Fred continued to enjoy the company and light touches of Alicia, and the other young women Angelina would bring with her, as he and George began to spend more and more time out for dinner or drinks with George's new girlfriend and her friends. Fred never initiated nor returned the physical contact but when it stayed above clothes and away from his private areas he didn't push them away, and instead enjoyed the physical contact he always craved.
In mid February, Fred sent an enormous bunch of yellow Acacia flowers to Hermione, using one of the shop's new barn owls that she wouldn't recognise, for Valentine's day. It caused quite a stir in her dormitory as the witch thoroughly tested them for evil curses or any hexes, before deciding that they were perfectly safe and displaying the beautiful bouquet on her bedside table in a simple vase transfigured from a water glass. Lavender and Parvati became engrossed in discovering the identity of the mystery sender, using the flower's meaning as a guide, true friendship and secret love. However, after ruling out Ron who was dating Lavender, Harry who thought of Hermione like a sister, McLaggen who gave her a large box of Honeydukes chocolates at breakfast and seemed oblivious to what the girls were going on about, Dean and Seamus who were far too intimidated by her, and Neville who was more interested in the flowers than Hermione herself, they let it go unsolved and focussed on their own Valentine's instead, much to Hermione's relief.
She dearly hoped that the gift was from Fred but this hope was thoroughly quashed when she heard from Katie about how touchy feely she and Fred had been over the Christmas holidays, and believed the older girl's vastly exaggerated tales. After Fred she had wished for Ron, but even with the emotional range of a teaspoon he would know it would be a death wish to send such gorgeous flowers to the dorm mate of his girlfriend. McLaggen's gift had been sweet but she really wasn't interested in him anymore, she much preferred someone who she could talk to and even though she had had a thrilling relationship with Viktor Krum the year before, she was looking for something deeper now and McLaggen was even more of a physical being that Krum.
There had been a few lovely evenings in a broom cupboard with McLaggen that satiated her physical desires but that was as far as that relationship would ever progress. McLaggen hadn't taken the news overly well until Hermione pointed out a brunette Hufflepuff girl who was eyeing him up and all of a sudden Hermione was free of the muscular lad.
After Ron's poisoning with a love potion aimed at Harry and then a spiked bottle of mead destined for Dumbledore, Fred and George received an enormously lengthy letter from their mother detailing the whole ordeal and a very short one from their younger brother.
Hi Fred and George,
Girl 2 and I are over now, not really sure how it happened as I was pretty out of it in the hospital wing at the time, but I'm really glad about it. Girl 1 is single so I'm going to go for it. No idea how and I think I'll take it dead slow. She really might be the one for me and I don't want to mess it up again.
See ya,
Ron
"Well, what are you going to do now big brother?" George asked his slightly older twin as he read and re-read the note over and over again during the shop's lunch break.
"I'm…" Fred began in a choked voice, before pausing when he realised he was entirely unsure of how he would answer "I'm going to step back. They're best friends and even Mum keeps hinting about the two of them and you know how protective she can be. Most of all though, I won't ever get in the way of Hermione's happiness."
"What about your happiness though?" George asked quietly.
"I'm going to live my life. I'm hers no matter what happens and if she just wants me as her friend then that's what I'll be."
"And what if she ends up as your sister-in-law?" George had to know now how his brother would need to be supported.
Fred's face crumbled in defeat and desolation, his swimming tears threatening to fall.
"Then I'll be the best damn brother-in-law she could ever possibly have."
…
Fred and George had joined the Order of Phoenix at the start of September last year, even though they never officially graduated from Hogwarts they had passed the date when they would have, were of age, lived away from their parents' home and ran a very successful business. There was no doubt that they were adults and when Molly Weasley put them forward at an order meeting herself there wasn't a single objection. If she thought they could behave and be mature when necessary then everyone else was happy to trust the mischievous pair too.
The personal protection range and other defensive products they created were always given out to order members for free, peruvian instant darkness powder becoming an essential carry item for all members in case they needed to escape attack. Headquarters was always well stocked with traditional healing potions, which George could whip up even better than Snape could, to the Potions Professor's extreme displeasure externally but extreme pride internally, as well as their own more complex healing potions and charmed bandages, splints and so on.
It wasn't until the very end of the school year however when they were eagerly anticipating the return of their family and other loved ones from Hogwarts when they were first called up for an official, urgent order mission.
"Fred, George!" Arthur Weasley bellowed through the floo in their flat, they hadn't heard that tone of voice from their usually peaceful father since they were tiny children during the first war and had had to urgently evacuate the burrow and flee to their Aunt Muriel's home "Are you alone?"
