Chapter 16
Rebecca was back on the platform, Fred taking over the pumping of her chest from Fleur forcefully. Rebecca tried to walk forwards, back to her body to return to the living, and was unable to.
"Mum? Dad?" She cried, looking around and finding herself entirely alone. "I want to go back!" Falling to her knees and holding herself as close as she could to her body, there was not pull or connection. Her body was empty.
Fred had tears streaming down his face as his hands slowed and eventually stilled. He lowered himself over her body and cried with abandon.
"I'm not choosing this!" Rebecca shouted, trying to make him hear her. Trying to alleviate his pain. "I want to come back, Fred!"
Rebecca was crying herself now, pounding her fists against the floor as she fought to get back into her body harder and hard. Something reached up from the water behind her, grabbing hold of her ankle. It yanked sharply on her leg, tearing her away from her body and Fred and closer to the water.
Rebecca jammed her fingers into a crack between the boards, kicking her legs and trying to free herself. The creature that had hold of her tightened its hold and pulled harder, Rebecca's fingers lost their grip. She tried to take a breath before she it the frigid water, but the force pulling her was too fast.
Rebecca's head was under the water before she could brace herself, her arms clawing up at the light as if it could help her back to the world above. She tried to fight as long as she could, to hold onto her breath as long as she could, but both only lasted so long.
Rebecca's arms fell limp and her body forced her to breathe the water in.
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Rebecca had had nightmares every night since the event days before, the draught to put her farther asleep only making it harder to wake herself up from the terrors her mind created in her sleep.
Hermione woke at the sound of Rebecca shooting upright in her bed and got up instantly. "Rebecca?" Rebecca shook her head, waving Hermione away as if she weren't dissolving into tears before Hermione's eyes. "Dream or..."
Hermione let her question drift away as Rebecca nodded. Hermione moved Rebecca's blankets so that she could join her in her bed, Rebecca putting her head into Hermione's arms instinctively. Hermione rubbed Rebecca's back until her cries had quieted and Rebecca's shame began to grow too hard to silence.
"I'm alright." Rebecca said, her voice giving away that she wasn't. "I'm okay now."
Hermione didn't move away, holding Rebecca tighter if anything. "You don't have to be, you know? That's okay too." Hermione always had an inkling of something underneath whenever one of them comforted Rebecca with touch, the feeling that this was cherished as something bigger than it was to anyone else lurking around the edge of Hermione's thoughts and saddening her deeply.
"Then..." Rebecca wondered if Hermione knew how much she loved her. "Would you stay?"
Hermione scooted further onto the mattress and let Rebecca closer her eyes with her head resting on Hermione's shoulder.
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Rebecca slept fitfully, Hermione woken in the early hours of the morning by Rebecca crying out for help. Hermione spoke softly and brushed her fingers through her hair gently, trying to keep Rebecca asleep through this second bout of terror.
"It's almost eight!" Ginny called from the bathroom hours later. "Are you two getting up?" Hermione's head popped out from the pile of blankets she'd ended up hidden behind and Ginny laughed at the sight. "Sleep travel?"
Ginny grew more serious as Hermione untangled herself from Rebecca to let her sleep a few minutes longer. Hermione shed her pajamas quietly, prompting Ginny to follow up with another question. "Hermione?"
"She didn't sleep well again." Hermione sighed, buttoning her shirt slowly. "Woke up early, but only once this time."
"What did she say she saw?" Ginny asked nervously.
Hermione shook her head, finding a modicum of relief. "She said they weren't premonitions again." She continued at Ginny's visible disbelief. "And I believer her, she isn't lying."
"She's not a very good liar anyway." Ginny turned and leaned against the bathroom door frame, her eyes wandering to Rebecca's bed.
"No, she's not." Hermione fastened her belt and pulled her tie around her collar. "I think she just needs a little extra right now."
"Extra?" Ginny repeated confused.
"Extra." Hermione clarified. Extra friendship, extra kindness, extra...love.
Ginny nodded--the job was easy enough--and walked to Rebecca's bed, sitting with a little jump. "Hey sleepy, you're going to miss breakfast."
"I'm up." Rebecca said, stretching with her eyes still closed. "I'm wide awake."
"Mhmmm." Ginny moved out of Rebecca's way as Rebecca swung her legs over the bed, bringing up the joke that was repeated on a nearly-weekly basis in their dorm. "Don't make me get the turtle."
