Fred nudged his brother as Ginny purchased a room for them. The ride had been quiet mostly, none of them trying to talk to each other. Ginny did thank the driver and drop some muggle money to the man. She told him to keep the change and he looked more than delighted, meaning it was probably a generous tip. Fred almost felt bad. He hoped the bloke spent the money before it disappeared on him.
George nudged him back, his eyes serious as they followed their young spit-fire of a sister upstairs to their room.
"Ginny we need to talk."
She glanced back, her hair fluttering with the movement. She smirked back at them stopping at green door with a metal room number 212 screwed onto it.
"Course we do," she scoffed sticking the key in and manhandling it a bit before it opened. "Come on."
They shut the door being sure to lock it. Fred felt his fingers twitch towards his wand even though he knew they shouldn't be using any magic just in case. George did the same.
Ginny plopped on the bed after dropping her small handheld bag on the faded desk in the corner of the room. She patted both sides of her and they took no time at all to perch on the edge of the bed.
"We think we'll be better off in the Wizarding World and with our shop almost finished with reconstruction..." George trailed off tapping above his missing ear.
Fred picked it back up like they'd done since they were children. "And it will be easier to still have eyes on the inside."
She frowned thoughtfully, her fingers tapping her chin. "While that's true that would put you guys at great risk."
Fred snorted just as bitterly as his brother.
"Dear lovely, wonderful-" he started.
"Little sister, everyone is in danger," George finished.
"We think you and precious Ronniekins will be in even more danger without knowing Order and Death Eater movements."
"We can get you that. It's not like they'll suspect us if we tell them we went to our shop early in the morning to check on it."
"We've done it before. We didn't think to check on the kiddies," Fred agreed scratching at his nose.
"Besides all our contacts are Muggleborns. They'll want information-"
"More than money-"
"For any favor we might ask."
"Equal exchange," George sighed.
"Tsk. You two are terrible, you know that," she huffed. Her arms crossed in front of her chest and her chin tilted down in thought. "Fine. You guys are crazy good duelers when it comes down to it and information is key to success if we want to pull this off. But you better tell me what all the pranks you brought are!"
Fred placed a hand over his heart as if offended. Like they would do anything other than that. They wanted their little sister, all of their family actually, alive, thank you very much.
"How is your shop, by the way?"
George was a wonderful mirror when he wanted to know what his features looked like. The grimace pulled their lips flat and scrunched their noses enough they were squinting. It was almost, but not quite, the expression Fred knew they both wore when they smelt something rotten.
The attack on their shop had come as a surprise. It wasn't just Diagon Alley, no. That would have been better actually. The Death Eaters had specifically targeted their shop because of their connection to the Order. George took offense to this and started raining joke products and deadly spells on their ugly mugs. Fred took it upon himself to start evacuating people to the back of the shop to the Floo. There may have been anti-apparition wards up but Floo Networks had to be specifically blocked. They were a neat loophole in an evacuation especially considering theirs was technically illegal and unknown. Props for breaking the law.
Then Fred joined his vengeful brother in wiping out the five or so enemies left.
It had been much too easy of a fight. There were no big name spooks there, only -probably- newbies. Which had been a little insulting to be honest.
What was worse was not the damage done to the shop, which Harry helped fund despite their protests; it was the damage done to the morale of the parents and kids in their shop. They'd successfully defended their shop but that it had even been attacked in the first place was cause enough for people to be wary about going again. Which was a complete shame because Fred and George were all about making people laugh. Now they couldn't do that as easily (and subtly rub it in the Death Munchers collective faces).
It would probably give them time to fine tune more of their war-oriented products, at least. Then they could send 'care packages' to the mini rebel group.
Even if they wouldn't get to see them in use, Fred knew the chaos that would be sowed would still be well worth it.
"Getting better. A week or two more will be enough to remove the dark magic lingering around and rewire some more hidden traps."
George grinned maliciously, the expression growing on Fred's face as well.
Ginny smirked between them.
Hermione fidgeted in her seat combing through the multiple possibilities this entire trip could bring. She only had a few that actually seemed plausible.
The Order would track them down.
Death Eaters somehow found them while they were out.
They never went back to the Order and ran from both sides successfully.
Harry would get better or worse depending on the entire reason he'd asked, pleaded really, to come.
The first one made her gut twist with apprehension. Harry was in the right when he'd chided her earlier. It was stupid of her to trust based on authoritarian position alone. But it was Dumbledore… the Leader of the Light and the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Where they'd run into quite a few situations that probably could have been solved with competent adults actually. So maybe there were a few points against him but who else were they supposed to turn to?
