This is wildly long, I am sorry LOL. I read somewhere that JKR killed Fred instead of George because she thought that Fred wouldn't be able to live without George if she had killed him instead. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's the method to my madness at the end here.
I'm posting this on every fanfic because I still can't believe it, but RIP Maggie Smith. We love her.
Timing of Chapter: GOF. Two weeks after Yule Ball.
Rating: T
Chapter Seven
It was their own fault that they'd been caught by George before they could tell him that they were dating.
Dating.
It sounded weird in her head. She'd never dated anyone before. It felt unnatural to think the word somehow, like they were doing something dirty.
Though, truthfully, she supposed they were in a way. They were keeping it a secret still, two weeks after the ball, even though they'd agreed to tell George.
She'd really intended to tell him, but no matter how often they role-played the scenario, it wasn't the way she'd imagined that it would go. Nothing sounded right about the situation. And how did you tell your best friend that you'd grown up with that you were dating his identical twin?
Just spit it out over dinner? Walk him gently toward the realization? Toss it into the conversation like a bomb about to go off?
There was no good way to bring it up, and neither she nor Fred was particularly good at being gentle. Not to mention the fact that Fred had lied to him about their relationship just to spare her the anxiety of being caught.
George was not going to take that well, no matter how they spun the story, and she wanted to go into the conversation answering any and all questions as honestly as possible. Which of course also meant that they had to admit that they'd been sneaking around for months, omitting how they'd complicated their relationship for half a year, and that she'd even asked Fred to lie to him to begin with.
She was a coward.
That's what she was coming to realize now.
She'd made this so complicated and she was a horrible human being for even having the audacity to ask Fred to lie to the one person he'd promised never to lie to.
So, it was more her fault than anyone's that it all unfolded as it had.
Come mid-January, they'd still not told George a single thing about their relationship, despite the number of times they'd discussed how to do so. The plan in coming up to the boys' dormitory that night had been to discuss — for the hundredth time — the best way to bring it up. Fred was of the belief that there was no way to do so gently, and that they should just spit it out. She hated the idea.
They'd attempted to mask the discussion by playing a game of Gobstones that the twins were working on inventing. They were horrid magenta and orange colors, and instead of squirting a foul-smelling liquid every time a marble hit another, they emitted a loud exploding noise. They'd had to silence the dorm to keep from bothering Nessa, who had been studying for O.W.L.s and had threatened to throw them out the window if they so much as made a squeak to disturb her.
They'd been up in the dormitory for an hour, and they hadn't come to any decisions at all. Instead, they'd gotten distracted by their game — they were both competitive by nature, and it wasn't really all that surprising. And Tori had always been a sore loser, so the fact that Fred had been beating her had not gone over with her well. She played dirty when she was beginning to lose, so she'd deliberately distracted him with a smirk and a flirty comment that had ended in him tossing his marble horribly, and would have given her an edge in a very close game.
Except Fred played as dirty as she did, and he had very little patience for her games. He had every intention of winning, and he'd pulled her into a heated kiss before she'd even managed to throw her marble.
She'd let him. She'd responded immediately, her hands gripping the collar of his uniform shirt and pulling him into her until every part of his body was in line with hers. The orange marble she had in her hand had been entirely forgotten, all of her mental capacity being put toward him and that kiss.
He wiped away every thought she'd ever had, distracted her completely from her problems and the game they were playing and she'd forgotten completely that they were standing in the middle of the sixth-year boys' dormitory. She forgot completely that they'd left the door open. She forgot completely that they were supposed to be a secret until they could talk to his family.
She forgot all of it the moment his body came into contact with hers.
And it was because of that stupid distracting quality of his that they didn't hear footsteps coming up the stairs. It was because of that distracting quality of his that they didn't hear George's loud laugh or Lee's booming voice.
It was because of that stupid distracting quality of his that it all went to shit.
"What the bloody hell is this?"
They went careening apart immediately at the sound of George's voice, nearly flying into the beds across from them. Tori dropped the marble she'd been holding in surprise and it hit one of the maroon marbles on the floor, emitting a deafening thunder that made Nessa scream in surprise and try to cover her ears.
She barely registered either sound despite the ringing of her ears. She was too busy gaping, her mouth opening and closing like a fish, and looking back at the people in the doorway with wide eyes.
Lee's mouth was hanging open as if his jaw had come unhinged and Nessa was standing entirely still, her body rigid as if she were afraid that any movement might set the room into a spin. Tori didn't know why she bothered — it was already spinning as far as she was concerned and there was no way out of it now.
She looked over at Fred for some sort of support, but he was too busy staring at his twin, looking pale and guilty. Her heart dropped at that expression.
Fuck, they were in such a mess now.
For his part, George seemed equal parts surprised and angry, but Tori's panic was rearing now and she couldn't figure out what to do or say that would make the heavy awkwardness in the room dissipate. She just looked between George and Fred, who seemed to be getting the brunt of his twin's upset.
In fact, George wasn't looking at her at all. It broke her heart a little — was it because he couldn't stand the sight of her or just because he was more upset with Fred than her?
Either way, she hated it.
"Well?" George demanded when neither of them said anything.
Fred grimaced, opening his mouth to answer, but Lee cleared his throat awkwardly, looking between the three of them and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.
"Er — this really seems like a family thing, so I'm going to just…walk away and pretend like I didn't see anything."
Nessa still didn't move as Lee rushed down the stairs with a look of relief on his face that he didn't have to stay. Tori wasn't sure she was even breathing and she assumed that Nessa would have followed if she could have justified leaving them all in her head.
Nessa had known about them from the very start. Fred had told her about his feelings before he'd even confessed them to Tori herself, and Nessa had dealt with the entire thing like a pro. She'd listen to her whine as if this mess hadn't be created by her to begin with; she'd convinced Fred that it was okay to feel the way he felt and that he should talk to her; she'd been the one to pull Tori's head out of her arse and told her that she was playing with Fred's feelings in order to avoid being vulnerable.
Nessa had also told them countless times to talk to George.
She deserved a medal for patience and understanding as far as Tori was concerned. She put up with more than most people ever did between her friends and her brother.
She sincerely hoped that Nessa didn't leave. It was selfish, really, but George was softer when his girlfriend was around. She might be able to help calm him if this all went to shit. Except George looked like he was having a difficult time with how he was supposed to feel at the moment — hurt, betrayal, shock, and anger all flickering briefly across his face before he settled on anger — and she wasn't particularly sure what to say that would make processing the entire thing much easier for him.
She'd never been good at being vulnerable. Or comforting people when they were.
"George —" Tori started, sounding weak.
George wasn't even looking at her. He didn't seem like he noticed much of her at all, interrupting her before she could even begin to figure out what to say.
"Fred."
Fred winced, not looking entirely like he wanted to be having this conversation. She didn't blame him. She wanted to run, except all her limbs had locked up.
The fact that George wasn't looking at her didn't help. She had an irrational fear of being abandoned by the people who mattered most to her, and his refusal to look at her was making that difficult to rationalize away.
"It's a lot to explain, George," Fred said, looking at her for help, and based on the concern on his face she was certain that the distress she felt was showing on her face. She watched his fingers move convulsively as if he were tempted to reach out to her but had thought better of it.
Probably a good thing, considering, but she sort of wished he would. He calmed something in her.
"Would it have been simpler to explain when I asked you directly if this was happening and you lied to my face?" George said sharply.
Tori flinched, the words causing a fresh wave of guilt to wash over her and tears to pool in her eyes. Nessa's gaze snapped to Fred in surprise, who looked like the words ran him through with a knife.
"You lied to him?" she said angrily. "Why would you do that?"
A stupid, stupid thing for him to do. The situation was already going to be difficult to explain without that caveat.
And he'd done the stupid thing because she'd asked him to. She'd put him in a horrible position of choosing between her and his twin brother, and there was absolutely, positively no excuse for that.
"George, I'm sorry —" Fred began, but George had no interest in listening.
"Sorry?" he laughed hollowly. "That's all you have to say is you're sorry? In our entire lifetime, you've never once lied to me. You've never needed to. So explain to me when that changed, Fred. Explain to me when you decided that you couldn't trust me with this —"
Tori couldn't let Fred take the fall for this.
"I asked him to," she said quietly, very near tears. Even saying the words out loud made her want to be sick, made her hate herself even more.
George didn't even move his gaze from his twin when he answered, and Tori really couldn't tell if Fred's guilty expression was helping or hurting.
"Why?"
A loaded question. She didn't even know how to answer that to herself, let alone answer it for him.
"I — it — I was afraid that you'd be upset," she said, flinching when he laughed again. It was a horrible, angry sound, and she hated the noise.
"George," Nessa said softly, setting her hand on his arm and trying to calm him.
He shook her off angrily, and Tori knew then that Nessa was not going to be able to help calm the situation. He was angry, and she didn't blame him. They'd lied to him for months — both by omission and directly to his face — and there was no excuse good enough for that.
Fred and George were two halves of the same whole, two sides of the same coin, two pieces of a complete puzzle. They were inseparable by choice, they rarely ever fought, and they never lied to each other. It was an unspoken rule between them, but one Tori had always inherently known. They were inherent liars — they had to be considering what they enjoyed doing in their spare time; pranksters weren't exactly sin-free and it was a sacrifice they made willingly.
They lied to their friends, their parents, their teachers, but they were never allowed to lie to each other. George might have let the omission bits slide — particularly because both she and Fred had been coming to terms with how they felt about each other, and he would have understood that. But lying directly to his face? He wouldn't get over that so easily.
Neither one of them appeared to know what to say that would help him process that fact, and it had caused them both to go decidedly mute. Their reluctance to answer George's questions didn't appear to be helping much.
