Imagines

𝚃𝚢𝚙𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎

𝘍𝘭𝘶𝘧𝘧

𝘚𝘮𝘶𝘵

𝘈𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘵

𝙵𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚖𝚜 𝙸 𝚆𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝙵𝚘𝚛

𝑾𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒖𝒑𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒔 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒅!

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒂𝒛𝒆 𝑹𝒖𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒓

𝚖𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘰

𝘕𝘦𝘸𝘵

𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺

𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘴

𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒚 𝑷𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓

𝚖𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘗𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳

𝘙𝘰𝘯 𝘞𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘺

𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘰 𝘔𝘢𝘭𝘧𝘰𝘺

𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘞𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘺

𝘎𝘦𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘺

𝘊𝘦𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘤 𝘋𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘰𝘳𝘺

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝟏𝟎𝟎

𝘉𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘺 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘬𝘦

𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯 𝘔𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘩𝘺

𝘑𝘢𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘑𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯

𝘍𝘪𝘯𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘴

𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘺 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘯

𝘙𝘰𝘢𝘯

𝑻𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕

𝘌𝘥𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘊𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯

𝘑𝘢𝘤𝘰𝘣 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬

𝘑𝘢𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘏𝘢𝘭𝘦

𝘌𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘵 𝘊𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯

𝘌𝘮𝘣𝘳𝘺 𝘊𝘢𝘭𝘭

𝘚𝘢𝘮 𝘜𝘭𝘦𝘺

𝘗𝘢𝘶𝘭 𝘓𝘢𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘦

𝘚𝘦𝘵𝘩 𝘊𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳

𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒗𝒆𝒍

𝘓𝘰𝘬𝘪

𝘗𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳

𝘛𝘰𝘯𝘺 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘬

𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴

𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘳

𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘯

𝘉𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘺 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘴

𝑫𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒕

𝘍𝘰𝘶𝘳

𝘗𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳

𝑻𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝑾𝒐𝒍𝒇

𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘵𝘵 𝘔𝘤𝘊𝘢𝘭𝘭

𝘚𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘚𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘬𝘪

𝘋𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘬 𝘏𝘢𝘭𝘦

𝘐𝘴𝘢𝘢𝘤 𝘓𝘢𝘩𝘦𝘺

𝘑𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴𝘰𝘯

𝘗𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘏𝘢𝘭𝘦

𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘰 𝘙𝘢𝘦𝘬𝘦𝘯

𝘓𝘪𝘮𝘢 𝘋𝘶𝘯𝘣𝘢𝘳

𝘌𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯

𝘈𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯

𝑷𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒚 𝑩𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔

𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘴 𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘣𝘺

𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘳 𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘣𝘺

𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯 𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘣𝘺

𝘍𝘪𝘯𝘯 𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘣𝘺

Your brother, Oliver Wood, had never said you are forbidden from dating Fred Weasley. He didn’t need to, it was in his glare anytime the two of you would be to close for his liking, in the way Fred would make a joke only you laughed at while Oliver tried to make sense of what was so funny. You knew Oliver liked Fred. That was the worst part of it. He liked him in the way you like a thunderstorm when you’re safely indoors: impressive, useful, devastating if it ever turned toward you.

Fred was chaos. Fred was laughter echoing too loudly in corridors meant for silence. Fred was a future that looked like a question mark scribbled in ink that refused to dry. Oliver loved him on the team, trusted him with bludgers flying and bones breaking, trusted him to show up when it mattered—but not with you. Never with you. Not with the girl he still called his baby sister even when you were old enough to know better than to correct him.

He had known about your crush since first year. He had always known. Oliver noticed things like that. He had started warning you gently at first—half-joking comments over breakfast, raised eyebrows when Fred laughed too close to you in the stands while watching Hufflepuff crush Slytherin. Over the years, the warnings sharpened. Not cruel. Never cruel. Just firm.

“Fred’s brilliant,” Oliver would say, staring into his tea like it might betray him. “But brilliant isn’t the same as serious.”

You learned, early on, how to nod without agreeing.

Fred and you didn’t plan to start anything. Honest. That’s the lie people tell themselves after the fact. What really happened was quieter. He walked you back to the tower one night when the castle was breathing slow and deep, torchlight stretching shadows along the stone. He said something ridiculous—something about Filch—and you laughed too hard, the kind of laugh that slips out before you’ve checked who might hear it.

He stopped walking. You didn’t.

But honestly you felt it before you saw it: the absence of his footsteps, the way the air behind you shifted. When you turned, he was close enough that his freckles were a constellation you could trace in the dark. He didn’t touch you that night. He just looked at you, head tipped slightly, like he’d stumbled onto something fragile and wasn’t sure whether to joke or apologize.

“Well,” he said lightly. “That’s new.”

That was how it began. With one sentence that hovered between you and refused to fall.

You both agreed that it would be nothing. Just a thing. No complications. No Oliver. No explanations. A secret small enough to fit in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

Fred was very good at secrets when he wanted to be.

There were moments—tiny, stolen ones—that felt like they belonged to someone else’s life. His hand brushing yours under the table in the common room, knuckles warm, fingers careless. Passing each other in the corridor late at night, the castle emptied out, and he’d tug you suddenly into a shadowed alcove, laughter caught in his throat as his mouth found yours, quick and hungry and gone before the portraits could clear theirs.

Once, after a truly awful day—one of those days where everything goes slightly wrong and none of it is important enough to justify the heaviness—you found a Canary Cream sitting on your pillow. No note. Just the sweet, ridiculous thing perched there like a dare. You laughed despite yourself, then laughed harder when it chirped at you indignantly.

Later, Fred leaned against the doorway of an empty classroom, arms folded, watching you with that infuriating half-smile.

“Cheered you up, didn’t it?” he asked.

You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to. He could always tell.

He still pranked you, of course. That was part of the deal. But never cruelly. He liked the sound of your laugh too much to risk breaking it. Sometimes he’d watch you laugh like he’d done something cleverer than usual, it never was.

At night—when the castle grew vast and echoing, when Oliver was asleep and the world felt briefly unguarded—you met in places no one thought to look. Empty classrooms, unused stairwells, the narrow strip of floor behind a tapestry that smelled faintly of dust and old magic.

Fred kissed like he lived: fully, recklessly, like he expected the moment to be stolen at any second. Hands warm, mouth insistent, laughter bubbling up even when his breath hitched. Sometimes it went further—sometimes your back would hit the cold stone walls of the castle and the sound of your name pulled apart in his mouth—you would leave marks along his back without meaning to and he would get wonderfully still for a moment before pressing closer, like the pain was a drug he happily took.

Sometimes he would drop to his knees and devour you as if you were his first meal in centuries. You would gasp out his name, praying to Godric he would never stop.

Afterward, he’d kneel there grinning, breath still uneven, murmuring praises under his breath as if it were all a grand prize he was still unpacking. But sometimes—sometimes—he went quiet, thumb tracing idle patterns against your wrist, as if memorizing something he hadn’t meant to keep.

In daylight, you pretended. That was the hardest part. Standing near each other and not touching. Passing jokes back and forth that meant nothing to anyone else. Watching Oliver clap Fred on the shoulder after practice, pride plain and uncomplicated, and feeling the secret curl tighter in your chest.

You told yourself it was temporary. That it was easy. That it was nothing.

But secrets have weight. They press into you slowly, the way snow does on a roof—quiet, patient, inevitable. And somewhere between laughter and stolen kisses, between sex and Canary Creams, something shifted. Something neither of you named. Something that sat in the space between you when you two weren’t touching and it felt louder than any confession.

Fred never said it. Neither did you.

You just kept sneaking through the castle like you weren’t already leaving footprints everywhere.

