(Chapter 1) The Fool
Author's Note:: I have been working on this story since 2006-before Deathly Hallows was even released. It's changed a bit over time, but I'm so excited to finally share this. It's an "it's complicated" love story, and it does deal with some darker themes as the work progresses, but overall it's just a fun ride. I hope you enjoy reading it.
Being woken up by a Hufflepuff was undoubtedly the worst possible way to wake up.
Especially when said Hufflepuff was an unapologetically overenthusiastic morning person.
"Good morning sunshine!" The sing-songy voice permeated the peaceful quiet of the morning, effectively putting an end to Wren's enjoyment of these early hours in the way they were meant to be enjoyed—in bed, asleep.
Godric, help me.
Calling on her house's founder had rarely, if ever, done any good in situations like this. This wasn't an issue of nerve; it was a matter of endurance. Because the thing about Hufflepuffs, and especially this Hufflepuff, was that they never gave up. Ever. Even when you practically begged them to. Even when you very clearly and explicitly begged them to.
"Time to get up!" The last word was sung with such obnoxious cheer that the sound shot straight through Wren's desperate plea to the universe, killing all hope of a few more tranquil minutes tucked away under the covers.
Wren made a muffled sound of disapproval and pulled the covers up higher, rolling away from her cousin's present attempt to shake her awake. "Geroff," she mumbled into her pillow. "I'm up."
"If you were up, your feet would be on the floor," Norah shot back the family rule. Apparently there had been one too many close calls with the Hogwarts Express (which, for the record, was only two), and her family had decided to institute criteria for whether or not Wren was, in fact, "up." Quite frankly, it was a load of dragon dung.
Wren shifted under the covers, allowing one leg to drop with a thud to the floor. "There. I'm half up."
"Not good enough," Nora prodded. "Breakfast is ready and we're waiting on you; come on."
Wren simply let out a grunt as a response.
"Alright then." The words came out too light and dispassionate to mean anything good. Brain still cloudy with sleep, Wren attempted to piece together Nora's next move when she felt her cousin take a firm grip of her leg.
"I'm up!" Wren shot up, her heart pounding against her chest from the near encounter with the floor. She should have known Nora would resort to drastic measures. Hufflepuff.
"Good!" Nora chirped, clasping her hands together in front of herself as Wren ran a hand over her face. The other girl allowed Wren the decency of a few moments to collect herself, even if she didn't move from her spot next to the bed. Slightly calmer, Wren turned to face her cousin who was already fully dressed.
"That's my jumper," Wren mumbled, punctuating the sentence with a small thump as her hand dropped into her lap.
"Is it?" Nora asked, innocently. "I suppose if you had woken up and gotten dressed an hour ago like you were supposed to, I wouldn't have had time to pinch it."
"I'm getting to it," Wren yawned.
"About as quickly as a flobberworm. Let's go," she clapped her hands, and Wren glowered, kicking the sheets off and pushing herself out of bed. Even Hufflepuffs weren't this Hufflepuff. No, this was specifically a Nora thing. "Now you're up," her cousin said, flashing a bright smile.
"Have I ever told you that you're completely insufferable in the mornings?" Wren grumbled, pushing past her cousin and walking over to the dresser.
"It's come up a few times over the years," Nora replied, her grin intensifying if anything. "Anyway, you get dressed, and I'll go down to try to save some bacon and let your Mum know that we won't need to waste a firecracker after all."
"A what?"
"See you downstairs!" Nora called over her shoulder, darting out the door with a trill of laughter and leaving behind a moderately confused and still very sleepy Wren.
It took a few minutes to sort through the clothes of her dresser before ultimately turning to unpack her trunk and find something worth wearing. As Nora had already sifted through, the formerly neat piles were decidedly more difficult to navigate, but at last Wren was able to extract something half decent to wear.
Wren made her way down to the kitchen finding the rest of her family gathered around the table already well into the meal despite what Nora said about waiting. She slid into the chair eyeing Nora who grinned brightly at her.
