Author's note: What always intrigues me about reviews is the way other people view the character's you've created, and the perceptions of faults you don't even see. I've often been taken aback by people blaming Ada for things I didn't think of- her treatment of Draco in particular, which most of you seemed to think was unfair and negligent, which I wouldn't have even considered without reviews, much less agreed with. I guess I'm so wrapped up in becoming Ada, so thoroughly absorbed in her voice and in the story that she tells through me, I didn't even consider her actions from an objective standpoint, or even the other character's point of view. But SiobanPhelps's comment helped consolidate a sort of plotline this was heading towards, that I hadn't even realised until I was halfway through writing it. Ada has been selfish, and in consequence, so have I- where she goes I go, etc. But she has treated Fred awfully, and I didn't even realise it. I already had a sort of series of events in my head for the time following Eva's death, and her perceiving Fred more clearly as a result of losing her best friend was going to a huge part of that series of events. But this chapter focuses much less on her future with Fred than I'd intended it to, and instead is much more about mutual understanding with regards to Ada's treatment of her husband, and that's as a result of you guy's input. I was surprised, reading it back, at how Ada's selfishness (which was intentional) towards her daughter had affected her and Fred's relationship, (which was not!), and without the reviews this might not have been highlighted. I thought that was interesting, but maybe I'm just rambling... Anyway, lots more plot-ish stuff coming your way, which you may either love or hate. I'm not quite decided myself. IT'S SO EXCITING!

Love you guys. Special thanks to chocolateandcheesecakes and BellatrixD, as always :)

Don't own Harry Potter, thank Merlin. That'd be a bit of a mess, yes? ;)

Things Fred didn't say when I came home:

You've treated me like shit.

I am not a goddamn doormat. You cannot walk over me, ignore me, use me when it suits you and look past me when it does not.

This can't continue. I can't be strong enough for both of us. Can't hold the world together, even as it falls apart- not alone.

Are you back for good, or just the weekend?

That thing that you did, where you ignored me, and let everyone else care for the child you and I brought into this world? Yeah. Not your finest hour.

How can I trust you anymore?

Lena needs a solid mother in her life. A mother she can turn to. There's enough evil in this world, without you turning from the good in you. You're acting like a child.

I loved her, too. She meant something to me. I always treated her like a sister, and that was because of you.

I'm hurting, too. You keep turning from me, as frightened as a child, when I need you most. You're meant to be my wife, and you keep demanding the treatment of a second daughter barely out of nappies.

Where are we supposed to go from here?

He could have. I wouldn't have blamed him. These were the truths that hung between us, in that moment. Unspoken, and because of it, more profound. But he didn't. Because he wouldn't press me. Because he loved me, and because Fred's capacity to forgive had always been something that drew me to him. Something beautiful and humbling, something that reminded me there was wonder and light in the world.

Instead, he pulled me into a tight hug that stole the breath from my lungs, his head fitting atop of mine as if that was where it was made to be.

Tears filled his eyes, and, fingers trembling, I reached up and brushed them from his eyes. I could feel the sobs wracking his body, suppressed by his teeth as they gnawed at his bottom lip.

"I love you." I told him.

"It's going to be alright." He whispered, and for a moment I had the luxury of knowing it was.

He couldn't understand, could never understand, not the way Eva had. And he knew it. But he tried so hard.

He saw, as no one else did, the way I flinched when anyone raised their voice. The way I whimpered at the most innocent of things, the way I expected blows from the most everyday of entities. He saw the tremors, the symptoms of abuse everyone else was able to look past, and he accepted them. Even if Fred Weasley could never understand what caused them, could never fully appreciate the horror of an abusive past, he could embrace me as I was. Could embrace the fact that when he married me, he married a broken child, married half a person. Could embrace the fact that that person would never truly be whole.

But perhaps that child in me could be quieted, and perhaps that person I was could become almost whole, for he made it better. Made me better.

He made me that bit more whole.

We didn't need to speak for these things to be heard, for this communication to pass between us. The love I felt for Fred overflowed from the little things. I would always look at him like this, I knew with certainty. Like he was a being of beauty and of wonder, a being that would never be found anywhere else in the world. Would never stop looking at him with wonder, for a being of wonder was what he was.

And so the tears fell from his eyes, and his body shook, and I held him, for he was almost all I had in the world.

"Let's have dinner. I'll knock something up." I said finally, when it had stopped, and it seemed as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

A knowing look passed between us, as knowing looks often do, and I was rewarded for my efforts with a shaky laugh. "Takeaway?"

"I was thinking Chinese." I replied, with a solemn nod.

Laughing again, he buried his face in my hair, and placed a soft kiss there, clinging to me as if he would never let go. Inhaling deeply, I could practically feel his smile, and revelled in it, in the pleasure of an honest embrace. All said and unsaid was out in the open now, and I did not want him to let go.

"This is why we're married, Weasley." He whispered, his arms tightening around me. "You excel in reading my mind."

Thoughts of occulmency and legitimency flashed in my consciousness, expelling the comfort of the moment, but after a second they were gone, and all that there was and ever would be was the silence, and, beneath that, the sound of our mingled breaths.

