As Sirius raised Clione's wand, Clione lunged to the door and turned catching the spell he'd shot in the tips of her fingers and sending it into the ceiling. Lupin had been teaching her year how to shield from and deflect spells, she'd never done it without a wand before.

Fred threw the door open and shoved Clione behind him, standing in front of her with a pale face and shaky hands aiming his wand at her father. "Stay away from her," Fred told him. Though his voice had been small and sounded young he stood unmoving in front of her.

"Funny, I was going to say the same thing," Sirius replied. His eyes flashed dangerously, a look Fred had gotten used to seeing in Clione's own eyes as she thought of something particularly wicked.

She shouldered her way around him and stood pressed against Fred's chest holding a hand out to Sirius. "Fred already knows, put it down."

"Then why was he sneaking after you?" Sirius demanded not giving an inch.

Fred got an arm around her middle prepared to throw her back if he moved. "Because I'm not leaving her alone with a bloody murderer," Fred shot back, finding that holding her helped his shaking.

"Stop it," Clione yelled between them, trying to get Fred off her. Something Sirius saw and his mouth opened as his wrist turned. "Enough!"

Her voice cut through that worn down shack like thunder and the ground under their feet trembled. A bottle fell from the corner of a table and shattered, the logs in the fireplace shifted and smothered the fire, and they stood in dark silence with only the sounds of their breathing between them.

"Lumos," Fred whispered causing a sharp pale light to shine out of his wand illuminating the tired room and the dust hanging in the air. "Were you trying to cast the earth rupture spell?"

She stood with her hands clutching the arm he had around her. "No," she admitted softly. She'd been proud of how quickly she'd taken to nonverbal spells, having received the highest marks Hogwarts had seen in a century. But she wasn't proud now. "What are you doing here?"

"Harry saw you sneaking out of the castle," Fred told her, still eyeing Sirius though the man had already lowered her wand. "Wicked map, by the way."

Sirius' mouth twitched as he looked at them, really looked at them. The boy had been absolutely terrified but he'd barged in here ready to fight for her, and now she was burying her own fear in the hold he had on her. "Thanks," he told Fred, deciding again he might be alright. "Apologies, for trying to maim you."

Clione whipped around to face him. "What spell did you cast?" she demanded the same time Fred turned to her and asked, "how'd you deflect it without your wand?"

She turned to Fred with wide eyes. "That's your take away?" Before he had a chance to respond she threw her hands up in surrender. "You know what, I'm done. I've had enough for one night." She charged towards Sirius and snatched her wand back. "There's three more plates in my bag. And for the love of everything, take a bath in the lake. You smell terrible."

With that she left them both standing stunned in her wake. Having almost hexed her father, and his eventual father in law, Fred gave an awkward grin. "Nice to formally meet you," he told the skeletally thin man. "I didn't mean what I called you."

Before he could come up with anything else they heard Clione's small far off voice calling sharply, "Fredrick."

He left with a quick wave before darting after her, following the glow of her wand back into the tunnel and out into the fresh air. The Whomping Willow would've taken his head had she not cast a shield above him as she stalked back towards the castle. "You okay?" he dared to ask.

"I don't know," she admitted as she finally stopped walking. She stood under the moonlight feeling the cold wind sneaking into the nightshirt she wore making her shiver. "I just wanted to see him again."

Fred nodded understanding that but he didn't know what to say, if there even was anything to say. "So Peter Pettigrew showing up on the map isn't a fluke," he tried because it seemed easier.

"No, and he's the one who got Harry's parents killed." She stood running the nail of her thumb along the grooves of the symbols carved into her wand. Sirius had been about to tell her how Peter was getting around the castle, she might've been able to help Sirius clear his name, they could've made a home for her to go back to where they would get to know each other, Harry could come with them too, they could be a family; until Fred turned up. She looked at him standing with his hands in his pockets waiting for her to be okay, having charged into a fight he knew he'd lose to get to her. "Thanks for always coming after me."

