There, standing at the foot of my bed was Madame Pomfrey, with her hair in a messed up bun, eyebrow raised, arms crossed over her chest and her hip sticking to the side as she eyed us suspiciously while tapping her foot.
"Well Madame, you see, we aren't really planning a coupe against Professor Umbridge, it was simply a, well, tell her Fred." I looked to Fred for a little assistance.
"What my darling little girlfriend is trying to say here is, yes, this is what it looks like, yes you heard correctly, are you with us or against us?"
My eyes must have been bulging out of my head, why on earth did Fred chose now to be an honest, good student? I felt my hands shake as I resisted the enormous temptation to choke him, I was not about to go down for a major prank in my last year of wizarding school.
She was quiet for a moment, when a smirk spread across her face and she walked over to the side of the bed and dropped a key in my lap.
"This opens every door in the castle, so that you don't need a password. Its for emergencies but I've never needed it. What with Dumbledore having gone into hiding she inherited his office and the keyhole is in the floor. If you get caught I will say you stole this key from my office, got it?"
If my eyes hadn't bulged out of my head by now they must have once she whipped around and swiftly made her way back into her office without a word. As the door closed loudly behind her I released the breath I had been holding in, afraid it was to be my last before a lifelong detention.
"Melissa love, I suggest you straiten up otherwise your face will freeze like that." George joked, and I regained my composure with a light red tinge on my cheeks.
"Wait a minute, that would make a great product, a spray that could freeze a person's face in a certain way with nothing they can do to fix it until it wears off." I exclaimed, my inner prankster becoming more apparent everyday I spent with the twins.
"Aw George, our little Melissa is growing down so fast. Before she always disapproved of our pranks." Fred replied.
"And she when she finally learned to enjoy them, she was too scared to help us out with them." George added, pretending to wipe away tears.
"And now she is inventing products." Fred finished.
"Wow, you guys sound just like my parents on my birthdays." After I said that, the smile on my face fell, and I stared down into my lap, the realization that this really wasn't a dream and the recollection of them dying crashing back down onto my shoulders.
I also realized, just what I would miss the most about them being gone. As I got older I would have to encounter every new obstacle without their support, with each birthday came new hopes, dreams, responsibilities that they could never help me with, and could never share with them. I couldn't bask in my triumphs with them, or be held in their arms when I failed. What I was going to miss the most, that I wouldn't see again, their loving support in everything my sister and I did.
I felt a weight rise from the bed and heard the sound of footsteps heading to the door as a warm comforting arm slid across my shoulders and pulled me into a warm chest as we laid together on the rather small bed.
I didn't sob, I didn't cry out, I didn't sniffle, I just, laid there, and inhaled the scent of Fred which I knew to be the smell of pumpkin juice, and cinnamon, with an undertone of his cologne which never lasted long and was a light scent that enhanced his natural scent.
I wasn't good with visuals, I remembered scents and smells, I preferred a mans scent to his appearance, I couldn't be in a room which smelled bad, I couldn't leave my room if I stank. I was a silly quirk that I guess I got from my mother. She always had scented candles lit around the house, and she taught me to appreciate everything around me, and to always smell food before eating. She grew up in France, somewhere in Paris I believe so she felt food was an experience that should be done with care and enjoyment.
I have no idea how long I laid there with Fred, soaking in his scent and remembering my mother and father but it felt like it didn't last long enough. The last day I insisted I had regained my sanity and rejoined my fellow classmates. The NEWTS and OWLS were approaching swiftly and my entire dorm had been studying obsessively.
The night before Clarisse and I had worked on a test a friend of hers had created and copied on transfiguration to test our knowledge. I had gotten six questions wrong, while Clarisse got eight, and Clarisse insisted I skip class with her to stay in the library and read up on transfiguration, and help her. It was my best class, whereas my worst was defense against the Dark arts.
I had stopped going to the Dumbledore's Army meetings, I simply wasn't up to it. I wasn't for he who must not be names, but I didn't intend on doing any fighting. Call me a coward if you must, but I'm just being realistic. I have no ties with Harry or the ministry, and nobody really knows or cares about my bloodline. I wasn't going to be an Auror, I didn't see any merit in being in a club that could potentially get me expelled.
My sister and I had made living arrangements already and were rather happy with them. Her and Ginny had become friends thanks to a little meddling on my part, so she was to stay with them and I was going to live with Fred and George in their flat. Yes it was rather scandalous for me to live with Fred, but I trusted him and it was a logical living arrangement.
Finally it was a weekend, and Fred and I were going to spend it in Zonko's, and possibly at Madame rosemerta's.
Fred and I were holding hands and walking casually through the streets, talking mindlessly and talking about the summer. That is, until the conversation became more serious.
"Now that he who must not be named is back, those who believe it are eloping and getting married all over the place." Fred mentioned casually when we passed by a small little church that was like those in Las Vegas where muggles would elope in the heat of the moment.
"Oh really? Why would they do that?" I questioned, watching a happy couple run out with secretive smiles on their faces.
"Well, wouldn't you like to spend your possibly last days with the one you love more than anything?" he reasoned.
"Pf course, but its not like you need a ring and marriage certificate to do that." I said, my realist side making an appearance, the memory of my father telling me he had asked my mom to marry him the day his neighbor's house was attacked by Death eaters.
"I think it's a good idea, it's just a way to express your love for them, in case you don't have the chance to later."
"That makes sense, and I guess it's kinda romantic when you think about it."
I had no idea of the little wheels turning in his mind after I said that, and how things that I didn't know of had been set into motion.