George PoV

I wasn't about to flip out and act like a maniac just because my brother may or may not be missing. Or, at least, I thought I wasn't. Apparently you do come off as a maniac when you start yelling at your family to hurry up and get searching before they'd even managed to stand up from the table. And when you almost tug your fiancee's arm out of its socket in your rush to get to the door. And when you almost splinch yourself just apparating to your own home. It took a hearty slap around my face to bring me back to normal.

"George!" Angie shouted – right in my ear. That woman had a bloody strong arm; it comes with being one of England's leading chasers. I sure did know how to pick the women. Thankfully, it had done trick, so I wouldn't need a repeat!

"Sorry, sorry!" I shouted, still not quite having got the knack of keeping my voice down. She glared at me. "Sorry," I whispered.

"Shall we get going?" she asked. She didn't even need to ask; I was gone before she had finished her first word.

The apparation spot in Diagon Alley was so full that we almost landed on someone. Thankfully, she had the sense to jump out of the spot before she got splinched into us. We promptly followed her lead; there was nothing worse than being splinched to another person. How awkward.

My idea of searching was to stroll up the road and hope that my twin sense would kick in. Angie had a better idea. She pressed something into my hand, and I looked down to see a very small metal device in my hand.

"This is called a tracker." She explained to me. "Hermione adapted it from a mobile phone. She says if we type in a specific person's name and date of birth like this," here she managed to make words appear on the tiny screen using the even smaller buttons, "and it will track that person for us! See!" she handed it back to me, this time showing me Fred's name and our own birth date on it. "It will buzz the closer you get to them. Or not at all if they're not here. Hermione says to apologise for the poor method of proximity; she couldn't refine the vibrations." She smiled warmly at me.

Hermione had done an amazing job! I'm still surprised she isn't rich and famous (not that she can get more famous) from her little inventions and handy spellwork. It was a shame that she was working in the Department of Law, although I was sure she was doing a great job there anyway.

Strangely enough, the tracker didn't buzz once from one end of Diagon Alley to the other – we'd crossed over with Bill and Percy halfway through but kept going. I'd thought that he'd be somewhere here, but apparently I was wrong. Or the tracker was, but I doubted that, as it was made by Hermione.

The shop was just as empty as Hermione had described it as, although Angie did notice that it was a lot cleaner than usual. That woman has eyes for detail.

We ambled back home to the Burrow, much slower than before, and got there to see that we were the first ones back. That is, apart from my dear brother Fred, who turned out not to be missing at all. Thanks for making us walk!

The patronus reached us shortly after we reached home; they must not have arrived much before us.

"Oi, Fred, aren't you supposed to have been kidnapped or something?! I hollered over to the other side of the room as soon as I saw him. Angie walked in soon after me and let off a huge sign as she saw my brother, a relieved smile settling on her face.

"Nah, I decided not to be. It's just not the right day for it, you know?" he grinned back at me.

"Yeah, I see what you mean. Too cloudy." We didn't get to finish our conversation because then the door flew open, Ginny and Fleur spilling inside.

"Fred!" Ginny cried when she saw him.

"Ginny!" he replied exuberantly.

"Fleur!" I decided to join in.

"Georrge!" she laughed back.

"Angelina!" Audrey unknowingly joined in, calling for her to come and help her with something in the kitchen. She looked somewhat bewildered when we all burst out laughing.

Bill PoV

"C'mon, Perce!" I wheedled. "One drink won't hurt!"

"No." he folded his arms in one movement perfected over years of being a prefect. We were currently seated at the bar in the Leaky Cauldron, and I was trying to persuade my stubborn brother to have a drink with me.

We'd already scanned the south of Diagon Alley using one of Hermione's handy tracker things that easily shortened the job by half. Not that I was opposed to finding my brother, at all, I just didn't think he was really in harm. I just think that he was being stupid as usual and forgot to tell people that he was going to be late home. But, you can't be too careful nowadays.

