Chapter 17
It took another day for the Rebecca Fred loved so dearly to be more apparent, and that was only slightly. Three days later, Fred was still waiting for her to return entirely. He couldn't consider leaving her side until she was entirely recovered, and seeing more of her return to herself gave him the only bit of relief since she had first opened her eyes.
"Where did you go again?"
Fred shot back into the present after having wandered in his thoughts. "Sorry, love. I'm right here."
"Fred..." Rebecca sat up straighter in her bed, turning so that she faced him better. "I am feeling better. I think Madam Pomfrey is only keeping me in her pristine prison because she's careful."
"I heard that!"
"That I complimented your infirmary?" Rebecca called back. She giggled. "See? Everything is as it was."
"But-" Fred bit his cheek. He wasn't sure how to explain to her that he was stuck in the moments when everything wasn't as it should have been. When his Rebecca, the focus of his happiness and thoughts, his love, had been broken somewhere as dangerous as her skull.
"Madam," Rebecca began as the healer came over to them in case any extraneous pain, though there was none. "How much longer are you thinking?"
"Are you so eager to get back to class?" Madam Pomfrey shone her wand's light into Rebecca's eyes and found a usual response. "What about pain? Discomfort?"
"Nothing." Fred frowned and Rebecca was speaking again before she realised. "A little, I guess. Nothing more than usual and nothing like it had been."
"I would like none at all." Madam Pomfrey pursed her lips before raising a hand to the side of Rebecca's head.
Rebecca jerked her head away when Madam Pomfrey's fingers brushed against the center of the bump that remained from where the bludger had struck her. Despite all of the magic that had gone into repairing what had been broken, evidence of the accident stayed.
"Are you dizzy? Nauseous?"
Rebecca didn't answer at first. She wanted to go, to get out from underneath Fred's anxieties that loomed like a storm that refused to let loose, to go and prove to him that she was okay. But, she also didn't want to lie when he would be able to call her out on it. "When I was able to walk around earlier, it left me dizzy for a little. Nothing mental though."
Madam Pomfrey thought a moment. "One more day, out of an abundance of caution. I see no reason why you shouldn't be free to return to your schedule for Friday, however."
Fred took Rebecca's hand after Madam Pomfrey returned to her work. "One more day. You'll still rest if-"
"I'll take all weekend to catch up and rest." Rebecca assured. "Don't look so worried, darling."
"I was. I am." Fred was moving up onto Rebecca's bed at the exact moment she began to scoot to the side. They both knew that they needed to be closer to the other with the break of Fred's voice.
"I know." Rebecca held Fred's head against the junction of her shoulder to her neck and combed her fingers through his hair. "Please, you really think a bludger is going to be what gets me?"
"Nothing is going to get you!" Fred gasped, sitting straight up. "Merlin! Why would you say anything like that?"
Rebecca managed a half smile. "If you don't calm down, you're going to end up having to leave."
Fred bit back an answer just as frantic as his last. "You're right."
"I usually am." Rebecca leaned down to catch his eyes. "Look, the only way I can play the next match is if I do everything she says, right?" Fred nodded. "And I can't not play in the final, now can I?" Fred nodded again. "Then we're going to sit here until the end of tomorrow and I will continue to recuperate like the model patient I am."
Fred felt a weight lift off of him. If Rebecca was well enough to reassure him as she was, to soothe his every insecurity and make him strong, then she really would be as fine as everyone had been telling him. "I love you."
"I love you, too." Rebecca let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. "It's a good thing I talked you down. If Madam Pomfrey had seen the look on your face, she would've kicked you out." She grinned as Fred looked at her quizzically. "She wouldn't want any beds thrown, you see."
"I think the bludger must have knocked out your sense of humour." Fred leaned forward and kissed her. "Because that wasn't funny."
Rebecca held her hand up and pinched her fingers together so that there was a minute distance between her thumb and index finger. "A little funny?"
Fred reached forward and pinched her fingers together. "Not at all."
"Yeah, yeah." Rebecca settled back against her pillows and snuggled into Fred's side. "Tell me about the shop again."
Fred chuckled and wrapped his arm around her. "It's going well. Ced and George are manning the castle. We're pushing the sweets this week so that we can..."
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"I see you finished your book." Hermione gestured to the novel on the table beside Rebecca's bed. Fred was still in Rebecca's bed, but they had shifted as the hours passed while the others were in classes--now his head rest against her collarbone and her arm was around his shoulders. "Did you like it?"
"It was alright." Rebecca smiled. "What ever happened to a happy ending? I thought it was going to make him cry."