He shrugged giving a simple yet sure, "always." When he was sure she was okay he held his bent elbow out to her and grinned at her looping her arm through his as they walked back to the castle.

..

Not long after, a week to be exact, there was another sighting of Sirius Black in the castle. Ron was enjoying the attention as everyone wanted to hear about how he'd fought off an armed murderer. "You need to talk to Clione," George told Fred after breakfast the next morning. Which Clione had suspiciously missed. "He might be her dad and all but we don't know for sure he's okay. She needs to give him up, maybe the castle can be searched and they find Pettigrew."

Fred was looking over his shoulder making sure no one, especially not Clio, was near them. "She still doesn't know I told you," Fred said trying to get George to keep his voice down.

"I don't care if she gets mad at you, Ron's sheets were cut to ribbons. You said he tried to hurt you."

The castle had already been searched, twice, and Pettigrew didn't turn up. "He was protecting her," Fred tried to say but it was clear George neither bought it nor cared. "They'll kill him. The second they get their hands on him they'll give him to the dementors." That had George relenting, because they couldn't ask her to be responsible for the death of her only parent. "I'll talk to her. But you bloody well know she'd never let anything happen to Ron. I'm gonna tell her you thought so."

"Wait, Freddie, don't tell her it was me."

But Fred was already walking away and he left George with a wave. It took a while, especially since Harry lost the map to Professor Lupin, but he finally found her in the empty music classroom after he ran into Gail. The far wall had been turned into a mirror and the string instruments had been charmed to play what he recognized as a waltz. She was practicing her turns. Her pink calf-length skirt spun with her around and around, draping over the shape of her left leg as it came up to build her momentum before she spun again.

A smile spread over her face when she spotted him leaning against the piano, and he felt it warm in his chest when he realized she'd fixed her sights on him to hold her position. He'd lose her eyes for less than a second before her head would turn and she'd find him again. He inched closer and gathered his arms around her waist feeling her slow as his hands got ahold of her, until she stood with her chest flush against him as her arms came to rest around his shoulders.

"Hi gorgeous," he said in a low rumble with his head bowed to hers.

Her own head was tipped back to look up at his shining eyes, almost shivering at the way his hands ran down her sides to rest low on her waist. Whether it was his touch burning through her shirt, or her quickened breaths, or that he looked so proud watching her dance, or that she just really liked him – she rose to the very tips of hers toes kissing him full on his stunned mouth. She made to pull away but he pulled her back kissing her again, and again, and again, until she was giggling with a hand on either side of his face as they pulled back to catch their breath.

"Thought you were gonna have me waiting forever, Ayad," he mumbled against her cheek. He felt her smile as she turned into him and he'd just felt her soft full lips graze his when a scoff greeted them from the doorway.

They turned to where George stood with his arms crossed. "I said talk to her not eat her face," he grumbled more uncomfortable than anything.

"Something you needed?" Fred asked having yet to unwind his arms from around Clione.

George shrugged scuffing his shoe against the smooth wood floor. "If she had to hear I was calling her out then I wanted it to be from me." Because she was a Weasley now, it mattered to him that she didn't think he talked behind her back.

"Calling me out?"

With a sigh Fred sadly let her go. "I take it you heard what happened," he said rather than asked. Ickle Ronnikins was blabbering to everyone.

Clione looked between their unhappy faces before answering. "I already talked to my house, we've agreed to let you guys win fair and square," she assured them seriously.

"What?" they asked at nearly the same time.

"Yeah," she said slowly not understanding their confusion. "I thought Marcus was gonna say no until Cass backed me – no more trying to trip Harry down the stairs."

George blinked down at her while Fred grew a bit pink. "Sirius got in the castle again last night," George told her quietly, gently, trying to avoid hysterics.

"Oh," was her startled reply. "That's why Snape checked on me so late."

Fred smacked George's arm, ruining their moment for no reason. But George was watching Clione as she put the room back how she'd found it. "That's it, just oh? He came at Ron with a knife!"

