A/N: Hey guys, so I had some questions about my uploading schedule, and I thought I'd let you know how it sits now. At the moment I'm trying to post every week on Thursday night (you'll have to look up timezones as to when this exactly will apply to you). I have no specific time, just sometime during the evening.
I'm considering taking a short break in the coming weeks to work on getting ahead with my writing (to those of you who are interested, I'm very deep into the sequel to Heart of the Storm, and it's taking up a lot of my time), but if I am going to be taking any sort of break from posting this story on the usual Thursday night, I'll definitely let you know first.
Hope this clears it all up, and thanks for your continued support!
The weeks passed in a haze of cleaning, laughter, boring meetings and stolen moments in dark corners with Fred.
Mrs Weasley was true to her word; Hermione arrived the next day, and she immediately began to work them all to the bone. They scrubbed everything from the floor to the furniture. George joked that his mother wouldn't be happy until they could see their reflections in the walls.
Winona, however, was permitted to do significantly less cleaning than the rest of them. As an integral member of the Order of the Phoenix, Winona was thrust into meeting after meeting, most of which were utterly needless for her to actually attend.
When she'd been read into the Order, she'd thought all the meetings were going to be dumps of life-altering, tide-changing information. In reality, it was just endless patrol briefings and boring intelligence reports. Winona wasn't sure what the skyrocketing price of Muggle petrol had to do with You-Know-Who and his reign of terror, but the Order certainly seemed concerned by it.
Harry was being watched 24/7; a fact for which Winona was grateful. What she wasn't grateful for, however, was the fact that Harry didn't know about it.
"Why can't we tell him?" she demanded of Dumbledore for at least the fifth meeting in a row. "He's going crazy at the Dursley's, and he's constantly looking over his shoulder. It'd give him some peace of mind to know he isn't alone!"
Dumbledore, as always, ignored her pleas.
Harry was growing more and more frustrated with every letter he sent. Winona couldn't tell him most things, and for as many bones as she was throwing him, he was beginning to see through her carefully worded apologies and promises that everything would be clear in time.
He didn't want things to be clear in time. He wanted them to be clear now.
Fred and George tried to assuage the guilt she was carrying around like a backpack by telling her it was for the best. They'd surprised her by not trying to get around the Vow she'd made to Dumbledore in any way. When she broke a few weeks in and asked what their plans were to get around the gag order, Fred had simply looked her in the eye and said, "No information's worth your life."
And that was that. That didn't mean they weren't trying to learn more about what the Order was talking about, of course. They tried everything from accosting every Order member to come through the house in hopes of annoying them into a confession, to inventing an extendable ear so they could try to spy on the meetings themselves. But never once did they ask Winona for answers.
She really, really loved those twins.
The worst thing of all, maybe, was that Winona was going absolutely, positively, mind-numbingly stir-crazy. She was snapping at everyone she came across, and her sleep was plagued with even more nightmares than usual. She was getting about ready to explode in pure frustration, and the twins could only watch as she got more and more antsy with every day that passed.
She eventually stopped venturing out to help the others clean. Instead she locked herself in her room and painted, trying to channel her vexation into art. But for once, it just wasn't cutting it.
"I know you're sick of it, Pup," said Sirius late one night, the pair sat by the fire, sharing a pint of chocolate chip ice cream between them. "I am too."
"I feel useless," she lamented. "I haven't had a helpful vision in weeks. I'm so tired I can barely function. And these goddamn walls feel like they're getting smaller with every passing day."
"I know," he said, reaching out to smooth a gentle hand down her hair. "You look like shite."
It was enough to make her laugh, a tired, pitiful sound. "Thanks."
"It's for the best," he reminded her. "Nothing's more important than your safety."
"What about my sanity?" she grumbled around her spoon.
Her dad smiled fondly. "You'll be back at Hogwarts soon enough."
But soon enough wasn't, in fact, coming soon enough.
"I'm going crazy!" she shouted, having just come out of a three-hour long Order meeting, the majority of which had focused on Mundungus' patrol schedule, and whether or not they needed to up the Order presence at Gringotts. "I swear to Godric, if I don't get a break soon, I'm going to murder somebody."
Fred was reclined on her bed, arms folded under his head as he watched her pace the length of her bedroom. She'd slowly been decorating it more and more, mostly with her own paintings, using temporary Sticking Charms to fasten the canvases to the walls. It looked more like a miniature art gallery than a bedroom, and on most days it brought her at least a little joy.
But not today.
"D'you know I haven't seen the sky since June? June, Fred! Can you believe that? June!"
Fred just laughed.
"And don't even get me started on the fact that your mother seems to have some weird sixth sense for knowing whenever I'm trying to shag you. And if it's not your mother, then it's Ginny. Or Ron. Or that one time, Sirius."
Fred went pale at the unpleasant memory. "I know," he sighed, scowling up at the patchy ceiling. "If we don't get more than five minutes alone soon, I think I might explode."
Winona collapsed onto the bed beside him. "I miss the stars," she moaned, staring at the ceiling with him, like maybe if she stared hard enough, Merlin might grant her the ability to see through solid objects and she could see the sky above. "Don't you miss the stars, Fred?"
"Not as much as I miss other things," he said impishly. Rolling towards him, Winona met his eyes with an impish look of her own.
"Yeah?" she asked, walking her fingers playfully up the length of his sternum. "Me too."
"If you had to pick something, what would you say you miss most?" he asked, slowly rolling over top of her, pressing her into the mattress. She craned her head to catch his lips with hers, kissing him for a long, brilliant moment.
She hummed as she pulled back. "What do I miss most?" she mused, slowly trailing her nails down the length of his spine. She hooked her leg around his hip and Fred shuddered above her.
The moment was interrupted by an obnoxious banging at Winona's bedroom door, and Fred rolled off her with a defeated sigh. Winona grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut tight in frustration.
"Winona?" Mrs Weasley called through the door.
Winona swallowed back a very unkind word. "Yes, Mrs Weasley?!"
"Is Fred in there with you?"
Fred groaned quietly, burying his face in her pillow. Winona took a deep breath. "Yeah," she called back. "We're working on…our summer homework."
