(OotP) CHAPTER TWO: Still Screaming

She felt their kiss with every inch of her soul, and she could tell he did, too.

It was different than it ever had been—deeper—more raw and more desperate. They had missed each other. They had craved each other's love like addicts seeking out their next fix. They had yearned for each other like lost lovers… which, she realized with miserable longing, was what they were now.

At least, it was what they had been. She wasn't sure she could let them remain lost for much longer.

"Can you take us to my room?" she whispered between kisses, gripping tightly at the fabric of his shirt like she was clinging to a life raft.

"You… you mean…" He didn't seem very focused on his words; he was much more intent on kissing her long, hard, and fast. "Apparate us?"

Her fingers tightened in his hair as her kisses deepened. "I'm three floors down."

A deep, throaty, and very sensual groan emitted from somewhere inside him, and then he pulled away from her, leaving his face very close to hers and his hands very much entwined in her hair and neck. "I could hurt you."

"You won't." Of that much, she was entirely certain.

His chest rose and fell in a jagged, uncertain sigh, and then, finally, he gripped her even tighter.

And then they were disappearing—and reappearing—together.

It would have been painful—even nauseating—in any other circumstance. She felt herself being squeezed, pulled, and wrenched through time and space, and her instincts were to cringe or squirm in agony. But with Fred wrapped so tightly around her, holding her in that way that only he could hold her, it wasn't painful at all.

And as soon as they reappeared in her bedroom, she resumed kissing him.

"El," he murmured huskily as she tugged him back towards her bed and pulled him down on it. It wasn't the first time they had gotten horizontal together, but it was the first time it had gotten quite this heated. She had absolutely no desire to stop, nor any qualms about it going further. Her skin tingled and ached with the desire to be touched by him. "We should slow down."

Ignoring this entirely, she reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it off his head. This was a first for them, too; she may have traced the smooth skin of his back and chest beneath his clothes many times before, but never had she removed them.

He groaned again, kissing her deeper still, and she felt his own hands on the hem of her shirt, and he lifted it a few inches, and then another few, until she was sure that he would remove it, when—

Suddenly, he cursed, standing up entirely and taking several steps back.

She rose to a reluctant seated position as she tugged her shirt back down and eyed him with a rather resentful gaze. He had gotten stronger that summer, she marveled. He didn't exactly have a six-pack, but he looked damn good without that shirt.

"I think we should talk," he said after taking a few seconds to recover.

She took a deep breath of her own, set her jaw, and nodded. "Fine."

"How…" His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, as if he was struggling very hard to think about anything other than the direction things had just been going. "How are you holding up, given… everything that happened?"

What an unpleasant question. She squirmed a bit before saying, "Fine."

He shot her a very sarcastic look at that. "Remember that thing we do where we're honest with each other?"

Right. That. "Okay… I've been better." She bit her lip. "It's… confusing."

"I get that. But you have to talk through it, El. Have you been talking to Sirius about it?"

For all Sirius' wonderful qualities as a father, he didn't exactly have the magic touch of how to pry teenage girls' feelings out of them. He checked on her often and told her he loved her even more often, but prying wasn't in his nature. "Not really."

"Have you been talking to anyone about it?"

"Well… Harry. A little."

She hadn't expected her words to hurt him, but it was very clear that they had. "You mean, in letters?"

She nodded. "He's been having nightmares. I have, too. We just sort of… share."

He knew, of course, that she'd been having nightmares. He still entered them—quite a bit more often than she liked. "I see. And has that… helped you?"

"I don't know. A little, I guess. But it's not like talking to you."

His expression softened at that, and he came to take a seat next to her on the bed. Even that small gesture was enough to make her heart pound with desire again—especially given the fact that he was still shirtless. "Then talk to me."

But what was she supposed to say? I love you, but loving you feels like a crime against his memory, and it makes me hate myself?

"Well, that would be a start."

She cursed at that, rising from the bed herself this time and stepping away from him. "You've got to stop doing that, Fred. It isn't fair."

"Well, I can't really help it. You're more than welcome in my head, you know. Would that make it more fair?"

Would it? The only times she ever heard his thoughts seemed to be when he projected them into hers. If she could snoop on him the way he seemed to snoop on her, would it somehow make things better?

"Go on," he encouraged her. "Give it a try."

Eager to focus on anything other than talking about Cedric, Ellie tried. She took a deep breath, looked straight into his eyes, and focused on hearing what he was saying without words.

just want her pain to go away—just want her to be happy with me again—just so happy to be with her again—

She looked away from him, tears burning at her eyes yet again.

"What?" he asked, standing up and coming over to her. "What did you hear?"

She reached a tentative hand up to cup his cheek. She just wanted to put her arms around him and never let go.

"I should go," she said softly.

And she walked away from him.


"Have fun today, you traitorous wench?"

Ellie looked wearily up at the pale-faced, ghostly version of Cedric that was plaguing her dreams yet again. She hated that face. She hated that she couldn't remember him as the handsome, bright, kind boy she had once heavily considered dating, rather than this.

"Did it feel good, kissing him like that?" Ghost-Cedric asked her, taking several steps closer to her. "Did it feel good, having him back? Want to know how I feel?"

She did want to know how Cedric felt. She knew this wasn't really him. She wanted to know if the real him was out there somewhere, watching her. She wanted to know if he resented her or not. She wanted to know if he even existed at all anymore, or if he was just… gone. Gone, because of her.

"You're right," Ghost-Cedric whispered. "Because of you."

She turned away from him, trying to push her mind to see something other than this rooftop—to take her somewhere other than Hogwarts—to someone other than Cedric.