"So is anyone going to explain or do I just have to take guesses?" He said looking between the two of them now. Fred seemed to relax a little now that his twin's gaze was at least not drilling into him, but he seemed horribly tense, like he was fighting two separate desires at once and hadn't yet decided which was the best option — to grovel or to try and play it off. "Guess then," George snorted when no one answered him. "Are you dating?"
"No," Tori said immediately at the same time that Fred said, "Yes."
George blinked at them, clearly trying to determine what was happening and Tori swore internally. It had been a habit to answer that way when people asked her that question.
Fred turned to Tori and raised his eyebrows, clearly trying to figure out what exactly she thought they were doing if it wasn't dating. She flinched.
"No, I mean, yes, it's — sorry, it was a reflex," she muttered before grimacing at Fred. "That's not going to help on the lying front, is it?"
"Not particularly, no." he said with an eye roll.
Under other circumstances, she'd have smacked his eyes out of his head, but now was not the time to start bickering with him. They had far bigger problems.
"Okay, which is it?" Nessa interrupted, looking between them in confusion. "I'm confused again, and the last I checked you weren't."
"Last you checked?" George said, whirling to face her.
Shit. That was not going to make things easier. Tori could see Nessa had thought the very same thing by the way she froze and her eyes met hers apologetically.
Fred scrubbed a hand down his face.
"This is going to straight shite," he muttered.
The words caught George's attention and he whirled on him angrily.
"You told Nessa but not me?" he said. Fred flinched.
"She guessed —"
"I guessed, Fred!" George said loudly. "I asked. She does it and you tell her the truth, but when I asked, you said 'don't be ridiculous, George. It's Tori —"
Tori bristled.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she said indignantly to Fred.
Fred threw his hands up in the air.
"One ridiculous problem at a time, please!" he said in exasperation. "You were the one who wanted me to lie to begin with — I had to say something, he's not stupid!"
Fair enough.
She supposed she didn't really have a say in how he'd blown his twin off if she'd been the one to ask him to lie to begin with.
"Clearly, I am," George said angrily. "Because I believed you, didn't I? Even though my gut told me there was something going on, I told myself you wouldn't have lied to me about that. Not something that important."
Fred flinched again, looking like George might have punched him in the chest.
"Georgie, I'm sorry," he said, his voice sounding more devastated than Tori had ever heard him. "I didn't mean to lie to you. It was — there's — we were planning on telling you, I swear."
George snorted, clearly in disbelief.
"I'd say I believe you, but that seems a bit naive of me at this point, doesn't it?"
"We were!" Tori insisted, putting as much insistence behind the words as she could. "I — I wasn't sure what I wanted before and it — it got complicated. But we decided after the ball to tell you."
"That was weeks ago," George deadpanned.
Tori flinched.
"Okay, I might have been dragging my feet a little," she said. Fred shot her an irritated glance and a snort. She glared at him. "It's a big deal! Excuse me for wanting to find the best way to tell him!"
"Well, leaving the door open while you were snogging was a great choice," George said sarcastically.
"Sort of forgot the door was open," Fred joked. George glared at him and he sighed. "C'mon, George, can we just talk about this?"
Tori was sort of relieved that Fred had gotten his voice back now that George's focus had shifted to being angry with both of them instead of just him. It helped some of the thoughts come back into her head, though nothing about what she should do was any easier.
George paused and stared at his twin for a long moment with a raised eyebrow.
"Depends," he said flatly. "If the situation was reversed, and I'd lied to you, would you have wanted to talk to me right now?"
They stared at each other for a long moment before Fred sighed and rubbed a hand down his face.
"No, probably not," he said.
"Fred!" Tori exclaimed, wishing stupidly that he'd have insisted the opposite. She couldn't stand the idea of George walking off and remaining angry with them, even if it was more than they deserved.
"Right," George snorted. "Well, I'll be off then —"
"George, please," Tori begged.
But he was gone before any of them could say anything else. She tried to stop it, but a sob burst from her throat before she could swallow it down, and she sank onto George's bed, pressing the heel of her hand into both eyes to get them to stop stinging.
Fred just sighed heavily and rubbed his temples.
"Well, that could have gone better," he said dejectedly.
Tori didn't have the energy to say anything, too busy trying to wrap her head around the entire situation.
"You lied to him?" she heard Nessa ask Fred angrily.
Fred grimaced.
"Be great if we could stop talking about that," he said, flopping back onto his bed and giving Tori a soft look. "Tori, it's going to be fine. He just needs a moment to think."
She hardly even heard him.
"It's my fault anyway," she said in response to Nessa's inquiry. She heard Nessa sigh heavily, and, to her surprise, the bed dipped next to her when she came to sit. "I'm the one who asked you to lie —"
"Well unfortunately for Fred, he's a grown man," Nessa said sharply, pulling Tori's hands away from her face. "He could have said no —"
"Gee, thanks, Nessa, this is great," Fred said sarcastically but she ignored him.
" — but you should never have asked either one of them to do that."
"I know that!" Tori exclaimed, looking frustrated and stricken. "That's the reason I told Fred we should just be friends in the first place. It all got too complicated."
"Right," Nessa said slowly, looking between her and Fred. "And that changed at what point exactly?"
Fred was grinning up at the ceiling, despite how miserable he appeared and Tori gave him an irritated look.
"Quit grinning, idiot, your best friend is mad at you," she snapped. Fred rolled his eyes, but it certainly sobered him again. She looked away from him to answer her best friend. "The Yule Ball. I — well, I might have thrown a fit about Angelina —"
"Might have?" Fred snorted, sitting up to look at her.
Nessa glared at him.
"You," she said. "Lay back down. You've done enough talking."
Fred grumbled to himself as he went back to staring at the ceiling.
Tori felt a little badly that Nessa was blaming him more than her. She'd put him in a horrible position, and she'd known that Fred had a soft spot for her when she'd asked him to lie.
And, yes, he was a grown man and could have told her no, but Tori never should have asked to begin with. It had been selfish and cowardly, and she'd not at all considered what it would do to Fred because she'd been blinded by her own panic and unable to see that she wouldn't be abandoned by her surrogate family just because she'd wound up having feelings for her best friend.
But she didn't have it within her to get into the feelings now, and Nessa was looking at her expectantly, so she answered her instead.
"Anyway, we were fighting and he told me I had to decide because he was tired of sneaking around," Tori said. "So I did — I mean, I had a minor panic attack first, you know, but then I decided that we could call it dating. Not like I've been snogging anyone else anyway, so what's the difference —"
"That we have to tell people," Fred said with a snort.
Tori ignored him to give an imploring look to her best friend.
"I swear we were going to tell George, Nessa. I told Fred I wanted him to be first to know — it hurts lying to him, and he kept saying at the ball that I could tell him anything and he wouldn't go anywhere and it — I mean, I couldn't — tell me what to do."
She said the words desperately, as if Nessa was the only one who could give her the answer even though she knew she couldn't.
This was Tori's mess and she had to be the one to clean it up. They both knew it.
Nessa sighed sadly at the tears that were streaming unbidden down her best friend's face. She'd simply given up trying to hold them at bay, even if it hurt more to cry. Fred looked like he was barely holding himself at bay to comfort her, but seemed to think that allowing Nessa to do it instead would be his best option at the moment.
"Just give him some time to think about it, Tori," Nessa said quietly, wrapping her arm around her shoulder. "He just needs a minute. You two have been keeping things from him for a while —" they both flinched. " — he just needs to wrap his head around everything. Maybe don't go sticking your tongue down each other's throats in front of him for the time being either."
Fred snorted.
"You think I want to make this worse?" he said snidely. "We might have to stand ten feet apart."
"That's not helpful, Fred," Tori said, her voice thick.
Fred sighed and pulled himself to a stand, walking over to them so that he was kneeling in front of her.
"Tori, darling, it's going to be fine," he said gently, placing his hands on her knees. "He's not upset about us. He's upset we hid it from him. That's a good sign. Soon as I can figure out how to make it up to him, we'll be alright. He'll come around. He won't stay mad forever."
Nessa sighed heavily and Tori wished that she could believe him, if only for Fred's sake.
"I'm sorry if George is upset with you," she said to Nessa instead, worrying her lip.
Getting Nessa in trouble for knowing about them hadn't been the plan either, and she didn't know if George was actually upset with her or if he'd just been upset that he'd been the last to know, but she apologized anyway.
"It's my own fault," Nessa sighed, standing up and preparing to go back downstairs and look for him. "I wasn't thinking when I said anything. It was the wrong time to bring it up."
"That's the second time you've done that, you know," Tori joked weakly. "Maybe we spend too much time together — I'm rubbing off on you."
Nessa snorted and nudged Fred aside to wrap her in a hug. The smell of mangoes enveloped her immediately, and she returned the squeeze with a sniff.
Nessa had that way about her — an ability to give someone a single look of understanding or hug them so tightly that she could pull out every single horrible emotion you felt and send it careening out by sheer force of will.
Tori hated it. She hated being vulnerable, but the comfort of her best friend and that unshakeable support made her want to fall to pieces in her arms.
"Stop worrying," Nessa murmured to her. "I'll talk to him."
"Thank you," Tori sniffled, unable to say much else without losing the battle against her tears.
Fred huffed from beside them.
"Oh, don't mind me, you know," he said sarcastically. "My twin's just walked away from me for the first time in our entire lives. I don't need a hug or anything."
Tori pulled back and met Nessa's eyes and rolled hers to the ceiling.
"He's so needy, I'm telling you," she joked, trying desperately to lighten the mood somehow.
"Oi!"
