Author's Notes: So, to everyone who is enjoying this story thus far, I have some good news: here's an update for you, and I'll be posting another one in just the next couple of days.

Why so soon, you ask?

Well, normally, I'd like to wait a little while and tease you, let you sit on the edge of your seat a little.

HOWEVER.

After Fred and Ava's embrace at the tree at the end of the last chapter, I really, REALLY wanted to elaborate on the connection that they're beginning to build. I was torn-I wanted to feature a huge chunk of Fred/Ava and really just focus on them, but at the same time, I really wanted to progress the story and reveal more about the mysteries going on.

I tried to write this chapter SEVERAL times, and kept deleting and re-writing it, trying to make it work-lots of Fred and Ava, but then flashing back to the investigation. And it just wasn't working. It was disjointed, had no flow, and I couldn't find a literary way to justify flashing from two people experiencing this wild connection to more or less of a crime scene investigation. I wasn't happy, so I scrapped it, and decided to break it up into separate chapters.

So hopefully you're not disappointed, but I promise you, a chunk of mystery will be revealed very, very soon. Maybe even as soon as tomorrow. I have to see how much time I have to edit the final product until I'm 100% happy with it.

Thanks again for reading. Please leave a review!

Chapter 10—Static

Fred felt Ava's eyes on him even while he had his back to her. He looked over his shoulder briefly while he stood at the sink and confirmed his suspicion; there she was, sitting at the middle wooden table where he had left her, her eyes boring into him, puzzlement across her face.

He carefully made his way over to the table while balancing a water-filled copper bowl in each hand. One was topped with a thick layer of soapy froth and the other was clear, and a washcloth hung from between his fingers. He set them on the table top and swung his legs over the long bench, one side of his mouth hitched up in an amused smile.

"Stop staring, would you? I'm flattered that you're so impressed but I told you, I can't jump that high. It's the moss, it's enchanted…"

Ava laughed and Fred grinned. He put his hands, palms up, on the table and wiggled his fingers.

"Give them here."

"What?"

"Your hands."

Ava did the opposite and drew her hands back slightly. "Why?" she asked suspiciously.

Fred rolled his eyes exaggeratedly . "Because I want to eat them."

She failed to suppress a laugh, shaking her head at him, but willingly placed her hands in his. He brought them close to his face as though he were studying her injuries, but kept flashing his eyes to her face.

"You wanna know why I was staring?"

"Because I'm devilishly handsome?" Fred answered immediately, squinting at one of her bloody knuckles, the tip of his tongue between his teeth.

"Besides that, obviously." Ava smirked at him, and although he had been the one to initiate the joke, he felt his ears turning red.

"Well," he began, slowly lowering their hands back down to the tabletop together, still joined. "I have roughly one-hundred thousand questions for you, why you were staring wasn't exactly at the top of the list but go on."

She tilted her head from side to side slowly while studying his face for another moment, as though she were struggling to see something at just the right angle. She seemingly gave up and shrugged, then sighed. "I can't…feel you, like I can with everyone else."

"Come again?"

"I'm sure it has an official term in the magical world, it's just what I call it…whenever I'm around someone I can just…kind of…feel them. Know where their heart is in that moment. Tune into what they're feeling, feel right along with it. Sort of tap into their emotions, I guess."

Fred squinted, nodding slowly. "Like an Empath?"

"I guess. "

Fred left one of her hands behind and picked up her right, pulling it over the table towards him and dipping the washcloth in the soapy water. He brought it over to her hand and gently touched it against her first ragged knuckle. She flinched at the touch.

"Sorry," he muttered. He kept his eyes down as he washed her wound, avoiding her gaze.

"It's okay."

A silence passed through them for a moment before she continued. "I just haven't experienced that in…awhile. Usually all I have to do is be in the same room with someone before I start getting assaulted with every one of their feelings…their anger at their boyfriend lingering from an argument the night before, their hunger in their stomach and thoughts of lunch overtaking their brain, the cloudy gooeyness of falling in love…everything. I feel it all. But with you…I get moments, snippets here and there, like when we were going through the woods but mostly…Fred, it's just static."

He finally looked up at her and raised a single eyebrow. "Static?"

"You just feel weirdly stagnant, like a lake that's been frozen over…there's a whole other world under the surface but I can't break through. There's a fuzzyness."

He dipped the rag into the clear water to rinse it, and then back into the soapy water. He touched it to her second knuckle and smiled widely. "I've never been called fuzzy before."

"Fred, I'm being serious."

"So am I."

"Why can't I feel you?"

"Why don't you have a wand?"

