AN: I do not own the rights to use Harry Potter. Please Read and Review, I like hearing feedback, and will take criticism as long as it's constructive.
Chapter 8: Fight or Flight
Ygraine had only stayed at the Gryffindor party for a short while. Her friends' attempts to cheer or console her weren't going over so well. She didn't want their pity or sympathy. In addition, she had felt bad for yelling at George and didn't want to hear everyone talking about it. She'd had company when Fred came over to sit by her, trying to escape the crowds of questioning students as well. She thought that he'd be mad at her for spazzing out on his brother, but instead he told her he'd pass on her apology to George. He too wished none of this had happened, but said, being a red head, he could understand how one's temper could flare and acknowledged that his sometimes got the better of him too. She'd left the party soon after that, no longer wanting to pretend not to see the furtive glances and whispered conversations. She took some food on a plate and decided to spend some time away from everyone and had headed up the dormitory stairs.
She now sat on the top stone step heading to the 7th year dorms in the tower, the boys' to her left, the girls' to her right. The staircase was narrow and only dimly lit with torches lighting the way to the rooms. A window at the partition where she was sitting brought the light of the stars and the moon onto the little landing where she had taken her seat. The old stonewalls were perspiring with the damp of the night, giving them the appearance of stones that glowed as the firelight flickered off the dew. She sat on the cold stone step, her legs falling beneath her a few steps down, showing off the length of them as they stretched. She placed her plate of food at her side, looking down at what she had chosen to eat. Not feeling up for everything she had shoved onto it, she grabbed the cheese string and pulled it apart into many skinny strings. Not expecting to find anyone coming up the stairs anytime soon, Ygraine began to charm her cheese string to fly around, making them braid together, to tie knots around the ones that flew too fast; she was having fun, playing with her food the way a little witch or wizard would only wish they knew how to do. As cheese strings floated around, rebounding off the walls, Fred came up the stairs, not expecting to be hit by a piece of cheese while walking to his room. Ygraine quickly grabbed her cheese from the air and placed it back on her plate with the little crackers marching in perfect formation, and shrugged as Fred stopped to look at her. He smiled down at her and she smiled back.
"I'm just-" Fred pointed towards the boys' dormitory where his brother would be hiding from the world.
"No, no. I know." She moved aside and let Fred pass, turning back to her waiting food.
"Ygraine?" Fred turned after a few steps up to the boys' dorms. She looked up at him with her lonely blue eyes. "You gonna be okay? – I just have to see George."
"Fred, it's okay, he's your brother. I understand. I'm not trying to get your sympathy. I'm just here to eat my cheese without everyone looking at me like I'm the biggest bitch. I mean, I know I can be, but I honestly just want to have fun with my cheese without people thinking I'm crazy too." She smiled up at him; he looked down at her, amused, and felt the pull from his brother within himself.
"It's not crazy, George and I do that stuff all the time, and no one down there thinks that you're a big bitch, just a little bitchy tonight. But I'll catch you later. Enjoy your cheese."
Fred walked up the remaining stairs to find his brother strumming away on his guitar. George looked up at his brother as he crossed the room towards him.
"Hi," said George.
"Hi."
Fred walked over to his brother and sat beside him on the messy fitted bed, listening to his brother play away, the melancholy notes floating off his fingers. They seemed perfectly at ease with each other at that moment in time. Not talking, just listening to the music being played by George coming from the strings and hollowed wood. Fred broke the rhythm.
"You know she's sorry right?"
The music stopped.
George did not look at his brother; instead, he continued to look out at the wall, ignoring his brother's comment, wishing nothing had been said now – and then.
* * *
"Can you believe that game? I was so stressed out there. I tell ya, if I didn't have that antiperspirant charm I would have been slipping off my broom!" Seamus flopped himself down onto the overstuffed sofa beside Ginny in the Gryffindor common room. Harry was sitting on her other side.
"I don't know if I want you sitting beside me then!" Ginny pushed Seamus playfully away as she wrinkled her nose in disgust at the mention of sweat.
"You mean to tell me, you didn't feel like you should have been sweating buckets out there if it weren't for the genius of a charm Ygraine taught us at practice the other day? Her mum must have taught her all the tricks, being a professional." Seamus took a swig from his butter beer; the warm foam lining his lips gave him the appearances of a frothy mustache, something he wiped away quickly as Seamus secretly hoped a real one would never grow.