Nessa laughed and opened one of her arms to let him in on their hug.
"Come here then, you stupid oaf," she said fondly.
Tori could tell that she was still so very upset with him — with both of them — but she'd always been nothing but loyal no matter the stupid choices she made. That clearly extended to Fred as well.
"Bit ruder than I'd like, but I'll take it," he said, stepping toward them and engulfing them both in a hug.
Tori relaxed some against two of her favorite people, and tried not to think about the fact that there was an obvious someone missing.
"I'm happy for you, you know," Nessa said to them. "Since no one's said it."
Tori and Fred were both notoriously uncomfortable with this sort of attention, so it was not really a surprise when Fred said, "Yes, well, she couldn't resist my charm forever, could she?"
Tori huffed, pulling away from them to glare at him.
"What charm?" She scoffed. "You picked at least sixteen fights."
"Yes, well, it's not my fault that you're so easy to irritate," he said with a smirk. "Besides, you know, the snogging is —"
"I'm going to go before you end up saying something that I'm going to regret hearing," Nessa said with an eye roll and a pointed look in Fred's direction. He didn't look at all ashamed of himself. "I'll see if I can find George. Maybe don't have both of you here when he gets back later."
"Right," Tori said, sighing heavily. "He likes to hide on the pitch when he's angry."
Nessa nodded and squeezed her hand, leaving to go hunt George down and try to talk him through whatever he was feeling. Tori watched her go with a sinking feeling, wishing the evening had gone better than it had.
Wishing she'd just told George everything so that she didn't have to sort out the mess she'd made. Wishing she'd just let herself admit that she was attracted to Fred Weasley so that they could have avoided the mess entirely.
Fred wrapped his hand around hers and tugged, giving her a soft look.
"Come here, sunshine," he said, wrapping her in a hug and squeezing the breath out of her until she gasped a laugh against him. "It's going to be okay, I promise." She had to believe him when he promised her things. In all the years they'd been friends, he never broke a promise. "He'll come around. We'll just give him some space and let him figure out how he feels and we can figure out the rest later."
"I hate when he's mad at me," she said into his chest. Fred sighed heavily.
"Yeah, me too," he said, pulling away to look down at her. "You can stay if you need to — I can close the curtains so he doesn't notice. He won't want to see me when he gets back anyway."
She was sad to admit how tempting the offer was, but it seemed like a poor decision considering the mess they were already in.
"That's okay," she said, smiling sadly at him. "Nessa already told us not to be together when he gets back, and I don't feel like risking getting another hole torn into my body."
Fred snorted, giving her a serious look.
"She'll do more than tear a new hole," he muttered. "She's got real anger issues, you know."
Tori raised an eyebrow at him.
"Course I do," she said slyly. "Why do you think we're such good friends?"
Fred rolled his eyes, leaning down to kiss her once and then pushing her toward the door.
"Go on then," he said, waving her off. "You've convinced me. I've got enough problems without the two of you deciding I'd look better stuffed above your beds."
She rolled her eyes, but obliged, making her way to her own dormitory and praying like hell that Nessa could work miracles.
Nessa could work partial miracles it seemed, though not fully complete ones.
George refused to talk to her or Fred, which wasn't particularly appealing, but he wasn't avoiding them altogether. There was a certain coolness when he spoke in their presence, and the only time he acted even semi-normal was when he was selling or demonstrating products with Fred, but it was clearly fake, his cool demeanor returning the moment they were finished.
And she'd only heard that from Fred because she didn't sell products with them so she wasn't privy to even the fake niceties. It drove Fred mental, but she thought she could at least convince herself that she was imagining things if George would have had the courtesy to at least pretend like he could stand the sight of her. As it was now, he hardly looked at her, only answered her if he had to, and didn't appear like he could decide whether or not he blamed her or Fred more.
Fred had taken the stance of irritating the man into speaking with him, but it wasn't working well, and Tori was trying very hard to do quite the opposite. George tended to be rational — well, more rational than Fred, that was — and he wasn't the type to stay mad for long periods of time. She didn't expect him to get over something like this quickly, but at minimum, she knew that he hated arguing with them as much as they did.
She'd seen him on a few occasions in the common room when Fred had given up trying to talk to him for the day, and Nessa had gone up to bed. He always looked tense, his head in his hands or rubbing at his temples as if his head was pounding. He looked as miserable as she felt, and it made her feel a little bit better.
She'd considered just storming over there and making him talk to her, but Nessa had told her that he was working through his thoughts and that she owed him that at least. He wasn't going anywhere, he wasn't hiding from her or acting like he planned on going anywhere. He was still a very permanent fixture of her life — just a far grumpier, far more silent fixture than she was used to from him. As far as Nessa was concerned, it was better than nothing.
Course, that was easier for her to say when she actually had an insight into what he was thinking. Tori had seen them talking seriously to each other on several occasions, and she knew it was about her because they stopped abruptly when they noticed her. It would have been far easier for her to give him space if she knew what was going through his head.
But she kept her distance anyway, and didn't say anything, hoping that he would gradually thaw and talk to her at some point. Even if it was extremely painful.
By the time two weeks had gone by, and the first day of February rolled around, she was starting to lose some of that patience. She might have been an asshole for lying to him, but avoiding speaking to her for this long was getting a bit extreme.
The whole thing was stupid, really, and her misery was turning to anger now, and she was very tempted to just throw caution to the wind and go her usual route of stomping over and picking a fight. For one thing, being around Fred made her feel guilty now when George was still not speaking to them. For another, she simply just didn't have a lot of patience. If it had been Fred acting this way, she'd have already hexed him into speaking with her again.
But it wasn't Fred.
It was George, and that was worse. She couldn't remember a single time that George had ever been this upset with her. She and George rarely argued, and he'd been a constant in her life for even longer than Fred had been. She'd always been able to tell George anything without a doubt that he would remain calm and rational, as opposed to his twin's more volatile personality.
The fact that she'd doubted that knowledge enough to hide from him this time? Well, it pissed her off.
She was pissed at herself for making such a mess of everything. She was pissed off at Fred for starting the entire mess. She was pissed off at George for not talking to her yet. She was pissed off at Nessa for convincing her to wait him out.
She was just pissed off. And she dealt with her volatile emotions in only two ways — sex (which was particularly difficult at the moment considering she'd told Fred that they were supposed to be taking things slowly) and Quidditch (which, of course, was put on hold for the year due to the Triwizard Tournament).
Just another thing to piss her off.
But she'd had to make due with what she had. She was becoming more comfortable in her relationship with Fred as the days went by — less guilty and awkward — but she wasn't about to ruin that by taking things too far. So that really left her with as close to Quidditch as she could get, which was the empty Quidditch pitch, her broomstick, and the stolen balls she'd taken from Madame Hooch's office.
She'd been out in the February chill for hours now, throwing the Quaffle through the hoops as hard as she possibly could, swerving around the pitch in practice laps that Oliver Wood had always made them do during warm up, trying to get her head to clear by using the roar of the wind in her ears and the physicality of the sport.
But she was a fucking Chaser and it was much harder to be physical as a Chaser without other people to play off of. She had no one trying to rush her from both sides for the Quaffle, no one tugging at the ball under her arm, no one to throw the ball past.
It was just her and the empty skies. It was entirely useless.
So she'd given up on the flying portion, taken out one of the practice bats and released one of the Bludgers instead. It was much more exciting to watch something flying at her face over and over again, and far more relieving to swing the bat with all her might and send it off in the other direction with a loud CRACK that echoed through the empty stands. She let it get as close as possible to her face before she jumped aside and swung the bat again, waiting with bated breath and a racing heart until it came back toward her.
She wasn't a Beater — her aim wasn't nearly as good as Fred and George's, she held the bat probably in the wrong way, her stance was way off, but she didn't care. Every strike of the bat against the bludger made vibrations run down her arm. Every swing gave her a welcome ache in her shoulder and arm the more she repeated the movement. The sound of the CRACK made her ears ring a little in the surrounding silence.
The anger was fading a little, some sort of rational thought being forced back in her head somehow. She'd had to remove her gloves and jacket, the exertion making her hot and sweaty, and her arm hurt so bad that she was sure that it might fall off. But she didn't care about that either — until that happened or she had to stop from sheer exhaustion, she was going to stay out here and avoid her problems inside the castle.
"Your arm is going to hurt like a bitch tomorrow, holding the bat like that."
She was embarrassed by the scream that she released at the sound of the voice behind her and she whirled to face whoever had spoken.
"Tori!"
She didn't know why he'd yelled her name like she didn't hear the Bludger rushing back toward her. She had heard it. She had just been so surprised to see that it was George — not Fred — that had come searching for her, that she'd gaped at him a little too long before she'd reacted to the sound.
She whirled around just in time for it to smash her directly in the nose.
"Son of a fucking bibch," Tori yelled, the force of it sending her flying backwards.
The crunch of her nose was more concerning than watching George dive for the ball and getting hit in the stomach. She didn't really care about that at all, raising her hand to staunch the blood flow from her nose, continuing to swear viciously at the pain that was radiating down her face.
She'd broken bones before, but never her nose. It wasn't an experience she'd like to repeat, truth be told. It hurt like no other and there was way more blood than she'd have expected for a body part so small.
"Goddammit, Tori, why would you take your eyes off the Bludger?" George said, sounding irritated. He was in front of her in the next second, attempting to pull her hands away from her face.
She didn't know what he was so irritated about. She was the one with a broken nose, and it was at least partially his fault.
"You didraded be," she said angrily, glaring at him as he forced her hands away.
He stopped inspecting her face at the sound of her voice, which had turned high and nasally from the compression of her nose. He grinned widely, raising both eyebrows in amusement.