Rebecca slid her glasses on and stood slowly, looking to Hermione embarrassedly as Ginny moved to the door and got her bag ready for the day. "I'm sorry about-"
"No." Hermione sighed, letting her attention focus on how Rebecca was haphazardly putting her uniform on instead of the utter absurdity of an apology. "Don't be silly."
"It's not silly." Rebecca met Hermione's eyes fleetingly in the mirror. "I-"
"Please," Hermione looked over her shoulder to check if Ginny was watching, which she wasn't, and laid her hands on Rebecca's cheeks gently forcing her to look at her. "I am your friend and I was doing what a friend does."
Rebecca nodded once, her face warming lightly. The best thing she could think of to hide her conflicted feelings was to change the subject entirely. Rebecca left the bathroom and joined Hermione and Ginny at the door, grabbing her bag on the way. "Feeling alright, 'Mione?"
"Yes, why?" Hermione answered without looking at Rebecca, making sure her bag had everything she needed for the day until Ginny lost control of her laughter and directed Hermione's attention up. She rolled her eyes.
Rebecca had her tie tied around her forehead.
"How does this even still amuse the two of you?" Hermione asked, honestly wondering. "I can't wrap my head around it."
They laughed wildly, Rebecca and Ginny. Hermione's pun fit in perfectly and unintentionally. Hermione tried to hold back, but she too began to laugh eventually. Walking down the stairs to the common room, the only thing that erased the last vestiges of their giggles was Fred cursing.
"Not a bloody fucking chance!" The girls saw Fred as they turned the corner, looming over Nigel. "Pass that on word-for-word, not a-"
"What's going on?" Rebecca demanded, hurrying to them and putting herself between Fred and Nigel who looked close to tears. "Harry?" Rebecca asked as no answer came. Nigel moved to Harry's side, wanting two layers between he and Fred if his message had to be repeated.
"Go on, Nigel." Harry prompted gently. "Tell her."
Nigel repeated himself. "You've been excused from classes and are asked to report to McGonagall's office-"
Rebecca shook her head, taking a step back. What was next? What could the tournament want from her now? What would this cost if-
"All of you." Nigel looked around at those who'd gathered around and found that they were all present; those he'd been sent to gather. "All Weasley and Potter children, along with Hermione."
"Why, Nigel?" Rebecca asked with a calm that she didn't feel. "Why're we being called?"
"Mr and Mrs Weasley have arrived along with-" The clamor that rose drowned Nigel's finishing of older Weasley sons being present as well. Moving instantly as a swarm, Nigel found himself between Potters and Weasleys and a Granger working their way out of the portrait hole and down the stairs on the trek to McGonagall's office.
Fred looked towards Nigel with an air about him that threatened imminent violence. "That should've been the first thing out of his-"
"Fred!" Rebecca looked at him and wasn't entirely sure who he was.
"It should have been!" Fred defended. "He knows-"
"Did you give him the chance?" Rebecca demanded, knowing Fred well enough to know that he hadn't. "No, that's what I thought." The corridors around them were empty of other students and Rebecca slowed down to let Nigel and the others get a little distance. "It's unhealthy, this is."
"What is?" Fred's tone was hard, unrelenting. "What's unhealthy?"
Rebecca lowered her voice so that Nigel couldn't hear from ahead. "He's twelve years old! You were threatening him--Scaring him! That's twice now, and he's only in his second year!"
Fred stopped walking completely, his jaw rippling as he clenched it and shook his head. "No." He managed, his voice forced.
"No?" Rebecca asked, turning around and looking at him where he'd frozen.
"No!" Fred shouted at her and Rebecca flinched. His voice brought about the attention of the others who'd gone ahead with Nigel. "You would do the same thing if you were in my position! You have done the same thing!"
Rebecca shook her head, taking a step backwards away from Fred. "I-It's different! I've-"
Fred continued to shout. "Held your wand to throats? Sabotaged school work? Threatened others?"
"But-"
"But nothing!" Fred wouldn't let her speak, his anger rising to a level he wasn't able to manage, contain, or bring down even if he wanted to. "This is what people do for those they love, Rebecca! They fight for them against anything that can, will, or has hurt them. Especially when they-" Fred's words hitched in his throat. He couldn't give words to the fact that he had lost her that very week--That she had been gone and he had been left on the platform with her body. "This is love, you've just never felt it before!"
Rebecca's mouth snapped shut from her attempted explanation and she felt her heartbeat in her ears. Fred seemed to have hit something within her, something the sent an ache through her heart that made Rebecca want nothing more than to crawl into a hole and wait for eternity to pass.