There was a pause, and Winona would have bet good gold that Mrs Weasley didn't believe a word. "Well, I was about to start on dinner and I could use a hand!" she shouted through the wood. "Could the homework wait until later?"
At this rate, there was never going to be a later, but Winona couldn't very well just say that. "Sure," she called back. "We'll be right out."
Mrs Weasley hovered outside the door another moment before they heard her footsteps slowly walk away. Winona and Fred sat in silence for a long minute, relishing the quiet they knew was about to end.
"I have an idea," said Fred suddenly, and Winona turned to look at him with raised eyebrows.
"It doesn't involve transfiguring Buckbeak into a walrus again, does it? Because I told you and George a thousand times; it isn't as funny of a prank as you think it is."
"Agree to disagree on that one. But no, this is a little more…dangerous."
Winona slowly sat up, a wary look on her face. "What is it?"
Fred sat up with her, that mischievous spark in his eyes that she so loved. "It's a surprise."
Winona groaned. "No, I hate surprises."
"You'll love this one."
"Why don't I believe you?"
"Common sense, probably."
Winona laughed, shaking her head. "And when will I receive this surprise I'll probably hate?"
He thought for a moment. "Tonight, after everyone's gone to bed. Meet me in the drawing room."
"I get the feeling this is going to be a terrible, terrible idea," she murmured.
"All the best plans are."
Winona helped Mrs Weasley peel the vegetables for dinner, listening half-heartedly and nodding her head to the mediocre Celestina Warbeck song playing from the radio in the corner. Hermione was helping, too, stood stirring the pot of stew cooking over the fire.
"How has Harry seemed?" Winona asked her when when Mrs Weasley got distracted catching Kreacher trying to hide the silverware out of spite. "In his letters, I mean?"
Hermione sighed very heavily for someone so young. "He's frustrated, and I mean, I don't blame him," she said, looking for a moment like she might cry. Winona suddenly regretted asking.
"It's a frustrating situation," she agreed cautiously.
"He's my best friend in the world and I can tell he's hurting, but there's nothing I can do to help," Hermione continued sadly.
"I feel the same way," Winona murmured, eyes on her task without really seeing any of it. "I feel like I'm being disloyal, somehow. I feel like a jerk."
"Once he gets here and we can explain, things will be better," Hermione said, and she even seemed to believe it. "He's only frustrated because we can't say anything important in our letters. That'll change when he arrives."
"And when, exactly, is he arriving?"
Hermione didn't have an answer, just as Winona knew she wouldn't, and the pair fell back into a heavy quiet.
Dinner was a rather boring affair. Sometimes people from the Order would stay after meetings for something to eat, which usually provided at least a little entertainment. But that night there was no one – Remus wasn't even there. He was off on a secret mission with Tonks and as far as they knew, wouldn't be back until the early hours of the morning.
Despite her understandable misgivings about Fred's surprise, she was actually growing rather excited for it. Anything to break the monotony of being stuck in a place as dark and gloomy as Grimmauld Place.
The boys were on clean-up duty for the night, and as Winona left to go take a shower, she caught Fred and George standing by the sink, whispering furtively to one another. They were planning something – undoubtedly to do with Fred's surprise – and that alone should have made her wary.
The twins had never pulled a prank on her before – not a serious one, at least – and while she didn't think this was anything like that, she had to admit the twins had something of a…boundless sense of right and wrong. Their penchant for laughter usually overrode common sense, and it was enough to make anyone nervous.
Still, she trusted Fred with her life. And whatever he was planning, stupid though it may have been, she knew she was going to enjoy it.
She waited until everybody was in bed and the whole house was perfectly still. When there wasn't so much as a creak of the floorboards or the low muttering of Kreacher to fill the night air, she knew it was time.
Winona padded her way down to the drawing room, finding Fred already waiting by the fire.
"Ready?" he whispered as she reached him, holding out his hand eagerly.
"Depends," she replied cautiously. "What's the surprise?"
He grinned and puffed up in the way he always did when he was feeling particularly pleased with himself. "I'm taking you on a date," he said, keeping his voice low as he began to drag her out of the room and down the stairs.
"What, all the way down to the kitchen?" she chuckled bitterly. Fred didn't laugh with her, and she realised with a sensation rather like being thunked on the head exactly what this was all about. "Fred, are you fucking mental?" she hissed, trying to rip her hand from his, but he held tight. "We can't leave."
"Why not?" he asked as they made it to the ground floor. He led her slowly down the hallway, and despite Winona's misgivings she fell wisely silent as they both tiptoed past the slumbering portrait of her grandmother, lest they wake the entire house and ruin everything.
"Because it's dangerous," she hissed once they were in the clear, stood closer to the front door than she'd been in weeks.
"You'll be with me," he said confidently. "I'll keep you safe."
Winona rolled her eyes and forcefully ripped her hand from his, folding her arms over her chest and staring at him, utterly unimpressed.
"Come on," he goaded her in a whisper, tapping at the front door gently. "I thought you wanted to see the stars?"
"Fred," Winona breathed, beyond exasperated. "Sirius will kill me, and your parents will murder you in cold blood for even suggesting-"
"They'll never know," he said convincingly. Winona paused. Was she truly going mad, or was this starting to sound less like a bad idea and more just like a very risky one? Sensing he was winning her over, he barrelled on. "We'll go out for a few hours and be back before they even know we've left."
There were still a million things that could go wrong, and she knew it. But she was also going crazy inside this stupid house, where everyone was relying on her for visions that weren't coming, and she couldn't get a moment alone with her boyfriend without his mother appearing like the Patron Saint of Celibacy.
What was the worst that could happen, honestly? What were the chances the Death Eaters would find her? Surely it was so slim it didn't even register; because otherwise, wouldn't she have Seen it? When she looked back at Fred he was grinning enticingly, and they both knew he'd won.
"If we get caught, I'm running and leaving you for dead," she warned him.
"Yes, darling," he said, and she couldn't possibly deny the flutter in her chest at the casual term of endearment.
With a resigned sigh she put her hand in his and let him lead her out the door.
It probably should have worried her that there weren't any alarms attached to the door – although that may have just been because the wards weren't designed to alert people of anyone leaving.