And the thing about footprints is that eventually, someone follows them.

~~~

(I switched to first person for some reason without even realizing it lmao and was to lazy to re-edit it all)

The pitch looks wrong when I step onto it.

Not just worn—ruined. The grass is torn open in long, ugly streaks where brooms scraped too low and bodies hit too hard, where the game stopped being about points and started being about damage. This isn’t the neat aftermath of a fast match or a clean loss. This is what happens when Slytherin decides winning matters more than playing fair.

The stands are emptying quickly now, green and silver streaming away in loud, satisfied clusters, already celebrating as if they hadn’t clawed their way to it. Gryffindor lingers. No one seems ready to move first. No one wants to be the one who admits it’s really over.

Last game of the year.

And this is how it ends.

I walk out onto the pitch with Lee, my steps slowing instinctively when I see the looks on the team’s faces. Everyone looks hurt.

Torn sleeves. Blood drying too dark against red and gold. Bruises already blooming beneath skin. Angelina Johnson is on her feet, jaw set tight, handing out towels like she might rip something in half if she stops moving. Katie Bell is sitting heavily on the grass, pressing a cloth to her mouth, eyes bright with the sort of anger that hasn’t found words yet.

“Honestly,” Lee mutters, voice low, more dangerous than his usual commentary. “I swear they’d bring a bat to a pillow fight if they thought they could get away with it.”

“Tell me something new,” George growls from nearby, nursing a bloody nose as he glares across the field to where the Slytherins had been only seconds ago.

“I don’t know why you lot are acting surprised,” Angelina snaps sharply, not looking up. “We’ve seen them only getting more aggressive as the games went by and still we decided to play fair-“

“Would you rather us play like they did?” Katie shot from her place on the grass, her cloth covered in blood. She glared at Angelina.

George looked between the two, already stepping towards them. “Guys-“

“No but we could’ve upped our game more, you know it’s not illegal to play aggressive Bell,” Angelina spat, ignoring George.

“Are you trying to insinuate something?” I turn my gaze away from my two bickering friends, my eyes catching onto the only person who hasn’t said a word since the game ended

Fred is standing a little apart, broom abandoned on the ground like he doesn’t care if it gets trampled. His hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat and blood—someone else’s, I think, though it’s hard to tell anymore. There’s a cut under his cheekbone, already swelling and a split at his knuckle that’s still bleeding slowly, he hasn’t bothered to stop it.

His sleeve is torn clean down the seam, exposing a forearm already blooming purple.

And somehow—infuriatingly—he still looks handsome. Bright-eyed, flushed, dangerous in that reckless way that makes it hard to look away even when you should. He’s talking to Lee now, his expression undeniably angry. Angry in a way I’ve never seen Fred.

“—calls it accidental,” Fred sneers, voice carrying, brittle with disbelief. “Accidental! Took my arm out like he was aiming for it.”

Lee snorts darkly, trying to easy the tension. “Should’ve taken his broom in return.”

Fred huffs, his eyes catching mine from the other side of Angelina and Katie’s escalating fight. “Tempting. But I’m trying to be a reformed citizen.”

It lasts half a second—no more—but it’s enough. Enough for his expression to shift, just slightly, like something unguarded flashes through before he can smooth it away. His mouth tilts into a smile that’s different from the one he’s usually gives. Softer. Tired.

I feel it in my chest before I let myself think about it. But shake away the feeling as I glance down at the water bottles I brought for the team. I step forward and pass one to Fred automatically, like muscle memory.

“Cheers,” he says, taking it.

Our fingers brush.

The contact is brief, meaningless to anyone watching—and somehow it lands harder than the game itself. I snap my hand away without thinking, stomach bubbling with fear as I look around for Oliver.

It’s ridiculous. I know that.

That doesn’t stop it.

Oliver storms over moments later, already mid-speech, voice tight and clipped, eyes blazing with everything he hasn’t let himself feel yet.

“They controlled the pace,” he says sharply. “They dragged us down to it, and we let them. That’s on us. We don’t play their game next time. Ever.”

No one argues. No one needs to.

Fred nods along, jaw clenched, listening in that serious way he only gets with Oliver—respect written all over his posture, all jokes stripped away. Watching them together twists something uncomfortable inside me. Captain and beater. Trust intact. Lines clean.

When Oliver finally claps his hands and dismisses them, the team starts to break apart slowly, grudgingly, like leaving might make it real.

Fred steps toward me without thinking. His arms lift, easy and familiar, like this is something we’ve done a thousand times already, like the pitch and the blood and the crowd don’t exist at all. Like he forgot my brother stood only feet away.

My chest tightens, my feet moving on their own, taking a small step back. Enough to make Fred still. I shake my head.

Once.

That’s it.

The moment stills. No one notices. No one ever really does. Fred’s arms drop slowly, his expression unreadable, like he’s choosing not to say something he very badly wants to. His mouth curves into something that passes for a grin if you don’t know him well enough.

“Right,” he says lightly, too lightly. “Best get out of here before Pomfrey decides I’m a full-time project.”

I feel my heart drop slowly, regret slowly forming in the pit of my stomach, I want to reach out for him, but my arms refuse to move towards him. George glances between us, eyebrow lifting in brief curiosity, his mouth opening but after seeing the look on his brother’s face he closes it. Fred turns away before I can fix it, before I can say anything at all.

He doesn’t head toward the hospital wing like he should’ve with his injury’s. Instead he walks straight toward the dormitories. Bleeding. Bruised. Angry.

And I stand there on the torn grass, watching him go, knowing exactly why he wanted that hug—and exactly why it felt like the last thing I was allowed to give.

~~~

By the time I leave the pitch, Fred is gone.

The corridors are louder than usual, still buzzing with post-match energy, but it thins as the hours stretch on. By the time night settles into its familiar shape I’m already waiting.

When George and Lee finally slip through the common room, cloaks pulled tight and whispers barely contained, I give them a full minute before moving.

The staircase to the boys’ dormitory creaks in complaint when I step onto it, but no one stops me.

Fred’s door is ajar.

Light spills out in a thin, uneven line. He’s sitting on his bed, boots still on, elbows braced against his knees. He looks up when I knock and his face shifts into something almost normal.

“Evening,” he says lightly. “Come to congratulate the tragic hero?” I step inside and close the door behind me. The click is too loud.

“You left,” I say.

“Well spotted,” he replies. “Always admired your observational skills.” There it is. The tone. The words say one thing; everything else says another. He doesn’t look at me when he speaks. His fingers pick at the seam of his glove, worry it loose, then tighten again.

I move closer.

“Is this about earlier?” I ask. “On the pitch?”

He huffs a laugh that doesn’t reach anywhere important. “Merlin forbid. Can’t imagine why that would matter.” I wait. Silence stretches. The walls feel nearer than they should.

“Was it because you lost?” I try again, softer. “Because if it is, that was a rough match and—”

He looks up then.

“Do you know what,” he says, voice still light, still careful, but just like he can’t hold in the words anymore, “I thought I was being clever. Thought I’d cracked it. Best of both worlds, right? All the fun, none of the fuss.”

I don’t interrupt him. I’ve learned not to when he gets like this—when the jokes line up neatly but his eyes don’t follow.

“I told myself I could handle it,” he continues. “Told myself I was a genius for agreeing. Because who wouldn’t, honestly? You come along and say no expectations, and I say, brilliant idea, where do I sign.”

He stands, suddenly, pacing once across the room before stopping in front of me.

“I was wrong,” he says. The word lands harder than anything else he’s said. The air shifts. I feel it in my ribs.

“I don’t want to do this in secret anymore,” he goes on, quieter now. “I don’t want to pretend I don’t know you the way I do in corridors or that I don’t want to—” He cuts himself off, scrubs a hand through his hair. “I won’t pressure you. I won’t. You know that. If you say no, I’ll… I’ll manage. I always do.”

I hear what he doesn’t say in the space after that. But my heart is pounding to hard to understand where he’s coming from. I thought he understood what this was, I thought he knew of my fears.

