Whispers in the dark

Chapter 1: Messing with the wrong witch

A/N: I own nothing except my mistakes. Also, I always write random story ideas into a notebook, and this is one of those story ideas I stumbled across when I went through that notebook a while ago, and figured this could be a really interesting concept to work with, so let's see how it turns out.

Summer break was creeping by eerily fast, as they were now enjoying their last day at the Burrow, having returned from the Quidditch World Cup just about a week ago, and were preparing themselves for a new year at Hogwarts.

However, two certain redheads were refraining Hermione from enjoying her dessert as well as she normally would have as she saw them glancing around mischievously, a defined grin on both of their faces as they were talking to each other in hushed whispers. Knowing better than to worry about it - after all, when weren't the two ever up to something? - she brushed it off and happily ate her ice cream, laughing at a joke Ginny cracked about her gnome catching accident. Apparently she had thrown it so hard that she had nearly flown right after it.

"Do you s'pose it worked?" Hermione froze in mid-action, the smile quick to fade away from her face as she could have sworn that she just heard Fred's voice as clear as day in her ears. It was like he was sitting right next to her, talking in a quiet room. "What in the world?" She whispered under her breath, more than freaked out by the occurrence.

A sudden movement on her left caught her attention, and she was in time to see Fred snapping his head her way, a look of terror on his face. That couldn't have been a coincidence. Could it have been? Squinting her eyes in suspicion, she slowly brought her hand to her mouth, covering it. "Fred?" She tried, waiting with bated breath. If he wouldn't be able to hear her, then she just made a complete fool out of herself. Yet, she couldn't decide what she thought was worse. Him actually being able to hear her, or her making a fool out of herself if he couldn't.

Yet, as his eyes widened to such an extent that it looked as if they could fall right out of their sockets, she knew he had heard her.

Feeling the anger swell up inside her as she knew that they had just tested one of their products on her, and apparently unsuccessfully so as well, as he clearly didn't expect that kind of a result, she willed herself to take a few quick breaths. "I'll be right back." Hermione announced with a forced smile, yet tried to make it as natural as possible to not raise any suspicion.

Hurrying up the stairs when she was out of vision from the kitchen, she opened the bathroom door and said the first thing she could think of. "Fred Weasley, get your arse to the bathroom, now." She ordered, feeling just slightly foolish for talking out loud into nothingness, not even knowing with guarantee if he could hear her when she wasn't in the same room. Yet, her anger suppressed any feelings of shame, and was left to pace back and forth in the bathroom as she waited for him to come upstairs. That is, if he heard her.

"Just off to the bathroom, little brother. Be back in a minute," Hermione felt the colour drain from her face at hearing his voice so loud and clear in her ears. The feeling of hearing him as if she was in the same room without him actually being there freaked her out beyond anything, and so she impatiently tapped her foot against the tile floor, willing for him to hurry up.

The door opened with a soft click, and when Hermione turned her head to it, she saw the same colour drained face staring back at her. Never before had she seen Fred so perplexed, and his chest rose with such a sharp inhalation that she couldn't help but wonder if he actually was trying to muster up the courage to step inside and face her.

"What in Merlin's name did you do?" She said through gritted teeth, forcing herself to keep her voice quiet. They weren't that far away from downstairs, and any raised voices would alarm the others. And what would they tell them? That they could now hear each other talk wherever they were? No, thanks.

"I swear, Hermione, I have no idea what's going on right now." Fred said, taking an instinctive step back as she threateningly placed her hands on her hips, closing the distance between them. "Honestly, Fred, we both know you did something."

Fred scratched the back of his head, lowering his gaze to the ground before looking back up again. "I mean, yeah, we might have sneaked a product of ours into your dessert when you weren't looking, you know, just to see if it worked." Hermione honestly felt like she could scream right now. Testing on others when they weren't even sure if it worked? How bloody stupid were they? "Let met guess, it didn't work?" She suggested, her voice shrill.

"I mean-" but Fred fell short, heaving a deep sigh as he leaned his back against the bathroom door, his hands coming up to rub through his hair as he tried to think. "What were you going to test on me, anyway?" Hermione demanded, not feeling the slightest amount of pity for him. After all, she was the victim here.