"Please? I haven't had a drink with you in so long! I feel like it's been ages since we really talked."

"And you think that getting my drunk will help?" he rolled his eyes at me.

"Just because you're a married man now doesn't mean that you have to be so boring." He sat up stiffly suddenly, and turned to glare at me through his wire-rimmed glasses.

"I, am not, boring!" he said. I snorted.

"Sure you're not, Perce."

"I'll prove it." I turned to look at him with interest. Now this was where it got interesting.

"Go on, then." I dared. "Drink up." I slid my favourite drink over to him. He eyed the deep red and smoking drink warily.

"What is it?" he hesitated.

"Dragon Fire. Devil Springs Vodka, chilli, and a special surprise. Now drink up!" he looked from me to the drink twice again before swallowing and bringing the drink up to his mouth height.

"Are you sure it's safe?" he asked one last time.

"Yes!" and in one gulp, he had drunk it. I cheered.

"Another!"

"Another!" he repeated.

Ron PoV

I was bored. Very bored. There was Harry, running around muggle London like he had never seen the place before. I barely had, and yet I wasn't running around like a little kid! We had a job to do! My brother was missing!

I watched him grin at the sign for a nearby zoo. I wasn't entirely sure what that was, but I think it involved animals. Maybe they had special talents?

Anyway, once I had managed to drag Harry away from a picture of a new bicykle (what was that anyway? It looked very unstable), we went back to roaming the streets. I suppose we did look a little out of place, what with our heavy robes. Well, when I say we, I mean me, because of course Harry was in perfect muggle gear. So the stares weren't entirely unexplainable.

Trudging along, we made slow progress. London was big! Very big! Hermione didn't have enough trackers for all of us, so Harry valiantly opted out of having one, saying that we were well trained aurors who could cope without one. Thanks Harry. I wouldn't have made this ten times faster or anything.

But for now, we were stuck walking along most of the streets in the city, muttering a quiet Homenum Revelio underneath our breath as we went, trying not to let our wands be seen lest we broke the International Statute of Secrecy. Of course, most muggles would just think we were a pair of half-mad blokes wondering around town with a wooden stick muttering nonsense words.

It took us the best part of an hour just to do a quarter of London, let alone beginning on the rest or the Ministry.

"Harry," I broke the silence we had slipped into somewhere along the long walk.

"Yeah?" he seemed to be concentrating very hard on a crack in the pavement beneath our feet. I couldn't see where his fascination with it came from.

"Can't we just go back to the Burrow and see if any of the others have finished? One of them is sure to have, and we could really do with one of their trackers."

"Mmm," he agreed. The articulate man that is my best friend and co-worker, people, saviour of the wizarding world! "Can we go then?" I have no idea why I was asking him; it's not like he's my boss. Well, not exactly. His position is higher up than mine, but we're not directly in the same line. We still get to work together a lot, at least with the field work. Everyone knows we make a great pair – we just know each other so well.

Anyway, Harry finally relented (he's very stubborn), and we began to make our way back to the house. Being the leading auror he is, he insisted on using muggle transport so that we could cover more ground. I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life. A metal tube hurtling through tunnels underneath a massive city at 50 miles per hour does not count as fun to me.

We got off the train at a small station near the end of the line, Harry walking out perfectly normal as if he did it all the time (although I knew for a fact he'd only been on it a few times before), and me staggering out, holding my stomach and trying not to throw up. How could people go on those monsters every day?

The apparition point wasn't too far away, so I didn't have time to fully recover before we spun in mid air to appear outside my old house. Almost instantly after we had landed (me throwing up into the flower bed – sorry mum), a slivery wisp of air came hurtling towards us. It formed into the shape of an Otter, and we both glanced quickly at each other. This was Hermione's patronus.

