Ember to Ember

Date: October 29
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Alec left his Weasley jumper here.

Date: November 19
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Are we still on for the movie on Friday? Alec will be at Ron and Hermione's. Also: am I still picking you up Wednesday?

Date: November 19
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Yeah, Ben's with Kara on Friday. Don't expect me to be in a great mood Wednesday.

Date: November 19
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Don't worry about it. I imagine interrogations are unpleasant.

Date: November 20
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
That and Veritaserum tastes like old socks. Steeped in stale Butterbeer.

Date: November 20
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
I won't ask how you can recognize the taste.

Date: November 20
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
I think that's how Kara flavours her porridge. The only reason I don't fear for Ben's health is that nothing she makes is actually poisonous, other than aesthetically.

ooo000ooo

Friday, November 23

"All right, all right," George grumbled, as whoever was at the lab door knocked again, loudly and impatiently. "Keep your p-panties on." He flicked his wand distractedly, taking down wards as he went, his mind on Wheezes' newest love charm and his sons' latest escapade. Three years old and they already seriously made him doubt his ability to survive their childhood. He wondered if they would also end up being the driving force for new security products, as their cousin Michelle was, because sheer desperation kept forcing him and Fred to invent new ways to keep her out of their things, and some of those inventions had really proven-

"George! Open up!"

George blew out his breath impatiently, finally opening the door. "I s-said I was-"

Harry stalked in and George backed up automatically. Harry was livid. Waves of fury were rolling off him and George felt a pang of alarm as all the candles in the room wavered a bit and the clock hiccupped.

"Harry?"

"Where the fuck is your brother?"

George frowned. "I'm assuming you m-mean Fred," he said. Harry glared at him. "N-not in my pocket, mate. You've tried his home?"

"First place I went. Also tried Wheezes. He's not there either."

"And you w-want him because..."

"Because he's gone too fucking far this time, and I'm going to strangle him with his own bloody entrails if he doesn't have a fucking good explanation for this." He threw a copy of the Prophet, open to the third page, onto the table.

George looked at it and blanched. Oh shit. There was Harry, blurry and far away but still quite recognizable as himself, walking up to a man in a hooded cloak and kissing him briefly before they both disappeared into a building. The man's face was mostly shadowed by his hood, but he was easily recognizable as Malfoy to anybody who knew who he was supposed to be. "Boy Who Mourned Finds Love At Last?" trilled the headline, followed by a mercifully short and vague reference to Harry being spotted meeting somebody at the entrance to a small store, and brief speculation as to who that somebody might be.

Shit.

George scanned the picture again, re-read the article. "Look, you d-don't know that it was Fred-"

"I was using one of your fucking New Face amulets! The kind that you can only see through if you've got the counter-charm! Whoever took this picture had a camera modified with the counter-charm. Who else could've-"

"Yeah, I figured that part, b-but you know the Aurors have-"

"I was using a new model prototype," Harry said, and tossed a small amulet onto the table next to the paper. "You know, the ones you haven't given the Auror corps counter-charms to, because they're not available to the general public yet?"

George gave a low whistle.

"Fred gave it to me himself," Harry fumed. "Said you'd found the current ones make you queasy if you wear them in the rain. I thought it was awfully decent of him to give it to me, considering he knew I was using them to be with Draco. Bastard!"

George covered his mouth, completely appalled.

"I take it he didn't discuss this with you," Harry said grimly.

"Fuck n-no," George said. He swallowed hard and rubbed his forehead, fighting down the very strong urge to find Fred right now and give him a bloody nose without so much as a Hello first. How the fuck could...

All right, pull back. Harry was angry enough that he didn't need anybody else to fan the flames. George drew a deep breath, re-read the short article. "It doesn't m-mention Malfoy's name," he pointed out in what he hoped was a reasonable tone.

"Yeah. This time!" Harry fumed. "Who the hell does he think-" he cut himself off, shook his head angrily. "So. Where the fuck is he?"

George glanced at the clock. Nine thirty, Friday morning. "P-probably at the Apothecary, or back at the flat," he said, and reached out to grab Harry as Harry started back out the door. "Harry. Wait."

"Let go."

