4 October, 1997

"Is it on?" George asked in a stage-whisper, seated crosslegged on the floor of the drafty shack and looking at the sizeable assemblage of sound equipment on the conjured table in front of them.

"How should I know?" Lee shot back, tinkering with the knobs on the large board in front of him.

"You did the quidditch broadcasts when we were in school," Angelina pointed out.

Lee pinned her with a flat look.

"This," he gestured vaguely, "Is a bit more complicated than McGonagall handing me a charmed microphone and telling me not to swear too much."

"I like that she didn't say 'not at all,'" George mused aloud. "Just 'not too much.'"

"I think you're doing great, Lee," Verity chimed in encouragingly, obviously eager to have been invited along for their first broadcast. She adeptly cast another warming charm and everyone's tension seemed to ease a little.

"Thank you, Verity," Lee replied graciously, giving a last pointed look to George and Angelina, the latter of which rolled her eyes. "Fred, have you settled on your codename, yet? We're live in four minutes here, mate."

"Yeah, I've got it," Fred assured him, sitting forward and handing out the scripts he'd been finalising. Tonight it would just be Lee, George, and him, but if all went well, Kingsley and Tonks had agreed to join in the future, along with Bill and their father.

"And you're sure they won't be able to – I dunno, trace it?" Angie asked, looking around them a little nervously. They were in a long-forgotten garden shed just outside the boundaries of the old Prewett estate, a childhood hideaway that Fred and George had discovered during dreadfully boring holiday parties with his mother's family.

"Reasonably," Lee said. "But we'll do each broadcast from a new place, and to even try and locate us, they'd need to have the time, station and password first. Best we keep it short anyway, though."

"How many do you think will be tuning in?" Verity asked.

Lee looked to Fred because it had been his job to discreetly distribute the details.

"Well, we had everyone from the dueling club spread the word, not to mention The Order. Even if each person only told one or two other people… fifty? Sixty?"

"Wow," Verity said, brows raised. "That's more than I thought you were going to say."

"One minute," Lee warned, setting a pocket watch on the table. He not so subtly wiped his palms on his jeans. "Remember, when this here glows red, it means we're on the air. Don't make any noise, and don't say or do anything to identify yourselves or anyone else. Alright?"

They all nodded and watched as the clock ticked down. When it got to five seconds out, Lee tapped the larger box with the dials on it and muttered the week's password. Then he flipped on two switches and motioned for them to do the same with the microphones in front of them.

As the clock struck nine, Lee cleared his throat.

"Hello, and welcome to the inaugural broadcast of Potterwatch. I'm River, and I'll be your host…"


"I still can't believe how well it went," Verity mused the following morning, perched on a stool behind the till and idly doodling on a scrap of parchment. Angelina nodded, leaning on the counter beside her and more animated than he'd seen her in a while.

"Katie and Alicia said they had a listening party at their flat. Kenneth Towler was there – you remember him, right Fred?"

Fred nodded, not looking up from his clipboard. Kenneth Towler was a bit of a tosser, but he wasn't a Death Eater sympathiser, so the more the merrier in this case.

"Well, his dad is a muggle historian, and he was telling them all about how they used to use 'pirate' radio broadcasts to send messages to one another in times of war and political unrest. It's fascinating how far the practice dates back, really…"

Fred tuned them out as he worked further down the stacks. Not for any malicious reason, he was equally thrilled that the broadcast had gone well. But ever since he'd woken up that morning, he'd had an uneasy feeling that something wasn't right, like a prickling on the back of his neck.

He'd almost used the bracelet to check on Hermione, but he'd ultimately talked himself out of it. It was most likely just a flare in his ever-looming paranoia and not his having become a seer overnight.

As he was jotting down the number of Loonar-Loop Luminators on the shelf on front of him, he caught a dark robe in his periphery, just outside the shop window. Then a second one.

His heartbeat doubled in pace when he looked closer and saw who it was approaching.

"Damnit, damnit," he cast a quick sticking charm on the front door and dashed back to the counter.

"What? What's going on?" Angie asked. She and Verity already had their wands drawn.

"They're early," he bit out, glancing over his shoulder toward the front window. They were still mostly hidden behind the stacks, but if they crossed behind the counter to the back door or either set of stairs, the ones that led up to the flat or down to the storeroom, they'd be in full view of the alley.

Blood was rushing in his ears as he tried to think.

"Okay, alright, the two of you go into the workroom. Disillusion yourselves and don't make a sound until I say it's safe to come out."

He could see the argument in Angie's eyes, the spark of indignation, but Verity was already tugging her by the arm.