"Rebecca, I-"
"I can't believe you said that." Rebecca managed. She turned away from Fred without looking at him, unable to look at him. Nigel was hopping from one foot to the other down the hall as the tension followed Rebecca from where she and Fred had been behind to the others who were nervously looking anywhere other than at her.
Fred put his hand over his eyes and ran it over his face roughly. Ginny was the only one to stay behind to walk with Fred as they began to make their way to McGonagall's once more.
"That was something." Ginny spoke quietly.
"I'm so stupid." Fred muttered.
"Sometimes." Ginny shrugged, continuing. "That was pretty stupid. Really stupid, actually. I mean, what were you even thinking? That level of stu-"
"Thank you, Ginevra." Fred felt like he was teetering on the edge of something dark. "That will be all."
"But that doesn't make you stupid." Ginny said after a few moments of silence. "You might not even be wrong."
Fred put his arm around Ginny's shoulders and pulled her into his side. "You want to pass that on to-"
"Oh no." Ginny shook her head and stepped away from him. "You get to fix that all by yourself."
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The conversation within McGonagall's office fell silent at the light knock of Nigel at the door, Rebecca entering first as she hadn't moved from the boy's side the distance after Fred's-After Fred said what he had.
Molly had Rebecca in her arms before even a second had passed, holding her to her chest and speaking quietly.
"Oh, Merlin!" Arthur gasped, grabbing Harry from the group and tilting him towards the light. A few days had passed, but the suction cup bruises from the grindylows had only darkened and his other various cuts and scrapes remained as scabs. "Son, I-" Arthur pulled Harry into his arms and shook his head, unable to speak.
Before long, Molly and Arthur both began to pull those near them into their arms until every child in the room was being embraced. When their time had passed and Molly and Arthur began to walk back towards McGonagall, they kept Rebecca between them. "We got here as soon as we could, sweets. We-"
"I have explained already that I was unable to reach out until the Ministry had given me permission." McGonagall's face twisted at the word, hating what had become of her school.
Fred stayed towards the back of the classroom as the school-aged children were passed between Charlie and Bill for embraces and conversation. "What's got everyone so tense?" Charlie asked George, sensing that the epicenter of the tension was coming from Fred who hadn't yet approached either of his brothers.
"He-" George shook his head in disbelief. "He's been...protective ever since the trial." George clarified when his brothers didn't seem to understand. "Very protective. He nearly got into a fight with the kid by the door this morning and when she told him that he was acting mental he-"
George didn't want to repeat it, honestly. But Bill and Charlie were squirming under the anticipation and hurried George on.
"He said this was love and that she'd just never felt it before."
Charlie winced and sucked in a sharp breath while Bill clapped his hand to his mouth with wide-eyes. "He didn't!"
"That's, erm-" Charlie tried to find a productive comment. "That's a predicament to solve."
"Predicament?" Ron echoed, sticking his head into the conversation with Harry following right behind. "That's an understatement, right mate?"
Harry nodded and felt his face warm as he revealed layers of himself he didn't normally to the Weasleys, pleading with whatever controlled fate that they didn't change their opinions of he or Rebecca as a result. "The problem, I think at least, is that Fred's not entirely wrong."
Ron looked at Harry confused, though the older boys began to understand as Harry continued.
"Rebecca and I-" Harry blinked, remembering how good it felt when Arthur had made sure he was okay, how entirely comforting it was when Molly hugged them as she did her own children. "She must know that he's wrong, but he's also right and that must hurt like-"
"Like hell." Ron finished for him, a moment of astute emotional clarity rare to him. Ron's eyes wandered over to where Molly and Arthur's hands were in each others behind Rebecca's back, listening to McGonagall's retelling of the second event in its entirety.
Hermione excused herself from Ginny across the room, wanting to talk to Fred before Rebecca was finished with the other three. McGonagall had just taken out a copy of the Prophet's coverage of the near-tragedy.
Diggory takes first, Death strikes
Arthur and Molly didn't need to read the article again, they'd read it until they had both practically memorised it when it got to the Burrow. But Rebecca had avoided it as she didn't want to know what angle they were going to say she'd had in being unable to swim. It was more hurt than she had needed any day since the event but since she was already nearly drowning in hurt, she skimmed the article while McGonagall spoke on.
The 'muggle-magic' and George's outburst at dinner were written about extensively, overshadowing the events of the trial itself.
Hermione wanted to wait until Fred spoke, but he didn't. "You'll know how to fix this." She said, certain of it.