"Sorry, what was that?" he said facetiously.
Tori would have growled at him but any movement of her face hurt like hell.
"Don'd dard, George," she whined instead. "Jud fix by dose!"
George pursed his lips to keep from laughing despite the seriousness of the situation.
"Sorry, you need me to fix something?" he said in mock confusion. "Is it how to hold a beater's bat because —"
"You dink dis is fuddy, George?" she said, losing patience entirely.
"Yes, I do dink dis is fuddy," he said mockingly, dodging the kick she aimed for his shin. "Alright, alright, sit still!" he laughed. "One slip of the hand and you might end up talking like that forever."
She wanted to knee him in the balls because she was sure glaring at him was not going to set him on fire despite the fact that she'd have preferred it at that moment, but he was already pointing his wand at her face and she didn't want to know what a rogue spell would do to a body part that wasn't broken.
Plus she really was afraid that he might mess her face up, and it was a very nice one. She couldn't handle a crooked nose — she was conceited that way, she couldn't help it.
"Episkey!"
"Merlin's fucking nuts," she swore as her nose jerked back into place painfully. George snorted when she started running her fingers over it to make sure it had been fixed properly. She sighed in relief. "Thank you."
He waved his wand without a word and the blood removed itself from her hands and face, the half-sticky, half-crusty feeling disappearing completely.
"Well, you've got your t's and n's back at least," he said with a smirk before squinting at her face. "Except I think that bump is going to stay there —"
"What bump?" she said, alarmed. Her hands shot up again to feel her nose in a panic. Had she missed it earlier? She was going to —
George burst out laughing at her, and she dropped her hands to glare at him again, putting her hands on her hips.
"Very funny, prat," she said, trying not to smile at him when he bent over double. "Would you quit laughing at me? It's your fault it hit me anyway."
He stopped laughing to give her an incredulous look.
"It was not!" he said indignantly. "You're the one who stopped watching what you were doing —"
"Because you scared me! Why would you sneak up on me when you saw I was busy?"
"I'd hardly call this busy," he snorted. "And I would have waited except I've been sitting here for twenty minutes and you didn't notice, and I'd rather not freeze off my bollocks."
That was very dramatic as far as she was concerned. She hardly felt the chill at all, though between the workout and her broken nose, she might not have had the energy to notice.
"Why'd you wait twenty minutes to say something?" she said pointedly.
He looked at her for a long moment, considering her briefly and there was a nervousness setting in now. Of course she knew what he was here for; he hadn't said this many words to her in weeks, so she could have guessed what he wanted to say now.
And she supposed she couldn't keep the conversation light forever, but she suddenly wished that she hadn't asked the question at all. She'd intended to make fun of him for waiting so long, but it clearly only reminded him for the reason he'd come down here to begin with.
He cleared his throat, bending down to latch the box of Quidditch balls before picking it up and walking back toward the locker rooms.
"You think I'd have liked to interrupt you and end up with a broken nose too?" he quipped nonchalantly. "C'mon, walk with me."
A part of her really did not want to do that, but she'd already been a coward for six months, and it was a bit embarrassing to keep that going. At this rate, she might as well have been a Slytherin for all the good she was doing in Gryffindor.
She grabbed her Comet 290 (the first purchase she'd ever made with the money her mother had left her), and reluctantly followed after George to drop off the stolen Quidditch balls. Neither one of them spoke as they dropped them off again and he locked her office again. She still didn't speak when he grabbed her broom from her and Vanished it back to her dorm.
She'd never been this uncomfortable around George since she'd known him. She'd been uncomfortable with Fred plenty of times before, but there was typically an ease with talking to George. At the moment though it felt like they were looking at each other across a great divide and she had no idea how she was supposed to get to the other side.
She was at least grateful that he looked just as uncomfortable, looking tense and awkward with his hands in his coat pockets as they walked around the lake without speaking.
She was considering drowning herself when he finally spoke.
"So — er — you and Fred then?" he said, still not looking at her.
For the first time in her entire life, she blushed. She had never been easily embarrassed — she thrived in chaos, she liked being the center of attention, and she didn't mind being the butt of a joke — but at the moment, hearing him put her and Fred's name together felt intimate and awkward and she didn't know what to do with that.
Merlin, why was this so incredibly awkward?
"Well, it — I mean, I don't —" she huffed, raising one of her hands to massage her right temple. "Yeah. Me and Fred."
He didn't say anything still, didn't give her any indication of what he was thinking or how he felt about that development. He just kept walking, the silence dragging before he sighed.
"Since when?"
Her stomach dropped out. Of course, she knew he'd ask that question, but she'd hoped they could start off with something that wouldn't piss him off all over again.
"I don't know when it started for him," she said, biting her lip. "You'd have to ask him, but I — my side of it's sort of complicated."
George stopped and she was forced to stop with him, though everything in her would have preferred to keep moving.
"Is this another attempt to keep from answering me because —"
"What? No, of course not!" she said in annoyance. "It's just a bit difficult to put into words, George. I didn't exactly see it all turning out like this."
He stared at her for a long moment, nothing on his face giving away his thoughts. His eyes were hard though, and he crossed his arms, clearly intent on getting answers from her.
"Uncomplicate it then, Tori."
She nearly snorted because that's what Nessa had told her at the World Cup when she'd confronted her about the very same conversation.
She'd have thought after months of trying to put the entire thing into words, she'd have figured out how to do it by now, but she was convinced at this point that there were no words in the English language sufficient enough to explain the way she felt.
She tried anyway.
"We were arguing about Oliver," she said eventually, looking away from him to look at the castle over the lake instead. "Last year after the Quidditch final. I suppose he was jealous about me snogging him, I don't know. We didn't exactly talk about it, but — we were arguing like we normally do and he kissed me — without warning, mind you, and I didn't even know that he — I mean, he hadn't said anything about it before that. It took me a bit by surprise, and I sort of — I don't know, I was operating on instinct maybe? Sheer stupidity? Or maybe I was just pissed off and tired of arguing, I really couldn't tell you for sure, but it…well, it felt right. I don't think we need to get into the details —"
"Agreed," George snorted. "I saw enough already, don't need you scarring me more."
"Don't be such a prude, George," she said with an eye roll and a snort. "The point is that I don't think either of us was really thinking much. We're there and we're kissing and it's great, you know, except then I remember that it's Fred, and we aren't supposed to be…that. So I panicked, asked him what the hell he was doing, and he told me that he was looking at me differently —"
"Since when?"
"I don't know that," she said, shaking her head. "I told you, you have to ask him that. When I asked he told me that he wasn't sure when it had changed for him. Anyway I — well I didn't take it well. I ran off and left him there and we didn't talk about it after that. We just…went back home and tried to pretend that nothing was different between us."
She still couldn't tell what he was thinking, and she wished he'd have just told her. He'd never been this closed off before, and it was freaking her out a little.
"I assume at some point you talked about it then because you're dating now, aren't you?" he pressed when she didn't continue.
She shook her head.
"Yes, we are, but — it was complicated at first. We tried keeping our distance, and we tried to act normal, but it's — I mean, how do you come back from something like that?" she laughed, though the sound held no humor. "This bloke I've grown up with my entire life, who could barely even tolerate me the first year we knew each other, tells me he fancies me? I don't know what I was thinking, assuming it could just go back to normal. It didn't. And I really tried, George, but he's everywhere all the time. We spend all of our time together and I can see the way he looks at me, and he's — he's just different, okay? I don't know how else to explain it. He doesn't treat me like I'm made of glass or pull punches when he talks to me like he thinks I'm going to break down crying or something, and he doesn't smother me with expectations and — well, I mean, he's very annoying, you know —"
George rolled his eyes.
"Yes, I'm aware," he said dryly. "You try spending every waking minute with him since you were born, and tell me he isn't annoying."
"Don't pretend like you aren't just as bad," she snorted pointedly. "All I'm saying is that he doesn't make me feel like I need to be…less — Less outspoken, less obnoxious, less confident, less independent, less assertive. Everyone else acts like I'm…too much of all of those things. I don't date because it's easier that way — I don't have to commit to anything, but I don't have to pretend to be something I'm not either. But he doesn't make me feel like that at all. It's…different. At first I thought that that was bad. It was terrifying honestly, but we just kept — kept being stupid. He kissed me again at the World Cup when you went to talk to Nessa. And I told him we couldn't keep doing that —"
"Why?"
Her gaze jerked back to him at the question, though it sounded more like a statement. She wanted to throw something at him to get him to react to something because his face was still blank and it was driving her mad but she answered anyway.
"Because it was complicated. Because I was scared — of feeling that way, of knowing he felt the same way, of telling your family, of being vulnerable. It's all sort of jumbled in my head now, but your mum has always expected us to be this — this perfect family. She always told me that I was family. I know they didn't actually adopt me, but she acts like they did. She acts like I'm an extension of the rest of you. She wants us to treat each other like siblings. I'm just supposed to — supposed to ruin that? Just because I can't control myself?" She shook her head and tried not to cry, looking away from him again. "I didn't want to be that person. Your family has given me more than I deserve from the moment I met you, and losing that..." She cleared her throat to keep the thickness in her throat from forcing its way into her voice. "But we just…it was always the same. I'd tell myself it was wrong, that we couldn't, but then I'd falter. Over and over again. Then I told myself that I was just — just getting it out of my system and then it would go back to the way it was. It would become easier to keep my distance once I got bored or — I don't know, normal. But it didn't get any easier at all. If anything, it got so much harder, and that scared me too. I told him I didn't want anyone to know, not even you. So he — he lied when you asked him about us, and I — I don't know, I think knowing he'd lied to you — just because I was being a coward and couldn't decide what I wanted…it woke me up. And Nessa figured out that we'd been sneaking around and she told me that I couldn't have it both ways. And I knew that too. So I told him we should just be friends."