"He what?" she demanded whirling around with such fervor it had George stepping behind Fred. "A knife? Ron, my Ron?" Her face seemed to freeze as a sudden thought crashed through her mind. "Why," she tried but changed her mind. "The map." Her eyes fell to the floor as her head began to spin.

The boys watched her struggle through her thoughts. "Way to go, first day and you broke my girlfriend," Fred hissed at George and shoved him out from behind him.

Clione suddenly looked up at Fred, her eyes clear and bright. "Wormtail," she told him breathless with excitement. Like it was a great epiphany.

"Clio, babe," he said getting his hands around her shoulders, but he quickly added, "can I call you babe?"

She looked up at him with her hands on her hips. "You can call me yours," she answered with a laugh. He was too busy grinning to notice how quickly she sobered until she smacked his chest. "This isn't the time for that. It's Wormtail."

"Saying it again is not gonna make me get it."

With an irritable huff she spelled it out for them. "Sirius is Padfoot, black dog. Lupin is Moony, cause he's a werewolf. Ja-"

"Lupin's a what?" George exclaimed.

"Boys, I swear." She had to take a breath to calm herself down. "I can't add everything up for you."

"Well can you add one thing up?"

She opened her mouth to respond to George but instead waved him away as she looked up at Fred. Her Fred, who'd taken every step of this with her. "James Potter was Prongs," he finished for her. "And Peter Pettigrew was Wormtail. Why is that important?"

"Fred," she said taking his hands in hers, "husband, father of my children: where were you primarily seeing Pettigrew's name on the map?"

His mouth formed the answer, with Ron, when she saw the light turn on in his eyes as he finally got it. "Bloody hell, he's Scabbers." He raised a hand and she high fived him so hard it echoed and left their palms stinging.

"Who was eaten by Hermione's cat this morning."

"Goddammit George!" she yelled at him. He raised his hands in surrender as if to ask what he'd done. "Now how are we supposed to prove Sirius is innocent?"

With a hand under her chin Fred directed her heated stare back to him, who knew how to take it. "Well, what were you gonna do when you found Scabbers?"

"Stomp on him," she answered slamming her fist into the palm of her other hand.

George threw his hands up and had to walk away from them. But Fred nodded accepting that. "So if by some miracle he's alive, you're not allowed near him then," he said trying his hardest not to let her see he was grinning.

She did see it but she let go of a breath and allowed herself to be calm. "I'd get a confession out of him first of course," she said seeing his shoulders shake from trying not to laugh. "Then I'd stomp on him."

From over by the doorway George muttered to himself, "homicidal ballerina."

Fred was still grinning down at her. "You're cute when you're murderous," he told her watching her eyes melt as she smiled. She raised her chin and he bent down to kiss her, it absolutely blew his mind that he got to have her. He held her bag in one hand and had the other slung across her shoulders as they made their way into the hall. She still needed to get ready for class.

"Husband, father of my children?" George repeated though his voice rose at the end. When Fred had told him weeks ago that he was gonna marry her, George thought it was a wish. A plan. Not something foretold.

Clione turned to him planning to tell him yes, but her brows drew together and she frowned. "You thought I helped Sirius break in so he could hurt Ron?"

George's eyes widened as he stepped a little further away from her to be safe. "I asked mine first," he tried to tell her.

"No," she shot him down immediately.

He looked to Fred but his brother was no help as he laughed. "I like the way you wrapped your scarf." It was framing her face the same as always but she'd tied the ends around her neck to keep it secure, and she still wasn't buying it.

"You're not charming your way out of this George," she told him firmly.

For a moment George stood with his hands on his hips next to where she waited with a cross face and Fred laughing as he held her against him. "You know what, I completely forgot I was meeting Lee before class," he lied through his teeth taking several steps away from her. "Glad you guys are finally together. Can't wait for you to be my sister."

Clione watched him tuck tail and scurry away. She turned to look up at Fred and when their eyes met they broke into a fit of laughter.

..