"I'll have that back at Hogwarts," she grumbled, and Nora turned back to her plate, piling eggs onto it.
"Of course," Nora dismissed, confirming Wren's fear that she was going to have to resort to magical means if she ever wanted to see her lilac jumper again. Rather than fixating on the loss, she turned to the food and began filling her plate as well.
"Where's Uncle Jonathan?" Wren asked, picking up a few pieces of toast and putting them on her plate before searching the table for the marmalade. Nora passed the jar to her silently.
Aunt Kathleen looked up from the Daily Prophet across the table, her eyes taking a second to focus on her niece and resituate herself in the world of the now. "He got called into work early this morning. They think they might have a lead on the Riot."
Wren nodded, turning her attention back to her plate and wishing a bit that she hadn't asked after her uncle. She didn't want to think about the Quidditch World Cup ever again. Despite the fact that it had happened over a week ago, she could still remember her lungs burning and her skin prickling against the night-the flames of the tents around her not providing any warmth. She could still hear the screams and the jeers and the sickening crack and Nora's hand tugging at hers.
"I hope so," Wren's mother's voice snapped Wren out of her unwanted flashback, and she turned her attention to her mum who was sitting herself down at the table with a refilled cup of coffee. "It'll be nice to have that bloody woman put her nose in something else."
Wren's eyes darted to her father for comment, but he was already pouring over his own work at the table. Apparently the cup had disrupted the flow of International Trading as well leaving him and her uncle who was in Law Enforcement with equally big messes to deal with.
Aunt Kathleen tsked and shook her head. "I don't see why they still publish her wretched articles. She lost her credibility years ago with all respectable wizards." She was of course referencing the infamous Rita Skeeter article in which the columnist alleged that Cordeilla Crouch's ill health was due to small doses of poison Bartemius Crouch fed her in hopes of killing her off so he could run away with his secret mistress, Amelia Bones. It had caused some commotion at the Ministry and had forever turned the family against Rita Skeeter. Not only did Uncle Jonathan and Wren's father work closely with the accused pair, but Amelia had also been a prefect for Ravenclaw while Aunt Kathleen and Wren's mother were in school and had been like an older sister to the pair. As such, she was forever referred to as "that bloody woman" around the table and worse when the adults believed Wren and Nora weren't listening.
"Sadly, the world is not full of respectable witches and wizards. The Cup made that very clear," Wren's mother said, setting her cup down.
Wren's stomach churned, and she turned swiftly to Nora. "I don't suppose we'll have any classes together this year, do you?"
Nora, bless her, did not seem to suffer from conversational whiplash, and instead tilter her head mulling it over. "Defense Against the Dark Arts, probably. As long as it fits in my schedule, I want to continue with it. I got the OWL for it."
"Speaking of classes," her mother said, rising from the table and moving into the living room. There was some seconds of sorting before she came back in, holding a dark green leather bound book in her hand. "Don't forget to put this in your trunk." Wren took the book, placing it in her lap, already feeling prematurely embarrassed to have to study from one of her mother's books this year.
Moon Plants for the Common Wizard, was the first successful herbology text from her mother. It had been a best seller and led to her hit series describing astronomy's effect on herbology. It was the books, more than her unusual plants shop in Diagon Alley that provided the bulk of the family's income and had drawn some notice to Wren during her first year at Hogwarts after she knew the correct answer to every question asked in her very first Herbology class. The teasing from other students had been mild-for few truly cared about Herbology-but had still been enough to make her slightly wary of class this year.
Aunt Kathleen pulled down the sleeve of her robe. "We'd best be getting on to King's Cross," she remarked. "Don't want to have to run across the station again." She cast a significant look towards Wren who glowered.
"Alright, pack up the rest in a napkin, Wren," her mother said, waving her wand so that the table began to clear itself. Wren snatched another piece of bacon off the plate that floated by her on the way to the counter, and made the resolution that next year, for the first and last time, she would wake up with plenty of time to eat her entire breakfast at the table with the rest of her family.