When they successfully stepped out onto the street without anybody appearing from the house to shout at them until their throats went dry, Winona let out a breath of relief. "So," she said, keeping her voice low. It was nearly midnight, so most of the street was already asleep. The last thing they needed was anybody waking up. The less witnesses, the better. "Where to?"
"I dunno," Fred said cheerfully.
She raised her eyebrows. "You didn't plan anything?"
"Yes, I did," he argued. "I planned sneaking out of the house. And it was, in my opinion, a raving success."
"So I'm meant to do all the work from here on out?"
"Well, you're half the couple, I figure you could put in half the effort," he said, jabbing her playfully in the ribs. Reluctantly amused, Winona smiled, catching his hand in her own and holding tight. And nothing ever felt so right as holding Fred's hand.
"I know a twenty-four hour cafe in Surrey."
Fred grinned like she'd just told him he'd won the lottery. "Brilliant."
Winona rolled her eyes, pulled him closer by his hand, then apparated with a twist of her feet. There was the unmistakeable sensation of her whole body travelling through something the size of a drinking straw, then her feet hit the pavement and the weight of Fred's hand in hers came back to her.
"How are we?" she asked, turning to assess him. "Nothing splinched?"
Fred let go of her hand to playfully run his own hands down the length of his body, ending with an over-exaggerated check between his legs. "I'm good," he announced, and Winona rolled her eyes. Retaking his hand, she led him out of the alley they'd appeared in.
The street was nondescript and mostly empty. Unsurprising, considering the time of night. There was a small group of teenagers in a huddle across the road, and a young couple walking down the street, too wrapped up in one another to notice anything else.
The cafe she'd brought them to was nestled between a locksmith and a bakery, both of which were long since closed for the night. But the cafe was lit up, a beacon in the otherwise shadowed street. It wasn't very busy, already halfway through the midnight lull.
The bell above the door jingled as she and Fred slipped inside, and the woman behind the counter looked up with a small smile. "Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes?" she murmured, brushing back her greying hair. "We're several weeks into the summer and you've yet to come by once. I thought maybe you'd gotten sick of our little hole in the wall."
"Never," said Winona solemnly, leaning across the counter to press a kiss onto the woman's wrinkled cheek. "How've you been, Natalie?"
Natalie – the owner of the cafe and a long-time friend of Winona's – waved off the question. Instead, her shrewd eyes flicked to Fred. "Is this who I think it is?" she asked eagerly. Fred lit up at the question, and suddenly Winona wasn't so sure bringing him here had been the best idea after all.
"Depends," said Fred, unabashedly giddy. "Do you think I'm the charming, devilishly handsome boyfriend she clearly goes on about ad nauseam whenever I'm not around?"
Natalie's eyes sparkled with delight and she held out a hand. "Fred, I take it," she said warmly. Fred's grin only turned more smug, and Winona just knew he was going to be insufferable after this.
"Lovely to meet you, Natalie," Fred told her charmingly, winking for effect.
Natalie smiled, turning her twinkling eyes to Winona. "Oh, I like him very much," she said, understandably enchanted by her boyfriend's charisma. "What'll it be, dear? Just the usual?"
"With two of everything, please," Winona nodded. Natalie smiled again and disappeared into the back room. "Come on," said Winona, snatching up Fred's hand and dragging him in the direction of her favourite table against the window at the very back of the cafe.
"So, you come here often, then?" asked Fred as they settled into a seat either side of the table. When Winona met his eyes, she found familiar impishness glinting in their depths.
"Funny," she said dryly, and Fred grinned so widely it had to hurt. She leaned back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other and turning her eyes to the world outside. It had started raining in the short time they'd been inside the cafe, fat droplets of water already rolling down the length of the glass windows. "I spend a lot of time here, in the summers," she told him after a moment of easy quiet.
Fred watched her while she watched the rain. "You've never mentioned it before."
Winona shrugged. "What's to mention? I like to come here to sketch. It's not much, but it was better than spending time at my foster place. At least here, I can get food when I need it."
Fred fell quiet at the admission. It wasn't often she spoke about her past. He knew the bare essentials; knew that, before Sirius, her home life had sucked. But it was rare she went into detail. She got the feeling he'd long since come to terms with the fact he may never know the full scope of how she'd suffered in the past.
And for the sake of every Muggle who ever dared lay a hand on her, that was probably a good thing.
"You ever bring Harry here?" Fred wondered, because the last thing he wanted was for their adventurous night out to be smothered by the sombre reality of her past.
"Yeah, sometimes," she nodded, glad for the change of topic. "It's a whole train and two bus rides from his Aunt's place in Little Whinging, but he likes it here. And Natalie always sneaks him extra cake – I think she likes him more than she likes me."
Fred took a minute to scan the inside of the small cafe, eyes trailing over the murals covering the walls, all bright colours and vibrant, feathery birds. It looked like the sort of cafe you would find somewhere hot and tropical, but Winona liked that about it. The juxtaposition of the little slice of tropical paradise in the middle of dreary, wet England. Something about it was comforting, like a guiding light in the darkness.
"I can see you in here," Fred finally murmured.
Winona had to smile. "I usually sit in that corner and spend the night eating pastries and sketching," she confessed, nodding to the small alcove at the back of the room, where a small, cushioned bench sat, a quiet reprieve from the frenzy of the world outside.
Looking back at Fred, she found a curious expression on his face, and Winona tilted her head, curious.
"What is it?" she asked, leaning back in her chair and playfully bumping the tips of her toes against his shin beneath the table.
"S'just, well, I guess it sort of only just occurred to me now that you have a whole life outside of me," he admitted, looking a little stunned from the shock of it.
It was enough to make her laugh. "As wonderful as you are, my whole world doesn't revolve around you, y'know?" she said, this time catching his shin between both her feet and holding his leg in a playful embrace.
Fred smiled, but there was something a little distant to the expression, like his thoughts were elsewhere.
"What?" she asked again, nudging him again with her feet.
"Nothing," he insisted, but the look she shot him screamed her disbelief and he let out a huff. "I'm just thinking about the future," he finally confessed.
"The future?" she echoed in surprise, but before he could answer, Natalie appeared, a tray of waffles and milkshakes balanced on a steady hand.