"How the hell do I make that up, Hermione?" Fred asked, his voice cracking slightly. "That was so low, so low I don't think I could have said or done anything to make that worse."
Hermione turned around and leaned against the wall besides the window Fred was stuck looking out of. "I don't know if you could have, honestly. Made it worse, that is." Fred looked at Hermione. "I know Ginny's already told you, but she's right. You weren't wrong. Different delivery might have been preferred, but the message didn't need to change."
Fred looked back out the window. "You saw how she-"
"Yeah." Hermione wanted to be angry at Fred, wanted to be the shield between Rebecca and anything that would hurt her, but instead she just felt sadness. "Yeah, we did."
"I feel-" Fred closed his eyes, trying to keep himself from crying right then and there. "I can still see how she looked at me when I shouted at her and I feel like a monster."
Hermione's eyes were stuck on the sight of Molly pulling Rebecca back into her arms, running her hand down the back of her head and letting Arthur take control of the conversation as his anger matched his wife's step for step. "They both, Rebecca and Harry, don't know how to accept love, Fred. They can give it, but they can't take it." Hermione sighed.
"I knew that though." Fred shook his head. "I knew that and I still said it."
"They'll never be like anyone else, Fred." Hermione sighed. "Something about where they came from or what they've gone through has made it that way--Rebecca will always be different. If you can't-"
"I know she's different." Fred saw some students out on one of the hills off the castle's boundary, relaxing in the pre-Spring sun the morning was letting in for a while. They had nothing for him--No appeal or benefit, no perfect conversations or ability to take his breath away or observations that made him think about things in ways he never had before. He might have only been fifteen, but Fred knew exactly what he wanted for the rest of his life and it wasn't going to be found in someone the same as everyone else. "There's not a single person in the world like her."
"Then there you go." Hermione patted Fred's arm before she left, elaborating at his look of not-understanding. "You have to be sure of yourself before you can do anything, to know what you feel."
Fred took Hermione's spot on the wall as she returned to Ginny and George across the room, his eyes settling on the sight of his parents on either side of Rebecca. He was so lost in his thoughts, he never noticed Bill and Charlie coming to talk to him.
"Alright, Freddiekins." Bill started, using the nickname he knew Fred hated. "We've got it all figured out. Here's what you're going to do."
"And don't worry," Charlie followed up. "We're both experts in making things up to women."
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Fred looked between his older brothers as they finished outlining his path to redemption entirely unsure. "I don't know-"
"Mate," Charlie said, frowning. "It's not like you can make it any worse."
"Ah, yes." Bill sighed happily. "My favourite reason to choose a plan."
Molly and Arthur ended their conversation with McGonagall, their questions about the event answered and the professor stepping out of her classroom into her office to give them the privacy to be with one another for a little.
"Oh, Harry." Molly sighed, pulling him into the hug she had been holding onto for him. "How did this even happen?"
"I wish we knew." Harry spoke from in her arms unable to deny the fact that it made him feel better. "Did Professor McGonagall tell you everything?"
"Yes." Arthur offered his congratulations to Harry and mentioned his pride at how he had stayed to save both girls before excusing himself to the outer rings of his family, notably far from Rebecca. "Fred? What is it?"
Fred shook his head, not offering any explanation for his withdrawn behavior.
"You know the problem with us Weasley men?" Arthur asked without expecting an answer. "We feel deeply and we care deeply. Blessing and a curse, I promise." Arthur put his arm around Fred and started to walk in a circle around the large classroom with his son at his side. "Your old man happens to be quite wise, if you care to share your burden."
Fred relayed both what had happened and what Bill and Charlie told him to do. "I really am an idiot, dad. I almost considered listening to them."
"You're not an idiot." Arthur tutted. "And I think they may be onto something, Fred. I really do."
Across the room, Molly had Rebecca across from her while Ginny and Hermione near them were occupied by Bill and Charlie trying to one-up the others stories. "Sweets? You're a thousand miles away."
"Sorry." Rebecca tried to pull herself into the room, glancing at Molly's knowing gaze.
"You don't have to apologise." Molly looked to where Rebecca had had her eyes focused before and saw Arthur speaking to Fred quietly. "I hear things are going well between you two." Molly noticed how Rebecca's shoulders fell a nearly-indiscernible amount. "At least, it seemed so from Fred's last letter."
"Better than fine." Rebecca wished they could have been talking about anything else. "Perfect, really."
Molly leaned back in her chair, folding her hands on her knee. "Tell me everything. And dear, not that I'd encourage someone to practise lying, but it can be useful to manage the whitest of lies occasionally. Something to keep in mind."
