{}o{}o{}Fred's View Point{}o{}o{}
The minute Harry stopped speaking the kids eyes grew as big as saucers. Their mouths fell open and they let out little 'O's' in varying degrees of fright and or excitement.
"In essence, the toad face woman who worked for the Ministry took a teaching position at Hogwarts where she illegally tortured you during your fifth year and took over the school, has broken out of prison and swore revenge on all of us." Lux said out loud, looking at Harry with perfect seriousness. I couldn't help the smile that broke out on my face. He put what Harry had been talking about for the last three and a half hours in a sentence that took him all of thirty seconds to say.
Harry opened and closed his mouth a few times, reminding me greatly of a fish, before he to broke out in a grin.
"Pretty much, yes."
Alex and Alexa turned around quickly with equally large, and mischievous grins on their face and asked together, "Did you really turn an entire corridor into a swamp?" George and I nodded our heads, leaning forward and grinning equally mischievously.
"We did." We both answered.
"Harry need a distraction." George explained.
"We needed a test for the swamp." I continued.
"And we needed to escape." George finished looking at me with a grin. It was hard to believe that event had taken place over twelve years ago, it didn't seem that long ago. I could still remember every detail of our 'escape' perfectly.
The two of them began to pepper us with question, which we answered with relish. While we spoke, the kids broke off into groups, asking each of us specific questions. Alex, Alexa, Torry, and Lux were talking to George and me, drilling us with questions about our seventh year, and Potterwatch. They actually thought it was really cool, they loved the idea of us hosting an illegal radio show with code names. They had fun trying to guess what each of our names were, and figuring out how we had come up with them. They figured out that Lee was River really quick, and that it was because of his last name that we chose it. They took a while to figure out Remus' name of Romulus, but Torry eventually connected it to the legend of the wolf twins.
Kingsley they thought was easy, and they laughed loud and hard when they found out I had originally been 'Rodent.' It was fun to relive some of those memories, we'd had a lot of laughs on that show, as well as more than a few close calls.
It was well past midnight by the time we finally got the kids to bed, and they were still talking to each other after we'd turned off the lights and shut the doors. They'd be beat tomorrow, but I was really happy we'd finally told them most everything-I'd always really wanted to, but I'd respected Harry's wishes on the subject.
Hermione and I went to bed after two, staying up for a little while longer and talking. She wanted to tell me about the memory escapade, even though I could just read her mind, she still needed to tell me about it. I understood that and listened to her every word while I held her tight against me. It took her a while but I finally got her to relax enough that she fell asleep. I stayed up for a while longer, watching over her sleeping form. I was blocking all her negative thoughts as I wrapped her mind in a protective cocoon. She still had nightmares frequently, and I didn't want her to have any on what she'd seen today. I watched her long into the night, keeping a silent vigil over her. I knew I'd pay for it in the morning but I so wanted her to have a good sleep. I fell asleep around 4am, unable to keep my eyes open any longer.
{}{}{}
Something was tickling my nose. I'd wiggled it in an attempt to bat whatever it was messing with my nose away, but to no avail. I slowly cracked one eye open before shutting it tightly again. It was too bright in the room. It couldn't be morning already, I'd just laid down.
Then that tickle came again, joined by a warm weight settling on top of my torso. Warm arms hugged me and a quick, warm, sweet, pressure touched my lips. I unconsciously leaned forward, attempting to capture that sweet pressure again, for however short a while. A distinct giggle sounded and I felt a flash of annoyance as the warm presences pulled away, leaving me with just the blanket.
"None of that, Love. It's time to wake up!" Hermione's endlessly perky voice called out to me from somewhere to my left and I had to bite back a groan of annoyance. I slowly blinked my eyes opened and looked at the blurry face of my wife. She was up and alert, looking for all the world as though she had slept for more than the hours we had spent in bed.
Merlin's beard, how did she manage to be so perky?
Because I get to wake up next to you.
I blushed at that, resisting the urge to go 'aww,' and choosing to grab her in a quick kiss instead. She pulled away quickly, giving me a brief hug before heading towards the wardrobe. She opened it up happily while I sat up in bed. She grabbed out my magenta WWW robes and returned to my side before I'd even had time to climb out of bed.
"Now you hurry up and get dressed while I fix your breakfast, George is already eating!" she left the room with that stamen and bounded down the stairs. I got dressed and went downstairs to join my twin and wife for a quick bite of eggs and bacon. We apparated to the shop together and began to go about our regular start up routine.