"C'mon," she urged, crouching low. Once they were in the room, Fred quickly shut it behind them.

The 'random inspections' didn't normally start until later in the afternoon, at which point it would just be George and him in the store like they'd planned. But it was only half-ten.

Furthermore, it wasn't as though Angelina and Verity were fugitives, but they were half-bloods and they needed to do everything they possibly could to stay out of the ministry's line of sight. If not for themselves, then at the very least for the sake of their muggleborn family members.

And that was to say nothing of the other reports, reports of the things being done to muggleborn and half-blood witches in particular.

Fred had just barely struck a casual pose behind the till when the bell at the front door chimed. He couldn't help but smirk a little as one of the men swore, needing to force it open with his shoulder.

He then did his best impression of examining the inventory list that he'd been in the process of compiling. In reality, the letters and numbers were swimming in his vision, and he didn't read a thing. He also didn't look up until the two hulking, cloaked figures turned down the main aisle and began to head straight toward him.

"Good morning gents," he greeted, setting his quill down and lacing his fingers together in front of him, proper as could be. "I see inspections are running ahead of schedule this week. Glad to see our ministry doing everything they can to keep us lowly proprietors on the straight and narrow."

"Weasley," Rodrick Selwyn sneered, face splitting into an unsettling smirk. "Looks like your name came up on the list for random inspections again."

"Funny how that keeps happening, isn't it?" Fred replied with a dry, humorless smile in return.

The other man turned around to reveal Marcus Flint, lopsided overbite and all.

Flint stared Fred down as he dragged his hand along a shelf, slowly knocking a row of nose-biting teacups to the ground where they shattered, one by one. Fred's teeth were gritted so tightly together, it was a small wonder that they didn't break apart as well.

"Oops," Flint said with faux regret. "How clumsy of me."

Fred just shrugged. "Don't sweat it, mate. Cost of doing business."

They continued to poke around, weaving in and out of the stacks, all the while watching him. That was the purpose of this exercise, after all; to intimidate him. To remind him that they knew who he was, they knew where he was, and they knew who his family was. To remind him that the 'Ministry' was little more than another of Voldemort's factions, and that they could come and go as they please, not above the law but as the law.

None of it was new information.

Despite his heart racing, Fred kept his calm façade firmly in place until Marcus, ugly blighter that he was, turned and started to make his way toward the till, eyeing the door behind Fred. The door that lead into their workroom.

"Marcus," Fred said, attempting to intercept him. "Nice to see you again. And just how are you liking your position with the... CRAB, was it?"

"It's the R.A.B.C., Weasley, Regulating Authority for Business and Commerce. And why? Thinking of a change in careers?" Flint sneered at him, looking around at the shop, at Fred's livelihood, with complete and utter derision. "Can't imagine what you think you'd have to offer."

He was behind the counter by that point, now heading directly for the one place that Fred could not let him go. He tried to cast a silent tripping jinx beneath the counter, but Flint unwittingly stepped around it.

Arm extended, he began to reach for the handle.

"No," Fred said loudly, clearing his throat. "No, I was just wondering whose knob you had to polish to be assigned to such a prestigious position. Seeing as you got Ts on every OWL and NEWT you took, you daft pillock."

Well, for better or worse, it served its purpose as a distraction. Flint dropped his hand and turned back to Fred in disbelief, squaring his sloped shoulders. Selwyn emerged from an aisle and propped against an endcap, watching the exchange with a vaguely entertained expression.

Flint took a step toward Fred, rancid breath washing over his face.

"What the fuck did you say, you blood-traiter dog?"

In for a sickle…

"Tell me, does Minister Thickness live up to his name?"

Fred had just enough time to shut his eyes before Flint's fist made solid contact with his jaw. He stumbled back, catching himself on the counter and feeling warm blood begin to trickle out of a gash on his cheek. The son of a bitch must have had a ring on.

Fred started to reach for his wand on instinct before he stopped.

He couldn't draw it. He couldn't fight back and Flint knew that, was banking on it. Because once Fred openly crossed that line, they'd cart him off and he'd just be another name on a list of those presumed dead. Hell, that was assuming they didn't drag him into the street and set an example right then and there.

That thought, the thought of what it would do to George, to his parents, to Hermione, was enough to keep his hand from his pocket. He winced as the pain in his face radiated outward and a drop of blood fell from his chin.

