I don't own it.

-1-

"Cor, the two of you really are a right mess."

This- the first thought to blip through her mind- barrel-rolls from Angelina's tongue as she's sprawled on the red and gold carpet. Not even halfway to Hogwarts, and already she's violated Willa's Rule Number One: Anything said within the salon, stays within the salon. Her mum's always telling her that her big mouth will be her undoing, and, now, because these aren't the sort of boys to miss a trick, Angelina's gone and proven her right.

"Hear that, Georgie?" The one pushing himself up on his elbows says. "Sounds as if our reputation precedes us."

Behind him, the one grasping for the rail grins. Angelina counts five brown smudges between his forehead and chin. "Reputation? Us? Why, Freddy, I've no idea what you mean."

So it's a Fred and a George who've bowled her over in the corridor of this train. In the shop they've only ever been the one entity- The Weasley Twins- a two-headed monster all the mums whisper about over the pages of their Witch Weeklys'. To Angelina, they are legend: A single, unrelenting terror wreaking unholy havoc in the midst of the "Dear Mollys'", and the "Poor Arthurs''.

And now here they are, in the flesh. Living, breathing specimens alone in the wild. Angelina observes their dimensions, maps their movements with her eyes. She attempts to make sense of the strange manoeuvres by which they seem to be simultaneously helping each other up and dragging each other back down. She notes the knubby texture of their jumpers, studies the way their hair flames against the grey day gathered beyond the windows of the train. She's still on the floor, staring, stroking her fingers over her rug-burned palms, trying to place that scent and wondering why it reminds her of Christmas, when the first one, Fred, holds out a hand to help her up.

"You'll have to excuse my brother" he nods over his shoulder. "He's a bit of a troll when it comes to girls." Standing over her with his hand out, he even smells sticky. Tart. Almost cloying. Around his teeth, his mouth is stained a startling shade of red. Angelina remembers not to wipe her hand on her jeans after he pulls her from the floor.

"Right." The other one rolls his eyes to the ceiling and steps forward. "And you're a regular Lockhart with the ladies. I'm George, by the way. George Weasley, and this," they knock each other with their elbows, "is Fred. But perhaps you already knew that, eh?"

Called out, Angelina crosses her arms over her chest. "Or perhaps someone just has a rather swollen head." Her mother, she thinks, would be appalled.

The Weasley Twins glance at each other. Angelina runs a hand over her braids, tugging on the beads at the ends. She breathes through the next beat of silence, inhales that too familiar pause, that thick signal that she's said something she shouldn't have. The moment stretches on. Weeks pass. Eons. She claws her fingers against her sweating sides, steeling herself for a right proper put-down when the one called George leans in, his chocolate breath a warm puff on her cheek.

"Well yeah," he whispers. "His names Percy, and we try not to mention his condition out in public. You know, bad rep for the family and all that."

Angelina blinks, pursing her lips to mask her smile.

"So," Fred says, stepping forward, "What's your name, then?" And that's when it hits her. Chocolate dipped cherries. Dad's favourite. The ones her mum always puts in his Christmas stocking.

"Angelina," she says.

"Angelina," they repeat. Their mouths curl up at opposite corners, two halves of the same smile

"Right. Well, see you at the feast, then, Angelina," Fred says. George lays a hot hand on her shoulder as they pass.

"Yeah, see you."

Angelina watches as they disappear into the next car, these two candy-coated boys, and thinks the real thing is so much better than the myth in her mind.

-4-

"EFF-ing-O-li-VER-WOOD!"

She punctuates every second syllable with a blow to the locker door, then flings her broom away into the space behind her. She can pinpoint the place where the shaking starts, feel the rage pulse from the stem of her brain. Moving helped. Stalking away from him, her feet sliding on the slick grass, fingers clenched around warm, smooth wood, she was able to maintain control. Standing still, she's fallen to pieces- a heap of bloody knuckles, hot tears, and heaving breaths.

Out of sight, something scrapes the concrete floor, but she doesn't look around. Whoever it is can run and tattle to Oliver that she's gone and thrown a wobbly, and then they can go and sod right the fuck off.

"Language, Miss Johnson." The words come out slow and lilting, a tentative effort, and Angelina can't help the half-groan of relief that hitches from her throat.