"Ygraine taught you an antiperspirant charm? What else has she taught you guys?" Hermione broke away from the private conversation she and Ron were having on the overly large stuffed chair, her legs draped over him. The two of them looked almost perfect sitting together, whispering back and forth to each other about the little nothings going on in their lives. Not paying much attention to what their friends around them were saying, they had been off in their own little world. Nothing much else mattered to the two of them when they could sit and talk to each other. Ron had been in the middle of telling Hermione what had actually happened between his brother and Ygraine when Hermione heard Seamus mention Ygraine teaching them special charms.
"Oh, she hasn't taught us that many. Just what ever she felt could help the team legally. We've definitely got a great advantage having her on the team. It's just to bad about the twins being split up, eh? I mean, it's kind of weird not having the two of them playing together, but I wouldn't trade Ygraine in, that's for sure." Both Ginny and Ron glared at Seamus.
"What? It's true. It's hard not seeing them play together, and I bet even harder on them, since they are so used to being a team. Now they're obvious individuals, and it's quite evident that this is getting to George. I mean, that attitude affects the whole team. I just wish I could have been here for the blow up between him and Ygraine; bet it was something to see. The two of them seemed to be such nice people, off the Quidditch pitch anyways, not to mention the total sexual tension between the two of them, that probably helped with the built up emotion they let out, eh? Love and hate, stem from the same beginning, don't they?"
Everyone looked at Seamus who began to babble off about all of his observations of his friends and the people they all knew, including the alleged notorious Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger plot line.
"Where are you coming up with this bullshit?" Ron finally asked, cutting Seamus off, allowing him to forget his train of thought.
"In class." Seamus stated leaning back into the sofa, stretching his arm behind Ginny. Harry's eyes caught this and for a moment it seemed they would shoot bullets at the Irishman. Seamus moved his arm back to his side, not wanting to get into that territory.
"That explains your grades or lack of O.W.L.S," Dean chipped in, slinking across the floor to reach up and snag a chocolate frog from the coffee table. He went back down to the floor, stretching his body out on the red and yellow area rug that took up a good portion of the common room's living area in front of the fire place. The group let out a small bubble of laughter; Seamus even let out a faint smile at the observation, knowing fully well that it was one of the main reasons for his not so perfect grades.
"Where are you going?" Ron felt the weight of Hermione's legs lift off of him as she got up from the big comfy chair everyone knew as theirs. She stretched as she stood, as they had been seated there for quite sometime.
"I'd love to stay and chat with all of you, but I have to go check up on Ygraine and then off to George, see how they're doing." She started to walk towards the coffee table for one last snack.
"Really, do you have to get into this one? Don't think they need one of your lectures right now." Ron said, holding Hermione's hand trying to pull her back down to stay with him and their friends.
"I'm going as a friend Ron, not as Head Girl." She gave him a quick smile and stepped over the lounging Dean, who turned over in time to try to and get a sneak peak up her skirt to see what was hiding under there.
"Nice try Dean." She quickly maneuvered herself out the way of his line of vision.
"Can't knock a guy for trying. Don't forget to fill us in after your conversation. Can't miss out on another chapter of the Gryffindor Soap Opera." Dean rolled back onto his stomach on the floor, plopping his elbows on the pillow Ron had chucked at him for trying to look up Hermione's skirt. Hermione just shook her head and went towards the dorms, the rest of the gang just continued to discus the going ons of the students in Gryffindor.
* * *
She had hoped that she would have bumped into Ygraine on her way up the dormitory stairs, as she knew the girl had a habit of sitting in staircases and hallways, but only came across some floating cheese strings and crackers that were dive bombing each other. She watched the battle for food airspace for a few seconds, as the scene was quite interesting. It wasn't everyday, even in the wizarding world, where one got to see food in combat action. She stepped away from the twisting strings and crumbling crackers and headed up to the boy's dormitories; she'd deal with the dueling food later if Ygraine hadn't. (Might be an interesting scene to have Hermione come back and clean it up. It presents a few possibilities. If Hermione has a hard time unwinding the charm at first, it can rouse some suspicions. Ygraine seeing that Hermione can undo the charm with relative ease would also be a nice place you could show her speculating on the kind of ally Hermione would make. And we know Hermione's sneakier than the boys give her credit for- we just have to look to her fake crying scene with Umbridge for proof.)
* * *
"What, is she your twin now?" George yelled at his brother as Fred turned to walk towards the window, allowing the space between them to widen. The twins had been arguing almost the whole time Fred had been up there. They were laying all their frustrations out on the table. Almost two months of not really talking to one another had them fuming mad; both twins' tempers were flaring, each having good reasons to be angry.