Rebecca filed away the suggestion and tried to tell her what had happened. "And Nigel-He'd only been doing what he'd been asked to! He didn't deserve that again."
"I see." Molly's response to the whole debacle was not what Rebecca had expected.
"See what?"
"Do you know what Harry and I had to talk about during the summer?" Rebecca shook her head. "How to love within-reason. Do you know why?" Another shake of her head. "Because he was losing his mind when you slept in late."
"I'm done with it all then." Rebecca's tone was low, her resolve beaten down. "I'll not love anything again, heart's turned off as of right now."
Molly laughed, shaking her head and pulling Rebecca into her side so that she could smooth her hand over the top of Rebecca's head gently. "You can't, dearest. Love is inevitable; Love makes life worth living." Molly locked eyes with Arthur and couldn't help a smile. "Love is everything."
Molly released Rebecca and stood up, clapping her hands and waving all of the children around the room closer so she and Arthur could make their goodbyes. McGonagall appeared at the door, her arms holding a large envelope sealed tightly. "This is all I was able to gather." Minerva told Arthur quietly.
Molly and Arthur--as well as Bill and Charlie--were escorted back to the castle's entrance by Moody, much to Arthur's pleasure. He wanted to discuss the fond memories he had of the collaboration between the Auror department and the Muggle Artifacts department from year before relating to Muggle security systems. Moody seemed to not share the memories as all he did was grunt occasionally when Arthur asked a question.
McGonagall held the bulk of the students behind, addressing them as a group. "I have found that it is necessary for me to reiterate the common room's rules regarding acts of violence--Whether that be promised, spoken about, acted upon, or insinuated..." McGonagall talked to them for a few minutes more to make sure they all understood before letting them leave. The day had disappeared, classes past already.
Hermione shouldered her bag and sighed at the day of learning lost. "Would you like to go to the library with me?" Hermione asked Rebecca. "Viktor and I were meeting there."
Rebecca watched as Fred and George disappeared into the distance, a sliver of disappointment cutting through her hurt. "Yeah, I'll come."
Hermione started talking about the order of the topics she wanted to study, well aware that Rebecca wasn't listening but not wanting to walk in pensive silence. Watching the two girls go down the hall and turn down the stairs, Harry and Ron looked at each other before following Ginny out of the castle--They all had a role to play, after all.
"Herme-o-ninny!" Viktor called happily seeing her enter the library. Madam Pince shushed him like any other students, but found her threats of violence had done nothing to keep the boy quiet. He raised his hand in apology as he had every time she'd told him to quiet down and stood as Hermione and Rebecca approached the table, waiting to pull out their chairs and only sitting once they both had.
"I bring books." Viktor said, his accented English made more clear by his patting of the stack on all the topics Hermione had had last time beside him. "But first," He paused, thinking. "I want-"
Rebecca sat up straighter as he looked to her, formulating his words into the language still strange to him.
"In Bulgaria, we have word for those who breathed water." Viktor furrowed his brow as he struggled to translate what he wanted to tell her. "Dishalka za voda."
"What does it mean?" Rebecca asked.
"In this tongue?" Viktor shrugged. "Nothing. But in mine? It means you defeated death."
Rebecca slunk lower in her chair, letting Hermione take charge of the conversation. "Nothing new then." Rebecca couldn't help but think bitterly.
"I thought we'd start with Potions and then move onto Charms later." Hermione said, asking Viktor what he thought and finding he had already folded his arms and put his chin onto them, looking at her as happily as he had been. Viktor might have understood precious little of what she read and explained, but he appreciated the glint in her eyes that came when she understood something about new material.
Rebecca took Viktor's position as well, letting her eyes move out the window as she found Hermione's reading to be the perfect noise to dissect her thoughts on the day so far. "What if he's right?" Rebecca grit her teeth and focused on forcing the lump in her throat smaller and smaller, farther and father down, until the threat of tears was restrained. "What if I don't-"
Hermione closed her book with a noise loud enough to jolt Rebecca back to the present as she finished her first section, minutes having passed into minutes. Viktor sat up at attention as another familiar face entered the library and he stood as Fleur approached their table.
"Good matin!" Fleur smiled, her smile lessening at the sight of Rebecca. This was one of the first times she had been seen after the trial, after all. "'ow are you after-after the trial?"
Rebecca evaded the question by asking one of her own. "How are you and Gabrielle doing?"