"I thought everyone had gone back for dinner," she says, turning around to Fred. George stands behind him, the handle of her broom grasped against his shoulder, the frayed cuff of his jumper pulled over his knuckles. Angelina curls her fingers reflexively, splitting the skin that much further.

"No" Fred says as their eyes drift away from her, nonchalantly scanning opposite corners of the room. "So…" They say in unison. She would laugh if her hand didn't ache so badly.

"So," she says, separating her practice robe from her t-shirt and tugging it over her head. "Mr. Smarmy Smart Arse got in my face and asked if I was going to fly the bloody broom or don my frilly apron and sweep the changing room with it."

George winces, hisses over his teeth, while Fred shakes his head.

"That's harsh," says George.

"Chauvinist," Fred adds.

"All for a few missed passes…"

"He's a git."

"Yeah. Still, you think maybe…."

"Could be. He had an owl this morning."

"With a great, huge packet..."

They could go on like this all night. Angelina snaps a finger in front of her face. "Oi! What are you on about, then?"

George leans forward, licks his lips. "We think it's Oliver's dad," he says, voice low. "You know he was once pro. A Beater for Puddlemere …," he trails off.

"I don't know if you've seen," says Fred, "but he's been showing up at the matches. Then, every other day it's the articles and plays by owl. A couple of nights ago, Oliver said something about a recruiter. But if they close the school..."

"Then that mucks up daddy's two-year plan," She finishes, sinking down onto the bench. Right now, she does not, does not, want to empathize with Oliver Wood. She doesn't want to think about over-bearing fathers, or mothers who wait for a reason to be disappointed at every turn. She feels as if a plug has been pulled, the angry waves ebbing, emptying away until all that's left is a collapsible shell. Drained, she sags forward, scrubbing her hands over her forehead and across her cheeks.

"Still, it's no excuse…," George offers.

"And he was bang out of order…," says Fred.

"Well out of line…,"

"Yeah." Angelina lifts her eyes. "Well. Parents, eh? They always know how to push the right buttons. I suppose it just…. trickles down."

The room falls silent. Angelina watches Fred grind the toe of his boot in muddy circles on the floor while George fingers a singed spot in the thigh of his trousers. She's pondering the vexingly long reach of difficult parents when Fred suddenly goes still.

"Trickles down, eh?" He says.

She looks up. They're staring at each other, eyes glinting.

"Yeah," says George, "Trickles down." And then they both nod. Whatever it is has been decided.

"You know what you need?" George says, turning to her abruptly. He plunges his hand into his trouser pocket, grasps, then hauls out a shiny foil packet. "You need a Chocolate Frog. And a very big bandage."

George holds the candy out to her in his palm. Angelina takes it with her good hand then tugs the wrapper open with her teeth. The frog leaps, then lands, its tiny feet scrabbling across Fred's grinning lips. George plucks it from his face and drops it into her lap.

And he is right. This is exactly what she needs.

…..

Their next practice, every bludger hit bee-lines for the Keeper. Oliver ducks and scrambles. He twists and dives.

Later, on the ground, Fred and George are flummoxed.

"Must be this knot in my shoulder." Fred says, grasping his arm and stretching his neck. "Slept wrong. Can't seem to get it under control."

"This bat," says George, shuffling it over his palm and fingers, "It feels a bit off. " He grasps it, swipes it twice through the air "Off balance or just….out of line, somehow."

Oliver smashes his lips together and throws up his hands, then stomps off to the changing rooms. Angelina stares at the purple laces of her shoes, trying mightily to wrench the smile from her face.

-7-

"Come away from the window, hon."

Alicia's shoulders shrink as she pulls her arms tighter around her chest. From across the room, sitting on the corner of George's bed, Angelina watches a shiver scuttle up her spine.

"Tell me again why we sent Lee to fetch the brooms," Alicia says, taking one step back. Her hair lifts and flutters from the errant wind blustering over the stone sill.

Angelina turns back to the dealings on the bedspread. A box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans rattles in George's hand. He shakes a few out, pops a couple in his mouth, and then drops the rest in front of Fred.

"Lee is Stealth Incarnate." Fred says, scooping up the beans, hiding them in the turn-up of his hat. "Who better to go?"