Wren followed Nora down the train as her cousin eagerly pushed her way back in search of an open compartment. As they peered into each open door they passed, they were met with the familiar sights of back to school: friends reuniting with a hug or clasped hands, two younger boys chatting excitedly to one another while showing off pet toads, an obvious first year hung out the window, waving goodbye to her parents.
Wren smiled, remembering herself and Nora jockeying for space in the window their own first year, desperately waving and shouting goodbye to their parents. That was back when they were certain they'd end up in Hufflepuff together. That they would be dormmates with beds next to each other and would stay up until the early hours of the morning, whispering secrets to one another. Wren's sorting into Gryffindor had come as a shock to them both, and while the first term had been rough, over time they made their own friends and slowly but surely became more cousins than sisters, more friends than best friends.
"Found one!" Nora chirped, dipping into an empty compartment. Wren followed, and the two girls helped each other stow their trunks before settling down into seats across from one another.
"So," Nora started, and having been on the other end of this word in that tone so many times, Wren's stomach knotted a bit at the sound of it. "I assume Simon will be joining us once again this year?"
"After the Prefects meeting," Wren nodded, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"Well, we should come up with a signal for when you want me to leave. Maybe a code word. Like Omnioculars?" Nora suggested.
Wren hated asking questions she didn't want to know the answer to, but it seemed unavoidable if she was to get to the bottom of Nora's thinking. "And why would I want you to leave?"
"I didn't think you'd want me around when you tell him."
And there it was. The other shoe.
"I'm not telling him," Wren shook her head, turning to look out the window as the train began to pull out of the station, the faces of parents and siblings blurring together before finally the carriage broke free of the station.
"Wren, he should know," Nora pushed as they hurtled through fields of summer grass and towards their home for the upcoming colder months.
"You're making this seem like a bigger deal than it is. There's no reason for him to know. It's not like-" there was a knock at the compartment door before it slid open. Alicia Spinnet glanced around the compartment.
"Oh! Sorry, I was...looking for Angelina and Katie. Do you happen to know if they're further along?" she asked. Wren and Nora both shook their heads, and Alicia nodded, a look of exasperated disappointment on her face. "A few first years took our usual compartment, and now I can't seem to find where they've gone off to."
"You're welcome to sit with us," Nora offered, gesturing to the mostly empty compartment. "Plenty of room."
Alicia smiled but shook her head. "Thanks, but I'm going to keep trying. I'll circle back if it's a lost cause though. You two have a good summer?" she asked. Both Nora and Wren nodded their heads at this question.
"And you?" Wren asked, and Alicia tilted her head side to side.
"Not bad. Bit boring towards the end though. Almost glad to be back just for the other people," she smiled. "Anyway, see you round." Alicia disappeared out the door, sliding it shut.
Wren looked back at Nora, thankful for Alicia's diversion and the opportunity to change the subject. "That was a bit weird, right?"
"A bit, yeah," Nora agreed, allowing Wren to move the conversation away from Simon and towards hypothesizing whether or not Alicia really was looking for Angelina and Katie, someone else, and whether Wren would be able to pry it out of her dormmate later.
The conversation moved from there the way it did between two people who knew each other well and spoke often. It was always easy talking to Nora on the train ride to Hogwarts-where it tended to get stinted and awkward was the train ride home. As it was, they joked about people from the village, came up with scandalous ideas for Rita Skeeter's next article, and practically plundered the tea trolley when it came along.
Wren was halfway through her third pumpkin pasty when a collection of voices could be heard from the corridor. "The prefects meeting must be over," Wren commented, quickly finishing off the rest of the snack.
"Oh! That's Cedric," Nora said, standing up from her seat, wrappers falling off her lap and onto the floor in her haste towards the door. Wren had half a mind to laugh at her cousin as Nora slid it open, hanging half out of the compartment; of course she'd hear Cedric's voice over the rest of the prefects. "Hullo Ced!" Nora greeted, leaning back into the car as Cedric approached, the two standing in the doorway.