Hermione shook her head, as if Fred would really let a novel move him to tears after the week they've had. "It's more realistic, don't you think?" Rebecca didn't say anything and her face fell. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be, you're right." Rebecca moved her hand from the circle she had been rubbing on Fred's back to the hair against the nape of his neck. "As always, but you know that." Hermione kicked herself. Why on earth would she have said something like that? Something so daunting to The Lost Potter of all people. "Really, it's alright." Rebecca asked Hermione to go over what they had covered in Potions so they could fully move on from the blip of darkness.
"Any word on when you'll be free to go?"
Rebecca appreciated that Hermione let the subject of happy-endings go. "Yes, Friday. One day of classes and then the weekend to struggle through the pile that's accumulated."
"Well..." Hermione wouldn't meet Rebecca's eyes.
"You didn't." Rebecca's jaw dropped. "Hermione Granger, breaking all those rules? For me?"
"I'd do anything for you." Hermione said sheepishly. "And besides, Harry and Ron helped a little too."
"I'm sure they did." Both girls laughed quietly before continuing their quiet conversation without the company of either Harry or Ron or the still-sleeping Fred.
"He's hardly been sleeping." Hermione said in a lull. "Molly tried to convince him to at least get into a bed, but he wouldn't."
"Do you ever feel like you have something and you-" Rebecca shook her head. "And you'll never, ever deserve it? That's how he makes me feel, Mione, and I don't think-"
"I would hope you don't think anything like that." Hermione sighed. "But I know you better than that. All I can say on it is that I would imagine he feels exactly the same, okay?"
"Okay."
Hermione excused herself once the time for Harry and Ron to join them passed so that she could step into the hallway and tease them about their punctuality. In the quiet, the peace of being beside Fred again, Rebecca settled back against the pillow.
The pile of sweets beside her bed had continued to pour in as her time in the Hospital Wing extended. Rebecca had already sent Ron away with full pockets and fuller hands twice, but many sweets remained. She had been enjoying a box of Bertie Bott's earlier in the afternoon with her book and reached for the carton to snack again as Fred rested.
Rebecca's fingers had just grazed against the familiar red-and-white striped packaging when something happened; whether it was the smell of Fred's familiarity or the reminiscing on the dirt flavoured bean she had, Rebecca's thoughts had wandered to the Forbidden Forest and something inside of her latched onto it.
Rebecca's body went rigid and her neck straightened and then strained so that she was looking up. Her arms pinned themselves to her sides and though her eyes were wide open, Rebecca saw nothing out of them.
"W-wilhomena?" Rebecca was walked, in the forest, in the clearing. "Wilhomena, why am I here?"
The beans clattered on the floor and spread out in a hundred different directions.
"Resist the temptation." Wilhomena's eyes were open only as they had when, in the past, Rebecca had funneled power over to the prophetic tree. "Power cannot be sampled, cannot be tried. What is let out of the box cannot go inside once more."
"What are you-"
"Rebecca?" Fred's dream had begun leaving him when the candies first fell over, and the rigidity of Rebecca's body warned him that was something was off. "Love, did you drop something?"
Rebecca blinked, once whole again. Her body softened. There was a thudding behind her eyes, a pain that would have warned her that she had had a premonition if she had just woken but told her nothing since she had only been awake. She was so busy thinking of what she had seen that she hadn't heard what Fred had said and prompted him into repeating himself.
"RJ? Are you alright?"
Rebecca shook her head, trying to scatter the confusion from her before she had him worried. "Fine, darling. Must have been farther than I thought it was."
Fred nodded, scanning her face for any indication of something hiding behind.
"No, I'm telling YOU that if you-" Ron's shouting from the door ended their conversation. "Who spilled the Bertie Bott's? I would have eaten them."
"Yes, Ron." Harry's eye roll was nearly audible. "I'm sure they were spilt on purpose."
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It had been a long day, only heightened by the ache of Fred having to leave at last. Rebecca was tired after the emotional ordeal--one she embarrassingly had to admit brought tears only on her behalf--but not tired enough to sleep. And yet, all at the same time, she didn't feel well enough to push for an early release.
"And you're sure?" Ginny asked Madam Pomfrey as she trailed behind the healer. "She's ready to leave?"
"I'm sure, if that's worth anything." Rebecca said as she swung her legs off the bed at last.
"There is nothing more that rest will do." Madam Pomfrey gave her chilliest stare over those around Rebecca. "And I trust that eyes will be kept sharp?"