"Right." Alicia leans out the window. "Well, Stealth Incarnate just tripped over his own feet on the flat lawn. Why couldn't one of you have gone?"

Angelina doesn't miss the swift glance that passes between the two boys on the bed.

George clears his throat. "I was going to," he says to the bedspread, scattering the rest of the beans in front of him. "But Lee said he probably needed the practice."

He says it casually, with no unusual inflection or emphasis. But, for a second, everyone stops. Stops shivering. Stops sorting. Stops breathing. Angelina's eyes prickle and burn.

The future has a way of tumbling down upon them these days.

"Besides," Fred finally breaks through, "if he's caught and expelled he can always…." He's cut off when George flicks a bean at his nose.

Yeah. Shut him up, Georgie, Angelina thinks. Can't let him give it away, now, can you?

They're keeping secrets, Angelina knows. They're making plans, constructing something huge and exclusive of everyone else, be they family or friend, and a fathoms deep part of her wants to beg them to stop. To keep their heads down. To stay close.

To stay safe.

But, Angelina knows, that's never been their way, and, besides, tonight is not about staying safe. Tonight is about breaking the rules in a spectacular fashion. Tonight is about taking back a few short moments from the year that horrid, little bitch is trying to steal from them. So, as soon as Lee is at the window with the contra-band, Angelina is the first to perch on the narrow sill, the first to scoot off into the darkness, hoping the school broom between her thighs will still fly as it should under the mass of two grown bodies.

"All right. Steady on," says the voice behind her, and Angelina can't tell who's it is because she only sees his silhouette when she glances toward the window. A hand cups the cap of her shoulder, and then the broom is dipping with the added weight, and her passenger is pressing closer in, trying to centre their combined bulk in just the right way. "I think we've got it," the voice murmurs, breath hot along the helix of her ear, fingers clutching at her down jacket along the curve of her waist.

She turns, smiling over her shoulder. "All right back in the bitch seat, Weasley?" Weasley, because she's still not sure which one he is, still not sure which one she wants him to be.

He grins. "Yeah. 'S all right." The words thread out in a cloud. Angelina breathes in a whiff of warm chocolate, the translucent trace of cinnamon.

So. George, it is, then.

And, as she flies, Angelina thinks that's just fine. Streaking along, she leans forward as she's been taught, maximizing speed and stability, and George leans with her, his chest broad and solid across her back, his fist balled against her belly. Halfway over the lake he reaches around, grasping the broom handle in front of her, helping to steer them toward the exact place they need to go.

"All right?" He asks, and Angelina nods. It is all right. Absolutely right.

It's there, forty feet up in the cold, night sky, Angelina finally figures it out. She likes Fred, she does. He makes her laugh until she aches, until she's sure she's jostled something out of place inside and the wrists of her robes are damp from her tears. He's brilliant at Charms, an excellent flyer, and he knows all the best places to hide for a snog. He is intensity and nerve and quick, biting wit- and being with him, alone, is positively exhausting. After a few hours of nothing but Fred, she finds herself needing something, someone, else to smooth off the rough edge. And so there's George. George, who's just mellow enough, who sits still just long enough for her to decide that she likes the way the firelight plucks every shade of brown, and orange, and gold from his hair. George, whose gaze doesn't just sweep across her looking for the next joke. It's George who chose to ride with her, tonight, and George who thought to show her the way. She likes Fred, yeah. But it's George she could love.

The other three are waiting as they crunch-land in the snow. The spot is little more than a hole in the forest, a place where the ground won't let things grow. Fred begins to pull stuff from his coat: A bottle, a water goblet, a jar of something that flashes blood red even in the weak moonlight. Lee and George weave in and out of the peripheral trees, finding wood to burn, sending it soaring to the centre of the circle, while Angelina and Alicia arrange it into a pyre, then stack the rest for later.

Fred clears the ground on one side of their fire pit, sets the goblet down and multiplies it. George walks over to where the rest of their refreshment is sunk in the snow. He picks up the bottle with one hand, the jar with the other. His face twists in disbelief.

"Bloody… Kirschwasser?" He holds the bottle up, label out, as if Fred doesn't know what it says. "Cherries? What in Merlin's streaky knickers are we supposed to do with these?"