"Harry, Ron, I just wanted to tell you that it's all okay. Fred's back, safe and sound. Come home please." It was short, brief, and concise – Hermione in a tee. It was a pity this message hadn't found its way to us before we got on that ghastly tube. It would have saved me a lot of discomfort, but, then again, Hermione had never been that great at casting patronuses. It wouldn't surprise me if any others she had sent were lost on the way. We were by far her strongest connection, and if this one was weak, then it was unlikely others had got through.

The Burrow was busy when we walked in; almost everyone was there. Audrey, mum, Teddy, Susan and Luna, George and Angelina, Gin and Fleur – everyone except Bill, Percy and Hermione. Bill had sent an owl home to say that he and Perce might be late, but where was Hermione?

Fleur and Ginny explained to me that they had seen her only ten minutes ago, and that she would soon come in. Good. I wanted to talk to her and nab some more of her trackers for the auror office. They would come in very handy.

She was late. Hermione Granger was late.

Hermione PoV

It was just typical that we found Fred in the first place we looked. Yes - you heard me right – the first place we looked. There he was, looking all forlorn, just standing there. In plain view. Why did we ever think he'd been kidnapped again?

"Fred!" we shouted in unison. He turned in surprise, pulling his eyes reluctantly away from the closed shop front of Zonko's joke shop. Zonko's hadn't been open in years, at least not since before the war.

"Yeah?" he replied. His eyes weren't really focused on us though, so it was hard to tell if he was really registering that we were there. I ran over to him and swiftly hugged him, ignoring the puddles on the ground in favour of speed. Susan and Luna were more careful in making their way over there, choosing dry shoes instead.

"Where have you been? We've all been worried sick!" I chastised him.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione! I lost track of the time, and then I didn't want to leave, and I couldn't find a memory for the patronus so I just stayed here for a little while longer because I haven't been here for so long, and, oh, Hermione, you aren't too mad at me are you?" he stopped his rambling then to look at me with his annoyingly endearing puppy-dog eyes.

"Of course not," I gave in. "We were just worried, that's all." I leant in to hug him again, but he stepped back, leaving me to try and right myself without falling over.

"Why do you keep saying 'we'?" he asked suspiciously.

"Because it is we! Everyone, Fred, everyone thinks you're missing or kidnapped or something! You really should have told us! You should have seen Molly." Fred grimaced. He knew all too well how ferocious his mother could be.

"Well!" he announced. "We'd better be getting back then! My lady?" he mocked, holding out his elbow for me to hold onto. I giggled; I don't really know why, and Susan and Luna followed us back to the apparation point. They hadn't really said much; I guess they were just relieved that he was okay, albeit a bit annoyed that he'd more or less dragged them out into the cold weather.

My feet landed heavily on the soil after the usual constrictingness of apparating, and I stumbled sideways into Fred's waiting arms. He was used to it. I burst into the burrow, pushing Fred just in front of me as we made our way into the kitchen where I knew Molly would be.

"Molly! Audrey! He's okay!" I called ahead of me. I heard a small shriek and a crash before Fred was pulled away from me and into his mother's arms. I laughed as Fred was squashed by her, and made my way through to the kitchen to say hi to Audrey and Teddy.

He was sitting contentedly on the floor, his hair a fetching shade of purple, playing with an old rubber chicken from the Wizard's Wheezes. Audrey was watching over him fondly, a small smile on her face. I had a feeling that children would be in the picture for her and Percy not long from now.

I was pulled away from this pretty picture by a hand on my elbow and then I was engulfed by soft arms. "Thank you so much for finding him!" Molly hugged me tightly.

"It's, erm, no problem." I reassured her, extracting myself from her and smiling. "Honestly. I'll just go and make the patronus calls now." She let me go and I made my way outside to the newly built tree house at the end of the next field over. It was the perfect spot for patronus casting; quiet and rarely disturbed.

My eyes were closed almost before I sat down, mentally preparing myself for a mass casting. They were much more difficult than singular messages via patronus, and I had to think of my message very carefully. Not only did you have to think about that, but you had to think about the individuals and where they might be too.