They both nodded, racing to the fireplace and crashing onto their knees to talk to their father's head more easily. They had closed up the shop already and were relaxing on the sofa when the fireplace had ignited with emerald green flames. Their faces were serious and they both took slow, deep breaths to quell their racing hearts and pounding heads just like their father had trained them to do in a panicky situation. Even though the first war had ended, Arthur and Molly had raised their children to be able to fight and defend themselves in case the war returned, as they both predicted it would. They wanted their family to be safe, having already lost many of those dear to them, friends and family, in the first war.
"What did you turn Ginny's teddy bear into as a child?" Arthur asked their security question hurriedly.
"We didn't, it was Ron's - " Fred began.
"And we turned it into a spider." George finished their answer and they both looked expectantly at their father awaiting the news or instructions he had to give.
"Darkness has fallen over the lake." Arthur stated quickly but clearly.
"Darkness has fallen over the lake." The red headed pair responded in unison, illustrating that they had both understood the coded information and in an instant their father's worried head had gone and the pair ran to grab what they needed.
Dark grey robes for each of them hung pre-prepared on the backs of their bedroom doors and two pairs of dark grey dragon hide boots stood between the front door and the floo. They had both been on order missions before but they had been planned and organised in advance, this was a very different situation. In less than a minute each twin was wearing the robes and boots, doing a speedy check of each other that they had practiced many times so that it was as efficient as possible in a time like this.
Fred's eyes picked over George's outfit and checked his pockets swiftly. Dragon hide boots with shielding charms and retractable sticky soles, dark coloured silent robes with shielding charms and their Order of the Phoenix pendants hanging like a muggle dog tag around each of their necks which was charmed to alert other nearby order members if they required urgent life saving help. The pockets of their robes contained a few small emergency healing items, peruvian instant darkness powder and a couple of joke products each that would help with creating a diversion if needed.
Without needing to say a word about their plan the twins leapt into the now empty fireplace and flooed together to the burrow. With an ease that only came with growing up in the house, they sprinted out through the kitchen door exactly in step with each other and across the lawn to the apparition point. This route was far quicker than making it out to an untraced apparition spot near Diagon Alley and had the added bonus of not being overseen.
With a crack they appeared simultaneously on the ground floor of the shrieking shack and legged it along the underground tunnel, having Remus Lupin in the order had made this route available for them as a much easier route to get onto the grounds and George tapped the specific knot in the tree roots at the other end while Fred pulled himself up out of the tunnel's entrance and started to run across the grass.
From their father's words they knew that death eaters were attacking or soon to attack at the school and they were required to help on the Hogwarts grounds so they immediately set up a patrol route, using their advanced knowledge of the school's secrets to stay hidden while they moved around, observed and waited for the battle.
Soon though they emerged from the shadows, casting spells at top speed at the fray of death eaters running amok. The dark mark had been cast in the sky but they didn't have time to consider what that meant between dodging and deflecting the dark and dangerous spells fired at them. Outnumbered, Fred weaved and dodged back to back with his twin, keeping the death eaters at bay but fighting at least four on two they were unable to land more than a few quick diffindo charms on the masked opposition ranks.
After several hours of exhausting duelling the death eaters suddenly retreated. The twins gave chase to the edge of the grounds as the gleeful cackles of Bellatrix Lestrange rang through the still night air. On returning to the castle they found a crowd gathered around the base of the astronomy tower and discovered that the great Albus Dumbledore had died in the battle, the pair stood shell shocked with their fellow order members in the background before being dragged up to the hospital wing.
"Bill!?" Fred's voice cracked as he stumbled down beside his eldest brother's bed in the hospital wing.
"I'm alright Fred, I'm going to be okay don't worry." Ever the older brother, Bill was grounded by the act of comforting a sibling. Fleur had one of his hands held defiantly in hers, staring at her soon to be mother-in-law, while Bill used the other hand to stroke Fred and George's hair where they knelt by his side. "It was Greyback so the scars are here to stay but he wasn't transformed so I won't turn on the full moon. Might have a few more barbeques with rare steak this summer though. Plus, Fleur thinks the scars are sexy."
A relieved chuckle rumbled from each of the twins' chests at Bill's stage whispering of the last sentence and the younger brothers composed themselves, suitably reassured that their eldest brother would be okay, before making their way over to the hospital wing's matron. The rest of the twins' night was spent tending to minor injuries for her with the use of a few of their own adapted healing products they gathered from the shop with the help of Madam Pomfrey's floo. At one point in the night Hermione appeared with tear stained cheeks hand in hand with Ron. The two best friends looked like their foundations had been rocked to the core but thanks to sharing the end of Harry's felix felicis they were mercifully unscathed, it was only George's firm grasp on his twin's shoulder that kept Fred from rushing up to them and sweeping Hermione up in his arms.
The distance that Fred kept from her after such a terrifying battle confirmed in Hermione's mind that he didn't care for her and she needed to move on.
