Chapter 28
George
Fred and George led the way into the drawing room, armed with enchanted butterfly nets and spray bottles of Doxicide, ready to take on the infestation. Ron, their perpetually moody brother, grumbled behind them, while Ginny trailed close behind, as sulky as Ron at the prospect of another beautiful summer day lost to cleaning. Harry brought up the rear, trying to maintain a positive attitude amidst the impending doxy-eradication operation. Hermione was of course absent; she was spending the day organizing books in the library with Kreature. She still resolutely refused any task given to her by his mother, something George found secretly hilarious. George wondered how long she would make it before she had to crack one open and “check something real quick”. He would bet less than a half hour, at the rate his girlfriend consumed knowledge like a sponge. His girlfriend. He thought, grinning madly. Well, their girlfriend but that was semantics. He got a thrill each time the thought hit him, she was really with them, after so long of watching her and yearning from the sidelines. George was a bit concerned about the fallout he felt was still coming from his brother; Ron had been quietly hostile since Hermione had told Harry and him the news. Fred said Ron would get over it, get back to normal on his own, but George thought it was a slow burn to a powder keg, but exactly what would set off the explosion was still unclear. They hadn’t bothered telling any of the parents, the three of them in agreement that the parental figures of the house knowing for a fact they were dating would increase the scrutiny of their actions, and who needed that?
The air thrummed with the frantic buzz of hundreds of tiny, winged creatures, their iridescent bodies glittering in the gloom. They had been giving this task at breakfast, and while George was sure it was going to be disgusting, and they would most likely be treating doxy bites this evening, he was excited to catch a few. He and Fred had been discussing the potential benefits of Doxy venom and they were anxious to experiment.
Each of them had a kerchief tied around their face like the cowboys in muggle movies, which the twins found hilarious. They made cowboy jokes and brandished their spray bottles with yells of “Stickem’ up!” at the doxies which had their co-cleaners laughing until their sides ached. George was a firm believer that any job could be fun if it was a game, and suggested a contest of how many doxies each could down.
“What’ll we win?” Ron asked, sounding intrigued and grumpy at the same time.
“Bragging rights!” The twins said together.
“Who cares then?” Ron turned his back and started spraying the curtains hostiley. Harry and Ginny shifted awkwardly and shared a glace, sensing the hostility in the room.
“Well, I bet I can bag the most Doxies.” Ginny said with a toss of her hair. She winked at Harry as she strode over to the curtains and began dousing them, and he blushed and ducked his head.
“Compete with her.” Fred muttered, nudging Harry in the shoulder.
“Make her laugh.” George whispered, propelling him the the shoulder blade. George smiled as he watched Harry awkwardly shuffle over, rubbing his neck. He thought it was cute that they both obviously had a crush on the other, but danced around it. He liked Harry, sometimes better than he liked Ron, actually, and it seemed natural for Harry and his younger sister to be together. The thought crossed his mind that Harry might think about Ginny the way he thought about Hermione and he scowled.
“Don’t think about it.” Fred whispered from behind him. “Harry’s too shy anyway. It’s her you have to worry about.”
George scowled harder and refocused his Doxy-stunning efforts.
The battle was short, brutal, and hilariously messy. A swarm of the beasts flew out of the drapery, starting a frenzied battle of spray bottle verses doxy, the air filled with the noxious poison and the shrill screams of the creatures. Harry and Ginny roared with laughter, fighting each other playfully to get to the Doxies first, while Ron stubbornly remained off to the side, spraying each Doxie he encountered as if they had personally offended him.
Amidst the chaos, Fred and George, managed to "liberate" a handful of the Doxies – a particularly beautiful iridescent blue variety – for "experiments", Fred casting a conspiratorial wink to Harry when the boy caught him pocketing one of the stunned beasts. Ginny was the clear winner in the end, and the boys clapped and cheered at her dramatic bows. Fred transfigured a picture frame into a silver spray bottle with the words “Doxie exterminator extraordinaire”, which she then lorded over Ron, who grumbled he wasn’t involved in her stupid competition anyway. This earned him a surprising shove from Harry, who jumped in to defend Ginny.
Before it could escalate further, their mother dissolved the tension by appearing with a tray of sandwiches and pumpkin juice. They settled in to eat around a desk in the far corner, Ron’s mood improving significantly with food.