She could see it all replaying in her head again as she spoke — every midnight tryst, every argument, every intimate conversation. She could see the devastation on his face when she told him that she wanted to be friends. She could hear him asking her how it could be wrong when it felt right.
It was like experiencing it all all over again — the confusion, and the ever-present ache in her chest, and the exhilaration, and the happiness. It all flickered through her, each memory tainted with an intense emotion that made her feel them again as if she were living it all over.
It made her hands shake, but she kept talking, still refusing to look at him even though he'd cleared his throat like he was going to say something.
"But he's such an arse sometimes," she laughed, the sound coming out watery. "He just has to get the last word. He just has to prove a point, so he asked Angelina to the ball, knowing it would upset me. So of course we start arguing that night too, and of course it devolves because he's not stupid and he knows that I'm upset. He told me I couldn't have it both ways too, and — he was tired of sneaking around. It was too hard. It was too hard pretending and it was too hard keeping it from you and it was too hard trying to figure out what I wanted. And I didn't know what to say, you know. Because I'm still so fucking terrified and he's so fucking terrifying, but then he said he loved me —"
"What?" George said weakly.
She laughed in watery disbelief herself.
"Yeah, exactly," she said, taking in a shaky breath. "And I was just so tired, George. I'm so tired of pretending that I don't want him. I'm so tired of being afraid of telling all of you. I'm so tired of lying to myself. It's exhausting, keeping this huge secret from everyone. And Nessa kept saying it was fine — and when Ginny found out because Nessa couldn't keep her mouth shut, she said it was fine. And Hermione said it was fine. And Harry asked Nessa two years ago if something was going on between the two of us — and there wasn't then, I swear to you — but even he didn't seem that bothered by it, and — it was just too exhausting and painful to pretend anymore, George."
She didn't know what else to say. There wasn't really anything else to say. She could have probably spent an eternity trying to get him to understand the conflict she'd experienced or the anxiety she felt having this conversation. She hated being this openly vulnerable, but she coped with that fear by reminding herself that this was George, and there'd never been a single thing she couldn't tell him. There had never been a single thing that she'd ever said that had made him run away.
It didn't make the anxiety disappear, but it at least kept her talking. He deserved as much information as she could manage to put into words, and she sort of wanted to get it all out in the open so that she never had to have this conversation with him again.
When he finally spoke again, she was so anxious, she wanted to be sick. She was actually starting to feel a bit like Nessa, and if this is what it felt like for her best friend every day, she had a newfound respect for her.
"Why didn't you tell me, Tori?" he said, sounding frustrated again. "Fred tells you he loves you, and neither one of you — you still didn't think it was worth telling me? You told everyone but me —"
"That's not true!" she exclaimed. "I didn't — I didn't mean for so many people to know before you! I'd have told you before all of them —"
George scoffed.
"But you didn't," he said pointedly. "You told him to lie instead. You told him to keep it from me —"
"It wasn't because I don't trust you, George!" she said desperately. "It was — what was I supposed to have said when I didn't even know what I wanted?"
"That didn't stop you from telling the rest of them, did it?" he said, throwing his hands in the air. "It didn't stop you from talking to Nessa or Ginny. What's different about me?"
She was frustrated again, and angry, and devastated by the entire thing because of course he was right; she'd never have kept something like this from him if it had been anyone other than Fred. The only secrets she kept from him were ones that Nessa had entrusted her with, assuming they had nothing to do with him anyway.
She'd have told him everything, and asked for his advice, and made him tell her what to do because there was no one in the world that knew Fred better than he did. He could have helped her figure the entire stupid thing out without having a near emotional break.
But she hadn't, and he just…he didn't get it.
"You don't understand, George," she said in frustration.
"So explain it to me!" he exclaimed. "Explain to me why it's different with me —"
"Because it's you, George!" she shouted angrily, losing the battle against her frustrated tears. "Of course you're different! It — you — you think I want to tell you something like this — something this massive — and have you tell me that you don't agree with it? You think I want to have you look at us and decide that we shouldn't be together —?"
George's brow furrowed in confusion.
"It doesn't matter what I think," he said. "It matters what the two of you think."
"It will always matter what you think," she said brokenly. "I can deal with the rest of them. I can deal with upsetting Molly and Arthur, I can deal with Percy sticking his nose up at us, I can deal with Ron being a git. I can't deal with losing you, George."
He gaped at her, looking at her like she'd said something that had knocked the air out from his lungs. Like she'd slapped him.
"What the hell are you talking about?" he said, bewildered. "I'm not going anywhere —!"
"You find out and you've barely spoken to me in weeks," she scoffed.
"Because you lied to me, Tori!" he said angrily. "Not because you're snogging Fred, for fuck's sake! You asked him to lie to me!"
It was worse, hearing him say it to her. There was anger and frustration and betrayal fighting for some sort of dominance within his tone, and it cut her to the core of her.
It had been a horrible thing to do to begin with, she knew that. She'd hated herself from the moment she'd asked Fred not to say anything — no matter what. She didn't have to be a genius to know that she'd committed a capital offense as far as the Weasley twins were concerned.
That's what happened when she was too busy being pathetic and cowardly to think about the things she did.
She didn't know what to say in response to having the words thrown back at her, though she'd thought about them for weeks. They shouldn't have been able to rattle her so easily. She should have been able to apologize or come up with a valid reason she'd done it, but she didn't have one, and there was nothing she could say that would erase that fact.
The guilt of it was eating her alive — she'd never once asked either one of them to lie to the other before. She'd never once been so afraid to tell one of them something that she'd put herself in between them. There was no justification for it, and there was nothing that she could say to him that would make it less hurtful.
Maybe it was that guilt that made her break completely. Maybe it was the thought that she couldn't make this right with him that ripped the sob from her throat. Maybe it was the knowledge that she was a selfish, cowardly bitch for even having the audacity to ask one brother to lie to the other just for the sake of sparing her a difficult conversation that made her turn away from him before he could see her break down.
It didn't help the overwhelming guilt or self-loathing or devastation to turn away from him. He could still hear her sobbing, the gasping in an attempt to control the crying. She grabbed at the hair on either side of her forehead and pulled in an attempt to use pain to ground herself, to distract her from the pain in her chest. It felt like she was trying to sob up her heart, her eyes burned, her throat ached, and her head was pounding — from the poor justifications she was trying to use to make herself feel better bouncing around in her head as much as it was from the sobbing.
She heard the dejected sigh he let out behind her, but she tried to jerk away from him when he put a hand on her shoulder, and tried to turn her to face him. She tried stepping away from him, tried removing herself from his reach and force herself back into control. She was not the crying type, and this was embarrassing at this point. He didn't deserve to comfort her when it was her fault they were in this mess to begin with. She was the coward. She was the selfish one. She didn't deserve to have him feel badly for something she'd done to both of them.
He grabbed her wrist before she could back further away from him, tried to tug her back toward him, and she could tell that he felt horrible. That he was going to apologize for upsetting her or tell her that it was okay, and she didn't want that. It wasn't okay — so she tugged back, trying to free herself from his grasp, but he was a lot stronger than she was, and her entire body was too busy heaving sobs to put any amount of strength behind her arm. Not to mention the fact that she'd used the majority of her strength when she'd spent the last three hours on the pitch. She didn't have much left in her at this point.
"Tori, stop," he said firmly, tugging hard so that she went careening into his chest. She tried pushing away from him, but he had no interest in it, wrapping her up so tightly that she was forced to gasp air through her lungs. He smelled the same way he always had, gunpowder and cinnamon, and the normality of it, the comfort of it, did the opposite of calming her. Instead, she just sobbed harder, working harder to get away from him so that she could just fucking stop crying, but he still didn't let her go. "Stop," he said, his voice far more soothing than she deserved. "Stop, okay? We're — I'm not going anywhere, okay?"
"I'm sorry," she sobbed brokenly, not even sure what else she was supposed to say. There was nothing else she could say. It was all she had at the moment. "I'm so sorry, George. I'm sorry —"
"I know you are, Victoria," he said, sighing heavily, squeezing tighter. "I just — how could you possibly think that I'd leave over this? We've been friends for twelve years."
"People always leave," she whispered, trying to breathe through the crying. It was hard to suck in enough air to sob when he was squeezing her so tightly, so the tears had slowed a little, but it still felt like she was spiraling internally. "My mother left me. Sirius left me. Why would you be any different?"
He let go of her, holding her out at arms length and giving her a firm look.
"Your mother did not leave you, Tori," he said, his tone hard. "She was murdered. That's not the same thing."
To her, it all felt the same. She'd left her against her will, sure, but she wasn't here. And though she, arguably, had a beautiful life despite that fact, she'd have preferred to have her in her life still. She'd have preferred to not look at photos and wonder what her mother would think of her if she could see her now.
Would she be upset that she skipped classes sometimes to play pranks with the twins? Would she be proud of her for playing so well in Quidditch? Disappointed in her for trying so hard to piss Snape off at every opportunity?
If she were alive, would Tori have had such a hard time getting close to people? Would she have had such a hard time with commitment?
If Sirius hadn't gone after Peter Pettigrew that night, had stayed with her and her mother instead, had just grieved for his lost friends instead of trying to get revenge…would her mother have died at all? Would she have just lost them both and been in the same place anyway?
There were so many things that could have changed with only one small change in behavior. From any of the people who were supposed to have been there in her life at the moment.
She didn't want to get into the entire mess with George though, not when she was already in a horrible place with him as it was.