"As ever." Harry answered for them all, holding his arm out slightly in case Rebecca needed it.
"I would be perfectly fine if the final went on without such play, if you please."
"Is our keeper cleared?" Rebecca asked. "Then there's nothing to worry about."
Ron blushed scarlet and Ginny busied herself with teasing him. Hermione took the side of Rebecca Harry hadn't and entwined her arm through hers under the guise of friendliness. Harry was grateful and irritated all at the same time--irritated that Rebecca hadn't pulled her arm from Hermione's as she would have his and grateful that Hermione had found a way for their stubborn Rebecca to accept help. Her face seemed to lose some of the colour it had had while she was sitting and she wavered as they stood however slightly.
The corridors were mostly clear, thankfully. Only the odd student passed them by in the wing with the Infirmary and once they were in the main castle, there was only one notable encounter. Rebecca had turned her head at the weight of eyes following her every move and the culprit shocked a gasp out of her.
Draco looked away immediately, but he knew that he had been caught. Rebecca's scare came from his appearance, how much thinner he was just from the last time she had seen him, how pronounced the rings under his eyes were. Many sleepless nights were obvious.
"I still don't know what he would want with a vanishing cabinet." Harry muttered to Rebecca and Hermione.
"He looks like he's been ill, doesn't he?" Hermione countered, noting the changes in the Slytherin as Rebecca had.
"Yes, very-"
"How can you even tell?" Harry interrupted. He didn't notice the look the girls shared, the one that told them that they would both be discussing this in their room later. "He's always been a slimy prat."
Rebecca looked over her shoulder and saw how Draco turned the corner to the stairs that would lead you to the Room of Requirement. "I didn't even know he was still using it. What could he be doing in there?"
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As the time passed, all of her friends had found her in a daze at one time or another. Whether it was because none of them wanted to risk a discussion that could bring about bad news or simply how busy their classes were keeping everyone, no one brought it up and Rebecca was fine with that.
They were the oddest, most meaningless riddles and warnings that would leave her nearly dizzy with pain. Without any images to accompany them--clear ones, at least--Rebecca had come to call them 'glimpses' and had yet to breathe a word of their existence to anyone. The farther away from the incident on the quidditch pitch, the less frequently they occurred anyway. That was Rebecca's excuse for her continued silence, at least.
By the time Valentine's had come along with the next Hogsmeade outing, Rebecca hadn't had a glimpse of anything in over a week.
"You still haven't heard from the tree?" Fred asked in a whisper, his lips tracing against Rebecca's neck as he kissed up to the bottom of her ear. "That's strange, isn't it? If she gave you until the end of spring, that's getting close."
Rebecca nodded, craning her head back so that he could take the tease he was drawing up the corner of her jaw. In their private booth at the Hog's Head, they felt almost in a world of their own.
"Is this something you can reach out for is that not how-"
"Fred, please." Rebecca's cheeks were red as she leaned back slightly to catch her breath. "Chat or snog, I can't follow what-you're distracting me."
Fred sat back further and rubbed his chin as he thought.
"You picked talk?" Rebecca asked shocked and slightly let down.
"What can I say?" Fred leaned forward and gave her a quick peck. "I like to keep you on your toes."
Rebecca rolled her eyes and tried to create an answer to his question from the haze he had laid over her. "Yes, I'd imagine it's strange. I haven't been thinking about it. Apparation's had my focus lately and we have another bloody Dumbledore lesson tonight; not to mention essay's in every class. My marks are lower than I-"
Fred took her hand in his and offered her a small smile. "It's alright, love." Fred rubbed his thumbs against her knuckles and tried to soothe any of her worries that he could. "I am required to tell you that your marks are the least of your worries. Hermione sets an unreasonable standard for herself, I hope you're not holding yourself to them." Rebecca's face told him all he needed to know. "Rebecca, we all have our strengths. I bet you're higher in Potions."
"Yes, but-"
"And you have to be tied in Charms."
"I guess-"
"And Transfiguration can give you trouble now and again, but only until you understand."
"I see your poi-"
"And I know you're higher in Magical Creatures."
"Darling!" Rebecca laughed, throwing her arms around his neck to hug him tightly. "You know she's not even taking that. And besides, it's not like I hold myself to her." Rebecca paused. "I just want my best to be as good as her best."
"That's holding yourself to her."
"Yeah, yeah." Rebecca couldn't help but smile at him. "And I'm required to tell you that your predictions were all correct. Though, you did leave out something I happen to have a knack for this year."
