I need a beta. If you're at all interested, PM me and I'll send you a little test. Must be willing to beta: Fred/Hermione/George, Hermione/Severus, Hermione/Bill and Hermione/Draco. You may notice that there is a new pairing there that I don't have anything posted for. Hm… when might this be happening? You guys know me… probably in a year or three (God I hope not).

Fred sat at the dining room table, a bag of ice held against his head and drank a cuppa with honey and lemon. There was a jar of Nutella on the table in front of him, and a spoon covered in the stuff halfway to his mouth when Molly left and George walked in.

"Mmm… I remember when Hermione showed us that," he said, stopping at the stove to pour himself a cup of tea and add a splash of milk before sitting across from Fred.

Fred nodded and screwed the lid on, tossing the spoon in the sink. He grabbed his mug and prepared to stand before George grabbed his arm.

"Wait, Fred… I need to talk to you."

Fred frowned and leaned against the counter, a safe distance from George. "Is there anything else you have to say? You've called Hermione a whore. I couldn't care less about what you said about me, but you're going to act like our Hermione can't decide which one of us she wants to keep. To be fair, she was yours first, so I'm not so sure why you're acting like you need to prove yourself. And, I'll have you know, that you were the one who suggested we take the feelings we'd felt for her and make something of it. So by all means, say what it is that you have to say."

"Freddie…" George looked up at Fred, brown eyes swimming. "I can remember last night, but it's like… it's like it wasn't me. Do you remember when Crouch was standing in for Moody, and he was practicing the Imperious on us. Fred… I was like a bystander in my own body. I could taste the words coming out of my mouth, but I couldn't bite them back."

George came to stand next to Fred, slightly curling himself into Fred's side, his head ducked down into Fred's neck and tears began to fall.

"You and Hermione are my life, and I don't know what I'm going to do now that we're taking this break. I swear to Merlin, its like my own mind is trying to ensure that I die alone. I know for a fact that if I don't get you two, then there's no one for me on this planet. Especially you, Fred. You are as much a part of me as my left arm is. I'm so sorry for what happened last night. I didn't mean it, I didn't want it to happen. But try as I might, I just couldn't stop the words from coming out."

Fred snaked his hands into George's hair and pulled his head up, using the hem of his sleeve to wipe the tears from George's face. He placed a kiss to George's forehead before pulling George in tight in a hug.

"Oh, Georgie…"

George began to sob, huge heaving gasps as he clutched at Fred's sweater, trying to pull him closer. Fred ran a soothing hand up and down George's back, pressing another kiss to his face, this time to his temple.

"It'll be okay, George. It will. I promise."

~.~.~.~.~.~

Hermione was sprawled across a settee, a glass of red wine in her hand. Draco and Pansy were perched somewhat more gracefully in chairs across from her, a glass of wine for each of them as well. Pansy traced one thin finger around the rim while Hermione nodded along to what Draco was saying from his chair.

"…And then I said, 'If I had wanted a mountain troll for a wife, I'd have married Bulstrode'," Draco said, causing Pansy to laugh.

Her laugh was cut short, however, as one of her hands flew to stifle a gasp and the other went to gently press against her side, her glass falling to the carpet below.

Draco vanished the mess of merlot before he reached an arm over to pluck at Pansy's necklace, lifting the glamour-inducing object from her neck. Once he did, the transformation that came over her was shock inducing.

Her perfectly porcelain skin changed to a sickly yellow color, her black hair fell in limp strings around her dry skin, hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes.

"You're getting worse," Draco murmured, gently placing a hand in the middle of her back, pulling her into his side. "Has he been feeding you? Letting you drink? I haven't seen you this ill in months."

"He hasn't let me eat much in a while, but I've been able to have as much to drink as I need, not since I was late getting home a few nights ago. I'll be all right, though. I've been through worse at his hands."