"Here you are," her Muggle friend said brightly, depositing the two plates and glasses of vanilla milkshakes in front of them. "I added extra blueberries to yours, dear," she added with a little grin down at Fred. For once, Fred didn't seem to know what to say, so Winona took the reins.
"Thanks, Nat," she said, watching as the older woman shuffled away, looking mighty pleased with herself. "What were you saying?" she asked, cutting into her plate of towering waffles, beginning to eat with gusto.
While Mrs Weasley's meals were delicious and satisfying to the nth degree, there was something about the sugary mess of cafe food that called to Winona. Really, who could resist a good stack of fruit waffles?
Fred didn't answer her, already digging into his own plate, but Winona sensed it was driven less by hunger and more a need to keep from speaking his mind.
"Fred?" she asked, nudging him against with her foot.
He kept enthusiastically eating his waffles. "These are really good," he said around a mouthful of food, but Winona didn't miss the way his ears had gone pink.
She reluctantly stopped eating, staring at him stubbornly. She didn't like things to go unsaid, and clearly there was something on his mind. It didn't take him long to realise she wasn't going to give up and he heaved a sigh as he put down his knife and fork.
"You were saying?" Winona prompted him quietly, resting her chin on her palm. "About the future?"
Fred's brow furrowed. "Is it going to be terribly sappy if I ask where you see us after we graduate?"
Winona blinked at the unexpected question. "Well, you'll be running the shop with George – don't forget to owl that shop-owner back about the property in Diagon Alley, by the way – and I s'pose I'll move in permanently with Sirius, to get started on my career."
Fred was nodding along, but the red in his ears never went away. "'Course," he said, striving for cheerful, "but what about…y'know…us?"
She realised that he was talking about their relationship, and it made her eyebrows shoot upwards in surprise. "Well, I don't expect there to be much of a change, really. Why would there be?"
Fred was suddenly very interested in the pile of blueberries on his plate, and Winona watched him cautiously, half waiting for him to drop some bomb that would keep her awake for weeks. But none came.
Instead, when he looked up to meet her eyes, she found uncharacteristic hesitance in his cornflower gaze. "I s'pose I just wanted to make sure we didn't have an expiration date set," he said in a rush, like that would make it easier to get out.
Winona blinked. "Why would we have an expiration date set?"
He shrugged, stuffing another forkful of waffle into his mouth, avoiding talking about it while he chewed. "We've never existed outside of school together," he admitted, a rare vulnerability in his eyes. "You've got this whole life outside of school – friends and places you like to go – I only really have my family and the Burrow, and you already know all of them."
Winona tilted her head to the side, watching him shrewdly. "Why're you acting so insecure?" she asked bluntly. "This isn't like you."
Fred rolled his eyes. "Er, because I care about you?"
Winona rolled her eyes right back. She plucked a blueberry from her plate and threw it at him. Fred caught it in his mouth deftly, and she smiled at the simple, familiar action. "Fred, I'm not going anywhere. And us graduating from Hogwarts isn't going to change that," she assured him. "You know that one thing that will change?"
"What?"
"Once you've got a place of your own, we're gonna be shagging so much more often," she told him impishly.
The red didn't fade, but now it was there for another reason entirely. He didn't look hesitant anymore, though. Now he was grinning, wide and unrestrained, the kind of grin that made her skin tingle with warning – but the good kind.
"C'mon," she huffed, tapping him again with her toes. "Eat up. The night's still young."
They finished up their waffles and Winona dug out a handful of Muggle money to pay Natalie with. "I still don't get the point of paper money," Fred murmured, snatching a tenner from her fingers and scrutinising it in the light. "What if it rips, or gets wet? Galleons and Sickles are far more reliable."
Natalie handed Winona her change, and along with it came the sort of strange look Muggles gave wizards when they were being weird in public. Winona sent Natalie her most innocent smile. "He was dropped on his head a lot as a baby," she told her dismissively, and she knew enough about his family to know it probably wasn't a lie.
Natalie just smiled fondly. "And when will I be seeing you again, little miss?" she wondered, looking between the young couple hopefully. "Same time tomorrow night?"
Winona grimaced, hating the fact that she was going to have to lie. But before she could come up with anything worthy, Fred caught her hand in his and gave Natalie a winning smile. "She's staying with my family the next few weeks before we go back to school," he told her so smoothly that Winona doubted even a Legilimens would be able to sense the half-lie. "We probably won't get a chance to come back this way."
Natalie gave a playful pout. "That's a shame," she tutted, then reached for Winona's free hand. "You be safe, you hear? And I'll see you next summer – you can update your mural," she said, nodding to the long stretch of colourful wall at the back of the cafe.
Fred's eyes went wide. "You painted that?"
"Thank you, Nat," said Winona, ignoring her indignant boyfriend. "And you keep yourself safe, too," she added quickly. "Times are more dangerous than they appear."
Natalie obviously didn't have the faintest clue what she was going on about, but she smiled and nodded nonetheless, patting Winona's hand in a motherly way before shuffling over to their table to begin clearing it.
Winona gripped Fred's hand tighter and dragged him from the cafe. "Why didn't you tell me you'd painted that mural?" Fred complained as she tugged him out into the rain.
"I don't like to brag," she shrugged as she flipped up the hood of her jacket. "Where to?"
"You tell me."
The rain wasn't falling terribly hard. It was more of a light drizzle than anything else, and Winona wasn't ready to go back to her glorified prison cell just yet. "Wanna go for a walk?"
Fred smiled, nodding his head, and she gladly led him deeper into the alley where nobody would be able to see them apparate. Winona took them to a nearby park, but when they arrived it was to find the gates shut tight with a padlock.
"Oh," said Winona, disappointed. "It's closed."
"No, it isn't," said Fred airily. She tipped her face up into the rain to look at him, confused. His only answer was to just grip her hand extra tight and side-along apparate her to the other side of the locked gates. Letting out her air in a wheeze, Winona blinked the rainwater from her eyes. Fred just grinned down at her smugly. "Nothing's closed when you're a wizard."
"Fred," she stared up at him with a frown. "This is breaking and entering."
"No, it isn't," he argued smartly. "I didn't break anything at all. This is just…entering."
Winona couldn't help but laugh, lifting a hand to her face as she giggle into her palm. She heard Fred laugh too and chewed on her bottom lip, the sound making her chest flutter with uninvited warmth.
