Author's Note: I've had so many kind reviews commenting on what a fantastic/unique plot this is so I just wanted to say I AGREE! Which really isn't as arrogant as it sounds, since I wasn't the one who came up with it :) haha. So I wanted to again thank the very sweet booknerd162 for letting me adopt her plot bunny. The idea was all hers, she just very kindly let me take it and run with it :)

I hope you all are wonderful this week!

XxX
Chapter Ten

There had been a sighting of Harry Potter.

Or at least that's what Dolohov had been told. In actuality, all we knew for certain was that someone had seen a black-haired boy with round glasses, walking through a random neighborhood several miles outside of London.

It wasn't much to go on–I mean, it's hardly as if Harry Potter was the only glasses-wearing, dark-haired bloke in the country–but it was something. It would be Winter soon; Voldemort and his Death Eaters were all too arrogant to have ever imagined that Harry could've escaped capture for this long, and now they were starting to panic.

So Dolohov had followed the lead to the small suburb outside London to see if he could find any trace of The Boy Who Lived. Instead, he found a pair of siblings, a muggle brother and sister, roughly my age. They'd been standing around on the walkway outside their home, minding their own business, when Dolohov approached them for questioning.

Yes, they had seen a boy who matched Harry's description, but they'd only seen him from a distance and had no idea which way he'd gone after turning the corner at the end of their road.

But Dolohov, determined to have some helpful information to pass along to Voldemort, wasn't satisfied with their answers, so he'd brought them back to Malfoy Manor for further interrogation, away from the eyes of onlookers and passersby.

As for myself, I wasn't convinced that the boy they'd seen was actually Harry. By all accounts, he'd been walking around in broad daylight for anyone to see, and he'd been completely alone. It was this, more than anything, that made me believe it wasn't him, because Hermione and Ron would've surely found and rejoined him by now. I had no way of being certain, of course, but my instinct–which I hoped was giving me something more than just wishful thinking–told me that they were together and safe.

The Death Eaters surely must have known too that it couldn't have been Harry. They might've considered him young and completely inferior, but as a boy who'd eluded Lord Voldemort for years, they definitely couldn't think he was stupid. There was no way he would be out wandering alone in the open, not when he knew he was being so desperately hunted.

Still, it was the first report of a potential sighting in weeks, so the Death Eaters pounced on it and they weren't letting up on the boy and girl who'd been unfortunate enough to get caught in the middle, even when it became clear that they had no more information to give.

The Death Eaters had tortured them anyway, humiliated them, threatened one in hopes of getting something new out of the other, but the siblings had just broken down crying, swearing that they didn't know who or what they were talking about.

They let Greyback have the girl.

Her brother had to watch her die.

It was around this time that I'd shown up. Wormtail had greeted me in the foyer and, when I questioned the whereabouts of everyone else, he quickly filled me in on what was going on, a sick, excited glimmer in his eyes as he described the brutal torture currently taking place just beneath our feet.

I forced my reluctant legs to carry me down the stairs to the cellar where I found them all gathered 'round, making a sort of semi-circle around the girl; Dolohov was holding the boy by the back of the neck, forcing him to watch.

There was nothing I could have done to help. It was too late. The girl was sprawled out on the cold stone floor, her limbs limp, and Greyback was already rising to his feet, using the back of his hand to wipe away her blood as it dribbled down his chin.

"Now," Bellatrix said in a soft voice, the tip of her wand resting gently against her chin. "With dear sister out of the way, I think another taste of the cruciatus curse might convince the boy to tell us the truth this time." Her gaze moved up from the boy and settled on me. "So pleased you could join us, Freddie. Since we have been at it all night and you have only just arrived, why don't you do it? It wouldn't be fair to leave you out while we have all the fun."

I swallowed and looked down at the poor bloke. He was on his knees, his form now crumpled in a heap over his sister's body as he cried for her. "What's the point?" I asked, trying to keep my voice cool and calm. "It seems to me that he's already told you everything."

"He's lying!" Bellatrix shrieked, a crazed look in her eyes. "He must know something!" The hag was unhinged enough already and, with Voldemort's ever-increasing impatience, she was only getting worse.

"Right," I said with a single nod, pretending to consider what she was saying. "But if he really had anything else to give us, don't you think he would've spoken up before you let Fenrir have his sister?" I countered. "If he knew something, he would've used it to try to save her."