"Hi Nora. Wren," he waved at her over Nora's shoulder and Wren waved back with a smile. Ceric had been one of Nora's first friends at Hogwarts, and while her cousin had started fancying him early on-it wasn't until his third year when Cedric really grew into his looks that Wren took any notice of him at all. Now it was almost impossible not to notice Cedric with his beautiful dark hair, impressive cheekbones, and sparkling grey eyes. And he was built. "Good to see you. I was hoping you made it out ok."
Nora nodded, her mood shifting from its normal state of aggressively bubbly to something a bit more somber. "Yeah, we're fine. It was a scare though."
The last time either of the girls had seen Cedric Diggory was the morning of the Quidditch World Cup. They had run into him bringing water back to his father and had a good few minutes of conversation before Mr. Diggory started going on about Hogwarts Quidditch and Nora had to haul Wren off before she said something she'd regret. And that night-Nora had been looking for him when it happened.
"Yeah," Cedric breathed. "I've never seen my dad look so shaken." The three sat in the silence after the statement each sifting through their own thoughts.
Cedric broke the silence first. "Anyway, I have first patrol of the corridor. I just wanted to check in and say hi. See you at dinner?" This question was clearly for Nora, and Wren had a very difficult time not making a face at her cousin.
"Of course," Nora grinned, moving back to her seat.
"Bye then. Bye Wren," he nodded at Wren who waved at him once more as both girls chorused a goodbye.
Wren turned to face her cousin with raised eyebrows.
"Don't look at me like that!" Nora hissed, but there was no real heat behind her words, and her lips were already tugging up in a smile.
"He just wanted to check in. He was hoping you made it out ok," Wren teased.
Nora sighed, slouching back into her chair. "He's probably just being nice. He's too nice. It's impossible to tell."
"He took time out of his patrol for you," Wren reached forward, poking Nora's knee. Nora shook her off.
"Yes, a whole two minutes. How promising?"
Before Wren could continue to pester Nora about her crush, the door to the compartment slid open, and Simon walked in.
Wren always got butterflies whenever Simon walked into a room. For as handsome as Cedric might have been, it was a wonder that Simon didn't have as many girls hanging off of him. He was proper fit, objectively speaking, with his bronze hair that curled up slightly in the front, dark blue eyes and the most dazzling dimpled smile that Wren had ever seen. He was gorgeous and brilliant and hers.
Wren beamed up at him as he crossed to sit next to her, cupping her cheek lightly as he bent down to give her a kiss. It was short-too short for Wren's liking, but she was comforted by him sitting next to her and throwing an arm over her shoulders. "Hello, you."
"Hi," Wren leaned her head on his shoulder.
"Good summer?" he asked, rubbing her shoulder lightly with his hand, and Wren hummed in agreement.
"Would have been better with you," she remarked.
"You should have come to Istanbul with me. It was incredible." He kissed the top of her head for good measure, and across from her, Nora rolled her eyes grandly.
Wren lifted her head off of Simon's shoulder, as her boyfriend turned to face Nora. His face creased in confusion. "Is that...your jumper?"
Nora threw her hands up. "Fine, I'll give it back when we get changed into robes."
Wren pressed a kiss to Simon's cheek. "Thank you, love. I thought it was gone forever."
"You can't be letting people take your things," he shook his head at her admonishingly, and Wren's cheeks tinged pink.
"I'm not people, I'm her family," Nora corrected, hotly. "And I was just borrowing it."
Simon opened his mouth to respond, but Wren cut him off, shoving a handful of chocolate frogs towards him. "I got you some from the trolley," she said, shooting a quick glare at Nora who sank back into her seat. Simon paused, seeming to consider whether his retort was worth saying, before ultimately giving up the last word and plucking a chocolate frog out of Wren's hand. He ripped it open, popping the frog into his mouth and holding it there for a second so Wren could see it bounce against the inside of his cheeks. She giggled, and Simon finished off the treat, the mood in the car restored.