Fleur took the opportunity and began to talk about how the task had followed them through the days, highlighting how brave Gabrielle was being. "It is my fault," Fleur's voice thickened with emotion on its own. "It was my doing that she was under the water and...and that I didn't finish."
Viktor shook his head, laying a large hand on Fleur's arm. "It is not you."
"And you?" Fleur asked to Rebecca. "Are you upset at 'arry?"
"What?" Rebecca asked, not expecting the question at all. She hadn't considered for a second, not even a fraction of a second, being upset at Harry even once.
"Because of the tournament and-"
"Of course not!" Rebecca interrupted. "Fleur, Gabrielle doesn't blame you--I know she doesn't. All you and Harry do is love your-" Rebecca's words trailed away. "When you love someone, you..." Conflict rose in her stomach and clarity came to her. "You wouldn't blame them for something like that. Something they had no control over, no part in." Rebecca stood up and pushed her chair in quickly, looking at the exit of the library. "I-I have to go."
"Was that good?" Fleur asked excitedly after Rebecca had left them. "'arry was very concerned about where she would go after. I think, at least. This 'andwriting, is it always like this?"
Hermione looked at the note and smiled, skimming the note that had been delivered by Harry to Fleur. "No, that's how it always is. But that's not Harry's writing."
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Having seen Fred and George leaving the castle earlier, Rebecca had an inkling of a feeling that she knew where they would be. She pulled her robes tighter around her, the sky's earlier sunshine having given way to a slight mist that fell over the cold, overcast afternoon.
The stones of the path soon shone with accumulated water and her trainers squeaked occasionally. The path was empty, and by the end of it, so was their table.
Empty at least from the path. Rebecca crossed through the grass to the table and found a piece of parchment under a rock. The rain had bled the ink slightly, but the words were legible still.
RJ,
Turn left and walk fifty paces.
Fred's writing but no sign of Fred himself. Rebecca turned to the left and went off into the trees, counting each passing step. By the time she'd hit fifty, she stopped and turned a full circle in the clearing she'd ended up in. The empty clearing.
"Fred?" Rebecca called, raising her hand to her mouth and wondering if she had somehow chosen the wrong left. "I'm here." No answer came from anywhere, so she continued a little farther. "You said fifty."
"What?" Fred jumped to his feet, a massive umbrella over his shoulder that had to have been grown by magic. He stepped forward and held the umbrella over her as well, leading her to the blanket. "I didn't think about how your steps are smaller than mine." He sat down with her doing the same, the two of them facing each other briefly before he began to speak. "I was-."
Rebecca shook her head, trying to intervene before he started going much farther.
"I was wrong." Fred reached into the basket in the middle of the blanket, pulling out teacups and a pot fit for a table, much less the middle of the forest. "I was wrong to threaten Nigel, very wrong to have blamed him. I-I was wrong when I said what I did to you."
"Fred,"
Fred pushed on, not having yet taken a breath and not having paused a moment. "I never should have brought up things that you've done to justify myself, not when you've always targeted the source of an issue. Nigel, Nigel hasn't ever done anything and I was wrong about everything."
"Fred, I-" Rebecca reached across the blanket and took his hand in hers, turning so that she faced him directly. "Fred, I don't think you were wrong about everything."
"I-"
Rebecca kept her eyes focused on their hands together, too ashamed to meet his eyes. "I know how to love, I've learned through our friends and home and-and through you. But loving is easy compared to being loved and I-" She took a breath, wanting to get through her thoughts without crying. "I guess that could be from my-from everything but-"
"It's okay, you don't have to-"
"I do have to, Fred." Rebecca looked up at him. "I love you and I know I love you. I know because if we had been swapped yesterday, if you were the one-if I had to see you lying there...I would have done exactly what you did. I would have done everything I could to bring you back and I would never let anything take you again because-" Rebecca lost the battle at last, the weight leaving her with her words forcing relief through her so strongly the tears escaped. "Because my life is so much better with you in it."
Fred's heart returned to equilibrium at her words, but there was one more thing that had to be said. "Rebecca..." He thought that what was left could perhaps be the hardest. "Rebecca, I have one more thing to apologise first and I need you to listen to me entirely before you say anything about it. Please?"
Rebecca nodded, agreeing to his term and afraid she already knew what he was going to bring up.
