"That which he does not value, Voldemort takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence he knows and understands nothing. Nothing." Dumbledore

"One day you'll have to tell us how you got out of there." George said. He was re-bandaging Fred's wound by hand, cleaning it off with a wet rag.

Lee was rummaging through their supplies, trying to find something for breakfast. He didn't know if the twins would believe him, he didn't know if anyone would believe him. Wandless magic usually didn't exist once a wizard got their wand, with the notable exception of Harry.

"One day." Lee agreed vaguely, hoping that one day wouldn't come any time soon, because he still couldn't quite explain what had happened to himself, let alone an audience

Fred's voice was tight with pain that made both Lee and George look at him, concerned, "There's no way to grow it back, is there?"

Lee sighed, ran a hand through his hair. The worst part was that there were ways to grow the ear back, charms, potions, but the problem was Lee didn't know any off the top of his head and they couldn't risk walking into St. Mongo's and getting thrown in jail. "I'm sorry, Fred."

"Nah." Fred jerked away when George tried to bandage the wound again, "Not being identical didn't sit right with me, anyway." He brought a hand up to his wound, even though he knew touching it would hurt, and probed the edges. Unlike George's cut, it didn't sport clean sides and was tattered, ripped, torn where the blunt edge of the knife did more hacking than cutting. "At least it'll close up quick."

George stared at his brother, then ruffled his hair affectionately, gently, in a way that made Fred smack his hand away, stick out his tongue. "C'mon, we have work to do."

"Yeah." Fred finally allowed George to bandage his head, "Lee, do you know if anyone actually heard that radio show? Seems like it was an awful lot of trouble."

In fact, Lee had no idea if anyone was listening to his show. "Wish we could go into a city, find some Wizards."

"No way of knowing they're on our side."

"Guess you're right." Lee stared at the radio, his head tilted slightly, "Still, it's kind of lonely being on the run."

"Hey!" Fred said, eyebrows raised, "No one could ever be lonely -"

"With us around!"

And Lee had to smile, because even though he was road-weary, he was in nowhere near the amount of pain either of the twins were. "Hey, George, let me take over. You should go lie down."

George glanced at Fred, as if expecting his brother to protest, but the other Weasley unexpectedly gripped Geoge's hand. "Yeah, Georgie, you look like you've been through the wringer. Lee'll play nursemaid for a while." Fred glanced at Lee, managed a smile without showing the pain he was in, "Though I have to admit, I'd prefer Angelina."

"So would I, Holiness." Lee said, taking the blood-soaked cloth from George, who was nearly stumbling with fatigue, "So would I."

The messages began coming late in the evening, from Bill, now home-bound with the fidelius charm, from the braver friends they'd acquired over the years, not the least of which being Angelina Johnson, her patronus, a raven, swooping in and speaking in her voice, bubbly with excitement and heavy with cautions. Ending with, "I hope you're all right…I'll tell everyone to listen." A pause, heavier in the twilight of the moor, then, "Hide well."

"Anglina…" Fred breathed, his face turning to a picture of worry as he fingered the spot his ear used to be.

"Don't worry." George murmured, reading his twin's mind instantly, "That one was never much for appearances."

"Yeah, she went with you ungrateful sod, didn't she?" Said Lee, who'd nursed a crush on the beautiful Chaser for years before the twins had started after her.

"Oy, that was low!" Said Fred, holding his chest in mock distress, "I don't see anyone sending love letters to either of you!"

George let out a loud laugh, "You think that was a love letter?"

"It was!"

"Was not!"

Lee had a theory that the twins were stuck in a time warp, like Peter Pan. He wondered, vaguely, how much money he'd get for them at the nearest university as he opened the next letter, this from a winded, shabby grey owl.

Lee,

I know you are already taking precautions, but with your brave news advent you have to be more vigilant than ever. Move at least once a day, more often if you are going to be on the air. Mad-Eye would suggest to split up, but I have learned not to underestimate Fred and George. I advise the exact opposite: stay together, and keep each other safe.

Needless to say, be on the lookout for Death Eaters and Snatchers - you are still young enough to look school-aged. Try to keep on top of the news – the Quibbler, of course, would be a better bet than the Prophet, but no one has seen a new copy in ages. And make sure the twins keep their heads, I made an old promise to Molly to look out for them.

The war is approaching, and there is little news of Harry. If you should encounter him on your travels, implore him to wrap up whatever quest Dumbledore sent him on. Ready or not, we need Harry as a leader.

Keep broadcasting. Somebody needs to get the right words out there.

Remus J. Lupin

It was probably a good idea to keep on the move. "Can you guys Apparate?" Lee asked, folding the letter into a square to put in his cloak pocket. "Fred? You still bleeding?"

He was, from his ear, and his face was frightfully pale. The long, concerned looks George was flashing his brother were not lost on Lee, who felt sick to his stomach at the mere thought of moving the red head, but it had to be done. "I can Apparate, Lee, I just don't know if I can stand up."

"Whiner." George said fondly, already beginning to pack up the medical supplies, his own one-eared body wobbly from far too much abuse by the Cruciartus curse.

"So," Said Fred from the ground, "Just so I can figure out what we're doing, you're planning on broadcasts every week?"

"About that, yeah, as long as I keep getting new information." Lee summoned the tent and had it fold itself neatly into the bag.

"So we can count on being attacked every week." It was one of the only times in Lee's memory that Fred looked morose and perhaps the slightest bit bitter, but the expression was gone in an instant, replaced by the much-loved quirk of a smile, "Harry'll be proud. Our defense skills will definitely be up to snuff."