Although George was hungry after a morning of jumping around the room chasing the chaotic Doxies, the lingering scent of the doxicyide, dust and mildew put him off eating. Instead he found himself wandering the room, eyeing the shelves of dusty relics, books and oddities his mother had told them was all going to the trash next. Unsurprisingly, Fred followed him without comment, his eyes dancing around the room. Weak rays of sunlight filtered through the grimy windows, illuminating the crammed shelves and curio cabinets. A shrunken head with surprisingly vibrant eyes leered from a dusty shelf, next to a collection of dried, thorny plants that seemed to wriggle faintly. There were dozens of books, sandwiched between photos in ornate silver frames, plaques and skulls, both human and animal.
"Right, Georgie," Fred whispered, his voice a conspiratorial murmur, "Mum reckons this lot's rubbish. Rubbish! I reckon there's a goldmine in here, and if it’s going to the trash anyway..." He picked up a tarnished silver broach, its surface etched with coiled snakes. "What d'you reckon, 20 galleons?"
George carefully examined a stack of leather-bound books, their spines cracked and pages brittle. "Don't be hasty, Freddie," he cautioned, running a finger along a spine that seemed to hum faintly. "Some of these things look fairly dangerous. And look at this," he pointed to a dried, brittle mandrake root that seemed to pulse with a faint inner light, "That's not just any mandrake. That's a particularly rare variety, possibly worth a fortune to the right herbalist. The question isn’t just *what* they’re worth, but *who* we can sell them to without getting ourselves hexed…or caught." He paused, frowning at a small, intricately carved wooden box that seemed to subtly shift in the dim light.
"I wonder why Mum’s in such a rush to get rid of this stuff. It's definitely not all trash." A low moan drifted from the box as his brother’s hand reached out, making even George's usually confident demeanor falter slightly, and Fred pull back quickly.
"Can you believe Sirius grew up here?" George muttered, picking up a tarnished silver skull that felt strangely warm to the touch. Fred, meanwhile, was already assessing a collection of oddly shaped crystals.
“Right house of horrors. No surprise he wants to bin the lot.”
“Well he isn’t trying to start a business on a knut.” George grumbled. He didn’t resent Sirius; it was just the waste of it all; the ability to throw things away without wondering if they could be valuable or useful because you knew things could just be replaced easily. Security was what he envied about wealth. He wanted to make enough money to never have to worry about it again. To have children and know that they would have enough clothes and schoolbooks and toys to go around, without having to buy everything tattered and secondhand. When his child was old enough, He’d take them to Ollivander’s and a wand would choose them, something he and Fred had never had.
They moved deeper into the room, George cataloging potential profit margins in his head. Suddenly, a glint of gold caught George’s eye. Tucked away in a glass case, barely visible beneath a layer of dust, lay a locket. It wasn't just any locket; its intricate design, delicate filigree work, and the snake-like ‘S’ embedded within were strikingly familiar. It was almost an exact replica of the sketch Hermione had shown them, the one she'd said Sirius’s brother had drawn. The boy had been an exceptional artist, his desk filled with realistic drawings of himself, his family, other people who must have been his friends or teachers. The sketch of the locket was the only object study; he had obviously drawn it for a reason. Could it be just a piece from this house that caught his eye, and if that was the case, why just that locket, and nothing else from the house or the cabinets full of curious objects? Or was there something more to this, a mystery to unravel? At any rate he knew without a doubt Hermione would want to see it, compare it to the sketch. His girl couldn’t resist a mystery, wouldn’t skip a chance to research something new.
"Look, isn’t that the locket from that sketch?" Fred asked, following George’s gaze. George peered closer, his eyes widening. The locket pulsed with a faint, golden light, a silent hum vibrating from within.There was something about the locket that made George want to touch it, lift it, wear it; his hand was halfway to it before he realized what he was doing.The brothers exchanged a look, a mixture of wonder and apprehension reflected in their eyes. A little danger wouldn’t stop them, but caution was defiantly necessary.
“It feels…wrong.” George said, pulling out a handkerchief and gingerly lifting the locket with the fabric for a closer look.
“She’ll defiantly-”
“Obviously.” George rolled his eyes and carefully wrapped the handkerchief around the locket. Once it was packaged the energy pulsing off it seemed to fade, the call of the locket going quiet. He performed a quick transfiguration of a splinter of wood into a small box, dropped the locket parcel inside and tucked the box into his pocket. He was done in seconds, Harry and his siblings none the wiser across the room.