"I never should have shouted at you like that." Fred's had to clear his throat before he could continue, emotion threatening to silence him before he was through. "I saw how you looked at me when I did and I saw the fear that-I saw what I brought back to you." Fred brought his other hand to where she already held one of his. "I swear to Merlin, I swear to God, I swear on my life, mum's life--I-I swear on everything, I swear on absolutely everything, that I will never hurt you. I would never hurt you. I will never, ever do anything to earn that look again. Never."
"You can't swear that, Fred." Rebecca brought the back of his hand to her lips. "We're human, we're going to upset each other--We're going to shout sometimes. Sometimes at each other." She moved closer to him, abandoning his hands to wrap her arms around his neck. "I can't help some of the things I feel o-or I remember, but I know that you would never hurt me. Don't think for a single bloody moment I think you could."
Fred's head fell into the crook of her neck, his eyes closing. When they were like this, their hearts next to each others and their lips so close they only need turn to kiss, Fred felt whole. "I love you." He whispered.
Rebecca turned to look at him and leaned closer as he did the same, their lips meeting in the middle. "I love you, too." She answered when they pulled apart.
Fred smiled and leaned back, bringing her back down to the blanket sheltered by the umbrella with him. One arm behind his head and the other under hers, Fred closed his eyes and tried to memorise how he felt like this.
"Fred?"
"Yes, RJ?"
Rebecca moved so that her head was propped up by hers, she on her side so that she faced him. "I have to ask you something."
"Anything, love." Fred's heart stammered when she let one of her hands fall against his chest.
"You're not going to leave, are you?" Some things were hard for Rebecca to ask, and some things weren't. This was one that wasn't--She simply needed to hear the answer so the question could go to rest.
"Leave?" Fred's eyes widened. "Leave where?"
"I don't know where." Rebecca faltered, her strength faltering with the rest of her. She didn't know where he would go, she just knew that if he were to leave her behind without explanation, without words, she didn't see how she was supposed to continue. "Just gone, out of nowhere." The flash of brakelights leaving her in the darkness rose behind her eyes and she forced it back to the corner of her mind where she locked everything from the past away.
Fred sat up and switched with her, laying her back down so that he leaned over her. "I'm not going anywhere." She closed her eyes as he leaned down to her neck, leaving the briefest kiss before wrapping his arm around her middle and pulling her into him.
"I just don't want you to disappear." Rebecca whispered, her arms going around him perfectly. "If you're going to leave, I have to know. That's all I ask of you--let me know."
"I couldn't go anywhere even if I wanted to." Fred answered her fears, laying his head on her chest and hearing the steady beating of her heart. "Do you know why, my love?"
"Why, darling?" Rebecca didn't know where it came from, the name. But she also didn't know how it knocked Fred for a loop he wished would never end.
"Because," Fred raised his head and looked at the green eyes that could bring him so much happiness and so much sadness, so much pride and so much joy matched with a hope for the future he never felt from anywhere else. The green eyes of his love. "Because you are my heart, Rebecca. And you cannot go anywhere without your heart."
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Ron was fuming between Harry and George and Ginny when Hermione joined them later.
Hermione had known they were going to be at the outlook that could see into the clearing Fred had planned for Rebecca to meet him in and as soon as she could excuse herself from the library, she did. "How's it going with them?"
Not one--Ron, George, Ginny, or Harry--looked away from the little glimpse of Fred and Rebecca could see, but Harry at least acknowledged that someone had spoken. "Fleur did it, didn't she? Got the note?"
"Exactly as we needed." Hermione answered, crouching down next to Ginny.
"It's going well." George pulled his eyes away from the sight he could see through the binoculars he'd summoned from his room minutes before. "Want to see?"
"You-" Ron sputtered. "She just got here! I was next!"
Harry stepped closer to Hermione to avoid the battle ensuing between Ron and George as Ron launched himself onto his brother's back in anger.
"It is going well." Hermione remarked, not surprised. Rebecca and Fred were still lying underneath the umbrella--Rebecca resting her head on his shoulder and Fred's arm around her gently. "Looks like they're chatting."
"Still?" Ginny asked, standing behind Hermione as the misting slowly began to pick up into a drizzle.
"Yeah, still." Harry chuckled. "I think everything will be okay after all."
"Of course it will be, Harry." Hermione took one last glimpse at their friends and handed the binoculars to Ron, who snatched them greedily.
"Hmph." Ron grunted, looking through them only for a moment. "They do that all the time." Ron handed them back to Harry and turned to leave as the rain kicked up a notch higher.
Harry waited one second behind the others, raising the binoculars to his eyes to take a final reassuring look. Fred and Rebecca were exactly as they had been.