My mouth opens before my thoughts catch up. “I told you what this was,” I say. “From the start.”

“And I agreed,” he snaps, just enough edge to break the careful balance. “I know. I know. I just didn’t think it would feel like this.”

“Like what?” I ask, even though my hands have curled into fists at my sides, even though my pulse has picked up like it knows something I’m still refusing to name.

“Like I’m being asked to disappear,” he says. “Like I’m good enough for the shadows but not the daylight.”

The silence after that is unbearable.

It settles in the room the way dust does when you disturb an old cupboard—slow, visible only if you look at it sideways, choking if you pretend it isn’t there. Fred stands a step away from me, hands loose at his sides like he’s afraid of what they’ll do if he lets them decide. The cut under his cheekbone looks darker up close, the swelling already making his smile sit wrong when he tries to summon it.

I open my mouth and nothing comes out that feels safe.

So I do the thing I always do when the truth is too bright: I grab the nearest harmless thread and tug.

“You’re bleeding through your sleeve,” I say, pointing at his torn cuff as if that’s the emergency, as if blood is simpler than the way his eyes keep flicking to my mouth like he misses it.

Fred glances down at his arm and gives a soft, humourless puff of laughter. “Brilliant observation,”

It lands like a stone.

I step closer, then stop myself halfway, the floorboards under my shoes making that faint, complaining sound they always make in boys’ dormitories, as if they’re offended by the idea of me being here at all. My hands hover uselessly, wanting to do something ordinary—fix his sleeve, press a cloth to his knuckles, make him sit down and let me fuss at him like a person who has the right to fuss.

The wanting has nowhere to go.

“I came to check on you,” I say instead as I watch him make his way to his bed. Like he is dismissing this conversation.

“I noticed,” Fred replies. He leans back against the bedpost, and for a second he looks younger in a way that hits me low in the chest—he pushes it away with the same practiced ease he uses on everything else. “You’ve done your civic duty. You can go now.”

I blink. The words are easy, almost casual. The space behind them isn’t.

“You don’t mean that,” I say.

Fred’s grin flashes—quick, sharp, all teeth. “Do I not? That’s a shame. I was hoping it would catch on.”

“Fred—”

He lifts a hand, palm out, a mockingly polite gesture. “No, go on. Explain it to me. Slowly, if you could. I’m only a Weasley, you see, and we’re famously dim.”

His sarcasm is usually a lantern—warm, bright, drawing people in. Right now it’s a blade he’s turning in his own hand, daring it to cut.

I swallow. The room feels too hot for how late it is, for how the window glass is fogged with cold outside.

“I said I’m sorry,” I manage.

He tilts his head. “Did you?”

I hate how small my voice feels in this room. I hate how my spine knows it should straighten and still refuses.

“I didn’t want anyone to see,” I say. “It was the pitch. Everyone was there.”

Fred’s eyes flicker, bright and flat at the same time. “Yes. That’s generally how matches work.”

The air between us tightens. I can feel the words lining up behind my teeth, impatient, tripping over each other.

“I can’t—” I start.

“You can’t,” Fred echoes softly, and there’s something in the way he says it—too practiced, too familiar, like he’s repeating a line he’s been fed for years. He pushes off the bedpost and starts pacing, one slow line across the room, back again, like movement might keep him from saying the wrong thing. “You can’t hug me in front of everyone. You can’t look at me for too long in corridors. You can’t—Merlin help us—hand me a bloody water bottle without flinching like you’ve touched a hot stove.”

“That’s not what happened.”

He stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell the grass still clinging to him, the faint metallic tang of blood, the soap from the locker room he never actually used tonight.

“No?” he says, very quietly. “Because it felt like it.”

My throat goes tight. I try to take a breath and it catches, like the air has decided it’s loyal to him tonight.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” I say.

Fred’s mouth twitches, like he wants to laugh and doesn’t trust himself to do it without breaking something. “Brilliant. That’s comforting. Next time I’m stood in the middle of a pitch with half my face rearranged by Slytherin’s elbow, I’ll remember you’re not trying.”

“That’s not fair,” I say, and I hear the wobble in the sentence and hate it. “You know why.”

He stares at me for a beat too long, then looks away like he can’t bear to watch whatever expression I’ve made.

“Do I?” he says. “Because I’m starting to think I don’t. I’m starting to think you’ve invented a dragon where there’s just—” He gestures vaguely, as if Oliver might appear from the shadows the moment his name is thought. “—a bloke who yells about formations and thinks Quaffles are a food group.”

I flinch at the casualness with which he says it. The way he reduces Oliver into something easy, something laughable, because for him that’s safer than acknowledging what Oliver is when he’s family. When he’s furious. When he’s afraid.

“You don’t know him like I do,” I say, and the words come out sharper than they should.

Fred’s eyes flash. “There it is.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” Fred says, voice rising just slightly, “every time I try to talk about this, you say the same thing. Like it’s a spell. You don’t know him like I do. Well, you’re right—I don’t. I don’t know what secret, terrifying version of Oliver Wood lives in your head, but I do know the one who laughs when George puts a toad in his kit bag. I do know the one who bought me a Butterbeer last weekend and told me I played ‘like a lunatic’ and meant it as a compliment.”

“You don’t see him at home,” I say, and the sentence comes out before I can dress it up. “You don’t see what he’s like when something touches me that he didn’t approve.”

Fred’s jaw tightens.

“Approve,” he repeats, as if the word tastes wrong. “That’s what this is, is it? Permission.”

“It’s not—”

“It sounds like it.” He drags a hand through his hair, exhaling hard, the movement rough enough that it pulls at the cut on his knuckle and fresh blood beads. He doesn’t notice. Or he does and doesn’t care. “Look, I’m not asking you to stand on a table in the Great Hall and announce it to the school, am I? I’m not asking for fireworks and trumpets. I wanted a hug. That’s it. I wanted you to put your arms around me for two seconds like I mattered in the daylight the way I—” He cuts himself off, lips pressing tight, the words swallowing themselves because they’re too honest and too close to something that doesn’t have a joke taped over it.

My pulse thuds once, hard.

I take a step back without meaning to. The distance feels like a betrayal even as my body insists on it.

Fred notices. His eyes flick down to my feet, then back up, and something in his face shifts—hurt turning sharp because it has nowhere else to go.

“Right,” he says, and the grin returns, brittle as thin ice. “Sorry. Forgot my place. Silly me.”

“Fred, stop—”

“Stop what?” he snaps, and now the anger is there, contained like a spell being held back with sheer will. “Stop wanting you? Stop wanting to act like we’re not—” His voice dips. He shakes his head once, like he’s trying to shake himself awake. “Stop wanting something you told me you didn’t want.”

I lift my chin. I hate that he’s making it sound like I’m cruel when I’ve been terrified this whole time, terrified in a way that lives under my skin and hums.

“I told you what I could handle,” I say. “I told you what this would be.”

“And I agreed,” he says, softer now, and that softness is worse. “I agreed because I thought—Merlin, I don’t know what I thought. That I’d get used to it. That it would stay easy. That I could tuck it into corners and pull it out when it suited us and then put it away again like—like a joke product.” His laugh is small and ugly. “But it’s not a joke, is it?”

My hands curl tight enough that my nails bite into my palms. The pain anchors me, keeps me from reaching for him, keeps me from doing the one thing I want most because I know it will undo me.

“You’re making this into something it isn’t,” I say, and the sentence comes out wrong even as it leaves me, because it’s a lie I don’t fully believe anymore.

Fred’s eyes hold mine, and there’s something stranded in them, something that looks like he’s been standing in the rain too long pretending he isn’t cold.

“Oh, that’s brilliant,” he says quietly. “That’s really brilliant. After all this time, that’s what you land on.”