“Well.” Fred rubbed his hands together. “What else can we nic while the kids are preoccupied?”
They grinned at each other conspiratorially, and got to work.
Fred
Fred was tired, sweaty and in dire need of a shower. An entire day devoted to eliminating magical vermin and scrubbing the drawing room had left him worn out and filthy, his perpetual good mood threatened by exhaustion. George had disappeared earlier, his pockets laden with treasures pilfered from the purge his mother was orchestrating. He had stayed behind to help with the scrub of the room and binning of the rest, sneaking away more items here and there. Some things he figured they would sell, some they would use and some would just be fun to study.
He knew why Sirius didn’t care about these things, He saw everything in this house as a representation of the family who had abused and discarded him. He also didn’t have to worry about money, unlike their family. So while he could understand Sirius’s attitude, he couldn’t understand his mother’s. Who cares if the goblin-wrought silver was shaped like a serpent, why not sell it, and use the funds to support the Order (surely the funds weren't bottomless for food, invisibility cloaks, potion supplies, or other helpful things) , or better yet, bribe people in power to help them? Though I suspect most of those lot wouldn’t sully their hands with bribery. He thought wryly.
That was the problem with how they were going about it, in Fred’s opinion. Always choosing the moral high-ground over victory. The problem was, when the other side had no morals and no limits, they would always fight dirty to win. Like favoring stunning spells over something more direct and dangerous. He thought the attack at Hermione’s home was a prime example, they had captured several Death Eaters, only to lose them to a corrupt Ministry hours later; when they had a perfectly functional dungeon at their disposal.
He kept these sorts of opinions to himself and George, which as far as secrets went he considered to be the same thing. He felt that if his family and friends knew just how far he was willing to go they (Most of them, anyway) would cast him out. He often thought if it had been him rather than Harry in the cemetery that day, he might have died, but it would have been with the killing curse on his lips trying like hell to take out as many death eaters as possible. What good were spells like expelliarmus against people who were not just willing but trying to kill you? It working for Harry was because he was the Chosen One, not because it would somehow work for all of them simply because they were righteous.
George, (and he quite thought Hermione) felt the same. He couldn’t wait to join the Order and have his ideas listened to, to have people in the room ready to do whatever it took to rid the world of Voldemort once and for all. Can’t very well open a joke shop, marry Hermione, cook dinner for her after her long days of whatever world-changing thing she was focused on, and have a few curly haired babies with death eaters hunting them down every time they went to the shops. He thought dreamily.
She fit so seamlessly into their dynamic, and he still marveled at it. He had often thought in the past that there was no chance of ever meeting someone whose company he enjoyed as much as George’s, even going so far as to think he would never marry because how could a wife…work. He’d neglect her, or she would resent the connection between him and his twin. Feel left out, get jealous. Hermione, though…when they were together it felt right, a circle closed. She followed their disjointed way of speaking, to the point of joining in occasionally. She listened, paid attention, and treated them individually. When they fooled around (as often as possible, and never often enough in his opinion) She moved between them effortlessly, giving equal attention without pause.
He loved catching her off-guard, picking her up from behind or grabbing her hand and pulling her into an on the stairs for a quick snog, or behind a shelf in the library and kissing her senseless, or sneaking into her room for a goodnight kiss. He loved the furious pout she would give him when he left her wanting more. Even if it meant that he was going to bed every night desperate for relief from the raging hard-on he’d been fighting all day. He feared he’d push her without meaning to, so always felt it best to leave well before he wanted to…not that he ever actually wanted to leave. Inventing and spending time with George were the only things he enjoyed as much as simply being with her.
He startled out of his thoughts as he realized he had gone to Hermione’s door rather than the third floor bathroom he’d intended. He groaned and rolled his neck back as he turned to continue up the stairs. He needed that shower before he bothered his witch again. His witch. His girlfriend. The thought had him grinning foolishly. He couldn’t wait to get back to Hogwarts and show off a bit. Carry her bag to class, snog her in a broom cupboard, see her wearing his jersey, cheering for him from the Quidditch stands. He supposed she’d wear George’s as well; but it would still say Weasley in Gryffindor Red. He smiled as he remembered the rooftop fantasy he had a week or so ago. Suddenly he didn’t feel so tired, and whistled as he made his way to his room, a plan forming in his mind.