"Come on, then," he said once she'd stopped giggling, tugging impatiently at her hand. "Let's walk."
The park was one she'd been to before – another place she liked to come during her long, lonely summers to pass the time with a sketchpad. Winona led him deeper into the park. It was almost foreign in the darkness, everything seemed unfamiliar and malicious. But with the weight of Fred's hand in hers, she found it impossible to feel afraid.
The rain began to pick up slightly, to the point where it had completely soaked Fred's hair through, but before she could suggest calling it a night, he lifted his wand and cast an Umbrella Charm above their heads. The feeling of rain hitting them disappeared, and Winona burrowed into his side, the smile on her face uncontrollable.
"Any ideas who our newest DADA teacher's going to be, then?" Fred asked conversationally, the arm not holding up their umbrella wrapped around her waist, drawing her into the warmth of his side. "I figure if anyone has any clue, it'd have to be you."
The question made Winona frown. "I've been dreaming of pink, recently," she murmured, almost thoughtlessly.
"Pink? Like the colour?" he asked in confusion. "What does that have to do with our newest Defence professor?"
Winona blinked into the shadowed trees to their left. "I've no idea."
For some reason she got the undeniable feeling that the newest addition to the Hogwarts staff was anything but a lighthearted choice of topic, so Winona smoothly changed the subject.
"How's the recipe coming on those Edible Dark Marks?"
"George reckons we're nearly there," said Fred enthusiastically. "I think they need a little more sugar, but he thinks that'll throw off the toad wart mixed into the gelatin."
"I still say they're in bad taste," Winona crinkled her nose. "Do you actually think anyone's going to buy something so overwhelmingly dark? Selling sweets in the shape of the Dark Mark doesn't exactly scream 'joke shop'."
"Ah, that's where you're wrong, my love," said Fred grandly. Ignoring the way her heart stopped beating entirely, then started up again twice as fast at the term of endearment, she looped her arm around his waist and listened to the soothing cadence of his voice. "See, we can either let the darkness swallow us all, or we can force it out into the light. Now, personally, I'd like to see all the darkness in the world disappeared by the time we're twenty. That's not going to happen if you allow it to stay in the dark."
Winona stared into the shadows that suddenly didn't seem so dark, after all. "That was kind of beautiful," she murmured, a tiny bit awestruck.
"You're kind of beautiful," he shot back.
Winona laughed. "Shut up."
They faded back into easy silence, but it didn't stay quiet for long. Winona began to think about Harry, wondering almost absently if it were a terrible idea to surprise him at his house. It was well after midnight, and he'd undoubtedly be sleeping, but who knew when she was going to get a chance to see him next? Besides, she doubted Fred would care about the rules she'd be breaking by doing it.
Mind made up, just as she opened her mouth to suggest it, there was a sound like the gushing of a violent river in her ears and her legs stopped walking, making her freeze on the path she and Fred were leisurely strolling.
"Win?" he asked, stopping with her, hand gripping her shoulder as she swayed. She vision began to flicker, and with one look up at him, they both knew what was coming. Cursing under his breath, Fred quickly scanned the park. "Come on," he said urgently, taking her hand and dragging her across the stretch of grass to a small building nearby.
As they grew closer, Winona realised it was a public bathroom. Still, this could have happened in worse places.
Once they were under its roof, safe from the rain, Winona allowed herself to collapse to her knees, momentarily blind. "Fred?" she asked, little more than a squeak. Everything had gone frighteningly cold, like the dead of winter had come six months too early.
"Win?" Fred's voice was nearby, and when she blinked her eyes she could see again. He was knelt in front of her, concern on his face. He read the urgency in her eyes and nodded. "It's okay," he promised her. "I'll keep you safe."
Relieved, Winona surged forwards to fuse their lips together, kissing him soundly in thanks before the vision took hold and she knew no more.
Somebody was groaning in pain – or was that fear? – and the cold only got worse, like the ice had sunk down to her very bones. A face, dark and cloaked, toothless mouth opened and ready to suck out a soul. Then, Harry's voice.
"Expecto Patronum!" he bellowed, and Winona's vision was filled by blinding, silver light.
There was shouting, heavy breathing, followed by a sort of sobbing sound. Harry's face in her mind's eye, pale and full of terror. "Harry!" she cried out, like if maybe she could just let him know she was there, he might not be so afraid.
Winona came out of the vision with a gasp, and for the first time – possibly ever – she didn't need to look down at the drawing she'd made to know what the vision had been.
She threw herself to her feet with too much force, but Fred was there to catch her before she collapsed. "Win," he was saying in her ear, hands curled protectively around her shoulders. "Win! You called Harry's name. Are you all right? Is he all right?"
But Winona wasn't listening. Her heart was racing and her head felt fuzzy. It was vitally important that she get back to Grimmauld Place – right fucking now. She quickly scanned the shadows through the doorway to the park, half expecting a dementor to appear from the dark and suck out their souls. And although nothing happened, her paranoia never eased.
"We have to go," she told Fred, still staring out into the dark. "Now."
Fred didn't argue – probably because he could hear how deadly serious she was in her voice. He took her hand and said nothing as Winona took a deep breath. But suddenly she wasn't confident in her ability to get them back to Grimmauld Place in one piece.
"I need you to apparate us home," she told Fred in a hushed voice, like the shadows themselves might be listening.
His brow furrowed. "You can't?"
She shook her head. "Too distracted."
"Okay," he agreed without another moment's hesitation. Gripping his hand tight, Winona inhaled just before they were sucked through that tiny straw, her organs squashed together, her eyes pressed back into her brain. Then it was over and they were standing across the street from her family's home.
The pair watched impatiently as houses eleven and thirteen were shoved aside, number twelve coming into existence between them. The lights on the top levels were out, but the ones on the bottom were on, and Winona knew with a swooping gut that they hadn't been as sneaky as they'd thought.
The others knew she and Fred had left.
Winona gulped as she and Fred made their way up the small stone steps. She pulled free her wand, waving it over the door as a sort of code – her magic telling the house's magic that she was a descendant of the Black line, asking to be let in.
The locks clacked together and there was the rattling of a chain before the door finally swung open, but neither of them made any move to enter. "How much trouble are we in?" Fred asked grimly.