"Wait! Listen-"

"I am not going to fucking well wait! I-"

"You c-can't just-"

"I am not going to let you calm me down and talk me out of telling him exactly what I think of his FUCKING interference-"

"He-"

"'Protecting Alec' and - who the FUCK does he think he-"

"HARRY!" George shouted. "Fucking shut UP!" He took a deep breath. "I'm not g-going to talk you out of anything. I'm j-just going to come with you." Harry glared at him. "To make sure you d-don't kill him. Before I get a chance to d-do it myself."

Harry crossed his arms, somewhat mollified, and waited, tapping his foot, while George put the potion he'd been working on in stasis. He checked the lab to make sure nothing was left in an unstable condition, then got out his MagicMap of Diagon Alley, quickly locating a moving dot with Fred's name on it, in their old flat and current work and storage area. And damn, he had his kids with him too.

"R-right," George said, dousing the bright lab lights. "Our old flat."

God, Fred, what in buggery have you done, George thought dazedly as they Flooed to Diagon Alley. Yeah, he'd said way back in the summer that he wasn't going to let this go, that he was determined to get Malfoy out of Harry and Alec's life... but that had been months ago. And doing it like this, bringing Harry to the attention of the press, was bound to backfire. George hadn't seen Harry this wound up, this alive, since before Ginny had died. He was almost levitating from the sheer force of his fury.

Not for the first time, George wondered how he and Fred could've drifted so far apart. Compared to most siblings, even most twins, they were still very close, but they had once been almost like the same person. He had once been able to say with almost one hundred percent accuracy what Fred would think or feel or say or do about everything. But what Fred had done now... George just couldn't get his mind around it. He'd given Harry an amulet, modified a camera to see past its charm, taken a picture of Harry, and sent it in to the sodding Prophet. No doubt he'd blurred Malfoy deliberately, both to keep Harry from outright killing him and to make the picture more useful. Intimidating Malfoy into scurrying back into the shadows while there was still a chance of protecting his anonymity.

It was so calculated, and so bloody cold.

It just might work, too, George realized. But at what cost to Harry? At what cost to Alec - and to Ben, Malfoy's little kid? How could Fred do something like this to a child? It was just...

Not for the first time, George wished Lucius Malfoy into the deepest bowels of hell. After Malfoy had cursed him, George had spent months fighting pain and disability, learning to move and see and speak again; Fred had spent the entire time helplessly watching, unable to do anything to help his twin, and it had soured something inside him. George couldn't imagine any other reason for him to have gone this far off the deep end. The brother he knew would've railed at the situation between Harry and Malfoy, made obnoxious comments about it, and maybe even contemplated blackmail. But he would never have actually carried it out. Not without the family's support, certainly not by bringing Harry publicity, and absolutely not without even telling George about it beforehand.

Bloody hell.

"So have you t-talked to Malfoy yet?" George asked, more to distract himself from his own depressing thoughts than out of any real curiosity.

"No." Harry ran a hand through his hair. "I doubt he's seen it. He doesn't get the paper; besides it's Friday morning, he's got Choral Ensemble and, erm, Composition, I think. He probably won't see it unless I tell him about it. Fuck, he's going to go mental."

"You're going to tell him, then?"

Harry glared at him. "Of course I am! I'd be a right prat to keep something like this from him, wouldn't I? It concerns him. He deserves to know!"

"Right, right, c-calm down, mate," said George, fighting to not roll his eyes at Harry's excellent imitation of a nesting dragon. "Just asking."

They arrived at Wheezes and hurried through the cheerful crowd and magenta-clad employees, and George realized with annoyance that he'd forgotten his indoor glasses. He grabbed Harry's arm, glad for the excuse to keep hold of him in case he decided to do anything unusually stupid. Harry led them to the back stairs and they started up, with George still trying to figure out how to get Fred's kids out of the way, how to contain the situation, and how to stop himself from beating the shit out of his twin himself. While operating in blurry darkness. Marvellous.

"No it's not funny, Michelle!" Fred's voice came floating down the stairs as George and Harry went up. "Your little brother is scared out of his wits and-"

There was an indistinct sound, presumably from Michelle.