"Yeah?" Fred laid his chin on his hand and looked at her with all of his attention so that she could continue. He missed this more than ever, even with their nightly conversations through the mirrors. Nothing could have Rebecca as beautiful as she was when she was right in front of him.
"Wilkie Twycross said I'm one of the fastest apparation learners he's ever had!"
Fred's smile grew. "I don't doubt it for a second!" His attention wavered outside of the window at a flash of movement around the corner. "We should probably go and face the terrors now, I see them staking out already."
Rebecca turned to look out the window quickly. She hoped that Nigel, Louis, and Yara hadn't seen how unrestrained she and Fred had been but also thought it would serve them right for spying. "Those bastards!"
Fred chuckled and waved goodbye to Aberforth while trying to keep up with Rebecca's exit.
"NIGEL!" Rebecca's tone was icy enough that all three troublemakers froze from their nearly-begun scramble to exit.
Behind the bushes at the end of the sidewalk, Louis' voice trickled out. "You've done it now, Nige."
"Me?" Nigel pointed to himself as he stood up. "Are you talking to me?" He looked over his shoulder as if there could be another Nigel in the distance.
Fred tried to contain his amusement at Nigel's attempted evasion and put on his most serious, intimidating façade. "I heard the three of you have some suggestions about how we conduct our business!"
Rebecca turned and looked at Fred. His booming voice and commanding stance were uncharacteristic and distractingly attractive.
"Was that all?" Fred whispered. He thought Rebecca would have said something else, not watch him with a look on her face he couldn't quite read.
"Oh, erm--Privacy. Don't spy, you gits." Rebecca was clearly still thinking about something else. "These monsters wanted to know when the catalog would be updated. Demanded, more like."
Nigel nodded. "We want more of the One-Bird-Two-Stones!"
"And French Fancies." Louis smirked. "You won't believe some of the ideas we've gotten from-"
"Oi!" Yara turned her head and silenced Louis with a glare worthy of McGonagall.
Fred only grinned and reached into his back pocket for the order sheets he had George print that morning. "Comments received and answered. Look at that! What speedy turnaround! It really is a wonder."
Rebecca had warned him to expect grief if they didn't get a move on with the new catalog of products, but with how busy George, Fred, and Cedric were already with keeping the shelves stocked, taking on new orders had taken the back burner.
The three fourth years took their shopping material and blurted out their thank you's before running back off to wherever they spent their time--though most likely to go through Zonko's one last time before the carriages left.
Rebecca and Fred busied themselves with a walk around and her attention was constantly drawn to him. Fred noticed and found the prospect of him possibly being the object of her distraction curiously alluring--like there was something new to him. After the third time he had nearly caught her staring at him, he had to know. "Is there something on my face?"
"No!" Rebecca nearly shouted before answering again more conversationally. "No, I mean. Not at all."
Fred waved his wand at the bench ahead, wiping away the last remnants of snow so that they could sit. "I know I'm terribly handsome, but you're looking at me differently than normal. What're you thinking about?" He gave her an impish grin before moving the hair out of his eyes unknowingly forcing her breath to catch. It was at the length she liked best, separated in the middle and long enough to graze against the top of his ears after he combed it with his fingers.
Rebecca looked out over the empty courtyard they had found themselves in with her cheeks reddening until they were positively aflame. "I think I want to have sex. With you." She wasn't sure why she clarified whom she was referring to, obviously she was talking about Fred.
Fred choked on his own tongue. Rebecca could have said that she had a scheduled tea with the Queen and he wouldn't have found himself as panicked as he was. "Right now or-"
"Yeah, right now." Rebecca raised an eyebrow and felt more foolish with every passing second. "In the middle of a bloody park. Really?"
Fred racked his mind. He had clearly said the wrong thing.
Rebecca bit her lip. She knew that was too forward. She should have just kept it to herself and known that this wasn't something you spoke about, certainly not how-
Fred grabbed her hands in his and interrupted her thoughts. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I was just surprised, is all." He brought the backs of her hands closer to his mouth so he could try and hide the smile he couldn't keep off his face and failed.
Rebecca couldn't meet his eyes. "That was stupid. I shouldn't have said anything."
Fred laughed loudly, only making things worse for Rebecca. She felt so stupid, worse than the dry skin fiasco, worse than when she had asked if she would go home for Christmas with the other Weasleys, worse than ever before.
Fred put his arm up on the back of the bench and kissed her slowly, gently. "It wasn't stupid." Rebecca looked him in the eye briefly before turning her head back out into the empty park. "Really, it wasn't."