"Uncertain," Winona said just as quietly. She turned to look up at him, both hands gripping him by the front of his shirt. "Kiss me."
His eyes widened at the unexpected order. "Why?"
"Because what's coming next is going to keep me very busy, and I don't know when we'll next get the chance," she told him plainly.
Fred shrugged. "Good enough for me."
His arms wound around her waist and he tugged her against him, swooping down to capture her lips in a toe-curling kiss. He was chaste but thorough, one hand splayed against the small of her back, the other sliding up her spine to tangle his fingers in her hair. Winona kissed him deeply, breathing him in, feeling the warmth of him against her.
They broke apart after a long, leisurely minute. Fred's pupils were blown wide, and his lips were a little bit red.
"Ready to face our certain doom?" she whispered, brushing away the piece of hair that had fallen over his forehead.
"Together?" he whispered back, shooting her a grin that could chase a dementor away without a wand in sight. "Always."
The door swung shut after them, and at the sound of all the locks clicking back into place, the people inside seemed to finally register that they'd returned.
The first to appear was Mrs Weasley. She materialised in the doorway, eyes a little bit bloodshot and panic clear on her face. Her shrewd eyes flickered over their forms – their wet clothes and kiss-swollen lips and intertwined fingers – and the concern very quickly spiralled into fury.
Her fiery hair began to crackle and her eyes were like daggers. "And just where in Merlin's name have you two been?!" she demanded shrilly, seeming to grow an extra few inches of height in her outrage. She began to thunder her way towards them, and without thinking they both took a large step backwards. As she screeched at them furiously, Winona thought she could give her grandmother's portrait a run for its money. "Do you have any idea how worried we've been?! We thought you'd been kidnapped! That you'd been taken by…by Death Eaters! Oh, but lo and behold, here you are, back from a night of – of canoodling in the rain!"
Fred's eyes were open wide with understandable fear, but Winona had more important things to be worrying about than Mrs Weasley's ire. "Where's Sirius?" she demanded. "We have to call an Order meeting right away-"
"We don't have to do anything, little miss," Mrs Weasley snarled, the term of endearment anything but endearing. It was enough to make her take a step backwards into Fred. "You have no idea the danger you've put each other in! You especially, Winona! How could you possibly think that leaving the safety of this house would be in any way a good idea?!"
"It was my idea, mum," Fred shouted over his mother's snarls. "Win's going crazy stuck in here, and you won't even give us five minutes to ourselves-"
Mrs Weasley's eyes seemed to catch fire. "You're going to be getting a lot less from now on, Fred Weasley, I assure you-"
"Molly," came a calm voice, and at once the room fell silent. Mrs Weasley reluctantly shifted aside, revealing Sirius stood in the doorway, an inscrutable expression on his bearded face. "Winnie," said her dad in a patient voice. "Are you okay?"
Throat tight, she could only nod her head. Sirius relaxed, and Winona knew it was from relief.
"You said you needed to call an emergency meeting?" he continued calmly.
"I had a vision," she told him in a hurry. His eyes darkened, then tightened further when she said, "it's bad."
Sirius watched her another long moment, considering, then turned to Mrs Weasley. "Molly, send a Patronus to Dumbledore at once. I'll have Remus alert the others."
But Mrs Weasley wasn't ready to be done scolding them. "But they left the house – they disobeyed the rules-"
"Yes," said Sirius, unruffled in comparison to Mrs Weasley's hyperactive ire. "And we'll deal with that in due time. But some things are more important." His eyes flickered back to Winona. "Is it Harry?"
Winona swallowed thickly. "Yes."
He nodded back grimly. "Then we mustn't waste time arguing."
And for as stubborn as Mrs Weasley was, even she couldn't deny the logic of it. She turned to the pair of them with steely eyes. "You're to go straight up to bed," she ordered, poking an angled finger in Fred's pale face. "No arguments."
Although the order was expected, Fred wouldn't be Fred if he didn't challenge it just a little. "But I was there for the vision – I can help!"
"You most certainly cannot," growled his mother. "Bed, now."
"She's mygirlfriend," he tried valiantly.
"Try that argument again when you're married," Mrs Weasley snapped, and both of their pale faces immediately went bright red. Knowing when he was beat – and also just a touch mortified – Fred reluctantly trudged up the stairs to the room he shared with George, pausing only to squeeze Winona's hand in farewell.
He disappeared up to the next level, and Mrs Weasley let out a loud sigh of exhaustion that made Winona feel like the most self-centred person in the world. Beyond maybe getting into trouble, she hadn't considered how their impulsive decision would effect those around them. Of course Mrs Weasley was a wreck. It had been selfish of them, and she saw that now.
"I'm really sorry, Mrs Weasley," Winona murmured, guilt gripping her like a vice.
Mrs Weasley have another heavy sigh. "I know you are, dear," she said quietly, not meeting her eyes. She did, however, flick her wand at Winona's drenched clothes, drying them without so much as a word. "I'll go send word to Dumbledore," she murmured, escaping up the stairs for privacy to send her Patronus.
This left Winona and Sirius alone in the entryway, and she very cautiously lifted her eyes to meet his. They stared at one another a few moments, neither sure what to say, Winona afraid he'd be mad. Finally it was Sirius who broke the silence.
"I'm not angry," he told her quietly, and the relief was like a physical weight off her shoulders. "I'm just as trapped here as you are. I know how you feel. I won't deny that, if it were me – if I were young and in love – I'd do the exact same thing." He smiled a little ruefully. "Remus did warn me that you were too much like me for your own good."
The comment probably should have hurt, but instead it filled Winona with warmth. She'd never had a parent to be compared to before. It was a breathtaking sort of a feeling, having an inexplicable but tangible proof of exactly where it was you'd come from.
"Come on," said Sirius, opening his arms. It said a lot about the night that Winona didn't even hesitate to slip right into his embrace. His arm curled around her shoulders as he brought her into his side. "Remus was a wreck. He'll be relieved to know you're okay."
Remus was stood in the kitchen, a small glass of what looked like brandy in his hand. He looked paler than normal, and the relief on his face when she came into sight was obvious, but considering her vision, it wasn't enough to make her smile.
