Part Ten

George and Lee followed Harriet out the back door to the large yard. They remained a good distance away from her to allow her to calm down. Neither wanted to get on the wrong side of her temper. Eventually, Harriet took refuge under a shady oak tree. She sat down, and then looked up, surprised to see George and Lee standing there.

"I didn't think anyone was following me," she said, resting her chin in her hand.

"Well we weren't following you really," George said, sitting down next to her. "We were just--"Harriet raised her eyebrows and he fell silent. "Ok so we were following you."

Harriet leaned back against the rough trunk of the tree and sighed. She couldn't believe that yesterday Fred was kissing her and today he was swooning over some French girl. George seemed to sense her emotion and pat her softly on the shoulder.

"I told you before, Harriet. Don't fret over this. Fred'll come back to his senses, you mark my words." He winked at her.

"Yeah, c'mon Harriet. How long have you known Fred? Three, maybe four years? I've known him since our first year at Hogwarts and I have never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you; not even some flirty little blonde girl," said Lee crossing his arms.

"Nor have I," piped up George.

Harriet smiled, grateful for the pairs comforting words. She dug her hands deep into the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt and closed her eyes. The three sat there for a while until the sun started to set and the sky turned a deep shade of crimson. Finally, Harriet took her hands out of her pocket and stood up. A small wrapper fell out of her pocket.

"What's this?" George asked, catching the wrapper before it hit the ground. He and Lee stood up.

"Nothing, it's just what I wrote the order down on at the café. I think Ron said it was the wrapper for your new candy or something," replied Harriet.

"New candy?" George squinted at the miniscule writing on the side of the wrapper. His eyes grew wide. "Oh bloody hell!" And with that he took of running toward the burrow, the laughter of Lee and Harriet following him as he ran.

Dinner was ready and Mrs. Weasley called the group for dinner. But after realizing that there was hardly enough room to fit the eight friends plus Mr. Weasley, Ginny, Bill (who came to visit for the summer) and herself in the small kitchen, Mrs. Weasley decided that they were going to have to eat outside. Everyone was now carrying bowls of food, cutlery, drinks and extra chairs outside to the back yard. George kept shooting glances at Ron, as if fearing he might explode at any moment.

Harriet managed to stay away from Marietta by setting up chairs at the long table. Fred, who was placing plates across from her, kept trying to catch her eye. Harriet did her best to ignore him.

The table was set at last and the large group sat down to steaming plates of chicken, dumplings, and stuffing. Lee sat next to George, who sat next to Harriet, who sat next to Fred, who sat next to Marietta. (A/N: did you get all that??) Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat across from them.

"It looks wonderful Molly," said Mr. Weasley helping himself to a large portion of chicken. George winced as Ron piled his plate high with mashed potatoes.

"I hope he doesn't eat too much..." George left the sentence hanging in the air. Fred gave a confused look to his twin, who gulped and held up the empty candy wrapper. Fred looked back and forth between his two brothers before a look of horrific realization came over his face. The twins hardy put any food on their plates, but watched Ron cautiously. Marietta's loud voice cut through the conversation as she talked animatedly to Bill about (what else?) his hair.

"Personally," she said loudly in her French accented voice, "I find your 'air very attractive. I have always favored the long 'air my self." She touched a lock of Bill's long red hair. "But of course it must be groomed properly. And I must say you do a fine job." She looked at Harriet and smiled. "Now, er...Your 'air could do with a little fine grooming..." She reached out to touch Harriet's long, straight but frizzy black hair, but Harriet snatched back out of Marietta's reach.

"I like my hair this way," Harriet said loudly.

"Pardon me for asking, but, why?"

Harriet looked as if she had just gotten slapped across the face. She looked at Fred expecting him to say something in her defense. He just looked back at her, his golden brown eyes emotionless. Harriet averted her attention away from Fred, completely hurt, and looked back at Marietta. They icily stared at each other, a smug smile played on Marietta's lips. The moment was interrupted by a loud yelp from Ron.

Harriet snapped out of her battle of will with Marietta and looked over at Ron. She gasped as she saw that the tips of his straggly red hair were on fire! Luckily, George had been expecting something like this to happen and whipped Ginny's mug of pumpkin juice off the table. He quickly dumped the mug's contents onto Ron's head, which emitted a loud hissing noise.

Ron sat there dripping with pumpkin juice, mouth open and utterly silent. Mrs. Weasley took one look at Fred and George and immediately started yelling

"What did you give him!!" she yelled so loudly that everyone flinched.

"We didn't give anything to him mum, we swear!" protested Fred. "I didn't even know he had eaten any of our candy!" But Mrs. Weasley wasn't hearing any of it. She angrily stood up from the table and was busily brushing the charred hair away from the remains of Ron's intact locks. Ron looked up suddenly.