"Bring anything good to read?" Simon asked, and Wren nodded, pulling the two books she'd extracted from her trunk out from under her seat, offering Simon his choice between The Hunting of the Snark and The Corsair. She was unsurprised as Simon took The Corsair out of her hands and opened it. He'd been a fan of Lord Byron since she first brought him a book of poems from the village shop.
Wren sank back against him so the two could read together, only moving from the spot after Nora's huffing and noises of boredom got to her. After offering her cousin the other book, the compartment fell into a companionable silence for the next few hours.
Until Nora shut her book with an audible thck. Wren looked up from her own page, watching as her cousin set the book aside and drew a deck of cards from her pocket. Nora looked up, catching Wren's gaze and smiled pleadingly. Wren sighed, drawing herself out from under Simon's arm who finally looked up at what was happening.
"Are you really going to ask to read my cards?" Wren asked over the faint swishing of cards shuffling. "You've read them a dozen times. I'm surprised you don't have my fortune memorized by now."
"That was for the summer," Nora shook her head. "We don't know what your school year will look like."
"It's going to look like the shelves of the library and piles of school work," Simon remarked. "NEWT level classes are right nasty."
"Yes, thank you for your input," Nora said crisply before turning back to Wren. "I've haven't been able to practise all summer."
"You received two letters from the Ministry! Your mum threatened to snap your wand!"
"Yes, but that was early July. It's practically September now," Nora dismissed, her hands stilling. "Please."
Wren could feel Simon's disdainful look as she met Nora's gaze. But, she had already made up her mind the minute she saw the cards.
"We're not doing the same one as last time," Wren shook her head, and Nora beamed at her cousin, resuming the shuffling.
"Oh, I like that one."
"It took nearly a half hour!" Wren protested. Despite the fact that they still had over six hours left of their journey, she did not feel like spending the majority of it having her cousin make up a future for her.
"That was the Celtic Cross. There's a lot to decipher there," Nora defended, cutting the deck for a final time.
"Three this time. Those are your most accurate anyway." Wren wasn't sure if Nora could take credit for being good or for having better luck when she only needed to manipulate 3 cards into a story that fit Wren's life versus 10 cards. It was hard to imagine her cousin, who had gotten O.W.L.S. in all of her subjects (including Os in Arithmancy and Ancient Runes), seemed fixated on something as soft as Divination. It was Aunt Kathleen's greatest bane, and she blamed her mother for corrupting Nora during the holidays they spent together.
"Not much use for practising if I'm already good at them," Nora grumbled but nevertheless she reached the cards out and placed them in Wren's cupped hands. "We'll do a past, present, future, see if Simon's right about the school year."
"I know I'm right. I was in sixth last year," Simon retorted. Nora, thankfully, ignored him.
Wren picked up the deck and held it out to Nora who, producing her wand from her pocket, muttered a few spells and tapped the cards cards shuffled themselves once, twice, three times before settling in Wren's hands once more.
"Now ask," Nora prompted.
Wren bent down to whisper to the cards, "What will my school year look like?" Ignoring Simon's scoff to her right. She leaned back, allowing Nora to tap the cards three more times before waving her wand in a circular motion. The first time she had ever done this, Wren had allowed herself to be slightly amazed to see the cards leap out of her hands and arrange themselves in a fanned out circle. The small thrill of the magic and Nora's increased showmanship still caused Wren's heart to beat a little faster as three cards slid out and arranged themselves in a nice pile in the center. Nora looked up from the arrangement on the table, eyes bright. "Ready?"
"It's just my past isn't it? I've already lived it?"
Nora rolled her eyes. "It's not just your past. It's the past that explains who you are right now. Think of this card as you."
"I always get the same thing."
"That's how you know it works," Nora said, flipping the card and once more the Eight of Swords stared up at Wren. Nora's eyes flicked up to meet hers. "Do I need to explain it again?"
"I got it by the fourth time," Wren dismissed. According to the cards, she hated conflict. It didn't take Divination to make that clear. Everyone knew Wren would do whatever it took to avoid confrontation and make sure that people agreed. Nora told her it was her 9 soul urge. To Wren it was just because she was so bad at it. "The next one's going to be Six of Cups, see-" Wren looked down to the card that Nora had just flipped and paused. "Oh."