"What the hell kind of bullshit remark is that? No, she's not my twin. You are. Fuck, you must be jealous of her, if your thinking shit like that up." Both of their faces were red from yelling, and neither would back away from what they had started. There had been attempts to apologize, then one of them would spit something rash out and the fighting would start up again. Either Fred would say something about George holding everything back and not being the best at communicating or sharing with him since Quidditch tryouts, or George would once again spit out how everyone is against him and that they are the ones who are not listening.
"Why does everyone think I'm jealous of her? She's the one who took my fucking spot on the team, and then all of you guys go and pity her because I called her a bitch afterwards. You guys didn't come and talk to me afterwards, you all flocked to her side. Not mine. What the fuck's up with that?"
"George, we came to you first. Obviously you do not remember how we went after you as you stomped of the pitch. You took yourself off the list. We all tried to include you, but your fucking pride took over. I'd try and talk to you. Ron and Ginny took some attempts, Ygraine even tried. But after awhile we got sick and tired of you brushing us off, then we started to see how you began to treat Ygraine, and we knew that something was definitely up, you would never be like that. I mean, fuck, you could do nothing but talk about the girl before she beat you out at the tryouts, everyone thought that you guys could have had something for each other, but now? Damn, I'd hate to be her right now. You lost fair and square, and there is nothing you can do to change that. Ygraine was right; you should suck it up and get on with your life! Yes, she was at fault for calling you on it, and was kinda bitchy in doing so, probably the Slytherin in her. Even though you needed to be called on it, someone else who was closer to you should have done it, someone like myself. I've realized my mistake and so has she, which is why she asked me to apologize to you on her behalf because she knew that you wouldn't listen to her. She's sorry – and I hope that you can put you pride aside for five minutes and apologize to her yourself, because you're the one acting like the asshole now!"
George had had enough. He was tired of having his brother defending Ygraine, even if he had admitted to him just then that he knew Ygraine was partially at fault. But he knew it wasn't only because of Ygraine that he was mad, but he chose to use her as the escape and focus of all of his anger and feelings; it was just to easy to put it on her. He leapt at his twin and they started to punch and jab at each other.
Their fists were flying everywhere, landing on faces and pushing in stomachs. It was a release of all their energy and emotions; they could feel themselves calming down within as the blood began to flow.
"Oh my God! What are you two doing?" Get off of each other!" Hermione grabbed her wand and blew the two boys apart, both of them landing with a hard thud on their backs. George shot right up.
"Fuck off, Hermione. And don't look at me like that; I'm not one of your projects." George's nose was bleeding and his lip was split. He shoved his way past the speechless Hermione as she looked at the battered twins. Fred looked about ready to pounce again. George didn't even take the time to clean the blood off of his face as he stormed out of the dorm room.
"What the hell was that Fred? Is that how you and George are solving things now? Fist fights?" Hermione offered Fred a tissue to wipe his bleeding nose and split lip even as she berated him. Another part of her mind was analyzing the results of the fight. She couldn't believe it: the twins had identical cuts, as though they were still physically the same person. 'Impossible,' she thought to herself.
"Whoa, did I ever get a beating. I deserved it though - and he fully deserved the ass-whooping I gave to him." Fred's bleeding lips quirked into a smirk.
"Fred, I really should report a fight like this, but I'll let it pass in this case. Just try to keep a low profile while your wounds heal – I don't want to find myself explaining the reasoning behind why you two aren't being punished for the fight." Hermione walked over to Fred and took a better look at his scrapes. "You really should see Madam Pompfry about those cuts. The one on your lip looks pretty bad."
"Ah, they'll heal soon enough." Fred licked some of the blood away.
"Fred, you should take this seriously."
"Sorry."
Fred lowered his head and noticed a wooden bead on the floor beneath him. "Shit, George's choker." Fred began to crawl around on his hands and knees, looking for all the pieces of his brother's prized possession. The beads were sprawled out all over the bedroom, some even stuck in the cracks of the old wood flooring of the bedrooms. Fred tried to locate the main bead, the carved wooden Bludger. The choker had been the first item that George had purchased from their very first sale at the store as a remembrance of all the hard work they had put into the place, and now what was left of it was spilled out on the dormitory floor. It must have broken during their fight.
Fred found the Bludger; it was in three pieces, and there was no way a Reparo charm would work on it. He put all the beads and the broken carved Bludger into a little baggy and placed it on his brother's bedside table.