"In one piece, I see," he said dryly, tone making it clear how unimpressed he was.
Sheepish, Winona ducked her head. "How'd you even know we were gone?"
"Kreacher saw you leave," explained Sirius, walking over to the kitchen beside Remus and beginning to set about making a pot of tea. "Heard him muttering about it when I came down for some water. By that point, you were long gone."
"Sorry," she apologised again. Remus nodded solemnly while Sirius just waved her off.
"She had a vision while on her little late-night excursion," he told Remus in the kind of tone she imagined old maids used to gossip in. He turned back to Winona as the kettle began to whistle. "Feel like sharing now, Pup?"
And there wasn't really any easy was to say it, so she ended up just blurting it in a hurry. "Harry's going to be attacked by dementors in Little Whinging two days from now."
Neither Sirius nor Remus spoke, staring at her as though half expecting her to burst out into laughter and declare it all a joke. When she didn't, a cloud settled over their eyes. "Dementors?Attacking Harry? Why?" Sirius echoed, abandoning the tea. Remus picked up the slack, going about pouring the boiled water into mugs.
"No idea," she told him plainly. "But we need to double the guard on him at once – and for the sake of my sanity, please, take Mundungus off rotation. That shifty little blighter's about as trustworthy as a hungry crocodile. One good offer and he's as good as gone."
"Dumbledore trusts him," said Remus patiently.
She levelled him with a flat stare. "Wild concept, but Dumbledore can be wrong."
Sirius looked like if he weren't so worried for his godson, he'd have laughed.
The fireplace in the back corner exploded with a burst of green flames and the Headmaster himself stepped into the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. He was dressed in deep blue robes with little golden suns stitched into the fabric, but the clothes were mussed and his beard wasn't combed, like he'd dressed in a hurry. It occurred to Winona that this was the least put-together she'd ever seen him, and she had to look away. It was almost like seeing him naked.
"I came at once," he said, voice like a low rumble of thunder. His icy eyes fixed onto Winona. "What happened?"
Remus pushed a mug of steaming hot tea into Winona's hand and she mumbled a thank you as she took a seat at her usual chair at the table. Remus sat on her left, but Dumbledore and Sirius both stayed standing, as though they thought they might need to fly into action at a moment's notice.
Mrs Weasley shuffled back into the room, looking surprised to find Dumbledore already there. Clearly it hadn't taken him long from getting her message to arriving. Mrs Weasley nodded at him politely, but the Headmaster only had eyes for Winona. Mr Weasley was close behind her, dressed in a holey old flannelette pyjama set, a nightcap pulled over his balding head.
Winona waited until they were inside the room, the door sealed shut after them and Muffliato cast over it to keep any of the others from eavesdropping. "Two days from now, Harry's going to be attacked by dementors in Little Whinging," she finally told him, glad the words came out steady. "He's going to have to use the Patronus Charm to fight them off."
"And does he succeed?" Dumbledore asked, the timbre of his voice low and rumbling.
Winona shut her eyes a moment, searching the aether, looking back over what little she knew. "I think so," she finally said. "But I can't be sure. But either way, he gets an official notice from the Ministry, expelling him from Hogwarts."
She opened her eyes again, turning her attention back to Dumbledore, ignoring the way Mrs Weasley gasped with horror at the unfair sentence. But Winona wasn't worried – they knew this would happen. They had forewarning. They had time to stop it.
"I was just telling the others that they need to call a full meeting – we need to make a plan. We should double the patrols on Harry and alert the Ministry of the attack before it can happen-" she cut herself off as something occurred to her.
Mrs Weasley, Remus, Sirius and Dumbledore all watched the various emotions as they passed over her face. "Winona?" asked Dumbledore cautiously, desperate to know what pieces she'd put into place.
"Trelawney and I have this theory," she began, voice sounding weak even to her own ears. "We think my visions are largely based on the decisions of those they involve. I think – I believe – that I got this vision tonight because somebody just made an active choice to set those dementors on Harry."
Looking up at the group around her, Winona took in their varying expressions. Remus and Mrs Weasley looked confused, but Sirius and Dumbledore seemed to have caught onto her meaning.
"What are you saying, dear?" asked Mrs Weasley thinly. "That – that somebody's orchestrating an attack on Harry? Who would do such a thing?"
Everybody in the room stared at her, and the apples of her cheeks went a hot pink as she realised the stupidity of the question. Even still, she had more of them.
"But You-Know-Who doesn't have the ability to control dementors," she argued in the voice of someone who didn't want to believe something, so they didn't. Winona watched her boyfriend's mother with a frown, noting that she suddenly looked very fearful indeed. "Does he?" Mrs Weasley asked in a small voice.
Everybody turned to look at Dumbledore expectantly.
"Intelligence suggests he hasn't been able to acquire full control over them – as of yet," the Headmaster told them all slowly, speaking every word with icy importance. "Currently, the dementors remain under Ministry control."
The room went silent again as they pondered exactly what this meant. Dumbledore was staring at Winona, eyes intent, and she stared back without flinching.
"Will anyone be witness to this attack?" he asked her evenly.
"There isn't going to be an attack," Winona retorted without so much as a beat of hesitation. "You're going to double Harry's guard to keep it from happening; or better yet, you're going to stop torturing him and just let him come home already."
Mrs Weasley looked shocked at the frosty tone Winona was taking with him, while Remus just shook his head knowingly and Sirius looked like he was already planning a party in honour of the occasion.
To Winona's disappointment, Dumbledore didn't react to her demands. "Will anyone see this attack, Winona?" he asked again, every word deliberate. "Anyone at all?"
Reluctantly, Winona searched the aether, and in a startling change to the usual, the answers were right there, waiting. With blind eyes Winona pulled her sketchbook from the bag in her lap, opening it with a flick to a fresh page and beginning a rough sketch. The gentle vision lasted maybe thirty seconds, and in that time Winona could do little more than an assortment of stick-figures. But that didn't matter, because in her mind's eye she saw the vision as clear as day. The drawing just helped her focus the power she didn't really know how else to control.
"Dudley," she finally said, blinking back to awareness. "Dudley's going to be with him."
"You mean that awful cousin of his?" gasped Mrs Weasley. "But – but he's a Muggle."