Not even Bellatrix, who I suspected held quite the soft spot for her own sister, could argue against that.

Still, her shoulders bowed in and out as she took deep, angry breaths, clearly furious at being forced to admit that the boy had nothing more of value to offer. "Be rid of him then!" she screamed. "If you think he is of no more use to us, kill him!"

I stared at her, wide-eyed and completely frozen in place.

This only seemed to anger her even more. "That is an order!"

Throughout all my months with the Death Eaters, I'd somehow managed to keep my hands relatively clean. Yes, I'd stunned Driscoll the night we moved Harry to The Burrow, my actions directly causing the fall that ended in his death, but he'd drawn his wand first, aiming it at my dad. I'd only been protecting my family.

I had never hurt anyone unprovoked.

And this bloke? This muggle boy? He was completely innocent in it all. His only crime had been to stand around outside his home with his sister while, unbeknownst to them, a wizarding war was raging on around them.

"What's the matter?" Bellatrix asked, her voice gone syrupy sweet now. "Haven't got the stomach for it?"

I shook my head in denial, struggling to keep myself composed. "I just don't see why it's necessary. He's harmless. Just obliviate his memory and let him go."

She laughed. "Let him go? And why would we want to do that? He's just a filthy, worthless muggle."

"Right," I said. "So why waste the time and energy on him? We should focus on something more important. Like finding out where Harry Potter really is before the Dark Lord grows too tired of our excuses about why we still haven't captured him."

"We can't just let him go," Rowle interjected in his deep growl of a voice. "Someone just kill him already. Nothing to it. Like squashing a bug."

Everyone looked around for a moment, wondering who would be the one to step up. Bellatrix, usually so eager to jump at the chance to callously ruin a life, was still glaring at me–I could feel her heated gaze, but I kept my own eyes focused elsewhere. Fenrir, too, looked completely uninterested in participating. He was still satiated by the boy's sister, and boys weren't his preferred victims anyway.

"Let me do it," said Yaxley, now stepping forward, and my stomach sank.

Unlike Fenrir, Yaxley was more of an equal-opportunity monster. Male, female, young, old, pure-blood, half-blood, muggle, he didn't care. As long as you cried and pleaded and screamed, you were exciting game to him.

And one thing was for certain: at his hands, it wouldn't be a quick and painless death.

Yaxley reached inside his robes and withdrew a long, black wand, raising it until the tip was aimed at the boy. The boy was so far beyond caring or being frightened that he never even looked up.

"Crucio." Yaxley barely whispered the word, but it was dripping with twisted pleasure and, while the boy might have no longer cared what we did to him, that didn't stop him from screaming out in pain. "Levicorpus." And the boy was raised into the air, dangling by his feet so that he could be better displayed when Yaxley muttered the crucio incantation for a second time.

"Avada Kedavra!"

A quick flash of green light illuminated the entire cellar, and then the boy fell to the floor, his body still and quiet, robbed of its life.

There was total silence as all the Death Eaters turned to look at me; my wand was still drawn and aimed at the boy.

I didn't even remember taking it out.

Yaxley and Bellatrix both looked annoyed, but a few of the others actually looked impressed, probably assuming that I didn't have it in me. They were right the first time though–I didn't have it in me. I only wanted his pain to stop.

A quick death was better than the drawn-out torture the others so obviously had in mind.

Not that that made me feel any better about it. Even though my motives had been compassionate, I'd just taken an innocent person's life.

A wave of nausea suddenly swept over me and I could feel the liquified contents of my stomach rising up into my throat. Determined to appear unaffected, I turned around and, without a word and without ever looking back, I walked away, back up the cellar stairs and out of the house.

I apparated to a spot in the alley just behind the shop, where I immediately allowed myself to be sick.

xx

I was still clammy and trembling when I reached the flat.

George looked up from where he was sitting on the couch and whatever polite greeting he'd planned died on his lips after one glance at my face.

"Fred?" he said. "You alright?"

I couldn't even answer him. I just stood there, white-faced and shaking.

"What happened?" he said, quickly getting to his feet and rushing over to me. "Is it dad? Mum?"

Finally I managed to shake my head.

He looked a little relieved, but not much. "Ron? Harry? Hermione?"