Nora gasped excitedly. "The future is here!" She looked up at Wren with an expectant grin, but the other girl's eyes were still focused on the card.
The Fool.
She had drawn this card as many times as the Eight of Swords, but never in the present position. From the train ride home last year it had always been Eight of Swords, Six of Cups, The Fool. Despite herself, Wren could feel her heart start to beat faster in anticipation. This was all just a silly trick-hardly anything to put real stock on-after all, Nora admitted herself that the future was flexible and ever changing. But still.
"Something big is going to happen," Nora said, already fingering the future card. "Life changing."
"It just means we're entering a new phase," Wren shook her head. "You know, like being NEWT students now?"
Nora deflated with disappointment. "That makes sense." She looked at the cards as if they had betrayed her. "NEWT classes are life changing I suppose."
"So the cards are saying I'm right, interesting," Simon said, thoughtfully and Wren chuckled. "Maybe there is something to Divination after all."
Nora cast him a sour look and flipped over the last card. She cocked her head to the side, looking at it. Her eyes flicked over to the Eight of Swords cup and then back at the new card. Five of Wands. "Well, this should be a delight for you," she quipped.
Wren eyed the card, "Am I going to get bludgeoned?"
"Oh, my dear cousin, the intricacies of the cards elude you," Nora said, putting on her best Professor Trewlaney voice. "The Five of Wands means that you're going to face an unavoidable conflict."
"I want a new reading," Wren demanded, and Nora laughed.
"It could be a schedule conflict," Simon offered. "That happened to Edmund Whittle last year. Since the classes are so small, they only get offered at certain times."
"But I need all of the classes I want to take," Wren's brow furrowed.
"They're just cards," Simon dismissed, reaching forward to smooth out her brow with his thumb. "If it were real magic it'd be a required subject."
Nora opened her mouth to argue but was stopped as Simon spoke again, looking at his watch. "Is that really the time? I have corridor duty," he said leaning forward to kiss Wren again. "I might not see you until tomorrow. I promised Hector I'd meet up with him after patrol."
Wren nodded, watching him leave the compartment.
"He didn't even say hello to me," Nora said angrily from across the table.
She should have known this was coming. If she had half a brain she would have claimed she had to go to the bathroom and given her cousin some time to cool off. That might have also given her a few more seconds with Simon. Wren sighed, turning to face Nora. "He got distracted by the jumper."
"Yes, he picked a fight first thing. How very him."
Wren leaned her head against the back of the seat, staring up at the ceiling. "Can we not argue about him this year?"
"He didn't even ask you about the Cup!" Nora burst.
"I don't want to talk about the Cup," Wren said, softly, keeping her eyes focused on the panelled ceiling. If she looked at her cousin it might trigger another memory, and she wasn't sure she could handle that along with this assault.
"He didn't know that. And even still, he could have at least checked in with you about it. Cedric did!"
"Nora…" Wren started, but she did not get very far with her statement.
"And why is he going to sit with Hector after his patrol. He hasn't seen you all summer!"
"Maybe he's tired of you finding faults with everything he does!" Wren snapped, and Nora's mouth clamped shut. Wren put her face in her hands, willing herself to calm down. Deep breaths. She moved her hands to her cheeks so she could look at Nora, who for her part, looked a little ashamed of herself.
Wren watched as Nora visibly reigned in the comment she had prepared, pressing her lips together in a thin line. After a beat, she nodded, and picked up The Hunting of the Snark again, and Wren finally felt as if she could breathe. Nora flipped back to her page, her eyes scanning the line for her place. "And I didn't like his shoes," Nora remarked, before devoting her whole attention to the book in front of her.
The rest of the ride took place without incident or argument, and true to her word Nora did hand back the jumper after the two girls changed into their robes. By the time the train rolled into the station at Hogsmeade, all of the tension had evaporated from the compartment and the two girls were smiling. At least, they were until they looked out to the pitch dark stormy weather.