Draco leapt up, running a pale thin hand through his long blond hair. He began pacing in front of the fire, the other hand still holding the glass of wine. Hermione began trailing her wand over Pansy, checking her for injuries.

"You're malnourished, but I'm sure you already knew that. You don't have any broken bones, but you've got some really wicked bruises on your ribs. I'll need to fix those if you want to be able to get back to normal fairly quickly. You'll probably have some bad pain for a while, yet."

"You shouldn't have to have dealt with worse, Pansy. You're a beautiful young girl and you're with a complete and total berk and you could drop dead at any minute because you can't get away from him."

"Draco, you of all people know that if I leave him he will kill me. Do you want that? Would you rather I just died now?" she asked, her eyes beginning to water.

"You're dying already, Pansy!" he shouted. "It's only a matter of time before all of the complete shit he does to you is going to add up and you're dead anyway!"

Draco flung his glass into the fireplace stalking towards the desk and whipping out a map of Muggle London. "I am going to kill him," Draco said with a chilling calmness. "I am going to kill Quentin Morgan before he kills you."

Pansy whipped her wand through the air, the map on the desk shredding into bits.

"Hermione, we're going to need some bandages. I hope you've got some in that bag of yours, because in any moment disaster is about to break out," Pansy said, wand at the ready.

"What on Earth are you going on about?" Hermione asked, making no move to find her extendable bag that was still packed full of medical supplies.

Pansy stood, quite obviously favoring one leg, her slightly hoarse voice rising louder than Hermione could ever recall. "If you don't find those bandages now, Draco might possibly die."

Hermione pulled her wand from her robes and called and accio'd her bag. As the bag flew towards Hermione's outstretched hand, Pansy limped towards Draco, unbuttoning his shirt.

"Get your hands off of me, you foolish bint," he shouted at her, attempting to push her off of him.

Pansy frowned at him, and shook her head. "Well, that's not very nice, love. Well, sorry about this. You'll thank me later. Petrificus Totalus."

Draco fell to the floor, and Pansy finished undoing the buttons on his shirt. "Hermione, dearest, kindly stop gaping and get over here. Your medical training is most certainly necessary right now."

Hermione hurried over and sank to her knees on the rug next to Draco, still able to feel the cold of the marble through the plush carpet. Pansy stood and snatched her own bag from the floor, pulling out a vial. She kneeled back down next to Draco, and waited.

Hermione couldn't help but ask, "What in God's name is happening?"

"Just watch," Pansy muttered, not sounding entirely focused on Hermione. And rightly so. Draco's chest was a myriad of scars left over from the duel with Harry in the lavatories back in school, and as Hermione watched, his porcelain skin appeared to begin to crack along the marks that Harry had left with Snape's curse. Under the women's eyes, the cracks that had begun to appear spread open, and scarlet blood began to flow from the cracks in his flesh. Pansy directed her wand down towards his body and allowed a steady stream of cool water to flow from the tip. Hermione let her eyes drift up his body and realized that his eyes were holding more animosity than she had ever before seen in their grey depths. She let a hand come up and sweep his hair from his face and as soon as her hand touched his skin she couldn't help but jerk it back. His skin was burning hot, and the sheer amount of heat from his should have rendered him unconscious. She looked back down at Pansy who had finished rising the wounds and was rubbing the liquid from the vial into his skin. "Okay, Hermione. I'll need you to wrap that. Then, I'll explain."

Hermione made quick work of bandaging his chest, before sitting back heavily against the front of the couch. Pansy sat next to her, holding her wand loosely, still pointed at Draco's prone form. A quick glance revealed that he'd finally succumbed to unconsciousness, so they were able to remove the spell holding him still.

