AN: Last chapter! We're writing a sequel we may or may not post. Who knows.
Chapter Ten?: TEH
Teddy Lupin awoke with a sneeze, grass tickling his nose. Damn, he hoped he wasn't allergic, but he was allergic to everything, and with his luck-
Wait a second... Grass?
Wasn't he knocked out on the floor of a new prison?
Or in heaven? Hell? Where ever particularly unspectacular wizards with unhealthy tastes in witches went after a band of insane Death Eaters murdered them?
"Teddy, you waking up yet?" Kyrie whined, nudging his pink and white streaked hair with an unshoed foot. Teddy blinked his eyes open. Where had she lost the other shoe? Suddenly both of her feet were bare, tickling his cheekbone in the dense, dark grass...
Which brought back up the question... Grass?
He scrambled up to sit awkwardly on his right trainer, his left sprawled in front of him. "Did they... What kind of trick is this?" he asked, seeing Fred, Vic and Kyrie sitting in a circle with him. Victoire, to his left, was swirling a lock of hair around her left hand, staring at him very disinterestedly. Fred, across from him, looked slightly less discombobulated than Teddy himself. And Kyrie, to his direct right, maybe an uncomfortably close right, even for such a good friend, stared at him completely unsympathetically. But at least, unlike Fred and Victoire, she stared right at him, certainly, without any trace of dazed confusedness.
"They let us go, Sleeping Beauty," Kyrie affirmed, nodding her head. "All of you seem to have some kind of problem understanding-"
"Sleeping beauty?" Fred snapped out of it. "Cliche alert!" He smiled like a perfectly toasted marshmallow- not burnt and crisp but melty and sticky.
Kyrie crinkled her nose. "You're silly," she informed him, smiling fractionally and glancing away.
"Well, where are we?" Teddy asked, hoping to restore some sort of order to the fractured group. "We might be away from those crazies or not, but sitting in this meadow forever won't help anything." He wobbled to his feet and brushed dying grass from his already beaten up clothing. A stain stretched around his left knee and up the back a few centimeters, tears spotted his jeans like freckles dotted a Weasley, and they smelled like they'd been dragged through a combination of mud, shit, and blood.
Well.
"Good idea," Kyrie agreed, standing up more steadily. She stuck a hand out for Fred, who used it to propel his face into hers. Not only his lips met hers, but also his forehead. They shook off the jolt and laughed, but Teddy was already thinking of directions. They weren't really in a meadow, but more of a valley. The ground curved up to either side of them, and the fold of earth the trees that surrounded them nestled into went on for longer than he could see. He scratched his hip, wondering whether they were in an Apparate-safe zone and how to tell, when he felt it.
The familiar presence of his wand. Duh.
"We're idiots," Teddy proclaimed, flourishing his wand. Kyrie's mouth widened at each side and deepened, her classic "I'm stupid" face, even as Fred shook his head and Victoire blinked widely.
A few spells and not a few self-deprecating remarks later, the four teens Apparated soaking wet at Shell Cottage.
"I can't believe you side-Apparated us all into a freaking hurricane," Victoire grumbled, shaking her head. "How does that eve-"
The door swung open and two red heads collided in a flurry of hugs. "Oh, thank Godric some good has come of this," George grumbled into his son's hair, clutching his grimy sweater close.
"Dad, Kyrie said you're dashing," Fred mumbled into his dad's shoulder.
George guffawed, drawing away from his son. "Then what's this I hear about you two plunging?"
Fred choked on something. "Uuh- what!"
While the two Weasley men reunited humorously, Bill and Fleur clustered around their eldest daughter, even as Dominique and Louis careened, squealing, from the cottage. Teddy and Kyrie scuffed their feet, whistling and staring at the troublingly grey skies. But only for a moment, before George and Bill swept down upon the two kids themselves.
"We were so worried about you all!" Fleur called above the two Weasley brothers. "Even George-"
"Welllll! I think that's enough about that!" George interrupted, grinning widely down at Kyrie and Teddy. "So, what's this I hear about you being wildly attracted to your boyfriend's old man?" George asked.
"Huh?" Kyrie asked, staring blankly at the redhead.
Laughs obviously long unused escaped the throats of the adults.
Harry Abel Khensley, Abel, to everyone, was a simple man with simple tastes. He liked violent Quidditch matches, pure blood philosophies, and full-figured, pure-blood witches. So, how he ended up 'hanging out' with a bunch of blood traitors at least twenty years his junior and dating the lanky red head just flummoxed him.
Some people would stop their daily life of deception to consider that maybe, just maybe, it was karma, or some other strange phenomena, but not Abel. He knew he was on the right track to the elimination of blood traitors and blood impurities, and-
He also knew he couldn't keep up the deception long.
Relationships didn't last on snogging. He had plenty of experience in relationships that failed, and they all had excellent snogging sessions. And he didn't even like the snogging in this one.
And that was how he ended up at this pub, full of blood traitors and mudbloods and all kinds of mess ups, waiting for that one lanky red head to stride up and kiss him, oneee last time...
He'd have to be nice about it. He couldn't rub it in like he wanted to, or claim to be lesbian. He couldn't attract attention and he had to stay close. The Death Eaters won the last round, but he was their assurance for the next round.
"Kyrie!" Fred chirped, leaning across the tall round table to peck him on the lips before perching on the stool. "What's up? Your owl was really insistent."
"Well, Fred. I wanted to do this away from prying eyes, and before anything else could...stop me." Abel made sure to add a touch of sadness to his voice, to let the kid know that this was serious business. He hoped Weasleys weren't the crying sort.
A vague sort of realization took hold of Fred's face and yanked his jaw down. "S'wrong?" The kid sat across from him and waved for the waiter. "Let's talk about it over a butterbeer," he suggested.
Abel suppressed the urge to gag: butterbeers were the worst, but his female counterpart obviously enjoyed the wretched brews. "Sure, but Fred...dear." He took the boy's terribly freckled hands and fluttered his eyelashes a bit. "Maybe I should say what I have to say before you go off ordering me a drink. We might not be best buddies after-"
The Weasley yanked his hands away and snorted. "Don't be ridiculous Kyrie. I know what this is, and I don't see why we can't enjoy a drink together."
It couldn't possibly be that easy. "Fred, are you quite sure that you know why I brought you here?"
"You're breaking up with me, Kyrie. I get it. I completely understand. We started this as prisoners of war for God's sake. We rushed into it, and maybe it was stupid." He sighed and looked away from Abel long enough to order two pints of butterbeer from an impatient waiter. When he turned back, his eyes were misty. "But I think it was completely worth it."
Touching, Abel thought. Almost sickening. "Yes, that's...exactly what I was thinking, Fred. It's for the best really." The butterbeers arrived and he sipped valiantly, refusing to look into the eyes of the lanky boy sitting across from him. "This is really awkward." Abel spouted out the little giggle he had been practicing while the others were asleep.
Fred shrugged. "It doesn't have to be."