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"We should start going back." Rebecca said into the crook of Fred's neck. "We're soaked to the knickers and-"
Fred laughed loudly, turning his head to look at her. "What did you just say?"
"Soaked to the knickers?" Rebecca repeated confused as to what was so funny. "We're drenched where the rain blew!"
Fred shook his head and sat up, making sure to keep the umbrella he'd grown over her so she didn't get any wetter than they had already. "That's an old person's saying!" She joined him on her feet and found herself in the air instantly, spinning in his arms.
"Fred!" Rebecca laughed and held on tighter, finding that Fred only slowed when he himself was growing dizzy. "What was that for?"
Fred leaned down towards her, his hair falling over his eyes wet. He didn't answer, though he did kiss her deeply as the rain progressed further to a downpour. "C'mon!" Fred sent the blanket back to his room with his wand and pulled Rebecca to his side. "McGonagall's going to flip if we're late to dinner."
"Probably be more mad at the state of us." Rebecca remarked, holding her arm not around Fred's waist up so he could see how her jumper hung low, heavy with water.
"Maybe, maybe not." Fred gave her a crooked smile and paused at the entrance of the castle. "Statum siccum!" Both of their clothes were instantly dried.
"You learned the spell!" Rebecca gasped, warmer already.
Fred kept it too himself that he'd spent the hours he couldn't sleep--woken from nightmare after nightmare that Fleur hadn't been there to bring Rebecca back--mastering the spell despite its advanced level.
Rebecca took Fred's hand in hers as they began to walk towards the Great Hall, the clatter of students settling for supper heard outside. "The others had something to do with this, didn't they?"
Fred leaned down and pecked her cheek. "They only did what you would have done for any of them, love." He smiled at how her face flushed at the pet name. Rebecca looked over her shoulder when Fred pulled his hand from hers, stopping near the younger tables of Gryffindor. "I'll be right there, okay?"
Rebecca continued to their friends, curious and slightly nervous as she saw Fred clear his throat behind Nigel.
"I have two things to say, Nigel." Fred was studied warily by the second year. "The first is that it was wrong of me to have been so..." He struggled for the word.
"Scary?" Nigel offered, already having forgiven the older boy. Fred bent down one one knee and smiled as Nigel lowered his voice. "It's alright, mate. If I had a girl like that, I'd do the same thing."
"I'm sure you would." Fred grew somber again. "But that doesn't excuse me from anything. For that, I apologise." Fred reached into his pocket and pulled out Ron's debt that he had gotten for Nigel at last. "And the second is that I finally got you this."
Nigel held the parchment with Harry's signature carefully, grinning madly. "Wicked!"
"We're solid then?" Fred asked, standing back up and looking to where Rebecca was watching them with a smile.
"Well," Nigel said slowly. "You have done this twice now." The boy felt braver than he normally would have with Harry's autograph in hand. Nigel beckoned for Fred to lean his ear down and Fred's smile faded as he stood again.
"I see." Fred shrugged. "All I can do is ask, mate."
"That's fine." Nigel turned back to his table, effectively dismissing Fred to wander back to Rebecca as he scratched the back of his head and relayed Nigel's final request.
"Nigel," Rebecca said, putting her hands on his shoulders and swinging her leg over the bench beside him. Fred spooned out their dinners back with their friends, a sliver of admiration growing larger--Fred wouldn't ever have had the courage to pull a Nigel when he had been twelve. "I heard you wanted something from me. What was it again?"
Nigel burnt scarlet, stammering as he was suddenly over taken by nerves. "F-Fred didn't tell you?"
Rebecca giggled and leaned forward, pressing her lips to his cheek gently. "He did. I'm just messing with you."
Nigel's friends sniggered as Nigel froze at the kiss--He'd entirely expected her to say no. He didn't move as she returned to the older students.
"Thank you." Rebecca said to Fred quietly, knowing that the apology had been wholly warranted.
"The only one who needs thanking, is you." Fred answered, putting a plate with her favourites in front of her.
"What ever for?" Rebecca demanded, thinking he was trying to belittle the size of his actions.
"For making me the best I can." Fred answered, half filled with cheek and half filled with honesty.
Their conversation was ended as Harry and Ron dragged them into the debate taking place, Rebecca having to settle with squeezing Fred's hand on the bench between them to tell him how much she loved him. "Well?" Harry demanded, not finding his twin to be siding with him as she was supposed to be.
"No, Harry." Rebecca sighed and laughed lightly at the ridiculousness. "I cannot say whether or not I think oatmeal is a stew."
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