“It’s not—Fred—”

He laughs again, sharper. “No, no, you’re right. It’s nothing. It’s nothing when you slip into my room at night like you’re breaking into a vault. It’s nothing when you laugh at my stupid jokes like they’re—like they’re for you. It’s nothing when you—” He stops, like he’s about to step into a line he refuses to cross, and the restraint in him is sudden and startling.

I stand there, breathing shallow, watching him fight with himself in real time.

Then he says, very clearly, very deliberately, like he wants it to hurt so it will stop hurting later.

“Maybe Oliver’s right.”

The words hit the room like a slap.

For a second I can’t move. I can’t even breathe properly. The world narrows to that sentence and the way it sits on his tongue as if he didn’t have to force it out.

My eyes sting. I blink once, hard, furious at myself for it, furious at him for giving me a reason.

“What did you say?” My voice comes out thin, and I hate that too.

Fred’s mouth twitches, like he regrets it the moment it lands but won’t take it back on principle. That’s Fred—pride and honesty tangled together so tightly you can’t separate them.

“I said,” he repeats, quieter now but no kinder, “maybe Oliver’s right. Maybe I am exactly what he thinks I am. Good for a laugh. Good for a match. Good for… whatever this is when it’s convenient.” His eyes flick to me. “Just not good enough to be beside you where people can see.”

Something in my chest goes hollow.

I don’t answer. I can’t. If I speak, I’ll say the wrong thing—something soft, something pleading, something that proves him right about me being terrified.

So I do the only thing I can do.

I walk to the door.

“Wait,” Fred says immediately, and now the anger falters, replaced by something rawer. He takes a step toward me. “I didn’t—”

I turn just enough to look at him, to let him see what that sentence did without giving him the satisfaction of watching me fall apart.

“Don’t,” I say, and it’s the first time the word sounds like it belongs to me.

His face tightens. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t reach. He stands there like he’s tethered to the floorboards by his own stupid stubborn heart.

I open the door. The corridor air is colder, the torchlight harsher, the castle suddenly enormous again.

Behind me, Fred’s voice catches, quieter than I’ve heard it in a long time. “I meant what I said about staying.”

I don’t turn back. My hand closes around the door’s edge, knuckles whitening before I slam it closed. The sound cracks down the corridor, sharp and final. A portrait somewhere gives an offended gasp. Footsteps pause in the distance. Someone murmurs.

I don’t wait to see who.

I move fast, because if I move fast enough maybe my body won’t betray me, maybe it won’t fold, maybe the ache in my ribs won’t spill out onto the floor where anyone could step in it.

By the time I reach my room, my hands are shaking so hard the handle rattles.

I get inside. I close the door with a quieter click, like the castle deserves gentleness even when I don’t. I lean my forehead against the wood for one long second, breathing in and out as if that’s all living is.

Down the corridor, a door opens.

For a heartbeat, I think he’s coming. I think I’ll hear his footsteps, that familiar careless stride that always sounds like confidence even when it isn’t.

But the corridor stays empty.