He paused his washing of her knuckles to stare at her questioningly and she stared back, the playfulness gone from both of their faces. Their eyes were locked, a challenge for one another to see who would answer the other's question first.

Fred broke first, chuckling and shaking his head, resuming his work on her hand. "Looks like neither of us are quite ready to give all of our secrets away, hmm?"

He gently used the cloth to brush away at a loose flap of skin bordering her knuckle, which instantly gave way and started to bleed again.

"Shit. I'm sorry," he said, holding pressure to the spot fresh blood was sprouting from.

This time she didn't flinch. "It'll heal."

He glanced up at her. "Like that great big scar on your neck? And your black eyes? And the scar on your lip? Not your missing tooth though, I don't think that's going to grow back…"

Ava smiled a little and Fred saw her tongue move inside her mouth to the back of her jaw, feeling the gap. "I always forget that's even there, to be honest."

Fred moved on to her last finger. "So it must've been gone for a while then?"

She nodded, staring off into space, her tongue still puckering against the inside of her cheek. "Yeah, yeah a little while."

Fred waved his wand and conjured a roll of soft white bandage, which he started gently wrapping around her freshly cleaned knuckles.

"You must think I'm really crazy, huh?" she asked softly.

He finished bandaging her hand, took her other one from the tabletop but paused before beginning to wash it. "Actually, I think you're really scared, so scared that you'd rather let yourself get as hurt as you are than ask for help."

Her brows pulled together. "I get the feeling that you don't like asking for help, either."

Fred grinned while he dipped the cloth in the water again. "More mind reading?"

"A purely intuition based guess, actually."

He sighed, realizing they were going to get absolutely nowhere if they continued this. It was a dance of emotionally circling one another at arm's length; temporarily letting their guards down for precious moments such as their embrace on the ground just minutes earlier, then bringing them back up at full force moments after. In his resolve, he decided to be brutally honest to see where it got him.

"I don't ask for help for two reasons: pride, and shame. Odd hybrid, isn't it? But that's what it is. I'm too prideful, and too ashamed, all at once. Now that's what I call a full range of human emotion, am I right? So what about you, what's your reason? Why don't you ask for help?"

Ava surprised him by actually answering. "Fear," she admitted.

"Yeah, I can tell you have a lot of that," Fred replied, glancing up at her while beginning to wrap her second hand.

She was staring off into space again. "Like I said…you must think I'm really crazy."

"Like I said…I think you're really scared," Fred repeated back to her.

Ava stayed quiet as he finished wrapping the bandage around her knuckles. When he finished, he began lowering it to place it back on the tabletop, but paused.

"I have a proposition for you," he said.

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

He rested the back of his hand down on the wood grain but still held on to hers. "When we were down on the ground back there…you said you didn't know anything about me. We met about 36 hours ago, so that's fair enough. But I have a feeling you COULD know more about me, if you wanted to. With…this thing you do," he said, gesturing with his free hand at the one that still held hers. "And I'm not talking about feeling my current emotions, I know you just said you can't. But you did already determine you could trust me, just by taking my hand, and you paid me a visit in my dream. Those have to count for something, right?"

Ava nodded thoughtfully. "Go on."

"Well, I'll have you know, you're OFFICIALLY my charge now," he said, a smile twitching around his lips.

She smiled back, a single eyebrow raised. "Is that right?"

"That's right. We're going to be spending a lot of time together, you and me, so I think it only makes sense we stop this nonsense and actually get to know one another. So here's my offer—you do what you need to do here—" he paused to very gently squeeze her hand—"on one condition: you tell me EXACTLY what you're doing. No vague bollocks allowed…don't try and tell me you're looking into my dark little soul or something, no. I want to know exactly what you're doing, and how you do it."

She tilted her head from side to side in consideration for a moment. "Okay," she said.

Fred felt his eyebrows travel all the way up his forehead, nearly against his hairline. "'Okay'?"

"Yeah. You're right, let's start trusting each other a little more. So yeah. Okay."

He let out a gust of air, a bewildered look upon his face. "Well then. Wow. Okay. I mean, no offense, I was just expecting you to argue and tapdance around the subject a bit."

Ava grinned at him, a slight mischievous glint in her eye. "I can still do that, if you want. Not the tapdancing part, but the arguing—"

"No. No, no, no. Believe me, I'm very grateful. Have at it, then. Show your stuff."

The grin slowly and gracefully faded from her face, and she inhaled deeply, suddenly serious. She brought her other bandaged hand forward and rested it on top of his, sandwiching it between both of hers. Fred watched her intently, his heart beginning to flutter with nerves, waiting for her to do something sudden, or profound.