With exams around the corner, Clione spent much of her time in the library with Gail and Noemi; who did a bad job at hiding the glances they often stole of the other. Clione for her part pretended not to notice allowing them the time to figure things out. More often than sometimes the twins were close by. They had a great time working on their inventions instead of studying, most of which involved cheating and most of the students wanted in on it.

Noemi tsked and huffed and rolled her eyes at them, Clione usually stopped what she was doing to tell them where to find a certain spell or potion for what they were trying to do, and Gail simply enjoyed those quiet days with her friends as the weather slowly began to warm.

There was a soft shuffling around one of the last bookends by the farthest corner, and the five of them all turned to find an out of breath Professor Lupin. "Ah, Miss Ayad," he said at her questioning stare.

"Hi," she greeted, her voice bright but her expression curious. And curiosity had a habit of looking like a demand on her face.

"I see you're busy, didn't mean to interrupt," he told her quickly and stepped back. "Fred, George."

Her eyes narrowed as he disappeared just as quickly as he'd come. Her gaze moved from where the girls sat at the table across form them having already gone back to their herbology notes, to where Fred sat next to her on the couch. "Well he wanted something," Fred mused quietly. She'd thrown her legs over his lap as soon as he'd sat down, and he now sat running a hand along the seam of her soft leggings.

"Must not have been important," she said with a shrug and turned back to her alchemy notes as she settled back against him.

Fred turned back to George who was making kissy faces at him for how touchy they'd become. Without thinking Fred grabbed her quill and threw it at where George sat in the armchair next to them.

Her eyes rose over her heavily marked parchment and she blinked at him waiting. "He was being a tosser," he tried to tell her.

"So throw your quill at him."

"But I was using it," he told her like it was obvious.

"So was I."

He was quiet a moment as he pretended to think about that, getting his hand around the back of her knee. "That sounds like a you problem," he told her innocently. He kept his hold on her when she tried to sit up, and when she tried to squirm away he pulled on her leg so she was laid over his lap.

"Seriously, guys, knock it off," Noemi yelled in a hushed whispered. "If you wanna flirt go somewhere else."

"Did you see what he,"

Noemi held up a hand stopping her. "You picked him, you deal with it."

While she turned back to her notes Gail sat with her chin in hand watching them with a smile. "I don't mind," she told Clione. Noemi scoffed and Gail knocked her shoulder against Noemi's. "She thinks you guys are good together."

"I told you not to tell her that," Noemi grumbled roughly turning her page over.

But Gail was still grinning. "But you love her," she reminded Noemi. And then quickly turned to Clione to tell her, "she told me that too." They shared a soft smile before Gail turned back to Noemi's small neat handwriting, catching a small line drawing she'd done in a corner of Gail's profile.

Clione was in the process of pulling herself up when Fred was suddenly dragged out from underneath her and flung into the other side of the couch. At the sight of Snape's thick black robes she quickly sat up and folded her legs underneath her. His cold unyielding eyes moved between the two. "Hands to yourself, Weasley," was his severe warning, holding the daring boy's eye a moment longer before he left in a rush.

As soon as he was gone the pair turned into each other and sat nose to nose with conspiring gleaming in their eyes. "Did he only come to see me too?" she whispered.

"What do you think's going on?" he whispered back.

"No idea."

It was definitely strange both Lupin and Snape had come here just to see Clione for a second, both seemed to be in a rush, and they'd come barely ten minutes apart. Her thoughts were stopped when Fred asked in a hushed breath, "can I kiss you?"

She took a moment to ponder that before answering, "I think I need my quill for that."

"What the lady wants," Fred said and climbed to his feet leaving her laughing quietly to herself. He just about had to sit on George to get it back, but he collapsed back onto the couch next to her with a victorious grin as he held it out to her.

She hummed shaking her head mostly at how much she liked him. Leaning forward she pressed a quick kiss to his grinning mouth. Instead of pulling away she turned slightly and laid her head on his shoulder as she resumed studying. With a contented sigh he stretched an arm over her lap and sat with his hand curled around the middle of her thigh and his cheek resting over the top of her head.