"Look, brother, the proverbial cupboard was bare. The Toad's commanded the bloody elves to deny any special requests from students, so I had to improvise and nick the fullest bottle off the staff cart." Fred collects the goblets, wipes the grit from the bottoms. "And the cherries, I just thought- for the holidays, you know- cocktails."

"Cocktails?!"

They bicker on, Fred holding out the goblets and George adding a measure from the bottle. Still shaking his head, George drips a bit of the liquid from the cherries into each glass, then uses his wand to dig the fruit from the jar.

"At least the alcohol should help burn off some of the germs," Angelina says, sort of glad, for once, she's paid attention in Muggle Studies. The cherries plop down, then settle like dead things in the murky liquid. Alicia looks ill.

The goblets are passed 'round, and one sniff removes all doubt that this is a concoction best tossed down the throat in one go. After her second glassful, Angelina watches the night flash before her. She thinks, if she's lucky enough to see death coming, the image of Alicia flicking cherries with her wand into Fred's open mouth will swirl into the sight of Lee's feet, lifting and skidding, doing something he calls the 'Melbourne Shuffle' will swirl into the glow of sparks spurting like champagne foam from the tips of Fred and George's wands will swirl into the cry of "George! Georgie, you're…illuminated!", and George's eyes will glance up, and George's mouth will laugh, and his hand will brush the top of his head, and, one last time, the edges of a Kirschwasser label will flicker. Burn. Fizzle as it falls.

And there will be some stuff that comes before, and maybe a few things after, but these things, Angelina's certain, these are 'final breath' things.

-8-

Angelina is speechless.

Their shop is everything she thought it would be: Noisy, frenetic, and blindingly orange. Fred and George look slick and untouchable in dragon hide, but she hugs them anyway. Her hands smooth over the places where her fingers used to catch on the stitches of their jumpers, and when she pulls back, she can't help but feel she's lost a little something inside.

It's hard not to notice they don't smell so much like Christmas, anymore.

-9-

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

She presses the words to his neck. Shaky, inadequate, and coated in snot, they aren't much, but they are all Angelina can offer. George hauls her against him, huffing half-breaths against her shoulder, and she holds on as tight as she can, hating herself for thanking whatever powers that be that it wasn't him, too- that it wasn't him.

-9-

"You've come undone."

It's entirely possible that this is the wrong thing to say, but Angelina is four, no, five drinks into the evening while Weasley, by her last count, is still nursing the same sad, flat butterbeer that Lee ordered for him when he first sat down.

George's eyes roll up, linger upon hers for a moment, then shoot off to the side. The red and green faerie lights over the bar cast a strange wash upon his skin.

"Pardon?" he says.

"Your jumper. You've a dropped stitch." She points near his shoulder to the ladder of grey yarn stretched against his white t-shirt.

He shrugs. "I'll have Mum take a look at it," he murmurs, the last few words sinking into his drink as he holds the glass against his lips. Angelina watches the knot in his neck travel up then slide back into place. He looks at her and then nods, his face as blank as new parchment, and she wants to throw her glass against the bricks behind his head.

By now, Angelina is beyond familiar with this new expression of his- the 'doesn't give a toss' look reserved especially for her. Initially, she put it down to the untidy nature of grief, knowing as well as anyone how seeing the right (or wrong) person could suddenly send the sadness and guilt spiking inside. But, after seven months, it's proven a permanent fixture, and Angelina is bloody well sick of it.

She turns away from him, searching the throng of people milling about the bar, waiting for Lee or Alicia to surface. She listens as George breathes in, breathes out, then shifts his glass with a bumping sound against his beermat. She closes her eyes, inhales a chestful of smoke that's drifted from the next table over, then turns back around to face him.

"I don't get it, Weasley." Her voice skitters on the name, but she presses on. "You seem to get on all right 'til I turn up. Then you just take up space and waste Lee's money." The words are harsh, but anyone can hear there's no venom behind them, only genuine curiosity- and a touch of defeat.

"I'd hardly call one butterbeer galleon snatching at the pub, but if you're fussed about it…." He says, reaching for his money pouch and sliding from the booth.

"That's not what I'm fussed about, and you know it," she says, glaring up at him as he stands.

He places a stack of five Galleons in the centre of the table, and she has to clamp her fingers around her glass to keep from reaching for his hand. "Good night, Angie," he says, and then, without as much as a glance in her direction, he is absorbed into the crowd.