Rebecca sighed. "It was. Leaving Hogsmeade is forbidden and you said we should wait and...I respect that."
Fred tilted her chin up so that she was looking at him. "It's not stupid, trust me. I want to, too."
"Really?"
Fred buried his face into her neck and groaned. "You have no idea!" When he lifted his head again, she was laughing at him. "Merlin, I love hearing that laugh." Fred kissed her forehead and sat back in his seat. Silence settled over them as they were consumed with thoughts of the other.
Fred patted her thigh a few minutes later, resolve filling him. "We have waited. Long enough, at that. The summer."
"The summer?"
"Yeah, summer." Fred's leg bounced as he thought over the details--the extra ones, at least. "We'll get it arranged now. George and Ced are going on a holiday with the Diggorys, the week before Bill and Fleur's wedding." Fred gave her a wink. "I'll need someone to help man the shop. If you still want to by then, that is."
"You think mum and dad will let me stay over?" Rebecca uncertainty was clear.
"You did last summer." Fred remembered the first night she had slept in the room he only ever thought of as theirs. "They won't have an issue with it. Dad's made sure...let's just say we'll be fine." He couldn't help the slight reddening of his cheeks. Of all the directions their conversation could have gone, this wouldn't have been one he would have guessed.
Momentarily--despite the number Rebecca had done on his heart rate--Fred realised he was thankful. Thankful Rebecca was so open with him, that she felt she could talk as clearly as she did. She had something to say and she said it, at least to him.
Rebecca nodded her head and entwined her hand with Fred's once again. "The summer then."
Fred sighed ages later. "I wish it was summer."
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"Destination!" Wilkie Twycross walked around the Great Hall slowly, repeating the Three D's of apparation to the eager sixth years. "Determination!" Rebecca stared at the hoop in front of her, ready to succeed. "Deliberation!"
Harry was scrunching his face in concentration. Hermione was looking at the hoop indifferently. Ron looked like he was about to cry.
"You may attempt when you feel able to do so."
Rebecca closed her eyes and imagined herself standing in the hoop. She took a slow breath and reached her mind out into the net of magic she had come to imagine around her during apparation lessons. It was easy for her, it was barely different than the reaching outside of herself when grasping for the soul of someone recently departed.
CRACK!
Rebecca felt herself go through the vacuum tube-like feelings of teleportation and opened her eyes to be standing inside the hoop. Twycross looked around the room quickly in case they who had apparated first had splinched themselves. He was happy to discover that the first remained whole. "Once the first gets it, more will follow!"
Harry stared at Rebecca with unabashed admiration. "How did you do that?"
Rebecca shrugged under his gaze. "I reached for the magic." Harry closed his eyes and reached his hands out in front of him. "Harry!" She tried not to laugh. "Not with your hands!"
Harry opened his eyes sheepishly. "I knew that."
"With your mind." Rebecca clarified. "Reach out for the magic around you, it's there."
Hermione listened to Rebecca's words and considered them carefully. She was next student to end up in the hoop.
"Careful!" Twycross called from across the room. "You'll have me out of a job!"
Neville fell backwards and landed flat on his back--he had strained himself directly into a faint. Harry did a little jump, but failed to produce any results. Dean and Seamus were nearby whispering words of encouragement to the other until Seamus ended up only a few inches short of the hoop following a cracking sound that suspiciously resembled a boom.
Rebecca stepped out of the hoop and continued to put herself in and then out, giving Harry a grin and then apparating into his. "Stop showing off!" Harry grumbled, closing his eyes to try again.
Luckily for Harry and Rebecca--both beginning to feel very self-conscious of their ability and lack thereof--the lesson was interrupted when Ernie Macmillan splinched his arm clean off his body. The Great Hall was instantly filled with screams and rushing students as Madam Pomfrey levitated the silent, pale, holding-his-own-arm Ernie out of the hall.
Somehow, in the madness after such a distraction, Harry and Ron managed to enter the apparation level and move themselves minutely. Neither ended up in the hoop while Rebecca continued to insist that they only need reach for it when both boys demanded to know 'the secret.'
Hermione followed them to their usual table as the tables were replaced. "You two have just enough time for a quick dinner." She checked the time and pursed her lips. "Well..."
"It's not like being late is anything new for me. Dumbledore should expect it by now!" Rebecca laughed and took a seat at the quickly filling tables. "Not hungry, Mione?"
"No." Hermione still looked paler than usual. "And I don't see how you are. His arm was off his body!"
"I know!" Rebecca looked up and down the table. "It made me want chicken. See any?"
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