And somewhere behind his closed door, Fred Weasley stays exactly where he is—hurt enough to lash out, stubborn enough to mean it, in love enough to let me run anyway.

~~~

A week can be a long time at Hogwarts when you’re measuring it in corridor-glances and almost-words.

It isn’t that we don’t see each other. That would be simpler. Hogwarts is a place designed to force you into proximity—moving staircases, shared classrooms, the Great Hall like a great beating heart you have to pass through twice a day whether you want to or not. It is impossible to avoid someone here without making it obvious you’re avoiding them, and that’s the sort of obvious I can’t afford.

So we orbit.

We pass in corridors and do that careful, practiced nothing—my gaze sliding past him as if my eyes have never learned his face, his voice going bright when anyone else is listening, like the last week didn’t happen and his door never shut in my face like a verdict. Sometimes, when there’s a crowd, his shoulder brushes mine and I feel the exact point of contact all the way up my arm, like my skin is keeping a record my mouth refuses to admit.

We talk, technically. We exchange words the way you exchange coins you don’t want to keep—quick, clean, impersonal. And if we’re forced into the same space for longer than a minute, something small and petty sparks, because it’s easier to fight about butter than to say I miss you.

The Great Hall is warm with noise, plates clattering, owls swooping low, sunlight slanting through the high windows. Gryffindor’s table is its usual chaos: elbows, laughter, crumbs, someone talking too loudly about summer plans as if the idea of leaving doesn’t make their stomach twist.

George and Lee have claimed spots early—George lounging like he owns the bench, Lee wedged between a gaggle of fourth-years, already narrating something animatedly. Fred is there too, of course.

I slide onto the bench opposite them. George’s eyes flick up, he grins as if everything is normal. “Morning,” he says, dragging it out, as though tasting the word.

Lee nods at me, mouth full, cheeks puffed like a chipmunk. Fred doesn’t look up at all. He’s buttering toast with aggressive precision, like the bread has personally wronged him.

I grab a piece of bread, eyes searching the table for butter dish. When my gaze finally lands on it I let out an irritated sigh. The butter dish sits just out of reach—close enough to see, far enough to be annoying. I could stretch. I could stand. I could do anything except ask him.

“Pass the butter?” I say, keeping my voice even.

Fred’s hand pauses mid-spread. He glances up at me, expression blank in a way that doesn’t suit him. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t make some stupid comment about buttering my own toast like an independent witch. He simply slides the butter dish—further down the table.

I stare at him.

It’s so childish, so small, that for a second I can’t quite process it. My fingers hover in the air where the dish should have been, the gesture unfinished.

George’s brow lifts. Lee stops chewing, glancing at Free before his eyes shift to me. I let my hand drop slowly to the table.

Fred continues buttering his toast as if he hasn’t just moved the world two inches to make a point.

“Right,” I say. I pick up my knife, scrape at my toast with a deliberate calm that feels like holding a shaking cup steady. “Brilliant. Didn’t know we were doing this today.”

Fred finally looks at me then, and his eyes are too bright for a morning that should be soft. “Doing what?”

“The thing,” I say, and I hate how vague it sounds, how the words have to walk around the truth because the truth would set the table on fire. “The—acting like you’re twelve.”

George makes a small sound, somewhere between a cough and a laugh, like he’s trying not to get involved and failing on instinct. “Oi—”

Fred’s mouth curves, sharp and humorless. “Twelve’s generous. Some days I feel at least thirteen.”

Fred leans back, toast in hand. He takes a bite with exaggerated enjoyment, chewing slowly, as if giving me time to reconsider speaking.

I don’t.

“You know,” I say, voice still low, still controlled, “for someone who prides himself on being funny, you’re being painfully predictable.”

Fred swallows. “Predictable?”

“Yes,” I say. “Slide the butter away, refuse to look at me, pretend you’re above it all—”

“Above it all?” he repeats, and his tone turns light, the way it does right before it turns dangerous. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

George’s eyes dart between us now, quick as a Snitch. He doesn’t interrupt. He just watches, and something about that makes my skin feel too tight.

“Can you not,” George says finally, half-pleading, half-amused, as if he’s trying to defuse a skirmish he doesn’t understand. “It’s breakfast.”

Fred’s gaze flicks to George like he’s just remembered George exists, then back to me. “Fine,” he says brightly. “No arguments. I’ll be an absolute delight.”

He reaches for the butter dish at the far end of the table—leans across several plates with theatrical effort, nearly elbowing Lee’s pumpkin juice—and then, with a flourish, slides it to me as if presenting a trophy.

“There,” he says. “Butter. Triumph. Everyone clap.”

A couple of nearby students glance over, curious.

I force a smile that feels like it might crack my teeth. “Thank you,” I say sweetly.

Fred’s grin flashes. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

George looks like he wants to ask what in Merlin’s name is happening, but he swallows it down with the practiced caution of someone who’s lived with Fred too long to step on a landmine without knowing where it’s buried.

I take the butter and spread it on my toast as if its personally offended me. I feel Lee shift from his place beside me, for once not knowing what to say.

It doesn’t stay at breakfast.

It follows us into the day like a ghost that refuses to be ignored.

In Transfiguration, there are no seats left except the ones at Fred and George’s table—because of course there aren’t. Everyone always tries to sit near them until they remember what near them actually entails. I slide into the empty chair beside Fred, the wooden legs scraping softly over stone.

McGonagall’s voice is a crisp metronome at the front of the room. “Pair up. You will be working on human-to-animal switching sequences. I want precision. Not enthusiasm. Precision.”

Fred’s parchment is already out. His quill twitches in his fingers like it’s impatient.

I keep my gaze on my own notes.

We work in stiff, awkward silence at first—the kind that makes every little sound enormous: quill scratches, pages turning, the faint hiss of someone’s spell going wrong two rows over.

Fred writes quickly, decisively, as if daring the page to challenge him. It would almost be impressive if I wasn’t watching him do it with the cold competence of someone who’s trying not to think.

He mutters the incantation under his breath, wand poised. He makes a precise flick—and the mouse on our desk sprouts a tuft of feathers in the wrong place, panics, and darts under the table.

I catch it automatically, lifting it by the scruff before it can run into someone else’s experiment. The mouse trembles in my hand, feathers poking out at awkward angles like a botched hat.

Fred watches me, eyes narrowed slightly.

“That,” I say, keeping my voice quiet, “is not what we’re meant to be doing.”

He leans back in his chair. “Oh? And what are we meant to be doing, Professor?”

“Not turning it into a—” I glance at the mouse, “—whatever this is.”

“A fashion statement,” Fred says blandly. “It’s very daring.”

I set the mouse back down gently. “You did the movement wrong.”

Fred’s quill pauses. “Did I?”

“Yes,” I say. “Your wrist—”

“My wrist is fine,” he says, and there’s that bright edge again, too cheerful, too controlled. “My wrist is positively thriving.”

“You’re doing it wrong on purpose,” I say, before I can stop myself, because the absurdity of it—this smart, capable boy pretending incompetence like it’s a weapon—makes something in me tighten.

Fred’s eyes flick up, sharp as a snapped thread. “On purpose,” he repeats softly. “Interesting theory.”

I lean closer, keeping my voice low enough that only he can hear. “You’re sulking.”

“I don’t sulk.”

“You do,” I say. “You just do it theatrically.”

His mouth twitches. “That’s called performance. It’s an art.”

“And I’m meant to applaud?”

“You could,” he says lightly. “It might encourage me.”

I stare at him. He stares back, unblinking, like this is a joke. The mouse squeaks weakly. McGonagall’s shadow falls over our desk like a blade.

“Mr Weasley,” she says crisply, “Miss Wood—would either of you like to share your riveting conversation with the rest of the class?”

The room goes still in the way it always does when McGonagall speaks—every student suddenly fascinated by their own parchment.

Fred looks up at her, expression innocent enough to belong to a saint. “We were discussing wrist health, Professor.”

McGonagall’s lips thin. Her gaze drops to the mouse, then to the feathers, then back to Fred. “Fascinating. Five points from Gryffindor. Perhaps if your wrist is unwell, you should refrain from using it for spells.”

Fred’s grin flashes, quick and bright. “Yes, Professor.”

She moves on. The class exhales. I keep my eyes on my parchment because if I look at him, I’ll see that tiny twist at the corner of his mouth, the one that says he’s pleased he got a reaction.

And I hate that my body still knows him well enough to respond.

By the end of the week, the stupid arguments feel like a language we’ve accidentally invented.

They never say anything that would give us away—never anything that would make anyone suspect we’ve touched each other in places no one else gets to see, never anything that would make George’s eyes narrow in that way. It’s all petty.

By Friday, the common room feels like it’s holding its breath when we’re in the same space.

A once beautiful friendship turned rotten, we’ve made ourselves look like we can’t stand each other. We’ve done it so consistently that people are starting to treat it like entertainment. Like it’s a weekly feature.

Fred and Y/N: Will they bite today?

It’s pathetic. It’s also the only thing keeping us from saying something we can’t take back.

Then the year ends.