"This all started about five years after Potter sliced him up in the lavs. Whenever he'd get very distraught over something, his wounds would crack and then he'd bleed. Once we figured out that it was along his scars, we had to do some research. It took us months to be able to get into Snape's things, but once we did we found all this research he'd done on the effects of this curse once he realized that his curse was causing problems years after the fact. He had discovered that after the curse does its damage, it doesn't disappear, it just lies dormant in the body. Then, when the person gets angry, it feeds off of their negativity, filling the person so full of anger that their skin literally can't hold it in any longer. It multiplies the victim's anger and twists it, making even the most benign annoyance into a full blown problem. He had created this potion that is supposed to draw out more of the curse with each time that it strikes. It works, but only when he gets agitated enough for it to break him. He can have little episodes where he's entirely overcome with hatred and fury, although he won't get at bad as he was today. Today was an exception, it been building for months. He should be alright within the hour. But Snape had something else. He had compiled a list of everyone who had ever been struck by the curse. Most of them had died from the effects by the time he was able to do anything about it, but he had managed to save a couple of people. But the thing is, there's another name on the list set to begin experiencing effects any day now, if he hasn't already."

Hermione knew in her heart who Pansy would say before she spoke the name, but hearing it spoken made her knees go weak.

"George Weasley."

~.~.~.~.~.~

Fred Weasley stood at the back of the store, stocking the Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder. He knew George was somewhere else in the store, at last sight he'd been sweeping up, a menial task that they often chose to do without magic for its calming, repetitive nature. The bell chimed at the door, signaling someone coming in.

"Welcome to Weasley's Wizards Wheezes, we've got a new batch of Sticky Trainers in. And remember as always, you break it, you buy it." They called out in unison, having agreed on what to say earlier in the day.

The two went back on about their business when a specially modified, shopkeeper's sneakiscope began to go off on the counter. It had been specially charmed by Hermione when they first opened the shop to begin to go off when someone was attempting to steal something. The two owners each set about searching through the store to find where the culprit had gotten off to, knowing that he was still in the store as the charms on the door hadn't flung him into the air and deposited him at their feet.

They found him at about the same time, standing near the bins of Unlucky Dip. His wand was in hand as he shrunk down various items and stuffed them into his trouser pockets. "Put everything back and leave, and I won't call the Aurors," Fred said, casually leaning against a nearby shelf.

George pulled his wand out and twirled it between his fingers, glaring at the man.

"I highly suggest you put everything back and leave, or you'll be finding yourself as a bucket of ingredients for use in some new potion," he said, voice alarmingly cool.

Fred turned to look at him, and was surprised at what he saw. George's eyes looked as though some sort of ink had been spilled in them, as the whites were no longer visible and instead Fred was looking into dark pools.

"You two are those twins who like to bugger each other, aren't you? I read about you in the Prophet, I reckon I did. Hey, what about that bi—"

The man's voice cut off as George's wand hand twitched. The man shuddered and fell silent as a thin stream of blood began seeping from George's left ear. The blood seemed to be thicker, more viscous than any blood that Fred had ever seen, and was tinged with a sort of shimmering darkness and Fred could feel the air around them change. The air itself sounded like static, and the smell of electricity tickled his nose. George lifted his wand at the man standing at the end of the aisle.

"Interficio."

Before the spell could leave his wand, another voice came from behind them. "Petrificus Totalus!"

George fell to the ground, and whatever effect George had had on the man ended as he shuffled away, calling back "You can bet I'll be taking my business to Zonko's in the future!"

Fred turned to look behind him. "Hermione?"

She paused to give him a smile and a quick kiss to the forehead before uncorking a vial and gently rubbing the potion into George's scars. Fred crouched down next to her.

Hermione quickly recounted the story that Pansy had told her, and gently threaded her fingers through George's long hair, picking the dried blood out of the strands.

"What was that that he was about to curse that man with? I couldn't hear what it was, but it didn't sound familiar."

Fred conjured a cloth and used it to clean George's face. "It sounded like he said… Interficio, I think. You ever heard it?"

Hermione took a moment to think before pursing her lips. "It's Latin, like most spells. It's a third conjugation verb, the first principle part of interficere. It means to kill. I'll need to do some more research, but it seems as though there's more than one killing curse."