Dumbledore's beard twitched, and not in a smile. "This is troubling news indeed."
"Should I tell the rest of the Order to come in?" asked Remus quickly, already reaching for his wand, ready to send out an alert. But he was stopped by a slow shake of Dumbledore's head.
"No," he said, drawing the word out, making it longer than it was. "No, this information stays within this group."
Sirius stepped forwards. "But – what about the guard? Shouldn't they know-"
Dumbledore simply held up a hand, and her father went reluctantly silent. "Might this not work to our advantage?"
The others exchanged wary glances. "Work to our advantage how?" Mr Weasley was the first to speak up, hesitance saturating his voice.
But to nobody's surprise, Dumbledore gave no answer. He turned to look directly at Sirius, blue eyes a pair of unfeeling sapphires – pretty, but cold and hard all the same. "We're going to let events happen as they will," he declared. "Now that we have warning, I can be ready to force the Ministry into giving Harry a trial, which will buy me several minutes of unhindered access to the Minister-"
"So you're just going to let Harry play into a trap?" Winona snapped, uncaring as she interrupted the Headmaster. "He's not a chess piece, Dumbledore. He's not a pawn."
Dumbledore turned his eyes to her, and for the first time that night it was like he was seeing her as more than just the secret weapon she'd been acting as all this time. "Yes, he is," said Dumbledore plainly. "As am I; and as are you, and Sirius, and everybody else in this house. We're all pawns in a game of chess. That's what this war is, Winona. It's one giant chess game."
It was certainly a dark way to view the world, and Winona wasn't so sure she agreed.
"Will Harry be safe?" asked Sirius, the most important question of them all.
"Harry's faced dementors before, as I'm sure you well remember, Sirius," said Dumbledore calmly. "In the past, he's fought dozens. Two should hardly pose a challenge."
It was callous and cruel, and Winona felt him make another dent in the crater of her lessening respect for him.
"Yes, physically he'll be fine," Winona said, the ice in her voice matching his eyes. "But what about emotionally? He shouldn't have to face dementors at all."
Dumbledore gave a small sigh, and the others' eyes flickered between them like they were on opposite ends of a tennis court. "We're all doing things we shouldn't have to do; but the fact of the matter is, we're going to have to do them."
Winona's ire didn't ease, and she glared at Dumbledore with all the hate her small stature could conjure. Dumbledore seemed to give a little.
"Winona, I care for your cousin deeply," he told her, and she could tell that that, at the least, wasn't a lie. "If I could spare him the world's pain, I would in a heartbeat. But some fights have to be fought alone."
"But we can stop this one from happening," she argued. "Why else would I get the vision?"
"To prepare us. Now we know it's coming."
"And if it all goes wrong?" she demanded hotly. "If we fail and he ends up getting kicked out of school?"
This time when Dumbledore's lips twitched, it was with a smile. "Being Headmaster comes with a great deal of power over these matters," he told her calmly. "Harry will not be getting expelled from Hogwarts; this year or any other."
And it wasn't much, but Winona would take what little comfort she could get. "Let me go be with him."
She wasn't usually one to beg, but if it meant keeping Harry safe, she'd grovel on her knees all day long. Dumbledore looked down at her curiously.
"I'll be with him – I'll be a witness you can actually use against the Wizengamot." Dumbledore was already shaking his head, but Winona wasn't going to take no for an answer. "I can't even perform the Patronus Charm – I never learned how – so it's not like I could keep him from casting it!"
"We've discussed this, Winona," said Mrs Weasley sternly. "No matter how much you want to be there for Harry – you simply can't leave the house. Especially after tonight! The last thing you've earned are special privileges."
Winona glowered at Mrs Weasley for the first time since she'd met her, all those years ago. "I'm not asking for special privileges," she said, the words hard and uncompromising as steel, "I'm asking to be able to go comfort my cousin in his time of need. Or have you all forgotten Cedric Diggory so quickly?"
Everyone, bar Sirius and Dumbledore, flinched at the mention of Cedric's name and the callous way she threw it in their faces. She felt bad, but she had a point to make.
"Harry is suffering. He can't sleep – he barely eats. Thanks to all of you adults and your stupid rules, he feels completely and utterly alone," she listed hotly. "I'm not asking for this because I want another chance to sneak out and snog my boyfriend," she continued snidely, seeing she held their attention. "I'm asking this for Harry's sake. Y'know, the innocent kid stuck at the centre of this fucking war who you all seem to have conveniently forgotten about?"
She was breathing heavily by the time she was done, heart hammering in her chest, eyes wild with passion. A large hand landed on her shoulder, squeezing gently. "That's enough, Pup," said Sirius quietly, but he didn't sound angry, or disappointed. If anything, he sounded…proud.
Dumbledore's expression was inscrutable. He stared at her for at least a full minute, expression giving nothing away. The others in the room look between them like they were watching a game of tug of war. Or perhaps it was more a battle of wills.
Finally, just when Winona was about to give up and storm out dramatically like the teenager she was, Dumbledore spoke.
"Very well."
There was a beat of confused quiet. Nobody had been expecting that; not even Winona. She stared at him in shock that quickly melted into suspicion.
"But – you can't mean to let Winona go out," whispered Mrs Weasley.
Remus seemed to agree. "Albus, you're the one always telling us how important she is. If she gets caught-"
"Winona's plan is a strong one," said Dumbledore without letting Remus finish. "Somebody needs to bare witness to the attack once it goes to the Wizengamot. It will give you a chance to speak with the Minister, too," he added to Winona. "I doubt anything will make him see reason at this point, but True Seers are regarded with the utmost respect by the Ministry. It will be a perfect opportunity to testify to our cause."
And Winona wanted no part in Dumbledore's plan. She didn't want any of this, didn't want to be one of the many pawns in his stupid game of chess. But if it got her out of this place and one step closer to Harry, then she'd swallow back the unpleasantness and do whatever she had to in order to keep her cousin safe.
A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed this one. Leave a review and let me know your thoughts – I'm really interested to hear what you think. And we're getting close to 1000 reviews! The day we hit it I'm probably going to weep. I do what I do because I love it, but knowing so many of you love my work too makes my heart feel so full. You're all the best, thank you! 3