But all she did was close her eyes, lick her lips, and began caressing the tops of his fingers with her thumb, slowly, as though she were strumming strings on an instrument. A pleasant warmth spread through his hand and Ava suddenly broke out in a wide smile, genuine and joyous, her violet rimmed eyes remaining closed.

"You're…you're climbing up a tree," she began excitedly. "George is there, and another redheaded boy. Another sibling? George taunts you, challenges you to go higher…you do, and then…you lose your footing. You fall, you feel your arm break, and your mother, I can tell it's your mother, comes rushing over and heals the bone with just a swish of her wand…"

Fred's mouth seemingly instantly drained of all moisture and his tongue felt stuck to the roof of his mouth as he realized what she had just done: recited back to him his very first clear memory he had of being a young boy.

She continued excitedly, her eyes still shut. "You're pulling your first prank, it's a little stupid, honestly, but you're so,so excited. You hide around a corner and watch an older brother sit down at the table and the chair legs are loosened, they come out from underneath him and you have to sprint away to laugh because it's uncontainable…" Her eyebrows pulled together and her smile faded slightly. "Another brother, he's broken…your broomstick? You're so, so angry. The broomstick suddenly sprouts legs, now it's a disgusting hairy spider and it chases your brother across the entire field you all stand in…now, now you're happy again. You're holding a letter addressed to you, you're standing beside George, he has the same one…you've been…invited somewhere? Your mother is so proud, she wipes tears from her eyes with a little blue handkerchief…"

Fred involuntarily let out a single, soft laugh, and let his hand rest in the both of hers a little firmer as she retold more tales from his childhood, the most memorable moments of his life.

"There are snippets of things here, just bits and pieces, not all of it makes sense…standing inside a joke shop for the first time…the taste of something hot, buttery and sweet, while sitting inside a pub…a name being called out and your heart exploding with joy, what was that? Gryffindor? The taste of a chicken leg, the clank of a glass…"

Fred leaned forward across the table grinning, his heart hammering now. She had just looked back upon his very first trip to Zonko's, his mother had let him and George go in as a treat after finishing their school shopping for their first year at Hogwarts…and then his first taste of butterbeer, then the Sorting ceremony…

"You're holding…a wand…no, no it's not a wand…it's a bat. You whack something with it, and George comes…ah. Flying. The both of you are flying. He comes flying towards you and you high five, a crowd screams your name…you're with George again, peering over…a map? But there are things moving on it, it doesn't make sense…more snippets…you're ducking behind, or into a wall, it's some sort of secret passageway...a chess game, the feeling of a warm fire on your back, snow falling on your face. You're back home…you're leaning over a cauldron with George, something goes wrong, your stomach drops and the both of you go soaring backwards…ouch…your head hurts."

Fred grinned even wider, thinking about the enormous dent that still remained in their old bedroom wall to this day. It was from when he and George first started experimenting and attempting to invent things, locking their door and whispering for hours on end…

"There's…a lot of things now, too many to say, some seemingly random things, that's normal…a sparkling four leaf clover…an owl feather falling to the ground…here's you and George again, wearing beards? You wrestle him and act as though you're angry but really, the both of you are laughing, a crowd around you encourages you to fight…now you're…oh."

Ava went silent and Fred questioned eagerly. "What, what is it?"

Her cheeks flushed the color of raspberries. "It's the inside of an unused horse carriage…it's dusty…the windows are clouded with steam…you're terribly out of breath and so is she, she whispers she loves you in your ear. You say it back. She's beautiful. You're happy. You're both happy."

Fred felt his cheeks warm and redden as well; she had just seen a moment from the first night he was a virgin no longer. It had been with Angelina, late at night after the Yule Ball.

"You're holding a sack of coins in your hand, it's heavy, and you've never held so much money in your life…You're swimming naked in a lake and there's an old man with a cat yelling at you, I can feel the way he tugged on your ear to drag you out on to the shore…you're writing something, as you do it your hand sears in pain, there's a flash of pink and a high pitched laugh…"

Harry's Tri-Wizard winnings he had gifted to him and George. Filch. Detention. Umbridge.

"You and George…you're planning something by candlelight…your heart is beating like crazy, you're more nervous than you've ever been but you hide it well, mask it with confidence…fire…sparks…you're laughing, laughing so hard your ribs hurt…you're standing in an empty shop, but now it's not empty any longer. There's color and noises and smells everywhere…your heart skips a beat every time you hear the ring of a cash register."