"Watch your mouth, you mudblood fucking pig," Flint growled, staring with sadistic pleasure at the sight of Fred bleeding. His tiny pea brain seemed to make some sort of connection then, features contorting further into a grotesque bastardisation of a smile. "Say, don't you have a sister what's still in school? Ginger, pretty young thing… be a shame if something happened to her, wouldn't it?"

Crimson flickered across Fred's vision.

"You clearly don't know my sister," he hedged without any real surety behind it. "I'd feel bad for any bloke stupid enough to try something with her."

"Guess it'll have to be a group effort, then," Flint jeered. "Take turns, aye Selwyn?"

"Come on, Flint," Selywn drawled in a bored voice. "I think we've concluded our business here."

Fred should have bitten his tongue, should have let them leave and been done with it. But he was angry and hurting and feeling so unbelievably toothless, the words were out of his mouth before he realised he'd said them.

"That's right, get a move on, Marcus. I'm sure there's a desk somewhere that you should be bending over."

The second punch landed in his stomach.

The third knocked him onto his hands and knees.

And the kick that followed sent him flat to the floor.

White-hot pain shot through his side and he knew as Marcus drew his heavy boot back that there were multiple ribs broken. He couldn't help it, he curled protectively in on himself, coughing hard and pressing his arm tightly across his middle.

"Now, Flint!" Selwyn barked, out of Fred's line of sight.

Marcus crouched and grabbed a fistful of Fred's hair, wrenching his head up and giving him no choice but to look him in his flat, sharklike eyes.

"I'll be seeing you soon, Weasley. Real soon."

Then Flint drew back and spat on him, a warm glob of saliva landing directly on Fred's face. Selwyn called his name again and this time Flint listened and got to his feet.

A few seconds later Fred heard the bell on the front door chime. He tried to roll over, temple pressed to the worn floorboards, but it sent him into another coughing fit. Another attempt and he scarcely managed it, gasping as pain shot through his side again.

"You can – you can come out," he wheezed, hoping it was loud enough for the girls to hear.

It was only a second before the storeroom door swung open and Angelina descended upon him. Verity immediately aimed her wand at the front door, locking it and switching the "OPEN" sign to "CLOSED."

"Have you lost your fucking mind?!" The former hissed vicously, reaching out and trying to tip his chin to better inspect the damage.

Fred jerked away from her and attempted to prop himself against the back of the counter, only partly succeeding as his back pressed into the shelves. "Why does everybody always ask me that?"

"Because you do things that no sane person would do," Angie replied sharply. She turned to look at Verity over her shoulder, the other witch's expression wan and furious as she took in the scene. "Verity, go upstairs and floo-call The Burrow, tell George to get back here now."

"Don't say what happened," Fred interjected sharply, rasping and wincing. "Just tell him I need a hand with a brew or something."

Verity crossed the shop, disappearing through the door and up the stairs to the flat while Angelina conjured a sterile linen cloth, wetting it and dabbing at the blood dripping down his cheek. She stilled when she realised that some of it wasn't blood.

Fred met her eye for a split second before he looked away, jaw ticking. He wasn't sure if it was shame or embarrassment or outright anger, but it was something deeply unpleasant that he felt in that moment, laying – bleeding – on the floor of his own store with a Death Eater's spittle on his face.

With a gentler touch than before, Angelina whisked it away.

"This cut is really deep," she murmured. "What was the bastard wearing, the philosopher's fucking stone? We need to get dittany on this or it's going to scar."

"Leave it," Fred shook his head, pounding as it was. "Just… just leave it. I thought witches were supposed to like scars, right? Look at Bill, bloke's married to a veela."

For a long time he'd had an aversion to scars because he didn't want people to tell him apart from his brother, but considering George was now very obviously lacking an ear, it didn't make much difference.

Angelina started to smile at his weak attempt at humor, but it quickly fell and she shook her head, tilting his chin again to examine the bruise blossoming across his jaw beneath the gash with a pained expression. She swallowed hard, but her voice came out tight anyway.

"I promised her, Fred. I promised Hermione that I would keep you in one piece while she was gone. Please, please don't make a liar out of me."

Fred started to laugh at the irony of that and then stopped because it hurt too much.

"I've told George the same thing about you, you know. On a few occasions. And for as unpleasant as this is," he gestured to himself, expression sobering again, "It could have been worse. You know that it could have been much, much worse, Ang."

Angelina sighed and didn't say anything after that, just sat there on the floor with him, holding a bloody rag in her lap.

This silent contemplation, the imparting of mutual promises, was interrupted when George practically flew down the stairs and swung around the doorframe behind the counter.

"What the hell happened?!" he demanded, taking in the scene with an appalled expression. "I wasn't even gone an hour!"