"But mum, they didn't give it to me!" yelled Ron abruptly. "I saw the candy in their shop a couple days ago on the counter and picked it up." The twins looked accusingly at Ron

"Oh, so now you're stealing from us?" Fred asked.

"I was hungry!"

"Yeah, well you own us five sickles buddy!"

"Fred! Stop yelling at him!" Mrs. Weasley yelled, standing between the two boys. The group at the table was staring up at the scene, completely silent. "Honestly Fred, I'm not quite sure about this business of yours! If you keep carrying on like you are you're going to land yourself in a lawsuit the size of Spain!"

"Mum, that's completely unfair, George runs the shop too and you're not ripping his head off!"

"Yes, well you always seem to be the one who comes up with all the brilliant ideas that could kill off half the wizarding world!"

Harriet watched Fred as he stood there, speechlessly gaping at his mother. A part of her believed Fred deserved it, but another part wanted to run up and hug him and tell him that everything would be ok.

Fred stared menacingly at his mother and then turned away, storming toward the house. Marietta got up and quickly followed him. Molly sat back down at the table and sighed.

"Don't you think that was a bit harsh Molly dear?" asked Mr. Weasley, frowning at his wife.

"Nonsense! He nearly blew Ron up for heaven's sake!"

Harriet looked over to George whose eyes were following his twin's and Marietta's footsteps back to the house. She stood up and walked over to him.

"He's gonna be wicked mad at me," he said without looking at her. He and Harriet started walking aimlessly away from the table in the direction of the house.

"He doesn't have a reason to be mad at you," Harriet reassured him. George laughed.

"Yeah he does. I'm the one who came up with the idea for that candy and now mum's gone blaming it on him. You can bet he'll be mad."

Harriet looked thoughtfully at him.

"Would you be mad if it was you?" she asked. George thought for a second.

"Well, I'll admit I'd be mad but not as mad as he'll get. Let's just say Fred is the more aggressive of us twins," he replied.

"Ah. Well then you better go talk to him now because if he is as mad as you say, I'd want to get it over with sooner rather than later."

"Yeah, I guess you're right Harriet. As usual." George sighed then looked to Harriet. "Thanks for the advice."

"Anytime."

The two briefly hugged and then left, each off to find their twin.


George found Fred sitting on the couch in the living room of the Burrow, his arm slung loosely over Marietta's shoulder. He looked at George then scowled and quickly turned his head.

"Uh...Fred? Could I talk to you?"

Fred shrugged.

"Well you already are, aren't you?" Fred replied, still not looking at him.

"Ok, well could I talk to you alone?" asked George, looking at Marietta.

"It is ok, Freddie. I will wait for you outside," interjected Marietta. She stood up slowly and Fred's arm dropped off her shoulder and fell limply on the couch. She left out the back door, leaving the twins together in silence.

"So what do you want?" asked Fred after a while. George winced slightly. Having Fred be perfectly calm was almost worse than having him yell.

"Well first of all, I want to tell you that I'm sorry about what mum said. You're right, I should have gotten yelled at to since it was my idea for that joke anyways," started George. He waited for Fred to talk next.

"Ok, apology accepted, I guess," Fred replied, still not looking at his brother. "And is there a second of all? Because you know George, you could have told me that when Marietta was here."

"Um, yeah that's kind of what else I wanted to talk about."

Fred looked over at George with the same blankness with which he had looked at Harriet.

"I wanted to ask you about Harriet and Marietta," George began again.

"What about them?"

"Well, this morning you were telling me how much you liked Harriet..." stated George.

"Yeah. What about it?" asked George, returning his gaze to staring blankly in front of him.

"...and now you seem to like Marietta and Harriet is afraid that you don't like her anymore which is definitely a mistake because she cares for you a lot," George spat out. Fred looked up quickly at him.

"She thinks what?" he asked, startled. "Why would she think I don't like her any more??"

"Well, maybe it's because ever since Marietta came you've been swooning over her this whole time," said George like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Fred stood up, enraged.

"Yeah, well she hasn't been paying much attention to me either! Ever since I've been hanging out with Marietta you seem to take Harriet all for yourself!"

George looked completely startled.

"I've been what? Fred, what are you talking about?!"

"Oh yes George, don't think I didn't notice you at the café getting all snuggly in line," said Fred smirking. George laughed.

"Fred. I hugged her! And for your information, she was talking to me in line about your sudden interest in Marietta!" yelled George. Fred held up his hand.

"Yes I'm sure that's what happened; and you saw it as the perfect opportunity to get her to fall right into your arms. You're jealous!" shouted Fred. George laughed out loud again.

"I'm jealous? Well dear brother it sounds as if you're the one who's jealous! You can't take someone, ever your own brother, getting too near your quote-unquote girlfriend," retorted George. "And even though you claim that you care about Harriet, you have a hard time showing it when you're running of with old French girlfriends who you haven't seen in over a year."

Fred shot a threatening look at his brother before he stood up and stormed out the back door, closing it with a slam.