Ava suddenly started frowning, and her hands just slightly quivered. "There's…a lot of fear. A lot of dread. Worry. Anxiety. I see things but I'm not sure you want me re-living them out loud for you…but you're not happy. You joke and you laugh but deep down, for the first time, you're not happy. You're quite exhausted from worrying, actually, all the time, about everyone…your house burns…your mother screams…George is lying on the couch and there's a pool of blood around his head, oh God Fred, I'm sorry…the ground is shaking. It shakes hard, like there's an earthquake."

Fred's heart dropped as he realized what was coming next.

"There's screaming, and…a smell…it's blood…you're wild with fear, you're frantic…you want to know where George is…screaming…smoke…dust…the ground shakes, and there's a metallic moan, like the sound of something collapsing. Your heart is breaking. You…you say goodbye. You have regrets…your heart breaks again."

"And now it's…static. Just static. There's nothing else."

Ava opened her eyes slowly. They were shining with tears and her face was still flushed, and she panted for breath slightly. "There's nothing else," she repeated softly.

She started to remove her top hand from his, but Fred stopped her; he reached forward with his other and laid it on top of hers. They were neatly piled now, all four alternating hands sandwiched on top of one another, hers covered in bandage and his now moist with sweat.

"That last memory," he said slowly.

She nodded a little. "You almost died, didn't you?"

"I came quite close."

"And? How long ago was that?"

Fred sighed heavily. "Four years, in about a week."

His words hit her like a slap across the face, her expression one of bewilderment, confusion, and sorrow, all mixed together. "I'm sorry, Fred."

"Don't do that. Don't pity me."

"I'm not."

Fred stared at her quizzically and she spoke again while looking at their hands piled together. "I'm just sorry for…everything. Everything that's happened to you. It seems like…it seems like a lot's been taken away from you."

"I told you, I don't want your pity—"

"I'm not pitying you, Fred. I'm empathizing."

She looked up from their hands to meet his eyes. "I just know what that's like—to have things ripped away from you against your will. To feel like everything's been stolen…like your life is smoke, or mist, drifting away as you desperately try to grab at it but it just disappears between your fingers and before you even know what's happening, you're left empty handed."

Fred laughed, but it was humorless, hollow and bitter. "I think you just put into words everything I've been feeling but haven't ever been able to say."

"How did it feel to hear it out loud?"

He smiled at her a little and nodded to himself. "Good, actually. It felt good."

They sat in silence for about a minute before he finally removed his hand from the top and they separated back to their respective sides of the table. Then, simultaneously, Fred felt a fluttering sensation in the deep of his chest, the same one he had felt at the hospital, and Ava jumped suddenly, flinching in her seat.

"Woah," she muttered, staring downwards in no particular direction. Her hand rose to her chest and she rubbed her sternum as though she had just recovered from a painful coughing fit.

Fred fought the urge to do exactly the same, his hand twitching. "What is it?"

She looked up at him, her hair falling slightly in her face, and randomly let out a laugh, one that sounded relieved and a bit breathless. "I did it. You did it."

"Did what?"

Her posture grew and she smiled widely at him, her eyes soft and shining with pride. "I felt you, Fred. It's gone now but it was there, I felt you. It hit me with full force, like a whack to the back of the head." She laughed again, rubbing her chest.

Fred didn't even need to ask, he knew exactly what had happened. Another part of the wall in his chest…a small one, but a part all the same…had crumbled.

Him, washing her hands. Her, looking inside of his mind and seeing all of his most important memories. Their lives, hers still a mystery to him, drifting through their fingers like smoke.

She had done it again. Touched him in a place he had sworn to himself he would close off forever. A place that had collected cobwebs and thick layers of dust over the past four years. It was the place that seemingly lived right in the center of his chest, the place that had been abandoned and shut down, every window and door boarded up and nailed shut, with a thick wall erected around it, warding off all visitors.

But she had broken through again. And there she sat across from him, smiling excitedly, her hand resting on her own chest.

Fred felt like this was a moment he should have the perfect thing to say, but he was frustratingly at a loss for the right words. "Well…I'm sorry it only lasted for a second then," he settled for.

Her smile faded softly and she bowed her head towards him. "Don't be sorry. The static's back…but its less overwhelming now. Not as fuzzy."

Again, he didn't quite know what to say, so he nodded back.

"I'm sorry…for everything that's happened to you," she said softly. "I know you said you don't want my pity…but I am sorry. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. It's like there's this great big wound inside of you that hasn't let you feel anything since your accident, isn't there?"

He had so many questions for Ava, and luckily, she had promised him some answers. Answers that he still hungered for and he would ask for very, very soon.

But for now, in that moment, he didn't feel the need to interrogate or demand answers from her. He just looked at her, locking their eyes together, remembering what she had said about the fresh wounds on her knuckles.

"It'll heal," he said.

And he meant it.