"It doesn't matter," she said, pulling away from him and wiping at her eyes. They hurt like hell, but she'd managed to stop crying at least, though her chest ached. Before George could argue, she said, "I just — please don't be mad at Fred. He didn't want — he would have told you, but I was…being a coward."
George looked at her, studying her carefully, and she tried not to make some snarky comment despite the fact that she hated the consideration of his features.
"Fred is perfectly capable of making his own decisions, Tori," he said eventually.
She gave him a pleading look.
"Yes, but he — I mean, you know he —"
"— has a soft spot for you, yes," he said, crossing his arms across his chest. "Everyone knows that."
She didn't say anything at first. Everyone did know that, and so had she. It had been the reason she'd known that Fred would do it for her if she asked, and that really just made the whole thing so much worse.
"If Nessa asked you to lie to Fred, would you?" she said, attempting to draw on something that would be at all equivalent to this situation for him.
The words made anger spark in his eyes before he said, "Nessa would never have asked me to lie to him."
She flinched. The words were hard and pointed, but laced with such surety that she couldn't argue. Not that she needed to — she knew Nessa far better than he did, and she knew he was right.
"I'm sorry," she whispered again because she had nothing better to say. She had to blink back the tears that threatened to fall again, and blew out a long breath in an attempt to steady herself.
George shut his eyes and took a deep breath.
"I know, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have —" he paused, opening his eyes again to look at her, and some of that anger had cooled again. "Is this going to be a regular thing? You asking him to lie to me?"
Her gaze jerked to his face, her features coloring with alarm.
"What? No, of course not!" she said immediately. "I don't want —"
"I'm only asking because this isn't going to get easier for you two, you know," he said with a hard look. "You still have to tell Mum and Dad. And Ron. And I'll keep the secret if you want me to, but if you're planning on lying to me every time you two have a spat or if it doesn't —"
"George, I swear we won't — I don't want to lie to you," she said seriously. "I promise. It was just a stupid, desperate decision I made in a panic. There's no more lying…I swear to you."
He looked at her for a long moment and she prayed he could see the truth of it behind her eyes somehow. He'd always been good at reading people, and she needed him to know that she had no intention of repeating this disaster over again.
It was hard enough the first time, she didn't need to do this every time she and Fred hit a bump. And she was sure that they'd hit quite a few — she had commitment issues, he enjoyed irking her, they still had to tell his parents. There was a good chance this would not be the worst of it, and she sincerely did not want to go through the rest of it without George's support. He was Fred's calm, rational counterpart. He was one of her best friends.
"Do you love him?"
She gaped at the question, unsure if he'd accepted her last answer as truth or not.
"I — I don't know," she said honestly.
He gave her an incredulous look.
"You don't know?" he said disbelievingly. "What does that mean?"
"Well, I don't know!" she said with a snort. "I didn't expect to be here to begin with and I don't exactly have a frame of reference, do I? I don't — I don't want to mess the entire thing up and this isn't exactly…I mean, it's Fred. It's different with him — I don't want to say that I love him without being sure, and I just…there's already enough going through my head at the moment."
"Right," he said, seeming to relax a little. "And this isn't just some — some other stupid fling? I'm not going to have to end up in the middle of some feud between the two of you, am I? Because that sounds —"
She snorted before he could finish. It sounded horrible. And she didn't blame him for asking, not when he often had had to mediate their petty arguments before.
"It's not a fling," she said, despite the panic that the words induced. "We'll work on the communicating. You won't be in the middle, I promise. Just give me a little grace, yeah? He's just — he's a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes."
George smirked at her, but nodded.
"And just to be safe," he said, raising an amused eyebrow. "You're not going to snog me, are you?"
She burst out laughing at the absurdity of the question, but something in her eased when he grinned back at her.
"Don't be disgusting, George —"
"OI!" he said, looking affronted.
She grinned at him.
"Relax, that's not what I meant," she said with a laugh. She paused and looked over him as if she were seeing him for the first time. "At least, I don't think that's what I meant."
He snorted, rolling his eyes to the sky, and grabbing her hand to tug her back toward him. She laughed loudly when he put her in a gentle headlock and messed up her hair intentionally. She laughed again when she poked him once under the arm and he squealed girlishly, pulling away from her.
"Don't do that," he said, pointing at her in warning.
"Does Nessa know you're ticklish yet?" she asked in amusement.
"No, and we're going to keep it that way," he said, pulling her in for a hug. "She'd enjoy that far too much."
She would, and Tori sincerely doubted that she'd never find out, but she didn't say so to George. Instead, she just wrapped her arms around him and sighed into his shoulder.
"You're sure you're okay with this?" she asked quietly.
"Are you happy?" he said after a long pause.
"Yes," she said honestly, praying he wouldn't make her go into any more detail than that.
"Okay then," he said simply. "It'll take some getting used to, but if you're happy then I guess I'm alright with it."
She swallowed hard against the emotion in her throat and squeezed him tighter.
"I love you, George," she said.
Words that came so easily to her when she spoke to him, but she'd never once said to Fred. She hadn't noticed that until that very moment, but for some reason those words had always meant something different with his twin than they had with him.
"I love you too," he said, wrapping his pinky around hers. She wished Fred were there — it was odd not having his thumb wrap around hers at the same time. "I'll kill him if he hurts you, you know?"
She rolled her eyes and pulled back to look at him.
"Are you going to say that you'll kill me if I hurt him too?" she said, raising a knowing eyebrow. He scowled at her.
"I was, but I don't think I will now that you've guessed it," he said petulantly, crossing his arms across his chest. She laughed, rolling her eyes and wrapping her arm around his waist. Despite his exasperation, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and lead the way back to the castle. "Are you going to keep it from Mum and Dad?"
She chewed her lip as they reached the willow tree next to the lake. It was dark out now, the lanterns of the castle flickering through its many windows.
"No, I don't think so," she said eventually. "We haven't talked about it, but…it's just too hard to keep it a secret. And I don't want to ask you to do that for us. We already made a mess of everything."
He must have sensed the anxiety she felt at the words because he squeezed her shoulders in support.
"It's the least of the things I've kept from them," he reminded her. "If that's what you want, then I won't force it. Though it would probably be easier to tell them," When she didn't respond, he squeezed her again. "No one's leaving you, Tori, I promise. Mum won't like it, but Dad will get through to her. She's always been a bit tightly wound. She loves you and she loves Fred. That's not going to change. Though I suspect that she's going to follow you around all summer to make sure you're not shagging."
Tori groaned.
"This isn't helping my nerves, George," she said, running a hand down her face. She shivered when they finally entered the castle, the warmth of it in such contrast to the bitter cold outside.
George laughed.
"Relax," he said. "She's already been following us around since she found out about WWW over the summer. The two of you snogging might actually help take the heat off the shop, tell you the truth…"
She rolled her eyes at the thoughtful pleasure in his voice.
"Glad to be of service," she said sarcastically. "I'll worry about that when the summer comes. Just — promise me you'll talk to Fred. It's killing him, not talking to you. And I hate when you two are fighting."
George flinched at the words.
"I know," he said with a frown. "I'll talk to him. Just not tonight, okay? I've had enough emotional conversations for the evening."
She sighed, wishing he would just talk to him for the evening but it was getting late already and she didn't want to push him.
"Okay," she said with a sigh. "Just don't kill each other. He was planning on putting a firework under your pillow to see if that would get you to talk to him, and I really don't want to explain to your mother why you've had your ear burned off."
Fred heard George come back to the dormitory that night, and, if they'd been talking at the moment, he'd have asked him where the hell he'd been so late.
Or maybe he wouldn't have. It wasn't like him to babysit his twin, but he was in a foul mood from being shut out that he wanted to ask him where the hell he'd been now as if he were their mother.
The entire thing was stupid.
He shouldn't have lied. He knew that, but he was in a horrible position no matter what choice he'd have made in that moment and it had been a split second decision on his part.
Every decision he made was a split second decision. That was his problem.
Tori had been so unbelievably uptight and anxious about the idea of telling George when it had come up, and he was a bit anxious to tell George himself, so he'd done the cowardly thing and lied, despite the guilt that had consumed him since.
Every time he saw George's face.
Which was particularly inconvenient because he had George's face. Looking in the mirror since had become particularly difficult, although Nessa hadn't noticed his change in demeanor, so he was clearly getting better at acting.
Which had only made him feel good about himself for about six seconds until he remembered what the hell he'd been lying about.
His acting skills aside, he'd done a very, very stupid thing. Seeing Tori anxious had altered his brain chemistry, had made him anxious, and he'd done the worst thing he could have done in that situation. He wasn't good at the emotional aspect of things, and he didn't usually consider what would happen if he did something until he'd already done it and was wading in the consequences of his own actions.
George was much better at that than he was. George was the one who cleaned up their messes and had the softer conversations with people. George was the one with some level of patience and understanding. George was the good one in comparison, and Fred, though not a horrible human being by any means, really preferred to distance himself from anything that made him feel relatively negative.
Which of course often meant he did something horribly stupid and then was forced to have the emotional conversations he avoided.
It was easier with George. Partially because he understood him in a way that didn't always require words, so he couldn't put his foot in his mouth or make things worse by saying something horribly insensitive. Partially because they spent so much of their time together that it wasn't as if he could avoid it all together.
It was easier with Nessa because she wasn't easily offended, though she was very easy to rile, so when he said something stupid she just told him off and moved on. And he couldn't get away with things because she had a horrible way of staring at people until they answered her questions. She was very scary for someone so small — there was far too much attitude packed into her little body.
It was easier with Tori because she was as bad about things as he was, so she understood it on a personal level and didn't tend to hold it against him.