"I just hope he doesn't find Ygraine on the stairs right now. That'd be hell." Fred said, looking at Hermione who had been helping him find all the wooden beads.
"She wasn't there when I ran up. Just a floating cheese battle." Hermione shot off a small smile at her friend.
"Yeah, she's got some pretty funny charms hidden up her sleeve. It's too bad George hates her now, those two could have come up with some brilliant ideas." Fred commented as he cleaned up the effects of the fight on the room.
"I don't think he really hates her." Hermione said quietly to herself, picking up one of the pillows that had been thrown across the room.
Silence ensued as Hermione helped pick up the fallen-over chairs and the tussled bed sheets. "Fred, you two aren't really the one's who pulled those pranks earlier?" Hermione took a seat on Ron's bed, as she was accustomed to while visiting the 7th year boys' dorm room.
"No. Does no one believe us?"
"Well, I figured that it could have been you because the pranks did stop after your talk with Dumbledore. It only made sense, because, I mean, it's you and George."
"They did stop, but not because Dumbledore told us to. We were here to finish school, not to look for free advertisement."
"That's good to hear. I'm going to go find Ygraine, see what's up at her end. And hopefully George will have had a good cool down before the two of them meet up tomorrow for class. Should I be worried about something happening to you as you dream?"
"Ah, George wouldn't do something to me like that in my sleep, no matter how mad he gets at me; he knows I'd get back at him three times the fold. Night 'Mione."
"Bye, Fred." Hermione stepped out of the boys' dormitory and headed off to find Ygraine and hopefully to, at some point, have a civil conversation with George.
As she reached the landing she noticed that Ygraine had not come back to yet to clean up the cheese string vs. cracker war. Crumbs were all over the place as the crackers had been taking quite the beating, as was evident with the cheese strings spelling out the word 'victory' as the crackers slowly landed back on the plate, slumping into the red jelly.
Hermione took out her wand and tried to get the cheese strings back onto the plate, and nothing was working on them, as they kept flying at her whenever she would enter their airspace. She decided she'd start with the crumbs on the floor from the stairs, since they'd be easier to charm onto the plate, a simple cleaning charm would do the trick, and the cheese would be unable to reach her from the stairs. As the crumbs flew off of the stone floors and onto the plate Hermione tried her hardest to figure out what charm Ygraine had used to get the cheese stings to act like it did. She got a few of the pieces to stop moving, but they were still floating around in the air. She figured it might just be easier to freeze them all and then just grab them. She started with the ones she had already stopped in the air.
"You have to get the captain cheese to stop if you want them all to go back onto the plate. But good job in getting those soldiers to stop." Ygraine was heading down the girls' dorm steps to the landing where Hermione was jumping at the strings Ygraine had left behind. Ygraine took out her wand and pointed at the skinniest of the cheese strings and shot out some sort of command Hermione had never heard before.
"Where'd you learn that trick?" Hermione was more curious about the charm then lecturing Ygraine on leaving her food lying around.
"Oh, I was a testy child, so my parents taught me tricks to play with my food so that I'd have fun eating it. That way they were sure I was eating all my vegetables and everything off my plate." She gave a little giggle at the memory as she motioned for the cheese strings to all line up on the plate, which she picked up after they had all landed.
"You must be pretty smart then, if you were able to perform your own charms like that as a kid." Hermione said, walking with Ygraine back to the common room.
"Yeah, I can hold my own, but I don't think I stand anywhere near the top of brains when it comes to you. I hear you have the top marks here at Hogwarts? Bet your parents are proud."
Hermione was quite flattered to hear so, and thought to herself, she could only improve by becoming better friends with Ygraine. They continued on down, and sat with the gang, Ygraine acting a little standoffish the rest of the evening.
* * *
George stumbled through the corridors of Hogwarts. He had realized that he had been a jerk and that his family still cared about him but his emotions were flying everywhere and he needed to do something to get rid of the build up within him. If he could just do something to even up the humiliation factor with Ygraine life would be okay and things could maybe go back to the way they were. He figured Ygraine seemed the type who could fall back to grace after some form of humiliation. Right?
The other question he had for himself was about what it was that he could do. It had to equal the same blow to the ego that he had felt being shunned from something he truly loved.
He could tamper with her broom for a Quidditch game, but that was too far away and although he wasn't on the team he didn't want Gryffindor to lose. He needed to do something now and before the Halloween party – or he could do it at the Halloween party! Genius! He would do it then, he thought to himself.