Angelina and George would be somewhere in Diagon Alley, as would Bill and Percy. I could probably just run out to find Ginny and Fleur, so I didn't need to worry about that. Ron and Harry could be anywhere in London – that would hurt – but that was it. Only six people. Not as bad as I'd thought.

I searched for the perfect memory, and my mind came up with a whole host of them. Most of them involved Fred, to my embarrassment. I'd always said that I didn't need a guy to make me happy, and here he was stealing all of my happiest memories.

The one of his face just before I fell asleep after the wedding seemed to be the most prominent one, so I choose it and held it in my mind. I remembered the smells, the sounds, what it felt like, and cast out my wind.

"Expecto Patronum." I whispered. A silvery whisp flowed out of my wand and out of the window. It had seemed to work, which was good, because patronuses were my weakness.

I climbed down from the tree house and jogged out to the Quidditch field. Quickly scanning my eyes around the area, I could see that the girls weren't there. I should've asked Luna and Susan to join me – it would've made this a lot easier. I sighed and ran to the end of the field, hopping over the small fence into the next one.

They weren't there, either. Eventually I found them in the sixth field I came too; they had been making good progress in searching, but it sure made me looking for them a lot harder!

"Gin! Fleur!" I shouted over the slight wind. They turned on my third shout and rose up out of the tall grass before flying over to me quickly. I scowled at them. They'd brought brooms! That's how they'd got over there so quickly. Unfortunately, I hadn't had the foresight to bring one, so once I had told them that Fred was fine, they zoomed off home and I was left to run back again. Of course, they'd tried to get me to hop onto one of their brooms, but did not like flying at all.

Fred PoV

Where was she? Fleur and Ginny had come back a good twenty minutes ago – and it didn't take that long to walk back, let alone run back, as they'd said she was doing.

I shouldn't really be worried. Hermione was a more than capable witch, and the area around the Burrow wasn't exactly dangerous. So why did I get the feeling that something had gone badly wrong?

Hermione PoV

Just my luck, the skies opened above me as I sprinted back home under the covers of the trees. I was almost home when I tripped over a stray stick and went flying, ending up sprawled on the ground a good few metres away from where I had been half a second ago.

I heard the snap before I felt the pain, and I briefly registered the thought 'there goes my ankle' before I actually thought that it hurt. And did it hurt! The pain throbbed up my leg, sending bright hot waves of pain through my whole body. I had not felt pain like this in a long time.

I gingerly attempted to stand on it, but quickly accepted that that would be a bad idea before it had barely touched the ground. I briefly contemplated sending a patronus back to the house to get someone to come and help me, but I was still wiped out from the earlier spell. Besides, I didn't want to bring someone else out in this rain – I was already soaked, and not too far away.

My ankle pounded as I hopped through the wooded area. Every step was a miniscule feel of agony. I fell over again twice before I was even halfway back. I sighed loudly, but froze when I heard a twig snap nearby. Had someone come out to find me? Somehow, I knew in my heart that this wasn't true, but I could hope.

True enough, my worst fears came true when a hooded stepped out of the trees. He was dressed entirely in black, only the white of his hands showing. I couldn't make out his face, but I could see the silvery glint of a mask. Oh no. Not again.

A chill went down my spine. Please, no, don't let it be one of them. Then his hood fell back, and I had no doubt any longer.

I have no words for how deeply sorry I am. I looked at it once and thought - nah, it's only been a week, I don't need to start writing the next chapter quite yet - and then it had been 3 months! I'm SO sorry!

But here it is, all unedited and unchecked, because that's boring and I wanted to post it now. What do you think? I had fun adding the twist.

As always, please review! I love feedback!

All the reviews that I've had since I last updated (or all of them in general) have been much loved, as they always just make my day. Thanks for sticking with this!

titaniumroze :)