Sequel to "More Than Just Friends". All credit to JK Rowling and my crazy brain.

Set Aflame
By: Weaselle7

Chapter 5
Of Ears and Elves

Cecille knocked the wooden door thrice, sharpening her ears to visualize the other side of the door inside her mind. It was Sunday afternoon, precisely a week after her first trip to the headquarters, and her parents went to have another meeting in Grimmauld Place. The Grimmauld Place gloomy and grimly air stung her deep to the bone but her heart was burning as if it was about to ignite. Curiously, the door clicked and one of the twins came out instead of apparating outside or magically swishing the door open.

"Oh, hey Cecille! Didn't know you're coming," he said. Cecille shifted her eyes up to his left eyebrow and found Fred's scar there.

"Hey Fred," Cecille greeted sheepishly, hoping George would jump between them suddenly. "Me neither, but I think Mom and Dad will bring me along every Sunday," she added. Fred pulled her inside by her shoulder and she hoped she could stay there forever with his hands guiding her. The familiar gunpowder scent hadn't left the room but the smell of magical flames seemed to replace oxygen inside. Cecille's eyes fell on the left bunk where George was asleep with his arms and legs bent in an odd angle.

"George took his turn to test our Blood Blisterpod early in the morning, in case you're curious," said Fred, meeting her eyes, and grinned sheepishly. "Told him to drink a Blood-Supplying Potion and take a nap for a while."

"He's asleep then?" asked Cecille, her voice tailed off, as she cursed herself inwardly for coming up with a stupid reply. Fred sat on the floor, leaned his back on the side of George's bed and Cecille sat across to him. She regretted it instantly as she found out it was pretty difficult not to meet his eyes when he was sitting perfectly in front of her.

Fred snorted and smirked. "More like bugging us, now, aren't you, Georgie?"

George chuckled and rolled over to face his guest, greeting Cecille with the most devilish smirk ever.

"How did you know?" George asked, turning to his twin.

"Honestly George, no one sleeps with their eyes shut that tight like one's concentrating to do Potion's essay," Fred explained fairly.

"Well," said George, rolling down and smashed the floor with his back, "Sorry though if I'm interrupting."

Cecille started to think that George actually knew what was going on between her and Fred.

"Speaking of interruption and the like," Fred's face shone with mischief as the sudden realization struck him, "I think you'd like to see our new invention!"

Cecille, who was glad with the new topic, straightened up enthusiastically. "What's that?"

"We named them the Extendable Ears," said George, summoning a card box from the nearest closet with a swish of his wand and placed it between them. Fred, Cecille tried hard not to notice his odd behavior, sat across of her with his eyes planted on Cecille.

"Extendable Ears," Cecille repeated, trying to sound normal as she imagined where the twins came up with such title, "this isn't about unplugging our ears-...?"

"No real ears, of course Cecille," George burst out, apparently looked amused with Cecille's guess. Cecille, though feeling a bit ashamed, laughed with her ridiculous respond.

"We were wondering if you can perfect them..." Fred finally pulled himself into the conversation.

Cecille examined the whole card box that contained artificial ears that were connected with dry flesh-colored wires that forced Cecille to think things her wild imagination gave her (given that she lived with her mother that was a Healer). She decided not to touch them. "What do you do with them?" Cecille finally asked, afraid of misinterpreting the usage of the new-found devices.

"Play skipping with them," George sighed and rolled his eyes at Cecille.

"You channel your reception from one piece to the other piece, of course," Fred said as-a-matter-of-factly, but decided to go without a hint of sarcasm. He handed her a pair of ears, bridged with a flesh-like thread, and Cecille recovered her flinch into a squeamish jolt when she flinched slightly as their hands brushed. She really hoped her hormones to stop working preposterously that moment.

"I'm sure the more complex Protean Charm will do, you know, to remove the unwanted delay between live conversation and your reception," said Cecille, shrugging, but inwardly amazed by how she had come up with such idea.

