Alrighty, chapter 18! That's all I have to say. Enjoy!
Sick. That was the one way to describe how Angelina felt. She didn't feel like the tower of strength that she used to be. She just wanted to go home. She didn't want to hurt people, much less people who probably didn't deserve it. Fred and George were cold, and Fred had only done this once before. Was that what she would turn into by the end of the week? She sure as hell didn't want to.
George motioned for her to let go of their latest victim, a man who was probably in his forties. "Anything?" she asked.
George shook his head, grimacing. "We're going to have to move out soon. He was getting suspicious of this area."
Angelina finished Obliviating the man. "What is it next?"
"The ladies' room," Fred groaned. "On floor 2. Literally the worst idea anybody has ever had." He broke the spell protecting them and sat on the floor. "I don't know how much longer I can keep this up."
"How long of a break do you need?" George asked, wiping his split second of worry off his face.
"Like two years."
"How's five minutes and another one of those energy potions?" Angelina offered.
Fred closed his eyes and nodded. "I'll raise you one potion?"
"Absolutely not," Angelina scolded, reaching into her bag and pulling out a glass vial that looked far too much like the vial of poison she carried for her liking. If she forgot to put her contacts in one day, she was sure she would poison somebody.
She tossed the vial to Fred and rummaged though her bag for something for George. He was unhealthily pale. "Drink," she insisted, handing George a Pepper-Up Potion.
George shook his head. "Won't help. Lee tried it two weeks ago. Thanks, though."
Angelina helped Fred up. "Going?"
"Gone," George confirmed.
Alicia was really quite pissed. She was trying to find a trend, but it was ever elusive. One day, George had found six Death Eaters and four Imperiused people in the International Relations department, and the next there were four Death Eaters and no Imperiused people. Alicia had just received the data, and she was baffled. Remus wanted an explanation. How the fuck was she supposed to explain that?
Lee had been sleeping all weekend and through Monday. He really only got out of bed to eat. Alicia supposed it was allowed, but she needed a second opinion. She reached above her and shook Lee's foot, which was hanging off the edge of the bed. These beds were built for Angelina and the Weasley twins, and it drove Lee mad.
Lee kicked his foot away. "What the everloving fuck could be so important?"
"Come down here, I need help."
Lee grumbled and cursed, but he listened to her. "When does Remus want this by?"
"Tonight. He wants to plan next week's mission partially around this."
"Okay, but there's like four numbers on this paper."
"Exactly! We need more data!"
"What exactly was his wording?"
"He was like 'I want a basic analysis of what this might mean'. I can't say what this might mean without more context and shit."
"What if he just wants a few hypotheses? If you looked for that, then as you gain more data over the weeks, you can narrow it down."
Alicia pinched the bridge of her nose. "Damn I'm stupid."
George was busy contemplating his life when he opened the notebook. He dated the page and nearly shut it again. He didn't know what to say.
Hey, Remus. It was a pretty uneventful day in terms of close calls. We did have to leave the Transportation department a bit early due to a bit of suspicion I detected, but we caught it early and nobody higher-up heard as far as I know. We may have to develop another system, since even if we're undetectable it's still suspicious activity. Maybe not soon, but if this goes on as long as it seems it will it could potentially be a problem.
George waited for a response, but nothing. Remus must not have been anywhere near his notebook.
Anyway, we did get to spend a little extra time in the Auror department. For being Aurors, they fell into our trap pretty easily. Most of them were Imperiused, most of them by Yaxley. Unsurprising to me. I don't know how we're going to get information about them without getting to Yaxley himself.
George sighed and put away the notebook. He didn't feel comfortable writing more until Remus had seen it. He didn't want everything written on paper at once. He needed something to disappear from his notebook before he added more. He sighed and rested his head on Fred's shoulder.
"One of our more brilliant inventions, huh?"
"Oh, shut up."
"We take commissions now!"
"Fred, we literally did this like two months ago. Be quiet."
