recent tears. When Annie merely continued to glare, her chest rising and falling rapidly with panic, however, he opted a sympathetic tone and told her to sit down whilst he found the appropriate spell book.

He came back to her and crouched by her knees, balancing a spell book there whilst he examined the damage. "Ok. So. Feathers still noticeably remaining on the hands…" He picked up one of her downy ones in his large, warm ones, turning it over to examine the palms. "And the face…"

As he reached up to cup her cheeks in his palms, Annie felt the sudden, overwhelming desire to kiss him shoot through her like a mouthful of Firewhisky. His touch was soft and gentle, from this proximity she could see the detail of his blue eyes- they were dark and streaked with silver like a night sky with stars- and they were sitting so close together…all she had to do was lean forwards and brush his lips with her own…

But he moved away again, and the impulse died as quickly as it had come to her. What the hell was that?

"Do you trust me, Annie?" George smirked, glancing up from the dog-eared Charms book in his hands.

"I-I.. don't know." She stuttered truthfully, still a little bewildered by her recent surge of passion.

"This is the second time I've saved your skin today, I think you should trust me by now."

"Maybe I would, if it wasn't for the fact that in both cases you were the cause of the trouble."

George's smile grew. "Naturally." He pulled out his wand, and Annie eyed it warily as he began to twirl it between his fingers. "I would've thought you'd be pleased that I'm getting back to my trouble-making ways."

Maybe she was pleased for him, Leanne contemplated, while George tapped various places on her face and neck and muttered spells under his breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Fred returning to the photographs on the mantle piece and slipping the one of him and George at the wedding into George's rucksack… So what would happen to Fred if George was getting better? Annie's stomach jolted in a way that had nothing to do with her recently ingested Canary Cream.

And what would happen to her if Fred disappeared for good?


(Umm.. did I mention that I met the ACTUAL, REAL Weasley twins? Think I did. Cool. So chilled.)