"We've charmed them with Protean Charm-" said George, "-only that the whole thing works vice-versa-" Fred continued, "-and you don't want your target to hear you snickering from the other end of the device-" George concluded, "-and especially not when you wanted to test the thing with eavesdropping your fierce lil' sister," Fred added, his eyebrows played teasingly at George, earning a fair brotherly smack on his shoulder.

"Ginny Bat-Bogey hexed him," Fred explained. Cecille laughed, taking a mental note to find anything in her house to help them perfecting the pranks.

"Any other invention?" Cecille asked, after some good seconds laughing.

"Yep. We invented some pranks these days, most are near-complete," said Fred. He swished his wand and retrieved another card box filled with delicious sweets. George explained them as 'Skiving Snackboxes', which clearly suggested the function of the sweets before they explained to Cecille. She could easily picture herself skipping classes because the professors saw her shriveled as she bled, or fainting dramatically, or had her temperature off the roof, and sent her out of the class where she could get herself the antidote to a period of free time.

The 'it is safe?' question bugged her as they explained to her animatedly. The fact, that they'd been testing their products on themselves before, eased her mind, but still left a trace of doubt in her mind.

"Hang on," said Cecille, "so you're going to sell snacks to skive off classes at Hogwarts?! But that's mental! What if McGonagall finds out?" asked Cecille worriedly.

"We've been selling Ton-Tongue Toffees and Fake Wands for a year, and no one minds," said Fred lightly.

"Well, that's because there's nothing serious about swelling your tongue or getting your wands mixed," said Cecille fairly, battling with herself internally because she thought highly with the creativity the twins had come up with.

"Of course no one cares about someone's tongue," said George fairly.

"But mixed off wands are pretty much serious in life-threatening condition," Fred added eloquently.

Cecille took the message and sighed deeply, almost inwardly painful. The fact that schools had a nonsensical list of priorities annoyed her. Surely, sweets that were packed with antidotes were far harmless than fake wands. And imagining the school spoke higher of the importance to attend classes than to investigate the mystery behind mixed off wands really hurt.

Unrealized by her, she had became more sensitive with topics concerning life-threatening things since her twin's, Cedric, death. Pushing the thought away, Cecille put her best to crack a joke to recover herself from the painful sudden realization. "Look, I know this is ridiculous, but we are students and we go to schoo at Hogwarts, and that might screw the teachers' list of priorities."

"Calm down, Cecille, we're not selling it yet," said Fred tentatively, as though reading her thoughts from her eyes.

"But you gotta admit, that's quite a fact," said George.

"But what are you going to do with them then, if not selling them?" asked Cecille. Fred and George exhanged a very meaningful look, as if communicating their thoughts through an eye contact.

"Well, let's say we are going to make a research..." said George slowly.

"What?!" Cecille cried in a muffled shout when she brought her palms on her mouth. "You're going to test them on students?"

This might not how they had imagined to tell her their plan, because now they were exchanging a grimly look at each other.

"Cecille, we've tested our invention on ourselves before," explained Fred, and at the same time George said, "And we've got the antidotes." Together, they concluded with a "We're just going to see how they'll react."

"And that's why you can't do it," Cecille pointed out, emphasizing the reference of their statement, "What if they react differently?"

"They're still human, Cecille, they won't react that different," said Fred when George said "We arre just going to see how much this and that in the sweets by looking at the symptoms."

Growing up with Fred and George for the last six years enable to see the points the twins were aiming, but she just felt that this action was an utterly mad thing to do. After a good minute battling with her two-sided mind, Cecille merely said, "I'm going to talk to Hermione."

Cecille, knowing Fred and George was able to apparate and terminate her plan, dashed out of the rooms struggling to ignore Fred and George's plea for further explanation. But instead of dashing to Ginny's room (she was quite sure Hermione was sharing a room with Ginny), Cecille found herself being preoccupied with the soft whispers that came from her back.