"That was supposed to be a cautionary tale!" Fred said, exasperated. "Not a bl- not a suggestion!" Pause. "Yes, that's wonderful, he won't be scared of spiders - instead he'll be terrified of teddy bears! D'you have any idea how much other kids are going to tease him for having a phobia of teddy bears?!"

George suppressed a chuckle.

"No! You are Flooing back home and you will not be back at the shop until your mum says so - and that won't be until you've apologized to your brother!"

The door slammed open and Fred came out, carrying a bag of Apothecary purchases and starting down the stairs. He stopped in surprise as he nearly ran into George and Harry.

"I need to talk to you," Harry said grimly, pushing his way past Fred and into the small flat.

"Sure mate, I'll just go drop off-"

"No. Now."

Fred frowned at Harry, but followed him into the flat and dropped his purchases near the door. "What's got your knickers in a knot?"

Harry shoved the paper at Fred, and Fred's eyes widened as he took in the picture. He looked up at Harry with a frown.

"You think I-"

"You're the one who gave me the prototype amulet, and you knew I was going to meet Draco outside the Broomstick the day before yesterday!" Harry said, his voice tight with rage.

George's stomach did an unpleasant flip. "Wait - the d-day before yesterday?" he asked, and Harry nodded. George and Fred exchanged a glance, and George looked away, schooling his features into blankness.

"Yeah, at the bloody Broomstick," Harry said. "We had dinner at Fred and Anne's last weekend and Alec mentioned me picking up Draco from his debrief in front of the shop. Nobody else knew-"

"All right, fine," Fred said defiantly. "So the paper got a picture of you. So what? I'm sure Ron told you what I said back in the summer-"

"You bloody-"

"I told everybody we should do this. I don't see why you're so upset. The papers've always run bits about you; they'll keep doing it till long after you're dead." Fred shrugged. "Besides, it doesn't actually show Malfoy-"

"This time! Now that the press knows I'm dating someone - and there's Aurors and prison guards and Ministry people who know I'm dating Draco - it's just a matter of time before somebody talks, and-"

"So?" Fred said harshly. "He'll get the idea that he doesn't want the papers to actually show his ugly face next time, and scarper off."

Something in the bag from the Apothecary abruptly blew up in a puff of acrid purple smoke.

"Where the FUCK do you get off deciding that?! You had no fucking right!!"

"If he scares off that easily," Fred said coolly, waving his wand to dispel the smoke, "then he's not exactly worth-"

"You have no idea what he's worth!" Harry shouted at him, and George quickly brought out his own wand to set a containment spell around the remaining Apothecary items. "You've no idea how much he's changed, or what he's like with Alec, or what he thinks about any of what he did - because you've never bothered to ask!! You self-righteous prick!"

"I don't need to ask, Harry! Your boyfriend is a convicted criminal. His record speaks for itself. And if you're going to try to convince me he's reformed, maybe you've forgotten he just spent six weeks in prison, again!" He broke off, coughing. "Now get your fucking magic under control before you blow up anything else!" he snapped at Harry.

Harry whipped out his wand and shoved it at George impatiently. "You know exactly why Draco went to-"

"Petrificus Totalus too complex for him, was it? What about Protego? Muffliato? D'you honestly believe the only option he had was one of the few spells he's actually not supposed to use?"

"He panicked!"

"And reverted to form!" Fred shot back. "It's when the pressure's on that you see what people are really made of, and your boyfriend is mostly composed of cowardly shite!"

Fred literally didn't see what hit him, as George's instinctive but ill-timed warning shout distracted him and made Harry's punch hit the side of his jaw as opposed to his mouth, Harry's probable target. Fred reeled back, catching himself against the wall and swearing loudly, then came back at Harry with a vicious blow to the ribs, which doubled Harry over briefly before he straightened and started to launch himself at Fred again - and George finally got the presence of mind to react.

"Protego!" he shouted, and Harry smacked against the shield between him and Fred. "S-stop it! FRED! Expelliarmus!"

Suddenly he had both their wands in his hand, and was gaping at them as they glared at each other, Fred's hand on his jaw and Harry's breathing laboured, a glowing shield separating them.

"What the hell is the m-matter with you?!" he shouted at them.

"You don't know him!" Harry raged at Fred, ignoring George. "You don't know anything about him!"

"And you think you do? He's playing you like a-"

"Shut up!!" George snapped. "Both of you! Silencio! Gelium!"