The castle shifts into that strange, bright restlessness it gets right before everyone goes home. Trunks appear. Owls arrive in flurries. People talk about summer like it’s a promised land, and the air is full of goodbyes that haven’t happened yet.

Everyone is whispering about the end of year party the houses all hold together. It isn’t official. It never is. But older students don’t ever ask for permission; they’re just waiting for the right opportunity. And the right place where the first years won’t accidentally come in and ruin it for everyone else by grabbing a Professor.

The head of Ravenclaw opens the room of requirements, telling everyone where they can find it. Someone drags couches closer to the fire, someone charms the ceiling to scatter tiny sparks like floating embers, someone smuggles in bottles that clink softly and smell like trouble.

Fourth year and up only—old enough to know how to break rules properly. As Fred would always say.

I take my time getting ready. Because if I can’t say what I mean, I can at least walk into the common room looking like I’ve won something.

When I step through the door, the room shifts. A few heads turn. A few smiles pause. Someone’s sentence stutters.

The firelight catches my hair and makes everything warm, makes my skin look like it’s lit from within. The dress isn’t extravagant—Hogwarts wouldn’t be Hogwarts if it were—but it fits snuggly around the places it should.

I don’t search for Fred but my eyes find him anyway. He’s by the edge of the room, half-leaning against the wall with George and Lee, drink in hand, looking like he’s trying very hard to be easy. His hair is messier than usual. His sleeves are rolled. His grin is on, bright as ever—but something about it looks held up by stubbornness rather than joy.

His gaze hits me like a spell. It’s immediate. Unavoidable. For half a second, his mouth parts—just slightly—the way it does when he forgets to perform. Like he just got caught staring at something that isn’t his.

George says something, and Fred’s face snaps back into place. His eyes slide away as if I’m just another person in the room. As if I haven’t been living under his skin for months. As if the week hasn’t been a slow, ugly ache.

George and Lee drift—like they’ve decided they’re going to keep Fred penned in tonight. Every time his weight shifts in my direction, George shifts too. Every time my path takes me near him, Lee “accidentally” steps between us with a laugh and a story and a hand on Fred’s shoulder.

I roll my eyes at the attempt to keep us apart, as if I’m even willing to go near Fred tonight. I ignore them, moving around the room with Angelina, plastering a fake smile as she drags me around to talk with people I don’t care to talk to.

I drink something sweet that tastes like cherries. I laugh at a joke that isn’t funny. I let the night be light around me even as something heavier keeps tugging at my ribs.

Then someone asks me to dance. And because I refuse to stand still and look like I’m waiting for a boy who is pretending not to see me, I say yes.

I don’t even realize it’s Cedric Diggory until he pulls me closer to him, forcing my gaze to lift.

Of course it is.

Cedric is the kind of handsome that makes the room tilt without trying. The kind of boy who looks like he was carved out of the idea of “good.” He’s polite, steady, gentle in the way his hand rests at my waist—respectful, careful, like he’s aware he’s touching a person and not a prop.

“Having a good night?” he asks, smiling down at me.

“I’m surviving,” I say, and it comes out a little too dry. Cedric chuckles anyway, like he understands that kind of humour.

We move with the music—not wildly the way Fred would dance with me—just a simple dance, a simple moment, the firelight making everything soft.

I look over Cedric’s shoulder and my breath catches when I meet Fred’s eyes. His face is too still. His jaw set. His eyes lock on the place Cedric’s hand rests like he’s memorizing the shape of it so he can break it later. He lifts his drink and takes a long swallow without looking away.

Then another.

George notices. He leans in, says something in Fred’s ear. Lee appears beside them, trying to take the drink out of Fred’s grasp but Fred just shoves him away.

I hear Fred laughs too loudly when George says something he clearly did not like. It slices through the room like a crack. He drinks again ignoring the protests of his two best friends.

The music keeps going. Cedric turns me gently, spinning me once, the dress flaring, and when I face the room again Fred is no longer leaning against the wall.

He’s moving.

Straight toward us.

George gets there first, stepping in front of him, his grin gone. A look his mother must’ve given both boys a million times over plastered on his face. “Oi, Fred,” he says roughly, too rough, “what do you think you’re doing—“

Fred tries to sidestep him. George catches his arm. Fred doesn’t even look at him as he jerks away.

Lee’s hand lands on Fred’s shoulder, a little firmer than a friendly touch. “Mate,” Lee says, voice low, “don’t.”

Cedric’s hand at my waist loosens slightly. He looks past me, brow furrowing, polite confusion shifting into caution.

Fred’s eyes flick to Cedric. Then back to me. And something in him snaps, I almost flinch. He shoves past George. Not hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough to make a point.

“Fred,” George says, sharper now. “You will ruin—“

Fred steps right up to Cedric. Cedric straightens immediately, stepping in front of me, calm but solid, the way a Hufflepuff becomes when they stop being gentle and start being immovable. “Everything alright?” he asks, voice measured.

Fred smiles. It’s not a friendly smile.

“Fantastic,” Fred says brightly. “Just taking in the scenery.”

“Fred,” I say, warning threaded tight through my voice, because there are eyes everywhere now, and the room has gone quieter in the way it does when it senses trouble.

Fred doesn’t look at me. He looks at Cedric’s hand. Then he looks at Cedric’s face.

Then he says, loud enough to carry, “Do you mind?”

Cedric blinks. “Mind what?”

Fred’s laugh is sharp. “This.”

He reaches as if to pull me away but Cedric steps forward fast, blocking him, protective without being aggressive. George grabs Fred again, this time properly, fingers digging into his shoulder.

“That’s enough,” George says, low and furious in a way I’ve almost never heard from him.

Lee’s voice comes too, strained. “Fred, stop it.”

Fred wrenches free. And then he shouts. Not a controlled announcement. Not a neat confession. A shout—tired and furious and soaked in drink and something far more dangerous than drink.

“I’m done,” he yells. The room freezes. Even the sparks near the ceiling seem to hover. My heart slams so hard into my chest I think it might’ve broken a bone.

Fred turns, sweeping his gaze across the common room like he wants everyone to see him properly for once. His cheeks are flushed. His hair has fallen into his eyes. His drink sloshes in his hand.

“I’m done pretending,” he says, voice rougher now, less performance, and the words start coming faster, like they’ve been trapped behind his teeth for too long. “I’m done acting like I don’t—like I haven’t—Merlin, I know it started as nothing. I know that. I agreed to it being nothing, didn’t I? Brilliant plan. Round of applause for Fred Weasley, the absolute idiot.”

A couple of people laugh nervously, as if waiting for the punchline.

There isn’t one.

My breath catches in my throat, I know no one knows what the hell he is talking about, but the way people are glancing at me makes me think they’re putting two and two together. And I almost pull my wand out to shut him up. But it’s like I’m frozen in place.

He points at me.

“And then I fell in love with her,” he says and I feel as if I’ve fallen over. The silence that follows is violent.

George’s face goes white. Lee looks like he’s been punched. Someone near the stairs gasps. Someone else whispers, “Isn’t that Oliver Wood’s—”

Fred’s voice breaks through again, stubborn and bright and wrecked. “And I’m not doing the secret anymore. I’m not. I don’t care if Oliver Wood strings me up and uses me for Bludger practice. I don’t care if the castle itself throws me out. I wanted a hug after a match and couldn’t even—” He laughs once, short and broken. “I’m done being a ghost.”

My body moves before my mind can decide what to do with the humiliation burning up my spine. I cross the room in three strides. I grab the front of his collar and yank him toward me.

His grin flashes, wild and disbelieving, as if even now he can’t quite believe I’m real. “Hello,” he says, because of course he does.

“Shut up,” I hiss, and it comes out like a prayer and a threat all at once. I can’t believe he just did that.

George reaches out as if to stop me, then freezes, eyes darting between my hand on Fred’s collar and Fred’s face like he’s watching his whole world rearrange itself.

Lee mutters, “I knew it,” in a tone that suggests he absolutely did not know it and is furious about being surprised.

I drag Fred toward the exit.

He stumbles a little as we step out, because he’s drunk enough to be loose and honest, and he lets me drag him anyway, like he’s decided being hauled out by his collar is worth it if it means I’m touching him.

The corridor hits like cold water—torchlight harsh, stone walls unforgiving, the air sharp and clean after the warmth of the party. My grip is still on his collar.

Fred leans against the wall as soon as I let go, catching himself with one hand, breathing hard, grin still hanging on his mouth like he can’t help it.

I shove his shoulder just enough to make him sway and laugh under his breath.

“What is wrong with you?” I hiss anger curling around my throat.

Fred blinks slowly, eyes glassy around the edges but still painfully, infuriatingly Fred. “Several things,” he says, thoughtful. “Most of them hereditary.”

I hit his shoulder again. “You just said that in front of everyone.”

He turns his head to look at me properly. The grin softens—not gone, but quieter, less show. “Yes.” I almost take a swing but I refrain myself, taking a slow, deep breath in.

“My brother—”

“Your brother can take a number,” Fred says immediately, then sees my face and flinches into something gentler without meaning to. “No—no, I know. I know. I just…” He swallows, throat working, and for a second the drunkenness slips and something frighteningly sincere shines through. “I watched you dance with him and I thought, this is it. This is what I get for agreeing to ‘nothing.’”