"Maybe next time they'll only take a finger." George muttered, grabbing the upper part of Fred's arm and holding Lee's hand just a little too tight. The twins were scared. Lee was, too. The Ministry was getting violent and erratic. Death came with chaos.

But then George turned on the spot, and the world changed all over again.

It was a weary month. Bitterly cold, the winter forced the three to share the tent constantly, leading to more than a few arguments with wands left pointing at each other. The twins, never ones for being cooped up, were off the walls with cabin fever, creating new products weekly, scorching different portions of the tent and once, memorably, catching Lee's shirt on fire.

"You should know better than to wear clothes around explosives, Lee." Said Fred, unwilling to admit his mistake.

"You've only been working on pranks for eight years." George added, dousing the fire with a stream of water from his wand. Both twins were stripped from the waist up, despite the temperature hovering somewhere in the twenties.

"It's cold." Lee grouched truthfully. "And I didn't expect to be rained on by pieces of toy shrapnel." He'd only caught on fire because he refused to move, despite finely honed reflexes born of years being around Fred and George. Instead, he'd bent over his radio, unnaturally fearful of it being hurt by the ashes.

Nowhere, it seemed, was safe, and not just in terms of the twins and their insistence on creating dubious products in a confined space. They were still being chased down nightly, sometimes twice a night, always either barely escaping or caught in a duel with a seemingly endless array of Death Eaters.

"We have to kill Dawlish." Fred had said one night, angry and in pain from a burn on his side. "I mean it, there's no other way to stop this."

"We don't kill people, Fred. I don't even know how." Lee stuffed his shirt into his mouth so he wouldn't scream or bite his tongue when George popped his shoulder back into place.

"Avada Kadavra." Fred said, not bothering to lower his own voice. "And there's muggle weapons that can do it: guns and knives and poison. But until he dies George and I will have the Trace."

Lee groaned in pain and extracted the shirt, rolling down the sleeve of his cloak before he could look at his arm. He'd had to venture into a Wizarding town two weeks ago to get a spell book, because the three were breaking so many bones ferula just wasn't enough to keep them mobile. Now he looked at George, who had been least hurt by this particular raid, "I think it's broken, too."

George nodded uncertainly. He and Fred were still wary of the healing spell, probably remembering Lockheart every time they tried to perform it. "'S what you get from falling into a gorge."

"Don't exaggerate, it wasn't a gorge."

"Was too."

"It was barely a steep slope."

"Steep enough that he would have died."

"Still. It wasn't a gorge."

Lee was too used to this back-and-forth banter to even realize it through his haze of pain. In his opinion, though, it had been a gorge. A deep canyon that he'd fallen into after an unexpected stupify hit him in the chest.

He'd been falling, and immobile, and death seemed unavoidable. The ground rushed up at a staggering pace and Lee wished he could close his eyes, wished he could move his wand, held in a death grip in his hand. Stop, he thought, hoping for another bout of unexpected magic, like when they'd been attacked by Greyback after Lee's first broadcast. But there wasn't enough time, not nearly enough. Not even enough to pray.

And then, suddenly, there was a pair of hands on his forearms, long, thin fingers that he'd gotten used to feeling after two months of Apparating. The twins had dived after him, directed their bodies like bullets so they could get that necessary grip on his arm before they Apparated.

Luckily, it was George who'd picked their location. George, who could plan ahead, who wasn't quite as impetuous as his twin, thought of something soft to slow their descent. Water. And then they were in a not-quite-frozen pond in a familiar clearing.

It had taken a few spells to get warm again, though Lee hadn't stopped shaking yet, and they'd been sitting on the bank an hour. Thank you didn't seem like enough, not now. Fred and George could have just Apparated out of the battle, could have mourned Lee in privet. Instead, they risked both their lives by jumping off a cliff in a wild hope that they'd be able to somehow save Lee.

How do you repay someone for that? And now that Lee wanted to say something, anything, the words wouldn't come out. Hey guys, thanks for taking a dive off a cliff for me. The twins would laugh. They'd laugh anyway. They found Lee endlessly amusing.

"Think we should put a blanket on him?"

"I don't think he's cold, Fred. Lay down."

"Still, he's been through an awful lot of trauma today."

"He's fine. Aren't you fine, Lee?" No one else would have noticed the slight hitch in George's voice, the little tremble at the end of the sentence. Perhaps the twins were more shaken up about the event than they let on.

"I'm fine."

"'Cept for the broken arm."

"Yeah, that was a bugger to fix. Don't go breaking yourself, Lee, you're the best medic we've got."

"Shut up, I think he's trying to say something."

"You shut up. I'm getting a blanket." Surprisingly, the blanket George draped over him did make him feel better, though the minute shakes didn't leave.

"Thanks guys." One look at Fred and George and he wanted to groan, they were grinning so broadly.

"No, thank you mate, we haven't jumped off a cliff since we were tykes."

"I think you pushed me that time."

"Did not!"

Lee pulled the blanket tighter around him, "You didn't have to."

That stopped the two right in their tracks and they stared incredulously at Lee. "Yeah, we did mate." The words were so sincere, said so earnestly, that Lee could only shrug and accept them at face value, because there was no elaboration.

Still, even though he was shaking well into the night, even though his arm still tingled slightly, even though Fred was healing from yet more wounds, he counted himself lucky. Blessed. Because Fred and George continued to laugh, to talk, to tell jokes, as if they hadn't just saved his life. As if it were no big deal. As if they would do it again in a heartbeat.

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