He took a deep breath and got a hold of himself as they both glared at him, silenced and held in place by his spells. "B-bloody hell," he said in disbelief. "That's a s-spell I use on Frank and Graham when th-they're fighting over the last biscuit!" He waited a bit longer, forcing them to cool off. "Now. If I l-let you go, can you act like big boys? Or should I s-send you both to bed without any pudding?"

They nodded sullenly. He took a deep breath and released them.

"You don't know Draco," Harry began again, somewhat more restrained.

"I may not know what he's like in bed," Fred said disdainfully, "but I do know enough to know he's not somebody Alec should be with. And you should know that too. You've got a responsibility to Alec, and it should be bigger than your responsibility to your prick!"

George swallowed hard as Harry's eyes went icy and his lips thinned. "Don't even try to play that card with me, Fred! If we're going to get into who's a responsible parent, I could point out that you're the one with the daughter who scares the shit out of everybody around her, and maybe if you used a bit better discipline on her-"

Fred flushed, stung. "Just because I don't-"

"-I won't, because she's your daughter and I'm not going to second-guess how you raise her! I expect the same fucking courtesy from you, but apparently that's too much to ask for!"

George shook his head, "Harry, he's n-not saying you're a-"

"He knows exactly what he's saying," Harry shot back, not bothering to look at George.

"It's just that we c-care about Alec, and-"

"Fred can speak for himself," Harry snapped. He took a deep breath, obviously struggling for restraint. "Look, Fred," he said, more calmly. "I know how much you care about Alec. And I know I wouldn't have got through Alec's first year without all of you, and I know what you in particular did, even though you were mourning Ginny too. And believe me, I'm grateful to you." He narrowed his eyes. "But don't you ever second-guess what kind of father I am again, and don't you ever even think of doing anything like this again. EVER."

"I'm not-"

"I have done my level best to be a good father to Alec. Don't you fucking dare decide you suddenly know what's best for him, just because I'm seeing someone you don't approve of."

"This has nothing to do with me approving-"

"Because for your information, Draco's bloody good to Alec! My son finally has somebody who understands him, and I am not going to piss that away because you never got over George getting cursed!"

Fred's eyes narrowed. "This isn't about George-"

"I am sorry George got cursed!" Harry went on forcefully. "I am sorry Bill got bitten! And I am really, really fucking sorry Ginny died! But you are not the only wizard in the world who had people you cared about hurt by Voldemort and his supporters, and I am not going to let you ruin what I've got with Draco just because you never managed to get past any of it." Harry stepped around George's shield spell and took his wand back. "And if you ever mess with Draco again, you will fucking well regret it. If you ever threaten his privacy again I will leave my wand at home and just beat you to a pulp with my bare hands. All right? Is that fucking crystal clear?"

Fred's eyes flicked over to George, who gave an infinitesimal nod. Fred cleared his throat. "Crystal."

"Fine." Harry tucked his wand away. "You bloody well owe Draco an apology, too. The only reason I won't insist you give him one is that you'd just insult him. And believe it or not, he doesn't need or deserve that."

He turned and headed out of the flat. They heard his footsteps going down the stairs and, a moment later, the crack of Apparition as he passed the store wards.

George let out his breath, and Fred sat down heavily at the table, putting his head in his hands. George pulled up a chair and joined him.

"I may have to kill her," Fred said softly after a long silence.

"I t-take it she didn't tell you," George said quietly.

"No."

"D-did you have any idea what she was going to do?"

"No. She just said she'd join the rest of us after she'd picked up some supplies."

George nodded.

"And before you ask, no, there's no way I'm telling anyone," Fred said. "You and me and Demelza are the only ones who know we spent all day in Surrey on Wednesday."

"All except f-for Anne," George said grimly. "Harry'll probably-"

"Tell Ron, and Ron'll tell Hermione," Fred said, nodding. "It won't go farther than that. I hope."

"If it does, Mum's g-going-"

"To kill me, I know. Better me than Anne."

George blew out his breath, and Fred looked up at him seriously.

"I'm right and you know it. Me, she'll yell bloody blue murder at - might get a Howler, even - but Anne? There's no way I want Anne being treated like Fleur was the first few years she was with Bill."