Even she could admit that they would be put under security if they were found by the Order. Hermione had the feeling that Harry might actually die if that were to happen.
Well, if there was one thing she knew for sure, it was that her friends came first. Always.
The second option she avoided all thought of. The absolutely inhumane torture that could be done... She wasn't naive. She just preferred not to read various methods of torture that Death Eaters preferred to employ. She didn't need gory mental images, thank you very much.
The third option… would pit them against both sides of the war. Just like the Neutrals of the past war that were being targeted and forced to choose this time around, they would all be hunted with no safe place to go. Unless they fled the country but that was inadvisable with Harry's deteriorating condition. Thinking about the logistics and the planning necessary was already giving her a headache.
The fourth was sort of making her nauseous and on top of all her already existing symptoms, Hermione felt she might sick up sometime soon.
She wanted to ask why he so desperately needed to go but the look in his eyes then had been nothing short of his breaking point. She feared if she'd said anything but yes, Harry might actually be lost to them. She really hoped he wasn't going because of grief of his supposed family. It was a tragedy that human life was lost but if there were any that deserved it, that was probably the family she'd pick.
Harry had told her Dudley had been much friendlier which was not a helpful thought. She pushed it to the side.
Still, she was not blind to the abuse he'd suffered and she'd mostly certainly told Dumbl-
But it was Harry's own business so she would wait for him to tell her so she could report it to the correct authorities. She didn't want to break his trust like that and go behind his back. Even if it was for his own good like McGonagall had told her gent-
She sucked in a sharp breath as her stomach lurched dangerously from her stress.
"You alright, Mione?" Ron whispered glancing at her.
Whatever had she done for this wonderful -totally pigheaded and annoying but wonderful all the same- man?
Ron couldn't help but worry over his best mate and his girl. One was already dangerously sick and even getting worse and the other was just making herself ill with worry.
He knew why she was doing it, of course. Ron was too on some level. Maybe he wasn't planning step by step to-do lists for every possible scenario he could see racing in her chocolate brown eyes but he wasn't a Chess Master for nothing. Strategy and planning was what he did best.
It actually made him pretty proud when he'd given out orders earlier and everyone listened without hesitation. Normally it was Harry that could control a room and give out orders with ease. Not that the bloke normally wanted too. It had taken him a while, most of sixth year, to work on his jealousy and anger management to realize that. It had been detrimental to their friendship in fourth year and he was so, so thankful that Harry had such a forgiving heart. Ron certainly wouldn't have welcomed himself back.
So he tried in fifth year to work on it but it got pushed to the wayside by Umbitch and then co-commanding the DA. That had been an eye opener to his own worth as well as becoming the Keeper for the Quidditch team on his own merit -even if Harry had tricked him into thinking otherwise-. His ego had been given the boost it needed to kickstart his own self-evaluation.
So sixth year was spent working on his jealousy while Harry wandered off after Malfoy claiming the Ferret was plotting nefarious things even against evidence that said otherwise. Turned out Harry had been right and a Death Eater invasion was stopped in its tracks.
Ron didn't exactly know when he noticed it but as he was reviewing his interactions and memories he saw how Harry didn't like the spotlight, at all. He even dumbed himself down in class to avoid it which was unfortunate. The ginger haired wizard really wished he could have gone back in time and smacked his younger self and Harry's from fourth year for being such dimwits. It still made his heart race thinking about how close he'd come to losing the best friendship he'd ever had… and the best girlfriend because he knew without a doubt Hermione would have snubbed him and followed Harry had the green eyed wizard rejected their three year old bond.
So, yea, he was lucky and he knew it. That just meant that he would accept his friends like the gifts they were and fight with everything he had to keep them safe. If that meant abandoning the Order and forging their own path, then so be it. He just really wished he knew a bit more about the muggle world so he could make more detailed plans for the future.
Harry awoke with a groan, his neck protesting the sharp pain when he tried to move it.
"Fuuuuck," he moaned.
"Harry language," Hermione scolded before apologizing to the driver. "I'm so sorry, he's just had a rough go at the pub tonight. He somehow ended up at my place and we thought it best to make sure he made it home."
"Aye lass! No need ta worry ya head. I've heard loads worse than tha'. Yer a good friend, aye?"
The voice was rough but cheery and just loud enough to bring his headache to full force. Ugh, where were his glasses? He groped around until he found Ron's knee and dug his nails in.