Fred inhaled deeply again, his arms tightening almost in perceptively. "Welcome home."

How long we stayed like that will be forever unknown, but in my mind, it was an eternity of beauty and grace. A lifetime more than Eva would ever live.

ℓℓℓ

"And then Mrs Davidson says 'Do you think these are an appropriate thing to place in the hands of a child?' and George replies 'No, madam, not at all.' And she's looking all triumphant, as if she's singlehandedly brought down the goddamn devil himself, and she says 'Good. I will expect them down by tomorrow afternoon, or else the department for improper trading of artefacts will have something to say to the pair of you.' And George replies, in his most pompous Percy manner, 'Indeed, I should think so. Quite over the line of us, I agree. Speaking of over the line, however, I wonder... What would the department for improper trading of artefacts have to say about your assumed closeness with Mr Avery? I believe your husband heads all investigations into the propriety of artefacts does he not, Mrs Davidson?' and she goes purple and-"

I adjusted my position, looking at him from above, my hair brushing his face. Almost absently, he twines his fingers into it, pulling me closer until our noses touch and all I can see of him is his eyes. Such blue, I think, as I bite back the grief that threatens to overwhelm me once more.

"I miss it, Ada." He says, watching me with an intensity that makes me squirm, making no effort to brush back the hair that pools against his cheek- it is everywhere, spread like a blanket over the soft white of his bared neck, brushing his cheekbones, dancing up his nostrils. It must tickle, but he says not a word as he lies there pressed up against me, his eyes wide and his hair red.

"What do you miss?" I murmured, suddenly conscious of the way our limbs were tangled, and the softness of the blanket against my bare legs, his feet hanging off the end of the sagging sofa with the mysterious stains. Empty Chinese takeaway boxes littered the floor, the muggle television giving off a soundless glow as the picture flickered... Fred had placed my favourite record upon the player, and it was emitting a soft and sweetened sound, Eva's favourite too, though he wasn't to know. I had unearthed some half melted tea lights, and scattered them throughout the room in jam jars- they gave the dingy backroom a softened glow, almost like it could be considered home for a while. Flakes of paint, the size of playing cards, fall into the silver trays. In the next room, Lena slept peaceably on, unaware that the world was turning at all.

These are the things you remember about a moment. These are the things you've missed, once everything's fled.

It was a refuge, really, that flat in Chelsea, though at the time we failed to see it as such. There were spiders in every corner, and a patch of mould on every wall. The taps dripped, the lamp flickered, and the muggle teenagers and warring couples woke our daughter in the middle of the night. Yet it was home.

But though not untouched, we had immunity, and lost ourselves in the trivialities of surviving the monotony of each day, forgetting that anything more serious was happening outside the flats walls. Our friends brought us news, and Fred occasionally braved the outside to speak on rebel radios, or visit a hospital bed.

But we were still apart from it, distanced from it, as though it belonged to another life. Angelina refused to visit, and Draco was quite forgot, and darling Neville was incapable of a letter without giving us away. Our daughter's safety was all that mattered, an all consuming desire to keep her safe the only thing that dimmed the urgency for justice and the need to fight, when we pondered our death and endangered family. As such, news of Hogwarts, of Gringotts, of the Ministry, of the Burrow, of WWW and of the magical world reached us as if from a very great distance away.

For whilst Fred missed his shop, and I mourned my friend, the war still raged, and the world turned on.

ℓℓℓ

"And this, my darling, is Aunty Eva. Doesn't she look lovely, with all that cake in her hair?" I laughed- it seemed an unusual sound, shrill and unnatural and unheard of in the past few days, and yet welcome just the same. I looked up at Charlie.

"Thank you." I whispered, and I was surprised by how heartfelt a sound it was.

We'd stored Eva's body in our basement for now, where it would be cool, and set up a few charms to keep the muggles away. But still her presence loomed, and though my vow to never lock Fred out again was going well, I felt increasingly isolated from anyone who understood.

And Charlie was busy. Busy with his foreign wizards, and the program that he and Eva had set up, which he now had to shoulder alone. His contribution to the war effort would not go unnoticed by the order when the war ended, but for now it was a thankless task- foreign wizards were reluctant to engage in British affairs, especially as we had proved so aloof and unhelpful when it came to their war with Grindevald, and smuggling in refugees was becoming harder by the day.

I wanted to tell him that Eva would be proud of him, of all he had done, alone with his grief. But all that came out was a comment on how pale he looked, and the bags under his eyes, followed up by an offer of a cup of tea.

Perhaps he understood, though, for he reached out and gripped my hand, a small smile pulling at his lips.

His tea sat cold and untouched in front of him on the carpeted floor, and as he watched me showing my daughter the pictures he had brought, he had an almost hungry look in his eyes. Maybe Eva's haunts had passed to him, but I knew that wasn't the case. Eva would never be so selfish, she was incapable, and Charlie was contending with ghosts of his own.