And if he'd thought any of those things before he'd lied to George, he probably wouldn't have lied. Tori would have understood, even if she was upset with him for a moment, and George wouldn't be ignoring him, and Nessa wouldn't be giving him disapproving looks every time he tried to deliberately force George into conversation by annoying the shite out of him.
There was something to be said about their knowledge of each other because he knew every one of his twin's pet peeves and he capitalized on them.
He hated loud chewing. He'd been particularly annoying about sitting next to him at dinner and making as much noise as possible while he ate. Hadn't worked — George looked like he wanted to shove a loaf of bread down his throat, but he'd managed to avoid griping at him.
He hated when people asked questions that he'd already answered. He'd asked hundreds of ridiculous questions when they'd been developing products and he'd thought he was going to get George that time — he looked like he might kill him — but he'd merely stopped answering him at all.
So then he'd started following him everywhere talking incessantly about nothing. Lee had found this particularly funny, though George had looked close to insanity. He'd tried the pranking — despite their truce — but he hadn't cared about that either. Blue hair? Child's play — he'd merely waved his wand and been done with it. Dungbomb thrown while he was trapped in the bathroom? There'd been a chorus of swearing with that one, but he'd merely snuck into the prefects bath instead. Untested self-propelling custard pies? Nose-biting teacup? All met with a heavy sigh and nothing else.
He was sincerely running out of patience and it was a true testament to George's own irritation that he merely looked the other way at all of these things rather than talking to him.
He almost wanted to hit him just to get a response except he'd already been an asshole by lying. He couldn't just be a bigger asshole. Well, he could, but seeing as he was already in trouble for not thinking before he did things, he wasn't about to make that worse by doubling down.
It was stupid, the whole thing.
And he couldn't sleep because he wasn't comfortable and he was sick and tired of letting George come to terms with him lying to him, and, really, he wasn't ignoring him completely. They were still developing and selling products. They were still around each other every day. It just wasn't quite the same when he knew George was pissed at him.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"Will you quit moving around?" George sighed from the direction of his bed. "It's doing my head in."
He stopped moving, but it had nothing to do with the fact that George had asked him to, and everything to do with the fact that George was actually talking to him of his own volition.
Maybe he was hallucinating.
"If I'd known that would get you to talk to me, I'd have been tossing a week ago."
George sighed heavily, and Fred could tell, without needing to ask, that he was having as hard a time with the entire thing as he was.
"Don't be like that, Fred," he said instead.
Fine. He wouldn't.
Instead, he grabbed his pillow off his bed and stomped over to his twin's bed in irritation, closing the curtains around the bed and standing over him impatiently.
George blinked at him.
"What are you doing?"
"What's it look like I'm doing?" he said with an eye roll. "Move over."
"Fred —"
He didn't bother listening to whatever excuse George was going to make to keep him out of his bed. Instead, he put the pillow over his face and forced himself into the bed, despite the fact that it meant he was laying atop his brother, and likely suffocating him.
It was horribly uncomfortable because his twin was digging every joint into his back in his attempt to free himself from under him, but Fred pretended he didn't notice.
"See, was that so hard?"
There was a response, but seeing as his pillow was over George's face and his head was holding it down, he had no idea what he'd said.
"Sorry, I didn't catch that?"
He had to stifle a laugh when George managed to free his arms from under him and shove him away from him. He chucked the pillow after him, but moved aside and turned on his side to face him to give him more room to lie down. It was difficult for Fred to wipe the grin off his face when he laid back down next to him, and based on George's glare, he absolutely knew that fact.
"If you were trying to smother me, you could have just held the pillow over my head," he said. "I don't need my organs rearranged."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he said, indignantly.
"Means you're putting on a bit of weight," George said seriously. "You've really let yourself go without Quidditch, haven't you?"
Fred gave him a deadpan expression.
"You think you're funny?"
"Most of the time."
"You're not funny."
"You're just sore that I pointed it out —"
"Do you want me to sit on you again? Because I will, George."
George snorted and closed his eyes, a large smirk overtaking his face.
"If you're going to start threatening me then I'm going to go to bed —"
"Where have you been?" Fred interrupted disapprovingly.
This seemed to amuse George because he opened his eyes to look at him with a smirk.
"Sorry, did I miss curfew?" he said cheekily. "Am I grounded now, mum?"
Fred rolled his eyes and gave him a very pointed look, but before he could say anything, the curtains were ripped open by someone else. He twisted to look at a very annoyed, very disapproving Lee Jordan.
Fred grinned cheerily at him.
"Hello, Lee," he said happily. George shook with laughter beside him, but he kept his eyes trained on their best friend instead. "If you're looking to join, you're out of luck. There's no more room —"
"There wasn't when you got in either, idiot," George snorted.
True, because they were far bigger now than they had been as children and twin sized beds were, in fact, not meant to hold twins.
Stupid name then.
"Look, if you say this isn't icestuous, then I'll believe you," Lee said in irritation. "But the rest of these idiots won't, so either put up a silencing charm or shut the hell up. This isn't a slumber party and I'm trying to sleep."
Before either one of them could retort, he'd yanked the curtains back closed and stomped back to his bed. Just because he knew it would irritate him, Fred whistled in surprise and said, "Blimey! Wonder what got into him!"
"I don't know which one of you said that, but I swear to Merlin, I will kill you both."
George sniggered, but reached behind him for his wand and put up a silencing charm before Fred could further agitate him.
Spoilsport.
"So, where have you been then?" he said, turning back to face his brother, and making it quite clear that he wasn't about to let the conversation go.
George sighed, rubbing at his eyes and nearly elbowing him in the face.
"Can we do this tomorrow, Fred?" he said tiredly. "I'm exhausted already, and —"
"No," he said bluntly, "And make this bed bigger before you take my head off."
George didn't even have to look at him to know any arguing on his part would be futile. Fred didn't even know why he'd bothered to ask the question at all because he was entirely sure that his brother had known the answer.
"I was talking to Tori," George said heavily, waving his wand again and expanding the bed so that he could shuffle backward.
The words made Fred still with surprise, barely even having moved backward at all. He didn't know what he'd expected him to say — maybe that he'd been off doing something enjoyable despite the fact that Fred was miserable. Snogging Nessa in an empty classroom, pranking some Slytherin without him, or maybe just reading because Fred wasn't there to distract him.
Didn't matter, really. It all would have pissed him off because it would have meant that George was just going about his life as if he didn't need him in it. As if the fact that they were barely speaking was nothing worth consideration.
But talking to Tori? That both relieved him and scared him.
"You talked to her before me?" he said, trying deliberately not to let that fact make him feel worse.
Because, really, George deserved to talk to whoever he wanted to when both of them had lied to him. And it really wasn't Fred's place to be upset by that fact, but it did make him feel like someone had run him over. It was stupid, but he was a horrible liar where George was concerned, and he'd have seen it on his face anyway.
George raised an eyebrow at him.
"That's rich, considering you talked to Nessa before me."
There were rare instances when Fred wanted to strangle his twin, but he was thinking about it now.
"So, what," he said angrily, "You talked to her first to get back at me?"
George sighed heavily, his gaze not wavering from his own.
It was like looking into a mirror. Every feature exactly the same, every facial expression indistinguishable from his own, every emotion so clear in his body language and expression because they were exactly the same. There was a bond there — some sort of magic that had developed in the womb that neither one of them really understood.
He could feel when George was upset or when he was hurt, even if they were nowhere near each other. He could tell what George was thinking or what he was going to say without really needing to ask most of the time. They had similar interests, and temperaments, and his mind operated almost exactly the same as his.
They were, of course, separate people. They were, of course, different in very small ways — George was quieter; George was a better Quidditch player; George was more patient, slightly more rational, more perceptive. Fred was easier to irritate, he preferred to be the center of attention a little bit more, he was often irrational and crueler than his brother.
But despite those smaller differences, Fred could read his brother because his every movement, his every expression, his every breath mirrored his so completely that it was like reading himself.
They'd never been in this position before — of not speaking to each other for so long because he'd messed something up. The fact that he was so unable to guess at George's motives was as debilitating as if someone had severed one of his limbs or taken one of his lungs.
He hated it. It made him want to rip his hair out or rip his heart out of his chest to get it to stop aching so much, to make it easier for him to breathe.
George answered before he could lose his head completely, as if he could see him walking that line between sanity and panic.
"No, Fred," he said quietly. "I didn't do it to get back at you."
Fred tried to breathe through the panic a little, raising his hand to rub at the spot on his chest that felt like he was being stabbed. There was nothing different — it felt the same, it looked the same, but it wasn't the same. There was a tightening there that made him want to tear himself apart.
He hadn't had a panic attack in a long time. Not since they'd been kids and George had fallen off the roof. He'd thought he'd died — he'd thought he'd have to live the rest of his life without his other half, and it had felt like he'd been dying too. But he'd just broken his leg, and their mum had fixed it in a matter of seconds, and George had been calm through the entire thing, as if he suspected that losing it would have sent Fred into a full on spiral.
And he'd been right. George was typically the worrywart between them, but Fred had always been more intense. He didn't do things by halves, did he? He took worrying to an entirely different level.
George had always been good with Nessa's panic because he'd seen it before. In him.
"So why?" he said, trying to force himself to match his twin's breaths, to manifest that calm facade he had when he looked at him, even though there was a concern sparking in the backs of his eyes. "Because you're still angry with me?"
George didn't say anything for a moment, as if maybe he were debating whether his answer might make things better or worse on Fred's psyche.
"I'm not angry, Fred," he said eventually. "I'm disappointed."