The next hour passed uneventful and quiet. Fred ended up with his head in Clione's lap while he read and she studied. His eyes grew heavy at the slow way she ran her fingers through his hair, something he was pretty sure she didn't realize she was doing. They walked hand in hand to the Great Hall where she stopped suddenly as she looked at the Gryffindor table.

"Ron's always early for food," she said as a crease etched between her brows.

George stood on the other side of her having run into her back. "Hagrid's not here either, pretty sure they executed Buckbeak today."

"Oh, yeah that was today," she said, her voice sounding far away and her expression unchanging. "Poor Hagrid," she added as her eyes scanned the professor's table.

She raised a hand to Fred's chest as if assuring herself he was still there before she walked to the Slytherin table. Cassius moved over for her to slide in next to him, and her spinning mind came to a halt at the bruise framing Draco's eyes.

"What happened to your handsome face?" she asked getting a hand under his chin.

He was quick to tell her he was fine, that it was nothing. She'd looked sad to hear Buckbeak would be killed, and severely disappointed at finding he was the reason. Now he'd upset Granger and her precious Potter. He didn't think she could take more from him this year.

It was a slow sinking in the pit of her stomach. All through dinner her eyes strayed to Lupin and Snape's empty chairs, then to Ron, Harry, and Hermione's missing heads at the Gryffindor table. And it sank further filling her stomach so full with dread she had a hard time eating. Something was happening, she could feel it.

A shower before bed always calmed her, loosened her high strung shoulders and let her breathe. It's why she liked the dungeons, basked in an unearthly green glow from the lake outside their windows. Water was soothing. But she sat on the edge of her bed blowing her hair dry with air she casted out of her wand, and she felt sick. Taking a deep breath through her nose she let it out of her mouth in a big rush trying to unwind. She'd never get to sleep like this.

She set her wand on her nightstand and her eyes moved to the far wall her bunkmate's bed was pressed against, above it was the moon chart she'd been keeping the last six years. The stone hit the bottom of her stomach and filled her with a cold that had her hands shaking. Tonight was a full moon.

The common room wasn't even half full at that hour, not this close to exams. She burst out of the girls hall an unstoppable force and raced up the cold stone staircase. Heads turned at the sudden commotion and at seeing it was Clione they turned back to what they were doing, far too used to her sneaking out to question it. Save one, who charged up the stairs after her.

Strong hands reached out and grabbed her, one around her arm and the other around her waist forcing her to stop and turn before she made it to the door. "Let go," she said trying to shove them off. She stopped when she saw it was Cassius. "I have to find Fred."

He wasn't listening to her as he shrugged out of his robes and draped them over her head. "Clione, your hair," he told her trying not to look at her.

Her eyes widened as she pulled his robes further around her face to hide from him. She quickly raced back to her room and tucked her hair under a black undercap and came back to find him a little pink in the face as he waited at the bottom of the steps. "Thanks Cass," she told him giving him his robes back. She reaching a hand to his arm squeezing it before leaving, and he'd feel the place she touched him burning long after he'd gone to bed.

They were lying across their beds tossing a sparkler between them as they talked about apparition lessons next year, 12 galleons a piece. They were trying to come up with a name for the things they'd made so they could sell them. There was a loud rustle and a heavy thump as a body ran into their doorway.

Fred was on his feet to the second. "Clio, you can't" he started before stopping himself and trying again, "what do you need?"

Her eyes were wide and her chest heaving from how fast she'd come. "I need in Lupin's office," she told him.

He turned and caught the trainers George tossed him before they ran down the stairs and out of the common room. Percy was swaying by the fireplace looking terribly confused, but he caught sight of his troublesome brother and even more troublesome surrogate sister and his sense returned to him in a wave of fury. "I'm docking Slytherin a hundred points," he yelled after them. "Fifty for using the cunfundus charm on the Head Boy, and fifty more for sneaking into our common room!" But the pair were long gone down the empty halls.