"Has that ever worked for you before?" sneered Ghost-Cedric.

"I'm sorry I killed you," she whispered, back still facing him. "I'm sorry I wasn't stronger—braver. I should have found another way."

"Tell it to us," said the figure behind her, and she knew now that it wasn't Ghost-Cedric anymore, but the teary, broken faces of his parents. "Tell us why you did it."

This broke her, as it always did, and she turned back to face them, tears in her own eyes now to match theirs. "I thought it was what he wanted. I didn't know what else to do. I—"

"Lies," they hissed, and now they were turning into Voldemort and sneering at her. "You were afraid. Afraid of me. Afraid of what I would do to you and Weasley."

She knew it wasn't really him—knew this was a dream, and that it was just her subconscious—but seeing him always made her scream, nonetheless.

Which, of course, only made him cackle.

"Go on, then!" he jeered over her sobs and screams. He was morphing into Aleks now—the one person she loathed even more than Voldemort. "Run away again! Wake up in your precious house with your precious father and kiss your precious boyfriend and know that you are there and he is not."

And with that, Aleks showed her the image she dreaded the most in these dreams—the image of Cedric being struck by his Killing Curse seconds before she, Fred, and Harry had returned to the castle.

And, finally, she woke up—still screaming.

"Ellie!" someone was shouting. "Oh, for God's sake—Fred, do something—"

"El," said a softer, more masculine voice. Ellie's wide, panicked eyes settled into focus at the sound of Fred's voice, and she saw the worried expressions of Fred, George, and Ginny looking back at her. Ginny, of course, was now sharing a room with Ellie; it made sense that Ellie had woken Ginny up and Ginny, subsequently, had gone to fetch the twins.

"I… I thought…" Ellie could hardly get words out. She wiped the tears from her eyes, struggling to push out the image of Cedric's cold, dead face from her mind's eye. She glanced at Fred. "Why weren't you there?"

Ginny and George both looked confused by this; Ellie and Fred had agreed to keep their more advanced "mind magic" to themselves until they made more sense of it.

"I tried," Fred told her softly. "There wasn't room for me in that dream."

"In her dream?" Ginny repeated dubiously.

"Gin," said George, clearing his throat. "Let's give them a minute."

Ellie smiled shakily at George as he and Ginny left.

"This is because of me," Fred said when they were finally alone together. "Because I'm here. Isn't it?"

She shrugged a shoulder weakly. "It seems to get worse when you're around. But it happens either way."

He shook his head, jaw clenching in frustration. "It's not fair. You shouldn't have this much guilt, El. He asked you to leave him. He—"

"Can we not go there?" The last thing she wanted was to keep thinking about it.

"I think you have to work through this, El. I don't think you can keep ignoring it. I think ignoring it is why it hasn't gone away."

"And I think it hasn't gone away because he died less than two months ago and people don't just magically get over these things in a heartbeat," she snapped back, temper flaring.

He sighed. "I'm not saying I expect things to be sunshine and daisies overnight, El. I'm just… worried about you."

"I know." She ran a hand through her hair and looked away from him. "But I don't know what else to say."


Over the next few weeks, Fred finally seemed to accept that Ellie simply wasn't ready to talk about Cedric. He still did his best to bond with her—sneaking kisses here and there; whispering sweet things to her in the halls; projecting even sweeter things into her mind when they didn't have the luxury of privacy. He didn't go so far as to sneak into her room at night, nor she his; she feared how bad the nightmares would become if she was with him, and she could tell he understood.

With so many subjects off-limits, Fred turned his attention toward the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, which he and George had been working on quite extensively that summer. They were particularly focused on the art of crafting products that turned the taker ill enough to miss out on class, though they were also experimenting with trick wands, fireworks, and all sorts of other illicit materials.

"A Fainting Fancy, eh?" Ellie asked one afternoon as she sifted through a prototype Skiving Snackbox that George was putting together. "Need someone to test it?"

"No," said Fred immediately. "You aren't testing any of our products, missy."

"Really?" she asked, frowning. "You keep begging Ron and—"

"Count your blessings," George advised her with a bit of a grin. "I've spent the better part of the summer either uncontrollably vomiting or bleeding from the nose."

This, of course, didn't make Ellie feel any better. She glanced at Fred, frowning. "How dangerous is this stuff?"

"Not at all," he assured her a little too quickly. "You've just been unconscious too much of your life already—no need to go adding a bout of fainting to the equation."

She smiled grimly at that, but her concern lingered. "Are you selling these now? Starting up the shop for real?"

"Just by owl post," George explained. "Though, now that Bagman has nearly paid us back in full, and Harry gave us his winnings from the Tournament…"

Fred nudged George at that, but it was too late; Ellie had clocked it. "Harry gave you his winnings? For the joke shop?"

Fred sighed. "I tried to tell him not to. Told him we had plenty, thanks to you scaring Bagman into paying us back. He insisted, though. Said he didn't want the money."

"But…" Ellie bit her lip, knowing she shouldn't say it but saying it, anyway. "That was Cedric's money, too."

"He tried giving it to Cedric's parents," George told her. "They said no."

"I should have told you." Fred looked pained. "I just didn't want to open up a—Ellie?"

But she didn't answer him. She had to walk away.


Baby steps, right, people? Only are Ellie's baby steps forwards or backwards right now? We still have a few more chapters as 12 Grimmauld Place before we make our way to Hogwarts, and they're going to get pretty intense, so be sure to stick with us, and don't forget to review, follow, etc to show that support. Thank you as always for reading!