"Never." Fred rested his head on top of George's. They didn't need words to know how they felt. They didn't even need colours, though they both missed them. "You doing alright, sweet boy?"
"I dunno."
"Heard back from Alice?"
George shook his head. "I'm not done the letter."
Fred said nothing. George knew that he truly didn't know everything that was going on in George's head. It was an odd combination of freeing and frustrating. George had forgotten how to express himself, but nothing had been suppressed. Fred experienced most everything George did. The last few years of school had been hell, since Fred hadn't understood what was happening to George. It was happening again. George was just glad Fred wasn't quite as aware as he had been those years.
"So, Matt, huh? You're willing to go rogue over him?"
"A thousand times over," Fred answered without hesitation.
He could feel George smile against his shoulder. "Are you going to tell anybody?"
Fred's instinct was to crack a joke, but George didn't find him as convincing as the rest of his family. "No." Fred shuddered to think what Arthur would say. He already heard everything they would say about him in his memories. His parents' scornful voices talking about Freddie Mercury. A sermon he sat through at Muriel's church about devil spawn. The jokes he heard in the hall about gay people. He could imagine how his parents would react, and he didn't like it.
"Freddie?"
"Can you imagine what Mum would say?"
"What she would say doesn't matter. Remember when Muriel tried to get me to write with my left hand?"
"Mum wasn't invo—"
"Hush, this is going somewhere. Mum thought we needed an intervention because of our behaviour or whatever, right? So she sent us to Muriel's to learn 'manners'. First off, did we ever correct ourselves?"
"No," Fred said softly. "If anything, we were worse."
"Yeah. And then Muriel told me that I was a demon and taped my left hand to the table and taught me calligraphy?"
"Are you sure this is going somewhere?"
"Shut-it-yes-it-is. What hand do I write with now?"
Fred was silent for a moment. "Left," he finally said.
"Exactly. Left. So what she said and did didn't affect me."
"You cried yourself to sleep for a whole month."
George ignored him. "But in the end, it didn't change what hand I wrote with, did it? You think I want to be left-handed? The world isn't built for me."
"Or maybe that's just user error. Get to the point."
"Stop interrupting. What I'm saying is nobody's going to take the gay out of you in the end. That's just how you happened. I'm not encouraging you to tell Mum or Dad or anyone else, because that's your choice to make, but stop feeling like there's something wrong with you. God doesn't make mistakes, does he? He's the one perfect being or whatever, and therefore whatever He does has to be meant to happen."
Fred swallowed. He hadn't heard that since he stopped going to church when he moved out. "Suppose not."
"Exactly. I rest my case."
Fred lifted his head from George's. George looked at him pleadingly, as if asking for some reassurance that he didn't fuck up everything.
Fred turned over what George had said in his mind. It certainly was some food for thought. On one hand, he was a devilspawn. On the other, God didn't make mistakes. Weren't all humans evil in the first place? Fred had never paid enough attention in church to know. He knew there was something about evil, but it was pretty rare at his regular church. "Love one another," Fred remembered being told. Even if there was no God, if Christianity was wrong, was he still bad?
Fred shook his head. "I hate you and your philosophical tangents," he muttered.
"Ooh, you know what we should do this weekend? Get falafel."
Fred shook his head. "How did you…?"
"I used to think that falafel was short for philosopher."
"If you two don't shut the hell up I will murder you!" Angelina shouted at them. "We have ten minutes of our break left, and if you don't zip it, you're going to regret it later."
George wasn't expecting chaos. Angelina, always the quick thinker, ushered them into a bathroom. "Alright, you two use a Disillusionment Charm. I'll Polyjuice into the next person that comes in here."
It was just their luck that it took an entire half hour for anybody to come in, and that five people came in at once after that. George could see Angelina getting fed up. She was an impatient person to begin with.
"Alright, fuck it. George, you up for some Legilimency?"
George smirked at Angelina. "Why, of course, m'lady."
George led the way out of the bathroom, praying Fred's Disillusionment Charm didn't fail.