Fred flinched as if he'd been struck because that was somehow worse. Angry he could deal with — everyone got angry, particularly with him. It was the risk they took in their line of business. George had even been angry with him on several occasions — they'd gotten in fist fights twice because of something mildly stupid that he could barely remember; they'd shouted and bickered and argued when they had a difference of opinion. Those things he could handle because eventually they got to the same place together.
But disappointed? That was worse. It meant that he'd failed George in some way, and the very idea of that was crippling. This certainly wasn't the first time someone had told him they'd been disappointed in him — his mother was disappointed in him for getting three O.W.L.s; his father was disappointed in him the time that he'd nearly gotten Ron to make an Unbreakable Vow; Nessa was disappointed in him for not telling George the truth.
Those times had felt horrible, sure, but they'd not been as bad as this. George had never been disappointed in him, and disappointing George was like failing himself. And he'd never taken well to failing.
"Breathe, Fred."
The words were calm — not an ounce of panic or fear laced within them. They were firm though, an order, and his body responded as if he had no other choice. The breaths were too fast, and it hurt his chest to breathe in, but his head wasn't spinning in panic quite as much.
"I'm sorry," he said, trying to say something at all that would make him feel better about the fact that he'd broken the only rule they had between them. Tori had apologized to him a hundred times for asking him to lie to George, but it wasn't her fault. He'd done it. And it hadn't all been because she'd asked — some of it had been because he hadn't wanted to tell him. Because he'd been afraid that they'd end up in this exact position, and clearly he hadn't thought that through. "I'm sorry, George. I didn't mean to — I didn't want to lie. I shouldn't have. I don't know why —"
George sighed heavily, but he raised a hand to rest on his shoulder and shook him hard.
"Breathe, Fred."
Right, he was panicking again.
Merlin, had they been this bad the last time? He didn't remember the attacks being this horrible before, but of course it had been years ago. A person could forget a lot of things with that amount of time between them.
"I'm breathing," he said, though he wasn't sure which of them he was trying to convince. "I just didn't mean to —"
"I know," George said before he could work himself up again. "That's not the — we don't lie to each other, Fred. We promised."
They had, and that was worse too because he'd never broken a promise to George either. He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded, trying to keep his breathing even.
"I know," he said. "I'm sorry, I wasn't — she was panicking and I was panicking, and it's hard to think with — you're better at this than me, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Just — just tell me what to do."
"Tell me the truth, Fred."
Right, the truth. He was able to do that. He could do that because it meant that this entire thing would be over and then they could forget about the whole thing, and he could be with Tori, and everything would make sense again.
The truth.
"I — where do you want me to start?"
"When did you know?"
"Don't know," he said, shaking his head. "Don't know. It's always been different with her. Maybe always, I can't tell? When we were — when we were kids, and I didn't like her…it wasn't because you liked her so much. I mean, it was a little, but — I liked her too, and we weren't supposed to — it was only ever supposed to be us. I didn't want there to be a third person then —"
"I know," George said, and of course he did. When hadn't he known what Fred was thinking?
"But she's very annoying, you know," he said, and George's laugh made it easier for him to breathe too. "She never just leaves well enough alone, does she? And then her mum died and I might be a prat, but I'm not that much of a prat. She's still incredibly annoying, but I can't go on acting like we aren't friends because she's opening my Christmas presents now, and when she cries it feels like I'm dying, and I don't know, George, it all just…got confusing."
"Until last year."
He supposed Tori had told him that, but he tried not to think about it at the moment because he was starting to feel normal again, and he didn't want to start panicking again.
"Right," he said, nodding, opening his eyes to look at his twin. His eyes were a mirror of his own, and there was some relief that he appeared to be more curious than upset about their current conversation. "It's just…I'm watching her steal my beater's bat and hit a Bludger toward Pucey because he tried to knock her off her broom and — I don't know, it hits me all of a sudden that she's the most beautiful person I've ever looked at before —"
George snorted.
"Yes, I've always found homicidal rage attractive in a woman," he said sarcastically.
"You ought to, Nessa's one step away from Azkaban," he said, grinning weakly when George made a noise of mild consideration. "Anyway, I thought I was losing it. I panicked, told myself I was just bored or going through a dry spell or something — don't laugh, idiot — but then I keep thinking about it and she is different. And Nessa figured it out — she pays too much attention to people, it's very annoying. She told me it wasn't a big deal. So I tried to act like it wasn't — it got easier, except then she's snogging Wood, and it pissed me off. With everyone else, she had no interest but she'd been talking about Wood for years, and that freaked me out."
"So you got in a fight and kissed her?"
The words were said as if he didn't quite understand how that could have happened and Fred rolled his eyes.
"Well, I tried talking to her," he said impatiently. "She doesn't ever shut up, does she? She's screaming at me about how I can't tell her what to do, and she can take care of herself, and it's none of my business who she's snogging, and it pissed me off. I was proving a point or something. But she ran off and we decided — well, she decided that we should just be friends. So I tried that, but it's hard to get over someone that you're around every single day. Didn't work, obviously, but she still refuses to admit that it's anything more than a fling. Then you caught on and she — she panicked, I think. Called the whole thing off, but then got upset about me going to the ball with Angelina. It was all so fucking confusing, George. I mean, I couldn't figure out what the hell she wanted from me, and I'm so exhausted of sneaking around and pretending we're just friends and lying to everyone, and I — I told her she had to choose what she wanted because I couldn't keep going in circles with her."
"Is that all?"
Fred ran a hand down his face, and shook his head.
"No, I — I told her I loved her," he said, eying his twin cautiously as if expecting him to get pissed off again. "She was talking about how I'd just get tired of her for being independent or our bickering or — I don't know, something else ridiculous. I was too pissed off to hear it all. It was just supposed to be so she knew that I wasn't just — just messing about or something. I'm not allowed to say it again though or she'll probably freak out, and she's trying to get used to the idea of us dating altogether."
It was odd, explaining this all to George when he'd never had to explain how he felt before. It was odd waiting to see how he'd react or if it was going to be enough to revert them back to normal.
He was calm because George was next to him, and it had always been that way with them, but he was nervous too, waiting for him to say something that might force them into another situation where they ended up going back to that odd limbo of speaking without really speaking.
"I don't think you're disgusting," he said instead, taking Fred so completely by surprise that he gaped.
"I — what?"
"Nessa said you told her that you were afraid to tell me because you thought I might think you were disgusting for not seeing Tori the way I do," George explained. He'd completely forgotten that he'd told Nessa that. It had been a moment of weakness on his part. "I mean, I don't want to snog her, but it doesn't change anything about our relationship — you're still my other half, Fred. No one is going to change that. I just wish you would have told me."
Fred cleared his throat, refusing absolutely to be a ninny and start crying because he'd already nearly had a panic attack, and his relationship with George had always been a constant. Blubbering about it was just embarrassing.
"I know," he said instead. "I wish I'd told you too. I should have. I didn't want to — well, I didn't want to be here doing this, to tell you the truth. I shouldn't have lied about it. I should have known that you'd — I mean it's you."
He didn't really feel like he had to say more than that. He'd apologized at least six hundred times, hoping maybe that if he sprang the apology on him at random that he'd be forced to answer him. At this point, he couldn't have said anything else.
"Okay," George said, shuffling to lie on his back and closed his eyes.
Fred blinked at him.
"So we're —"
"You're not going to lie to me anymore, are you?"
"No."
"Then we're fine," he said with a sigh. "I'm tired, Fred."
He knew without asking that he didn't mean tired as in sleep. He was tired of arguing, and secrets, and tired of not talking. He was tired of thinking about everything a hundred times over.
So was Fred. And at the moment, he felt so much better about everything that he didn't at all want to push. He just sighed, moved to lie on his back, and closed his eyes. Even with the bed much bigger than it had been before, he refused to move over enough that his shoulder wasn't touching George's. It relaxed him to be this close to him — their mother had always said they'd been like that since they'd been children. She'd tried to put them in separate cribs, but they simply didn't allow it. As babies, they'd just scream until she laid them together; as toddlers, they'd just climb over the railing and into the other's crib instead.
They'd eventually slept in their own beds without too much fussing, but they'd always ended up sharing a bed any time they were upset — nevermind the fact that they shared the same room already as it was.
So long as George was next to him, the rest of it felt manageable.
"George," he said after a few moments of silence.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think that McGonagall and Flitwick have ever had an affair?"
"What?"
"McGonagall and Flitwick," he said again, grinning when George opened his eyes to stare at him. It was rare to take him completely by surprise, but he enjoyed it when he did. "They never make eye contact —"
"He's two feet tall," George said. "I don't think it has anything to do with an affair. Maybe she doesn't want a crick in her neck."
"Maybe," he agreed. There was another bout of silence, and he waited until George was nearly asleep before he said, "George?"
He could hear his twin's prayer for patience in the way he exhaled, and he grinned again.
"Yes, Fred?"
"Do you think Ron's ever snogged anyone?"
"That's a stupid question, you know he hasn't."
"He might have snogged Harry."
"If he did, it was in his dreams. Or your nightmares. Now shut the hell up and go to sleep."
He grinned and closed his eyes, feeling lighter than he had in weeks. He was nearly asleep before he got the urge to say something again.
"George?" he said, sleepily.
"Fred, if this is some ridiculous question, I'm going to smother you."
"I love you."
There was a long moment of silence between them. They didn't say it often — it tended to go without saying, but he still felt guilty for having lied to him, and he wanted to say it now before they went back to normal in the morning. In case it had been unclear.
"I love you too."
He didn't say anything after that, letting the relief that he'd forgiven him lull him into sleep instead. Everything made much more sense to him when he had George.
This here is why the thought of George being without Fred kills my insides.
