Chapter 9. Warriors' farewell
After George put clothes back on, Fred snapped fully out of the spell thanks to the safeguard and Anna managed to stop crying while sipping on a strong cup of tea, the trio sat down solemnly at the table.
"You had a vision, didn't you?" George asked finally.
Anna nodded.
"It's really bad, isn't it?" Fred asked.
She grimaced and nodded again.
George took a deep breath before asking. "What do we have to do?"
Her voice felt gravelly after wailing for so long. "Have any of you two heard of the warriors' farewell?"
Both twins shook their heads.
"It's old magic, ancient, extremely tricky to get right. It's a protective spell, witches used to cast it on warriors they loved but had no chance of ever marrying. It was a courtly love thing." She took another sip of her cup to help the intense lack of saliva she felt. "It's not capable of stopping a direct Killing Curse, but it's strong enough to work kind of like an automatic shield charm. It can slightly deflect a mortal attack once. It will still hit you, but it won't kill you." She took another sip.
The twins' eyes widened.
"How come we never heard of it?" Asked George, almost outraged of his own ignorance of this spell.
Anna looked him dead in the eyes and blushed ever so slightly. "Because it's a sex spell, it was forbidden to be taught in schools long ago, so it's been mostly forgotten."
They were both taken aback with her answer, and there was a beat of silence before Fred broke it. "How come you know about it?"
Anna still couldn't look directly at Fred without tearing up, so she looked at her cup. "Because it was placed on me. And I've placed it as well."
"Sato." Fred stated.
Anna nodded; she then showed the twins the part of her forehead always obscured by her side parted hair. There right underneath her hairline was a scar at least an inch long. "Dear old dad, wasn't too keen on me leaving his house, but the spell was strong enough to protect me so I could leave even when I couldn't fight back."
Fred ground his teeth seething at the thought of a father trying to mortally wound his own daughter.
Anna lowered her hair once more and looked sullen before speaking again. "There is something you guys need to understand about my visions, they cannot be changed. When I started getting them, I deliberately started sabotaging them only to discover I ended up doing exactly what I saw."
"The future is set in stone?" George asked.
"Y-yes." She said lowering her head with her voice cracking, tears stung in her eyes again.
"Are you crying?" Fred asked softly, trying to look her in the eyes.
"Yes, I'm crying! You git. I need to tell you what I saw happening. But I don't want to." She snapped at him.
"Then out with it already! What? We all die?" Fred asked slightly exasperated.
"Only you Fred." She whispered; she couldn't bear looking in their direction, so she looked down as she explained. "I'm not going to be your business partner, I need to place the spell on George, afterwards I'm going to obliviate you both and blame the memory loss on the altered amortentia. This war will escalate, both of you will get mortal spells thrown at you, first George, but he will have the spell deflected by the warriors' farewell and survive, but you won't Fred you will die at Hogwarts at the final battle. I'm so sorry." Her voice broke at the end.
"Wait, George gets to shag you?!" Fred asked outraged.
"THAT'S YOUR TAKEAWAY OF WHAT I SAID?!" Anna almost screamed at Fred.
"And we don't get to remember this conversation..." George mumbled worried.
"Fred, you are going to die soon! And there's nothing any of us can do to stop it." Anna said heartbroken.
"But you'll save George." Fred said looking down smiling.
"Why can't we remember?" Asked George.
"I assume, so you won't go looking for me anymore, or so you don't skip out on the war altogether out of fear for Fred. I really don't know; I just know it will happen." Anna said honestly.
"That spell could really help 'the Order' out, couldn't you teach it to them?" George asked hopeful.
"It took me months to learn it and cast it right, you have to love the person to an extent, and you practice it having sex, you see the problem in teaching it?" Anna asked rhetorically.
"Does that mean you love George?" Fred asked sullenly.
She chuckled bitterly. "I guess I love both you gits in a way, I don't really have that many friends."
"If you could teach it to me, maybe I could convince Hermione to learn it from me and she could place it on Ron and Harry, and Harry could place it on Ginny. That's half of us at least."
"You're forgetting the price of the spell, once you place it you can never feel love for that person again, only this kind of mild friendship. Courtly love, remember?" She said bitterly.
"Besides I don't think Hermione would be up for that Georgie." Fred said grimacing.
"So, Harry and your sister…" Anna smiled at the thought.
"It's complicated." Fred said light-heartedly.
Anna exhaled and suddenly stood up and slammed her hands down on the table. "Enough idle chit chat, the future can't change, I need to obliviate you and the memory loss has to be convincing." She looked up at George before continuing. "George go take that shower; I'll gather what I need for the spell here."
"You are doing this now?!" Fred asked, looking almost horrified.
George's mouth fell open, but he calmly stood up without another word and marched to the washroom.
Anna started looking through their ingredients before yelling. "GEORGE IF YOU COULD RUB ONE OUT IN THERE, THIS NEEDS TO LAST A FAIR AMOUNT OF TIME."
George's head popped out the door wide eyed, looking at a conflicted looking Fred, and mouthed at him if he had just heard her correctly, Fred just nodded grabbing his head that felt like it was spinning. George made a pained look before closing the door.
"Great, you guys have everything, now I just need to mix these together, let the whole thing sit at least 5 min, and we'll be ready." Anna said putting a couple of ingredients aside and preparing a cauldron.
Fred grimaced at her words. "What happens if it's more like 40 minutes?"
"What?" Anna looked up from chopping some ingredients.
"Georgie is a slow wanker." Fred said scratching the back of his head kind of embarrassed for his brother.
"Huh." Anna said, putting down the knife and walking to the washroom door knocking lightly. "George could you give me a heads up when you finish…taking care of yourself?"
"O-okay." George said apprehensively from inside the washroom.