I shook my head again. "They're all alright," I managed to croak out.

At this, George's body relaxed a bit more. "Well you look like you're about to keel over," he said, and he grabbed me by the arm and lead me to the couch. We both sat down and George twisted his body so that he could look at me. "Tell me what happened," he said, his tone firm but caring. "What's going on?"

My throat tightened and I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I was so tempted to let it all out. I wanted to tell him everything.

Because he was my twin and he would know better than anyone what I needed to hear. Because he deserved to know the truth. And because I wasn't even sure that this damned plan of mine was really worth all the pain anymore and I wanted George to talk me out of it.

I'd just killed someone! A completely innocent someone who should've had many more healthy decades ahead of him. He should've had more time to make memories with his sister. He should've had more time to live. But now he was gone, and for what? A war that he didn't even know anything about?

It wasn't fair and it was all my fault.

But what more could I have done? Was there anything I could've done differently? If I'd gotten there a few minutes earlier, maybe I could've saved them both. Or if I'd been brave enough to face the Death Eaters and blow my cover, maybe I could've fought them all off and gotten him out of there without having to bleeding murder him.

Or maybe if I'd just gotten there later, after it was all over, after they were both dead and disposed of.. and then I wouldn't have had to deal with it at all.

This thought made me hang my head in shame.

I brought a hand up to cover my eyes just as the tears started.

"Fred," George said again. His voice no longer sounded firm; it sounded small and scared.

"I–" I started, but abruptly choked on the seemingly simple word.

I wanted to let him in. I needed someone to help bear the weight of everything I'd burdened myself with. But I didn't even even know where to start. I was so exhausted. So overwhelmed. And, as much as I ached to, I just couldn't put the weight of all my mistakes on George's shoulders. He didn't deserve that. This was all my doing and it was only right that I should be the one to suffer for it. It wasn't George's job to help clean up the mess that I'd made.

But it was more than that.

I was selfishly terrified that he would be angry. And he would have every right. He should be angry. He should probably hate me for all the things I'd kept from him, all the times I'd lied to his face.

Even so, I didn't think I could handle that. Not tonight. Not when I already hated myself for what I'd just done. I brought my other hand up to my face as well, completely obscuring it from view, hiding myself from my twin. "I don't," I tried again. "I can't.."

And then I fell silent.

I heard George sigh and I felt the cushions dip and I knew that he was getting up. He was pissed at me for shutting him out, and now he was leaving.

I panicked, my muscles tensing up like a rubber band ready to snap, my insides twisting into tight knots.

"George, please," I said, and it sounded so weak and pathetic.

But I was hurting too much to care.

A few seconds passed in silence but, though I didn't dare lift my face from my hands to look, I could still feel that George was there. He hadn't left yet.

And then the cushions were dipping again as he lowered himself to sit on the couch once more.

He didn't say anything else, either to question me or to reassure me that everything would be alright. He just sat there by my side, his arm against my arm, his knee against my knee. He was angry with me, but he wasn't going anywhere.

And that was reassurance enough.

XxX

Author's Note: Oh, Fred! :'( I kinda debated with myself about whether or not to write this. The twins can definitely be a bit cruel at times, but only when they feel the other person deserved it. (Side Note: I do not condone such behavior in real life, of course.. forgiveness is the way to go! But Fred and George certainly have no qualms about threatening or slightly injuring people who've wronged them in the books. Haha.) But I don't think either could ever harm an innocent person, ya know? But for the purposes of this story, I don't think there'd be any way for him to worm his way into Voldemort's circle without doing something really terrible at some point. I mean, the Death Eaters torture and murder and control people left and right like it's nothing to them, so I think they'd expect it of Fred too and would be really suspicious if he was hesitant about it. But I tried to make it as LEAST terrible as possible - hence him killing the guy quickly, simply to put him out of his misery and save him from further humiliation and pain. Still.. it was hard to write Fred committing murder! Hopefully it won't make any of you hate me :P

Y'all know I like to torment the twins for a while before giving them a happy ending ;)

Thanks as always for the follows and faves and lovely reviews. I love love LOVE hearing from you! (And a special thanks to the guests and anons and the users who don't have private messaging activated. I can't say thank you directly so let me say it here. YOU ARE SO APPRECIATED. THANK YOU! :))