"Ouch!"
"My glasses you bastard," he rasped pitifully.
"You don't have to skewer my knee! Blimey! Here. We just didn't want them falling off when we put you in the cab."
Harry sighed blissfully as his migraine eased a bit with the blanket of darkness.
"Ooo tha' bad, huh, lad," the driver whispered sympathetically. Harry was able to catch brown eyes glancing at him in the rearview mirror. "Not ta worry. We're almost there."
The driver had been right. Less than a minute of waiting and they were pulling to a stop, the motion almost making him violently ill. Harry swallowed it down and placed a damp hand on his forehead. Merlin, even to himself he was burning up.
The car door opened and Hermione scooched out, carefully laying his feet on the seat, so she could swoop around to the other side and open the door for Ron.
"Come on. The faster we get there the better."
"Right. Uh… please don't puke on me mate."
Harry grunted. "No promises."
Ron slid out, gently laying his head down on the grossly warm seat.
"Harry," Hermione paused the silence dragging on for a few seconds. "Do you… think you can get out yourself?"
Ugh. Moving in general right now was probably one of the worst ideas he could do but…
"I'm fine."
He pushed himself up slowly, his arms trembling beneath him. The driver was watching him in the rearview which made the wizard want to punch him but he focused his irritation on making his limbs cooperate. First were the legs. They slid to the floor of the cab with a thump and he twisted his body to be sitting upright, ignoring the burning of bile climbing his throat. Slowly, he inched over to the open door, leaning heavily on the back seat and pausing to pant every few seconds. The spinning of the world around him wasn't making matters any easier.
He just needed to get out. He could do it. He was almost there.
A pale hand appeared in front of him and he blinked at it his neck craning, spike of pain lancing down his back, to look at the man outside. The red hair wasn't as visible in the dark, appearing more brown and for a moment there was another face there. Orange eyes, sharp angles.
"C'mon mate. I'm here for you," he spoke.
That wasn't right. He blinked and he was staring at freckles and pasty white skin.
He let out a small breath reaching out a hand to accept Ron's hand. He was carefully pulled out, nearly puking again, until he was standing on his own two legs. Barely.
"C'mon Harry, it's just the street over. I'll pay the cab and you and Ron can start walking," Hermione whispered gazing at him worriedly.
"Wait… where did you have him drop us?"
"On the corner of Magnolia lane and Wisteria Walk."
Harry nodded, almost tipping forward at the action. He grabbed Ron's offered arm in a vice grip even if it stung his pride to do so. He hated being so useless. Fuck his magic and his body for betraying him like this.
"It's this way," he muttered taking faltering steps towards Privet Drive.
The journey -for what else could it be called with so many perilous obstacles? Yes, the cracks in the sidewalk were dangerous- to Number 4 Privet Drive took a lot longer than he was comfortable suffering. This walk was hitting emotional, physical, and mental challenges that he never thought he'd have to face.
He would zone out every few steps, almost topple over every other, and his feet just would not go where he was trying to put them. Or where he thought he was trying to put them. Considering his mind was compromised it was hard to tell exactly what was going on. The only thing that kept him moving was Hermione and Ron's encouraging whispers in his ears. And possibly being too stubborn.
He was not riding piggyback. Only they could do that with him.
There right in front of them was their objective.
He missed them. He wanted his brothers back.
Finally. Finally they were there standing in front of the house he grew up in.
It was eerily silent, the street light a few meters away casting shadows that seemed to flit about every time he tried to look at them. His head buzzed pleasantly.
He took a few steps.
They were here!
His magic bubbled, airy and light, before popping and returning to him every few moments. He took a few more steps, his stance more solid and sure. Almost predatory.
He was almost to the front door but even from here he could taste the metallic odour of spilled blood.
He was so thirsty after all this time.
His hand was on the doorknob and there were voices speaking to him but he couldn't hear them. He was where he needed to be. This was it. He'd found the mi- mi- missing piece!
Where are they?
The odour that wafted from the door was nothing short of de- wo- temp- He wanted it!
Stepping into it was like taking a dip into pure euphoria.
There were hands on his shoulders, holding him back. He snarled and tossed them off. He could see rusted brown flaking from the walls and he ran his fingers over it.
Old but it would do.
He ran his tongue over the pads of his fingers.
Shivers raced up his spine.
His magic shattered.
AN: Whoops. That's another cliffhanger. Ha, it's like I enjoy leaving them or something.
Did ya like it? Tell me what you think! Also suggestion are more than welcome. :)