“It was a dance,” I say, voice shaking at the edges despite my best effort.

Fred’s laugh is small. “Everything’s just a dance until it isn’t.”

I stare at him, chest rising too fast, the corridor suddenly too narrow, too bright. He looks flushed and foolish and beautiful in a way that makes my anger lose its footing. His hair is a mess. His eyes are too open. His mouth keeps twitching like he wants to joke because joking is how he stays standing.

“You’re drunk,” I say.

“I’ve been accused,” he replies, solemn as a judge.

“I could hex you,” I warn.

He brightens, actually brightens, like that’s the best offer he’s had all week. “See? You do care.”

I shove his shoulder again, and he laughs, low and pleased, and it makes my throat tighten because the sound is so familiar—because I’ve missed it like you miss warmth when you’ve been cold too long.

“You’re unbelievable,” I whisper.

Fred’s grin turns soft around the edges. “And yet,” he says, leaning in a fraction, voice dropping into something corny and honest and mortifying, “you’re still here.”

I stare at him. His gaze doesn’t slide away. For once, he doesn’t hide.

“I’m so madly in love with you Y/N, and if that means getting mauled by Wood, so be it,” he says, as if he’s testing the words in the air, as if saying them out loud makes them less like a bruise inside him. Then, because he’s Fred and cannot help himself even now, he adds, “Properly in love. Stupidly. In a way that should come with a warning label.”

My hands tremble where they hover at his chest.

And before I can stop myself I pull him forward by his collar again—not to drag him now, but to anchor him, to keep him from swaying away from me, to keep myself from falling apart.

“I hope,” I whisper, voice tight, “that you remember this in the morning.”

He smiles.

“I remember you now,” he says quietly. “That’s enough.”

Something in me breaks loose. I drag in a heavy breath before pulling him a little closer, connecting his lips with mine. I try to be gentle, but it fails miserably, maybe because I’m still awfully angry at him, maybe because the kiss has been trapped behind a week of petty arguments and swallowed words.

My hands grip his shirt like I’m furious at it for existing between us. His breath catches hard, delighted, and he makes a soft sound against my mouth that tells me he’s missed me too, missed me in every place he’s been pretending not to look.

His hands find my waist, firm and grateful, holding on like he’s afraid I’ll vanish again. When I pull back, my forehead stays close to his because distance feels like danger.

“And I hope,” I add, still breathing hard, “that you don’t regret it.”

Fred’s laugh is quiet, rough. “I’ve done a lot of stupid things,” he says, eyes on my mouth like he can’t help it, “but I don’t think loving you is one of them.”

Behind us, somewhere in the castle, the party keeps going. In front of us, the corridor stretches—cold, bright, real. And in the space between one heartbeat and the next, I can almost hear the future shifting its weight, preparing to come down on us.

Because Oliver is going to find out.

And Fred Weasley has never been good at surviving consequences.

I’m already in my pyjamas, hair still damp at the ends because I couldn’t be bothered to charm it dry. My wand is on the pillow beside me like a spare thought. The girls have drifted off in ones and twos, the way Hufflepuffs do—quietly, with yawns and whispered goodnights, with an extra blanket offered to someone who didn’t ask. I can hear a couple of them talking in low voices behind their curtains, the rustle of fabric, a muffled laugh, then the sighing hush of beds settling.

I should be asleep. I should be reading. I should be doing anything sensible.

Instead I’m lying on my back, staring at the underside of the canopy, tracing the little knots in the wood with my eyes like they’re constellations. My mind keeps making circles around a single person as if it’s got nowhere else to go. It does that sometimes, without permission—like a compass needle snapping north.

Fred Weasley, I think, and the thought is so familiar it feels like a habit I’ve had for years, even though the Fred Weasley who is mine—the one who drags his thumb gently across my knuckles when he thinks no one is watching, who speaks my name like it’s something he’s privately proud of—still feels unreal in bright moments, like I’m going to blink and find it was all a joke he played on the universe.

We don’t… fit, on paper. Everyone says that in a way that pretends to be light. Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, steady and chaotic, me and him. The way he talks like he’s always juggling three ideas and a grin. The way I like things done properly. The way he lives as if rules are suggestions someone made when they were bored.

Even now, even dating—especially dating—it’s like we’re constantly bumping into each other at angles.

And still, my body knows him before my mind catches up. A footstep in the corridor and something in me listens harder. A laugh from downstairs and my attention tilts toward it automatically. It’s ridiculous, the way he’s become a sort of gravity.

Tonight he’d been… fine.

Fine in the way a candle is fine right before it gutters.

Dinner had been full of noise—Gryffindors laughing too loud, Slytherins pretending not to watch, Hufflepuffs passing each other the bread basket like it’s a sacred duty. Fred had been across the Great Hall with George, as always, his hair untidy, his sleeves rolled up, his mouth doing that familiar half-crooked thing like he was holding in a comment just for the pleasure of letting it out at exactly the wrong moment. He’d winked at me when Professor McGonagall looked away, the quick secret flash of it, like he couldn’t go a whole meal without reminding me we had a private world inside the public one.

But there had been a moment—tiny, like the snag of a thread on your sleeve—that had caught my attention and wouldn’t let go.

Someone had said something to him, I hadn’t even seen who. Maybe Lee. Maybe Angelina. Maybe it was one of the teachers. Fred’s smile had stayed in place, because Fred’s smiles are well-trained creatures, but his eyes had gone flat for a second, as if the light inside them had stepped back from the window. Then it was gone, swallowed up by a joke and a shove from George, and everyone else kept eating as if nothing had happened.

I’d watched him after that without meaning to.

His laughter still came. His hands still moved, restless, animated, tossing bits of conversation like he was flipping coins. He’d made someone choke on their pumpkin juice with a perfectly timed remark about Percy and “romantic devotion to regulations.” He’d looked like himself in every way that would convince you he was himself.

But when his gaze snagged on mine again, it didn’t feel like a wink that time. It felt like he was checking the distance between us and measuring whether he could make it across without anyone noticing.

And then he’d been gone with the rest of Gryffindor, swallowed up by staircases and noise, and I’d come back to my dormitory because I needed quiet, because my own thoughts were doing that uncomfortable thing where they press close and insist you look at them.

Now the quiet is too big.

Somewhere below, a door closes. Footsteps. The dormitory doesn’t usually get visitors this late—not unless someone has lost something important or someone is crying and pretending they aren’t. The footsteps come closer, hesitate, move again. I hold my breath without realising it, because hope is a ridiculous reflex, and mine has never been subtle.

A soft knock comes at the door.

Not loud. Not a proper knock. More like someone tapping with their knuckles as if they’re trying to be polite about existing.

I sit up, the quilt sliding down my lap. My heart does that quick, stupid skip that makes me want to scold myself, as if my body is sixteen and foolish even if my brain is trying to be sensible.

“Yeah?” I call, keeping my voice low, because the others are asleep and because it feels like a kind of sacred thing, this hour.

The door opens the smallest amount—just enough for someone to slip through without letting the corridor light flood in. A familiar head of hair appears in the gap like a question mark, and then Fred Weasley is inside the room, moving as if he belongs here even though he very much doesn’t.

He closes the door behind him carefully. Carefully. The word sticks out, because Fred is not usually careful unless he’s about to set something on fire.

For a second he just stands there in the soft light. His hair is more of a mess than usual, as if he’s been running his hands through it. His tie is loosened, his jumper slightly askew. His face looks normal—freckled, cheekbones sharp in the candle glow, mouth already building itself into something that might be a grin.

But his shoulders are too high, like he’s been holding something up all day and it’s only just occurred to him he’s allowed to put it down.

He catches my eye and tries anyway. Of course he does.

“Evening,” he says, quiet as the knock had been, as if he’s walked into a library and is trying not to get thrown out.

My mouth opens and a dozen things crowd up at once—You shouldn’t be here, How did you get in, What happened, Are you all right, Did you get caught, You look—but the only thing that comes out is his name.

“Fred?”

He lets out a breath that sounds like a laugh without the humour. He takes a step closer, and then another. The floorboards don’t creak under him in here the way they do in Gryffindor; Hufflepuff dormitories have a muffled softness, as if the whole place has agreed to be gentle.

“Don’t,” he murmurs, and it’s not a joke, not a tease. It’s like he’s asking me not to say it in that tone—the tone that notices.

I swallow. The quilt is warm against my fingers. My wand is still on my pillow, a small comfort I don’t touch.

“Don’t what?”

His mouth twitches, the ghost of the Fred I know—the one who always has an answer—trying to surface. “Don’t do that thing,” he says, reaching the side of my bed and stopping there, hands hovering like he doesn’t know where to put them. “The looking. Like you’re about to—” He breaks off, eyes flicking briefly toward the other beds, the curtains drawn, the sleeping shapes beneath. He lowers his voice even more. “Like you’re about to take me apart and see what’s wrong.”