It took a moment, but his eyes flickered, away from the picture Lena was quickly losing interest in- was too young to have had an interest in in the first place- up to my face. "Whatever for?" he asked, sounding genuinely surprised. I tightened my grip on Lena.

"For helping me construct a vision of her. Lena's too young to remember her, you know, and that hurts more than anything else. I want her to be able to have some sort of recollection, some idea, of how important she was to me- us- and how important she was to her."

I am crying. It shouldn't surprise me, but it does, and hiccups rise up in my chest. Charlie scrambles to his feet, startled, for a moment, out of his own grief, and pulls me into a clumsy hug that takes no account of the child in my lap.

His grip is tight and unyielding, clinging to me, as one would to an anchor at sea. I am almost overcome by the need to take care of him, though I have no idea how- he is so different to the Charlie I once knew, to the Charlie I introduced Eva too, all those aeons ago. Whilst his bulk remains the same, the gorilla-like build, burns, blisters and the long haircut, his expression is harder. He looks as if he is about to fell an empire, as if he could conduct a massacre without thinking twice, and it terrifies me.

Then it drops from his face, and I realise he is vulnerable and terrified, and that this is a void that tea can in no way fix.

"It doesn't feel like she's gone, you know?" He asks, and I don't reply.

This is a typical reaction, Fred says, one that I probably should have felt by now, but oddly enough have not. My grief has been an echo of that which I experienced over Sirius, the abrupt retreat from reality into oneself, and this time Lena pulled me equally as abruptly back. It is not that I am not in pain, but rather that I cannot afford to allow pain to become my ruler once more. A prolonged period of grief is something that is afforded to Charlie that is not afforded to me, and I cannot help but long for it even as I recognise how unhealthy it must be.

I also realise I have no way of snapping him out of it. First my spouse then my daughter worked as an antidote for me, and Charlie has neither, not now.

And this is an entirely different branch of grief, one that I do not know how to handle at all.

So instead, I just listen, allowing him to talk. "The refugees keep asking for her- it was her alias on their cards, it was her they were told to ask for on the other end, and yet I've not told a single person at the refuge centre that she's dead. And maybe that's for the best- they don't need to be reminded of how much danger they're in- but even to her friends I keep talking like- like she's just left the room or something. And in my heart of hearts, I know she hasn't, but it's so goddamn difficult to convince myself. Over and over last night I lay awake staring at the ceiling, repeating her name, trying to feel the hurt or the grief or the loss or whatever. But I couldn't get this stupid grin off my face, like I was this little schoolboy with a crush. Moving out of our apartment hasn't really helped, either- Matteo keeps telling me that I'm treating the place like some kind of B&B. They all think Eva and I have had a spat, and that she's fled to England to help from the other end, and I don't know how to tell them that- that-"

And he broke off, a great sob ripping its way out of his chest and bouncing off the walls, but even as he buried his face in his hands I could tell there were no tears.

Placing Lena in her crib and rubbing his arm, my gaze fell upon the photo album he'd brought without being asked, and I thought perhaps he wasn't quite as numb as he himself believed. Oblivious, the occupants laughed on, a shot of Eva and Charlie toasting at mine and Fred's wedding catching my eye, Eva's apple cider glinting oddly as it rose, distorting her face.

And then, as suddenly as they had begun, Charlie's sobs stopped, leaving an eerie blank expression on his face. When he spoke, his voice was devoid of emotion, and I felt afraid.

"We'll do it on Thursday."

"We'll do- what?" I asked. He wouldn't- couldn't- be suggesting what I thought he was. Thursday was three days away. Too soon, too soon, too soon.

I had said my goodbyes to Eva. Knew everything that made her Eva was gone, fled into the blinding light, leaving only a shell of what she had once inhabited alone on this earth. Yet I could not bare it- could not face it- it was too soon.

"I have a day off- I was supposed to be helping a family of undesirable's flee the country but they- ah- won't be making it. So my schedule's clear, and everything's in place, all that's left to do is dress her in the clothes you got yesterday. It'll be one less thing to worry about, once the body's gone from the basement- you guys can remove the traces of magic from the muggle area. Her- her corpse being here- it's only making you more unsafe. That isn't what she'd want. We can use the boat we built together, it's not as if I have any use for her now she's gone, and set fire to it. Viking style. She'd like that, I think. Why wait?"

There was a fever in his eyes I didn't like to see, almost illness, but his logic was faultless. Even so, even as I spoke, glancing at my daughter in the corner, I couldn't help but think that this was something he was going to regret.

"Well- if you're sure-"

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure. Let's get this over with. Maybe then- maybe then it'll feel real."

And he looked so tired, so broken, so weary of this life, I didn't dare protest. A broken man, that's how George had described him, whenever it was we'd seen him last. Living with Angelina, broken was something George would know a thing or two about.

So instead of making more trouble for him, I pulled him into a hug, and watched as the shadows grew longer, and the tea grew colder, and evening faded into dusk.

So wrapped up were we in Eva, in all that hung said and unsaid and in the ghost that seemed to sit laughing in the corner of the room, we did not notice the writing scrawled over the bottom of the photo album's page.