Archive of Our Own ^beta

The next few days pass with disturbing ease. The pine-needle floor of the forest surrounding the cottage turns frosty and hard, then white, as winter descends on us like a chalky blanket on the world. I learn the cabin is somewhere in the West Midlands, but not even the twins know exactly where. There’s a village nearby, and sometimes we see Muggles so close to the hut we can make out the distinct features of their faces, though they are enchanted to notice nothing at all in the clearing at the corner of their vision. 

One day, Fred takes me to the village to shop for groceries, and after, we sip hot chocolate by the frozen river. We’re not supposed to linger in town - too many witches and wizards have gone missing without a trace that way for simply being spotted by the wrong people - but we do, anyways. There’s a new sense of ease between us, brought on by the stale-mate proposal that we can, indeed, be friends. It’s as if we’re both trying extra hard to prove it, chatting away about all our fondest memories from Hogwarts. 

I tell him about summer-nights in Europe with Evelyn and Lizzie the summer before 6th year. About my mother teaching me embroidery, and when she took me to see Seven Sisters for my sixteenth birthday. 

He tells me about starting up Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes with his brother. About Fleur Delacour’s wedding to his older brother Bill.

Herwin tolerated another day of rest before we woke up to a short note of goodbye on his bedside, signed from Herwin and Patrick the Toad, who stomped the edge of the paper with his ink-dipped toad-foot. None of us worry much about Herwin, though George grumbles he had promised Shacklebolt to keep the man here another week.

The Auror strikes me as someone who cannot stay still. In many ways, he reminds me of my fourth-year DADA professor, Barty Crouch Junior, disguised as the Auror Mad-Eye Moody. When Fred tells me about the battle that took place that summer over Little Whinging to transport Harry Potter, and the death of Mad-Eye (the real one) as a result, my blood chills. While I’ve been wandering the moors alone, trying to steer clear of trouble, this boy has fought. Fred has known real battle. Real loss.

I wonder if me stumbling into the Orders has changed the trajectory of my place in this war. Perhaps I am done with running, and the time has come to take up my wand and fight. What does the future hold? Will I have to go to battle for the world I believe in, I wonder, thinking about the fates of Harry Potter and Neville Longbottoms parents in the first war. Will I get to grow old?

I am an unmoored thing, drifting aimlessly in the dark. The past is a field burning up behind me, and ahead is the blank unknown. 

Suddenly I wish I’d payed more attention in Professor Trelawney’s lessons…wish I could peak at what awaits me in a year from now. Five? Ten?

One day, after George and Fred have returned to the cabin after yet another meet-up with Lee Jordan, me and Fred bring hot toddies out to the terrace to watch the sun set. 

 “I can’t wait to get out of here,” Fred admits, sipping his hot toddy.

“You’re always leaving,” I retort, rather glumly. While the brothers visit Lee, I am stuck here. I haven’t left the house since the one time me and Fred went to the village and were late in returning, after which I could tell George shouted out his brother for putting us both at unnecessary risk. Since then, more to appease George than anything, I haven’t tried leaving. Besides, it’s not as if I have anywhere to go.

I played with the idea of asking to go with them to see Lee. According to Fred, his mother bakes the best peanut-butter cookies in the world. Yet I cannot bring myself to ask. The lack of invitation seems a clear enough message. And so I stay, wandering the house over and over, skimming through the volumes on the shelf with no real interest as I watch the hours tick by on the great grandfather clock in the hall. 

“Not the house,” Fred snickers. "I mean I can’t wait to get back to my life. To re-open the shop, and to invent a hundred other nutters inventions for it."

"You must've gotten plenty of time to come up with new ideas for when you can," I smile.

Fred gives a weak grin, staring at the tree-line. An expression of deep contemplation comes over him, and I sense he needs a moment to collect his next words. I give him that time, indulgently studying his face in profile. The thoughtful gleam in his eye, the strong arch of his nose and the clear-cut line of his jaw. And then I am burying my face in my mug to hide my burning face at the unrpovoked desire to trace that jaw-line with my fingers. And then my lips. 

At last, completely ignorant to my blushing panic, Fred speaks.

"I’ve always liked tinkering with things…trying to invent new uses for them. Mostly just to get a laugh out of people, but lately, with this war and everything…”

“What are you thinking?” I ask shyly. 

“I think I want to invent something more some day, too. Not just funny things, but something useful. Something that’ll make a real difference to the wizarding world in the long-run.” 

“That’s sounds really nice,” I beam at him, and mean it. I could see that for Fred, a future as a real benefactor to the wizarding world one invention at a time. I actually have no problem envisioning that at all, making it all the more shameful I have no vision of my own future. No idea anymore of what I would do with the rest of my life given the chance.

Afraid I'll start crying, I stutter on. “And what else do  you dream of?”

If Fred notices the tightness of my voice he does not remark upon. “I don’t know, really. A cottage somewhere, and eventually marriage and seven kids.”

“SEVEN kids?” I turn to him, my eyes like wide saucers.

“I don’t know. The sibling-life did well by me,” Fred shrugs. “Motivated me to stand out. Grow character. And Christmas is always a massive ordeal.”

I think about my own Christmases up until now. It was always just me and my mother, sitting by the fire, opening our gifts from one another. She’d make me embroidered dresses, picture-books and boxes of homemade toffee. I’d give her scrapbooks full of my doodles from Hogwarts, novels Evelyn recommended that I thought she might like, and a box of all the wizarding candies my mother loved but couldn’t get herself, as she was too scared to go into Diagon Alley alone while I was at school. 

The memory of her joyous face whenever I dug out the candy-box from where I’d hidden it brings a sad smile to my face. I wonder where my mother is now. If she’s enjoying the days up until Christmas with our extended family in Yorkshire. 

Fred contemplates my confession for an agonizingly long time. 

I feel like crawling out of my skin. I worry I have said too much. I worry that it is my curse to always say too much - to trust too much - when this particular boy is concerned. That one day I'll leave all my secret thoughts out there exposed to him, and he'll look at the shameful contents of my mind, my heart, my soul...and he'll choose walk away. 

But at last, he speaks.

"Everyone thought they were crazy when Bill and Fleur said they wanted to push forward the wedding, I thought so too, but I think I get it now.” Fred’s hand finds mine, hesitantly. “Doing life is important, even now. We have to fight, but refusing to up-end our reality is also a form of resistance. You’ve got to keep living your life, Iris. Keep looking ahead. Keep dreaming. If not, they’ve won already.” 

For a while, I contemplate his words. If Fred notices I’m close to tears, he is gallant enough not to comment on it. He only lets his thumb brush slowly up and down the inside of my wrist. The effort is probably meant to be soothing, but instead it causes my skin to buzz all over. Slowly, oh so slowly, almost as if I don’t want to make myself aware of it, I look down at our joined hands. The accompanying shift in my breathing is enough to make Fred aware of it too. His eyes fill with a wariness as he, too, looks down at our hands. 

For a single, achingly long moment, our heavy breaths mingle. 

But that moment is all I allow. All I am willing to allow. 

As if stung, I withdraw my hand sharply from his. Too close, I think as I get to my feet. Way too fucking close, Iris. 

I turn towards the house, ready to flee from him.

"Iris, I-" Fred begins behind me, when a loud noise snaps our heads towards the house like string-work. 

There's a sound like furniture being turned over, and a ruckus of screams that sends ice through my veins. Those are screams of pain. Screams of horror. 

Fred is immediately on his feet.

"Stay here," he barks, moving past me and into the house. 

I scoff, raising my wand as I trail after him back into the house.