"Who's that?!" Cecille asked, her hand gripped her wand inside her pocket nervously. Cecille was sure that it wasn't Sirius or anyone because everyone was in the meeting. The owner of the voice might feel startled to hear Cecille, because she immediately heard a shattering glass noise that echoed painfully along the dark corridors. Cecille drew her wand out. After few steps, Cecille could make out what the owner of the voice was saying.

"...filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, shameful creatures, abnormal inhumane-beings-" the voice stopped at the arrival of Cecille. Cecille found out that it was the so-called Kreacher in a deserted room (the twins had been complaining about him since last week), with an oversized photograph frame heaved against his tiny body. "What is it Kreacher can do to help?" the elf squeaked and then lowered his voice drastically when he continued with "And young criminal Animagus Black has sent more intruders to the noble house"

"Are you Kreacher, the house-elf resident here?" Cecille asked loudly, merely to show him that she was present.

"By all means, yes Miss, that is Kreacher," the elf responded, followed by his quiet scorn, "And this one is apparently an unintelligent, dim-witted squib."

"Excuse me?!" Cecille asked angrily, drawing her wand out so the elf would realize that she was not a Squib. After years of night time sneaking to the Hogwarts Kitchen and meeting a bunch of house-elves, Cecille had never met one like Kreacher.

Suddenly, in the semi-darkness, Cecille felt someone drew between her and Kreacher and said, "Go rot yourself in Azkaban, Kreacher!"

It was Fred. She just knew, she would just question herself and demand for a strong evidence, but she just knew. She couldn't see the scar on his eyebrow, nor see the birthmark on his neck that belonged to his twin, but she just knew.

"As young Mr Weasley wishes," the elf spat and disapparated along with the large photograph frame. Both of them froze there a few seconds, staring blankly at the spot Kreacher had stood before he disapparated.

"You didn't send him out, did you? He might know more about the Order than me, seeing that he lives here," Cecille whispered, suddenly became aware of the distance between them. Fred spun around to face her.

"No. I can't make him do things. Only Sirius and the elf himself that has the control over Kreacher," said Fred in a low voice. Both of them froze, battling with their thoughts in their own minds. Cecille felt a strong urge to flee from the room and an equally strong force to keep her exactly where she was. She knew by heart what she hoped would happen right away, but refused to think so. And so she led Fred outside the room.

"Where's George?" she stammered out, fighting to shake away the mindless longing to confide her feelings about Fred. She was so thankful the semi-darkness could perfectly hide her flushing cheeks.

"In Ginny's room, merely a second late to disapparate away from her room and she Bat-Bogey hexed him again," Fred chuckled. "We thought you were there, and apparently the two birds were having another girl talk again. But, don't worry, Hermione healed him. And if she can't, Mum will. Mum healed him the last time."

It sounded ten times crueler than it was supposed to be, at least to Cecille. She eyed Fred guiltily as they walked and muttered tentatively, "Sorry."

"Don't be stupid, we've gone through that for times," said Fred. Cecille nodded in defeat.

"Look, Fred," Cecille started as they stopped walking. Fred eyed her between suspiciously and cautiously, when she showed him than she just told them apart. "If you still insist to test them on students, you must test them on me first. Deal?"

She didn't know where it came from. She just felt that she needed to show them how much she cared for her fellow innocent 'future-victims', and that putting herself on the front line just felt like a good plan. If they truly thought that their pranks were harmless, they would let her. If they just wanted to have fun, they wouldn't let her.

This was the point where they would have to trust each other.

Fred eyed her in disbelief and wonder. Cecille extended her arms with a typical-Gryffindor challenging look on her face.

"Deal."

And they shook hands.

A/N: Feeeiii, where are you when I need your reviews? Lol. But really, I start to worry that my story is nowhere near you expectation. As for the kind guest who reviewed, thank you very much for that, you made my day, anonymous *winks*. But that's okay though, people have every right to review or not to review my fanfic.