"You d-don't think she's-"

"Earned it?" Fred chuckled humorlessly. "Maybe. But if Mum ever finds out it was Anne, she'll..." He shook his head. "She's never quite forgiven me for marrying her in the first place. And I bloody well have not earned the 'I told you you shouldn't have married a Slytherin' speech."

"D'you think she m-might have a point?"

Fred rolled his eyes. "I'm sure Anne just was trying to do what she thought was right by Alec. You know she's... you know how she gets over Death Eaters. It wasn't easy for her to be one of the only Slytherins on our side. She goes a bit mental."

George barely stopped himself from pointing out that Fred describing anybody else as "a bit mental" over the topic of Death Eaters was a bit like Percy calling anybody else a crashing bore. Not the time. "Would you have stopped her, if you'd known?"

"Yeah. Probably why she didn't tell me," he said, rubbing his forehead. George got up and took out a bottle of Firewhiskey, managing to pour two glasses with only minimal difficulty despite the darkness of the room. Fred nodded his thanks, knocking back a glass.

"You'll have to t-talk to her," George said firmly.

"Yeah. Merlin. That'll be a joy." He ran a hand through his hair and held out his glass, looking up as George felt around for the bottle unsteadily. "Oh bloody hell you can't see a thing. Sorry." He waved his wand and Summoned a pair of George's indoor glasses.

"Thanks." George blinked as the glasses went on and the room lost its disorienting blurry dimness.

"You were working in the lab? How's the second variation?"

"Needs more asphodel."

"I got some."

"N-not any more. I think that's what Harry exploded."

Fred swirled his Firewhiskey around the bottom of the glass. "Does it make everyone talk in limericks? Or is that just for us?"

"Demelza got acrostic."

"Brilliant! Wonder what Percy would get."

"Mine even w-worked my stammer in. Demelza almost died laughing... wait, what w-was it I ended up saying...

The next time we're f-feeling frisky

Remember that twins can be risky

Hermione's appalled

They've ch-charmed her cat bald

They're all yours; I'm off for Firewhiskey.

"Oh, brilliant!" Fred grinned, eyes sparkling. "The stammer part's no commercial use whatsoever, but brilliant nonetheless!"

George chuckled, then sobered. "We're going to drive him away, you know."

Fred's smile disappeared. "He said he would choose us over-"

"That was after they'd been together three months. It's been six now."

"Yeah, and six weeks of that with Malfoy in Azkaban," Fred sneered. "That should give anybody pause, I don't care how love-stupid they are."

George shook his head. "They're becoming a family."

Fred set his jaw. "They're not."

"You don't want to s-see it because you don't want him to replace Ginny. But there's bugger-all you can d-do about it."

"He's not replacing her. Even if he was, I wouldn't care, Alec needs somebody - just not Draco Malfoy."

"That's g-getting old, Fred."

"Shut up."

George swirled the dregs of his own Firewhiskey, staring at the patterns of flame in the glass. Bloody hell, arguments with Fred were draining.

"Did you think I had?" Fred asked, his voice low. George raised his eyebrows. "Taken the picture," Fred clarified.

George knocked back the rest of his Firewhiskey and shook his head. "I d-didn't know what to think, mate."

"I wouldn't-"

"I can't say any more. D-don't you think that says something, that even I c-can't tell what you're likely to do? D-doesn't that worry you?"

"No."

"It should."

Fred stared at him. "Doesn't it bother you that Malfoy's not rotting in Azkaban like he should be, learning to paint with drool?"

"No."

"Fuck, George." Fred shook his head in disbelief. "You're - you still can't talk right. You're almost blind indoors. And you sit there and tell me it doesn't bother you-"

"You've ch-changed a lot more than I have."

Fred pressed his lips together and looked away.

George sighed. "I kept thinking, how could you d-do that to Harry? And Alec? And b-bloody hell, even Ben? I c-can't even understand how Anne could do it. Ben's just a l-little kid, Fred. A sweet little kid."

"Of course Ben's a sweet little kid," Fred said impatiently, "and you can't not like him, but that doesn't make a damned bit of difference in how I feel about his father. Or how Anne feels about him either."