"We were aiming for a product that would make the user say the very first thing on their mind. You know, just for kicks, maybe they'd say something embarrassing and provoke some laughs." Fred said.

Raising an incredulous eyebrow at him, she stood momentarily speechless, feeling her hand brushing against her side as it shook with adrenaline. "Do you realise," her voice was eerily quiet, though sharp breaths accentuated her words, "that even if your product would have been successful, you'd still have overstepped the rights of a person's privacy?"

He pushed himself off the wall, taking a step her way, but she didn't back off. She was going to fight him on this matter until she could finally knock some sense into his thick head. There were some things you simply could not do to another person, even if it was just for fun.

"What's the matter, Hermione? Afraid you have a lot of embarrassing things to spill?" Fred taunted, a light sneer playing on his lips. It's not often that she saw him like this. Usually she'd always see the twins with some sort of wicked grin on their faces, or at very rare occasions just a neutral expression, but an agitated one? That was new. Clearly he didn't like to be scolded.

Spluttering, she silently scolded herself for her reaction. "What? No, of course not. It's just that it's no one's business what goes on inside of my head." She defended.

Fred shook his head, taking a small step back, and Hermione took a deep breath of fresh air. It wasn't until he had given her some more personal space that she realized how much her muscles had tensed up.

"Well, how do you plan on fixing this?" Hermione asked. Though she would have loved to continue their previous argument, she was currently a little bit more worried about what was actually going on right now.

Fred shrugged, almost so casually that she wanted to grab him and shake him until there would finally come some sense into him. "That's it? That's all you're going to give me? A stupid-" Hermione abruptly stopped mid-sentence. She was beginning to talk really loudly now, and she could have sworn she heard footsteps near the staircase.

"Hermione, dear? Fred, are you two up there?" It was Mrs Weasley, her voice muffled by the closed door. "We'll be down in a minute, Mum," Fred yelled back, making Hermione jump up a little as his voice rang loud in such an enclosed space.

The footsteps took off again, and Hermione continued where she left off, this time quieting her voice. "You can't just cause all this trouble and then shrug, Fred." She scolded, which made his eyebrows furrow together, a serious irritation hinting in his voice.

"What do you want me to do, Hermione? I don't even know what went wrong." She took a step closer again, her renewed anger giving her some much needed courage to stand up to him, and she used her index finger to poke hard into his chest. "You'd better figure it out, and soon."

With that she pushed past him and opened the bathroom door, storming down the staircase a little too loud, and stopping just before entering the kitchen again, taking a moment to take a few uneven breaths, before stepping back inside.

"Everything all right, dear?" Mrs Weasley asked, and Hermione forced a smile, though it was difficult to do. "Yes, just had a nasty scare when I bumped into Fred in the dark upstairs." Mrs Weasley nodded, then returned back to her husband, where she continued her conversation.

Taking back her seat, she made brief eye contact with George, who seemed to eye her suspiciously, and so she diverted her gaze to the now empty bowls standing on the table.

A few moments later a cold breeze swept past her ankles, and the next thing she knew she saw Fred taking his seat next to his twin brother. George leaned into him, whispering something under his breath, and Hermione didn't even have to guess what he said.

"Don't say anything," she whispered under her breath. "What did you say?" Harry asked her, and Hermione looked up to see Harry looking at her, an apologetic look on his face, genuinely not having heard her and thinking she spoke to him.

She managed the tiniest of a smile, and shook her head. "Just coughed," she said, and then focused her gaze back to Fred, who was looking at her questioningly. Glaring her eyes in what she thought would be a threatening way to communicate that he should keep his mouth shut, he eventually heaved a sigh.

"Ran into her by accident. Just had the use the bathroom, is all." She could hear him say. A shiver rushed over her entire body, a knot forming in her stomach at the uneasiness of the situation. It was as if he spoke directly into her ear with every word he said.

Every breath, every sigh, she could hear it all.

And when she looked up once more at him, and saw his pale face, reflected by the bright lights in the room, looking as if he had just seen Voldemort rise out of his ice cream bowl, she knew it affected him just as much as it did to her. At least that satisfied her enough to ease a bit of her anger.