"Strange Umbridge hasn't come to the shop yet." George said randomly as we turned off the protective jinxes and hexes we set up during the night
I glanced at him quickly before resuming my morning check. "Yeah, figured she'd have come over here and started defacing our property immediately." George nodded his head absently as he stacked up a pile of Skiving Snackboxes.
"Probably too scared what would happen to her." George finally answered, grinning wickedly. I laughed appreciatively before I unlocked the cash register.
"Yep, she probably knows we've already setup Umbridge traps all around the store."
"Speaking of which, did you set up the centaur dust cloud trap?" George asked as he walked towards the front, fiddling with our sign. He switched it to 'OPEN' and then ran for the counter as people started streaming in. I nodded my head at him as I began to take Owl orders. He took over the cash register and we began to work. I filled order after order, the owls never seemed to cease. Hogwarts was nearing the end of its school year and seniors were rushing to pull off a few last great pranks.
After an hour or so Lee showed up. He'd agreed to help us with the shop since Verity couldn't help out right now. He was a partner in the company, and owned a fourth of it. I set him to helping the customers find objects before returning to the Owls. I had just grabbed an order form from a tawny barn owl. When I felt a flash of pain come from George. I turned around in a panic just in time to see him collapse as he screamed in pain.
I ran towards him pell mell, yelling for Lee to close the shop. I knelt next to him and grabbed his arm. He was curled up in a fetal position and was sobbing. They were heart breaking sobs that immediately caused me to feel like I was falling apart.
"G-George." I whispered, my voice trembling as I felt tears well up in my eyes. I'd only ever seen George cry once, and that was when he saw me wake up from the coma. He grabbed onto my arms and pulled me to his chest, crying harder. I tried to pull him up, but that just resulted in him pulling me tighter, and crying still harder.
I gave up trying to pull him away, thanking Merlin that Lee had at least managed to clear the store. 'Mione tried to contact me, but I was too occupied at that moment to answer. The sound of George's sobs was making it were I couldn't think-couldn't even breathe.
Lee came up to us from the door and knelt beside me, saying something, I didn't hear what because I suddenly knew to clearly what was making my brother scream in such gut-wrenching sobs.
My vision had darkened, fading to complete black, and then everything flashed white as I found myself soaring on a broom in the middle of moonlight night. Dad was behind me, flying the broom as I was casting spells. A green spell exploded just to our right as Dad frantically flew the broom to the left. That's when I was hit by the pain, a pain so vivid that it caused me to gasp and curl up into myself as I clutched at my head. My ear was still attached though. That's when I knew they'd got George, someone had hit my twin, my other half. I yelled this news to my dad and he flew faster and harder than I'd ever seen him do before. Vision grew fuzzy as the pain increased, I knew George was fading and it scared the bloody hell out of me. We landed in the Burrows front yard minutes later, but I couldn't really tell how long it had been. I was feeling like I was dying, George was fading and I was losing contact with him.
Someone tried to stop us at the door, I couldn't see to tell who it was. Dad was holding me up as he yelled at whoever it was. He blasted his way through and ran for the couch, dragging me along. I couldn't feel George anymore and I knew he was dying, and he was dying fast. No injury compared to this feeling-it was like I was losing half of my soul, half of my very being.
I stumbled around the couch in a pained heap, barely seeing with my eyes. Dad grabbed me before I fell, helping me to see the two couches. They'd been pushed together to form a big bed. George was lying on one half, his head covered in blood. He was paler than anything I'd ever seen, Sir Nick looked darker than his skin. His lips were blue and his eyes open and unseeing. I couldn't breathe again, my world was growing cloudy as I stared at my dying twin-how was I going to continue without him? My eyes wandered around his face, my heart breaking even more as I studied its familiarity, when my eyes caught a bit of brown on his side. I brushed my eyes over it and then truly felt my heart snap.
On the couch next to my dying brother was Hermione, and she was dead.
I let out a moan of pain as I sank to my knees under the horror of seeing both of them dead or dying. My vision swam but I couldn't lose myself in the blessed oblivion of unconsciousness, I was just alone with my misery. Then I felt the last bit of life in George slip away, and I was alone.
For the first time in my life I was completely and utterly alone. I didn't have the gentle comforting hum of George's emotions, or the more reassuring whir of Hermione's thoughts and confusing emotions. It was just me, me and my pain. Neither George nor Hermione ever able to comfort me again. A roaring filled my ears as I fell face forward to the ground, my body couldn't hold me up anymore.
And I wept, I wept for everything I had lost. Just me and the darkness that surrounded me as I wept alone.
A/N: I'm not really sure why, but I rather like this chapter. I love WWW and I will probably write a story about it's opening one of these days... Anyway, please let me know what you think!