"This is going to be terrible, isn't it?" Wren asked as the two girls joined the crowd of students out in the corridor, shuffling towards an exit.
"Well, it probably won't be pleasant," Nora remarked, which was as much of a gloomy outlook that Wren would get from her cousin.
They continued along the slow cortege with their peers, watching as each student paused for a second at the door before jumping down onto the platform and entering into the night. A strong wind picked up whipping Wren's hair straight into Nora's face as the two girls stood at the exit. It was for Nora's sake more than her own readiness that Wren stepped off the train.
Both girls were correct: it was not pleasant; it was terrible.
Rain came down so heavily and quickly that Wren felt almost as if she was being drowned. It took less than a minute for her robes to be soaked through, an icy chill taking a hold of her bones. As she looked to Nora, her cousin's teeth chattered as she braced herself against the weather to make their way towards the carriages. Wren snuck an arm through her cousin's crossed arms, as if their linked strength made any of this more bearable. Indeed, as Nora's shoe slipped against the slick surface of the platform, it made it mildly easier to keep her up.
"Careful!" a voice called on Nora's right, and Wren was distracted from getting a good look at who it was as someone else linked arms with her on her other side. Wren's head whipped around, coming face to face with Fred Weasley.
Or George Weasley. Now more than ever it was impossible to tell. The twin grinned at her before bending around to look at Nora.
"There are some loose rocks and roots up ahead. If you think this part is hard, you'll need all of the assistance you can get on those."
"And we all know how good you are on your feet," the other winked at Nora.
"Though, I have to say. I wouldn't mind playing the hero this time," the one next to Wren bumped against her. She flushed, pushing back on the memory that she tried very hard to ignore out of existence. Wren had asked her father to obliviate the entire night from her mind, and to her dismay he had taken it as a joke. At the very least now she knew that it was Fred next to her.
"That would make it, what? Your second time getting someone out of trouble? Finally taken to Gryffindor have you?" Wren sassed back trying to ignore the fact that while the rest of her body very well might have been ice, her face was afire.
Both of the twins scoffed, gently guiding Wren and Nora so that they gave a loose cobblestone an altogether too wide berth. "We've never gotten anyone else into trouble!" George protested from Nora's other side.
"Only ourselves," Fred nodded in affirmation.
"What kind of boys do you take us for?"
"Naughty?" Fred wiggled his eyebrows at Wren whose face grew even hotter even as Nora laughed loudly.
The carriages finally drew into view, and Wren watched as students practically through themselves in to get out of the rain, not giving much thought as to who they were stuck with on the ride up to the castle.
Oh Merlin. Please, no. Wren thought.
"So, have a pleasant summer?" Nora asked because of course she would attempt to start up normal conversation with the Weasley twins. Although, all things considered pretending as if they were friendly acquaintances and being escorted towards the horseless carriages was a normal thing might be a decent strategy.
The twins shared a look over Wren and Nora's heads. "Not exactly," Fred admitted.
"Aside from the obvious disappointment, there were a few blunders."
"Pity," Nora remarked, slowing their progress as she reached her hands into her pockets. She produced a handful of wrapped sweets. "Toffee?"
Both of the boys plucked a silvery wrapped candy out of her hand, unwrapped it, and popped it into their mouth at nearly exactly the same time. "Told you there'd be a reward for helping out, Fred," George said, the toffee clacking against his teeth as he spoke.
"Toffee wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, George."
The carriages now before them, Wren felt confident enough to unlink her arm from Fred's and Nora's, and head towards a door, tugging it open. A few second years peered up at her as she clambered in turning at the door. "Thank you for the escort. See you at the feast."
She sank back into the chair as Nora gave a slightly longer and significantly more polite goodbye. Finally, her cousin entered, closing the door behind her and settled into the seat across from Wren, staring at her with eyebrows raised.
"Not a word," Wren warned.
For once Nora listened.