"Come on, mate, Malfoy's raising him; at l-least some of what you like in Ben is d-due to Malfoy."

Fred snorted. "Listen, by that logic, Walburga Black was probably a sweet old biddy and the Dursleys were just well-meaning and tragically misunderstood. You can't look at the child and automatically see the parents."

George rubbed his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. He got up, put the Firewhiskey away. "So you're sure, you d-don't want anybody but us to know it w-was Anne?"

"I'm sure."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I guess I can understand that. I m-mean, the whole family would go mental on Anne. You'd p-probably have to leave her."

Fred's eyes widened. "What?"

"Well if it's the whole f-family against just Anne-" he began reasonably.

"And my kids!" Fred said, and George shrugged. "She's my wife! I'm pissed as hell at her, but - oh sod off," he broke off. "It's not the same."

This was, George felt, one of the upsides of having had to learn to speak again, and still having a stammer. It had taught George the value of silence. Sometimes it really did work out better if the person you were talking to had time to come to conclusions on their own.

"If you-"

"Had to choose, I'd choose her, yeah," Fred said sourly. "I caught the analogy, thanks."

"Even if it w-was her or me?" George asked.

Fred looked away. "Even then," he said quietly. "But it's not the same with Malfoy."

"Maybe not right n-now. It will be soon."

"No."

George put a comforting hand on Fred's shoulder, reflecting that another good side of having a stutter was that it forced him to consider ahead of time what was worth making the effort to say out loud, and what wasn't. And this... wasn't worth it. He could probably talk till he was blue in the face and Fred would still refuse to see that he was wrong, that he was letting his own problems affect Harry, that Anne had done the same thing, and that they both needed to conquer their own demons or they would damage themselves - and Harry and Alec - a lot more than they would damage Malfoy.

George sighed again. It was so bloody simple, really. Harry was head over heels in love with Malfoy, and Fred and the rest of the family were just going to have to accept it. Nobody went off the way Harry had done today for somebody they were only shagging for a lark. Nobody looked the way Harry did when he spoke of Malfoy if it didn't mean anything. Of course Fred and Anne couldn't see that - Harry wasn't stupid, and the whole Malfoy Topic was a huge unmentionable with most of the family - but knowing George didn't care had made Harry loosen up with him. He'd talked about spending time with Malfoy. Mentioned how worried he was about how Malfoy was dealing with having been in prison again. How much he wanted to help him, and how helpless he felt. How difficult it had been, being with Malfoy after he'd told Ben about his past.

"Going back to the lab?" Fred asked.

George nodded. "You're going to-"

"Talk to Anne," Fred said heavily, nodding. "Keep your couch free for tonight. I may need it."

"It's always there. Though r-really, it should be Anne sleeping on the couch tonight."

Fred laughed bitterly. "Oh you're welcome to argue that to her if it comes to that. Ah, no, never mind, bad idea," he corrected immediately, and George chuckled.

"D'you want me to heal-" he gestured at Fred's jaw, now a distinct reddish tinge.

"No thanks. Might make her feel guilty; that's bound to help some."

"For what it's worth, I r-really think you should tell Harry-"

"That it wasn't me?" Fred shook his head. "No. Wouldn't do any good."

George shrugged, letting the topic go, and watched Fred step into the Floo.

And a string of images came unbidden to his mind, all things Fred and Anne would probably never see, of Malfoy at Harry's house one weekend when George had dropped by with a present for Alec from Wheezes. Alec's face glowing as he showed Malfoy what George had given him. Malfoy hugging Alec, making a joking comment to Harry, and blushing, actually blushing, when Harry made some low response George didn't catch. Harry grinning at Malfoy, unselfconsciously holding his hand, kissing him in the kitchen while Alec and Ben played with the toy George had brought.

Maybe it should've felt nauseating, seeing that. And he was fairly sure Ron probably still went green at the mere thought of any of it. But it was good to see Harry happy again. Living again.

He picked up the bag of Apothecary purchases, and started back down the stairs.

ooo000ooo

Author's Note: BTW, the poetry-inducing Wheeze idea is not mine. It sprang from the imagination of scrtkpr, whose Poetic Justice deserves a special place in the anals annals of H/D fic and can be found at http://scrtkpr.livejournal.com/7848.html :)