….

"I'll take the lot."

George turns from the display he's re-stocking. Angelina is pleased to see a hint of aggravation linger between his brows.

"What, the whole shelf?" He says, tossing the empty box into the corner behind the register. "I don't think I'm allowed to sell forty units of U-No-Poo to one person. Besides," he leans on the counter and nods toward the clock on the door, "shop's closed."

"You're sure? I've got the dough right here." The five galleons clink together as they slip through her fingers. For a moment, they both stare at the coins glinting in the pin-pricks of light from Number 95's window.

"Take a walk with me, Georgie?" Her voice is soft but tight. If he says no, that's it. That's all for them. Angelina curls her fingers around the box in her pocket. She slowly fills her lungs with the smell of his shop- floor wax, toffee, black powder- and waits.

She watches him think on it, chew the answer from his jaw. He's so quiet for so long that she startles a bit when he finally speaks. "Yeah, all right."

He rummages under the counter, coming up with a black cloak and a grey scarf. Even in the meagre light filtering through the fogged windows, she can see the colours cast a pall and don't really suit, and she wants to peal this Snape Cape off him, wrap him, instead, in something cashmere, and tailored, and warm, chocolate brown.

He holds the door open for her and they step out into the night. They walk in silence for a while, breath ghosting up in white billows, glancing at their reflections glazing over the Christmas things in all the shop windows. Angelina fingers the box, the cardboard warm from the heat of her hand, its contents shifting. She glances at George, tries for a moment to get a read on his face, then, failing, launches forward.

"I'm sorry about last night. I was out of order. I'd had too much to drink and- well, you know me-my mouth just … ran afoul." She pauses, but doesn't look over at him. She listens to the lullaby rhythm of their steps for a few beats, then grips her fingers around the box and pulls it from her pocket.

"Candy?" She says, tilting the box slowly.

For the tiniest instant, he flags beside her. Angelina walks on, leading him to the bench outside Montague's Magical Instruments. She curls a leg beneath her and sits, then nods for him to sit beside her. She pushes against the perforated corner, pops the cardboard open, then spills a few bright beans into the palm of her hand. "Your pick," she says,

George nudges his way through the tiny pile. A line of tension knots his brow, drips down his nose, puckers his chin. Angelina thinks of a zip ready to burst.

Across the way, Tybalt, the shop cat at Flourish and Blott's, slinks across the window to his spot at the corner of the display. Angelina lifts a bean to her mouth and takes it between her lips. Strawberry. Tybalt kneads his blankets to the desired shape, while they sit watching, chewing, in silence.

"You know, sometimes my mum slips and calls me 'Fred'?" George finally says. "And when she tears up, I always feel like I should apologize for getting it wrong."

He turns to face her. Angelina watches Tybalt bring a paw to his mouth to lick between his toes.

"And it's the same with you. Sometimes, it's like you look at me with that 'Fred' look, and I can't do it, Angie. I can't let you look at me and see him. It's not fair." He shakes his head, three quick jerks that she can see from the corner of her eye. "For anyone."

Angelina jiggles a few more beans from the box. She picks through, finding all the speckled ones, and then holds them out for him to take.

"You like the dessert ones," she says. "And Fred liked the fruit ones. So it always worked out." She glances at him, then leans over, brushing her nose against the red locks blanketing the scarred skin where his ear used to be. "I know who you are, George Weasley," she whispers, and then she presses her lips to the sharp corner of his jaw.

She pulls back, un-tucks her leg, and moves to stand. "I miss Fred. Every day. But he and I never stood a chance, Georgie. Not when I realized I had a thing for his brother."

It's all out now, her heart laid at his feet. She waits, watches his fingers clench around the beans, and then steps past him. Having nothing to say is answer enough.

In the faerie lights from the windows, the beans are jewel-coloured pebbles, clicking upon the cobblestones as they bounce and scatter around her feet. George's fingers are cold around her wrist, and the slide of his thumb across the thin skin above her veins makes her shiver. She stops, then turns a shoulder into the warm body behind her.

"Percy'd never be able to handle a woman like you," he says. Her lips twitch at the utter earnestness of his face.

"Well, then" she says, leaning against him as his arms come around her waist. "I suppose that's just my bad luck."

~FIN~