I should say something sharp. I should tell him that barging into the girls’ dormitory is a spectacularly stupid idea and that he’s lucky Professor Sprout isn’t patrolling. I should remind him he can’t just appear when he wants something.

But the way he’s standing there—close enough I can see the faint red mark on his knuckle, close enough I can smell cold air on his jumper like he’s been outside—makes all the sensible things fall away.

Because he’s here.

Because he came to me.

I move over without thinking, lifting the edge of the quilt. It’s a small invitation, but in the quiet it feels like a door swinging open.

He looks at it like he’s been offered water after a long walk.

Then he climbs onto the bed with none of his usual swagger. No dramatic flourish. No grin. He slides in beside me as if he’s trying to take up as little space as possible, which is absurd because he is all elbows and long limbs and restless energy. The mattress dips. The warmth of him immediately changes the whole air around us, like adding another candle to the room.

He hesitates for half a second, and I can almost see the argument in his head—pride on one side, want on the other.

Want wins.

He turns and presses his forehead into my shoulder, and the breath that leaves him is heavy enough I feel it through my pyjama fabric. His arms come around my waist in a sudden, tight band. He pulls me against him with a kind of urgency that isn’t rough, but isn’t gentle either—like he’s afraid of letting go and finding nothing there.

The contact hits me low and deep, not in some dramatic, storybook way, but like a physical truth my body has been waiting to settle into. The warmth of him seeps through my skin. His hair brushes my jaw. His fingers flex once against my side, as if he’s checking that I’m solid, that I’m real.

My hands hover for a second—ridiculous, uncertain, like I’ve forgotten what to do with them—then I sink one into his hair, the strands soft and a bit damp with the leftover chill of the corridors. The other hand finds his shoulder and stays there, feeling the tension in the muscle beneath the fabric.

He makes a sound—not a word, not even a proper noise, just a tiny exhale that carries more than it should.

I don’t ask him what happened. Not yet. Questions feel like bright lights right now, and he came here for darkness and warmth, the safe kind.

So I do the only thing that seems right: I hold him.

Outside our little circle of quilt and candlelight, the dormitory remains still. Somewhere, a girl shifts in her sleep and mumbles something. The castle continues to be itself.

Fred stays pressed into me, breathing unevenly for a moment, and then slowly, slowly, the rhythm changes. It becomes steadier. Less like he’s been running and more like he’s finally stopped.

When he speaks, his voice is muffled against my shoulder.

“Had a day,” he says, as if that explains everything and nothing.

I stroke his hair once, twice, letting my fingers follow the direction it wants to lie. He always looks like he’s been struck by a strong gust of wind; it’s strange how comforting it is to feel that the chaos has texture.

“A day,” I echo, because it’s safer than asking.

He shifts slightly, enough that I can see the side of his face. His eyes are open, staring at the dark space between my bed and the wall, but not really looking at it. His mouth is set in a line that could be stubbornness, could be restraint. The freckle under his left eye—one of the ones I know without meaning to—stands out in the candle glow like a pinpoint.

“I was fine,” he says, and the way he says it makes it sound like a verdict he delivered all afternoon. “I was… brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. George said so.”

I snort softly before I can stop myself, because George Weasley’s approval is not a reliable measurement of emotional wellbeing. Fred’s mouth twitches again, the humour trying.

“There it is,” he murmurs, as if he can’t help being pleased he got something out of me. Then his jaw tightens, and the humour slips away like it never lived there. “And then I wasn’t.”

My fingers pause in his hair. My hand on his shoulder feels the difference when he draws in a breath—how his body braces for it, like breathing hurts.

I don’t say, Tell me. I don’t say, You should have told me earlier. Those are simple sentences and this doesn’t feel simple.

So I shift closer and pull the quilt higher around both of us, creating a little pocket of heat that shuts the rest of the world out. It’s childish, maybe, but Hogwarts has always encouraged childish things—blanket forts, secret corners, midnight snacks, small rebellions that say you’re still alive.

Fred’s gaze flicks to my face. There’s something raw in it, quickly covered, like he’s slammed a door.

“It was nothing,” he says too fast.

I lift my eyebrows, just a fraction.

He huffs. “All right, it wasn’t nothing.”

“Fred,” I say quietly, and it comes out as a warning and a comfort at the same time, which feels unfair because I didn’t plan it.

His mouth pulls into a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “You’re doing the looking again.”

“Mm,” I say, and my fingers resume their slow movement. “I’m terrible.”

“Hopeless,” he agrees, and there’s affection disguised as complaint. He shifts, turning so he’s more on his side, facing me. His hand comes up and catches my wrist gently, stopping my fingers in his hair as if he wants to hold onto the contact, not lose it to the air. His thumb strokes once over the inside of my wrist, absentminded, like he’s trying to remember where he is.

He looks at me for a long moment, and the silence stretches until it feels like a living thing between us. In the candlelight, his freckles look like someone scattered little bits of burnt sugar across his skin. His eyes, usually bright with the next idea, look tired in a way he never lets them look in public.

He swallows.

“It was Percy,” he says.

I blink. Of all the things my mind offered up—Detention, a fight—Percy wasn’t at the top.

Fred’s mouth twists. “Before you say anything—”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” I protest automatically, even though I absolutely was.

He snorts. “Liar.”

“I’m a Hufflepuff,” I whisper, scandalised.

“And I’m the Minister for Magic,” he returns, and there it is—Fred sarcasm, quick as a flicked wand. The corner of his mouth lifts, but it’s still held tight, as if the smile doesn’t want to risk becoming something real.

He lets go of my wrist and tucks his hand between us, palm flat against my stomach through the fabric, as if he needs that anchor. The weight of it is warm, steady, and somehow it turns my whole body into a listening thing.

“He said something,” Fred says, and his voice goes sharper on the last word, anger flaring like it’s been waiting behind his teeth. His eyes harden for a second—Gryffindor pride, Weasley fire. “About… you. About me. About how I’m ‘distracting myself’ and ‘wasting time’ and ‘dragging other people down with me’—” He stops, jaw clenching, nostrils flaring as he breathes out. “As if I’m not aware.”

The last part lands differently. The word aware is heavier than the rest.

I don’t move, because any movement feels like it might startle him into shutting it all down again. I keep my hand on his shoulder. I let my fingers rest against the back of his neck, where the skin is warmest.

Fred’s eyes flicker to my face, searching for something—disgust, maybe, or pity, or reassurance. His expression dares me to judge him and begs me not to, all at once.

And the truth is, my mind has been full of him for months, full of the difference between the Fred the school sees and the Fred I’ve learned in quiet moments: the way he watches the room when he thinks no one is watching him, the way he goes still when something hits too close to home, the way his anger is often a mask for something softer he refuses to name.

It makes sense, suddenly, why he came here instead of staying in Gryffindor and making jokes until it stopped hurting.

“It wasn’t even clever,” he says bitterly, voice dropping. “Not even a clever insult. Just… Percy being Percy, thinking he can sort the world into categories and file us all away. Like he can look at me and decide what I am.”

His hand tightens briefly against my stomach, then loosens, as if he caught himself.

“And you smiled,” I say before I can stop it—not accusing, not sharp. Just noticing. “At dinner.”

His eyes flash. “Of course I did.”

The answer is immediate, instinctive. Like breathing.

Because Fred Weasley doesn’t let anyone see him bleed. Not in public. Not unless he chooses.

He stares at me for a second, and then something in his face gives way—not completely, not dramatically, but enough that the tightness around his mouth softens.

“I’m not… asking you to fix it,” he says, and the words sound like they cost him something. “I just— Merlin, I just wanted to be here. I wanted—” He breaks off, glancing away as if the ceiling is suddenly fascinating. When he looks back, the humour is there again, thin but real. “I wanted cuddles. Which is humiliating, really.”

A laugh trembles in my chest and almost escapes. The relief of him saying cuddles—plain, stupid—feels like stepping into a warm room after being out in the snow.

“It’s not humiliating,” I murmur.

“It is,” he insists, and his voice tries for indignation but comes out softer. “I’m a terrifying Gryffindor menace.”

“Absolutely petrifying,” I agree, and I shift closer, letting my forehead touch his for a brief second. He stills at the contact like it surprised him, then exhales and lets his eyes close for half a heartbeat.

I slide my arm around his back and pull him in until he’s fully pressed against me again, his face tucked into the space beneath my jaw. This time he doesn’t hesitate. He melts into it with a kind of desperate gratitude that makes my throat tighten for reasons I don’t name.

His arms lock around me, tight enough that I feel the steadiness of his heartbeat against my ribs, fast at first, then slowing, matching mine like our bodies are negotiating a truce.

The dormitory is dim and safe and warm. Outside, the castle creaks and breathes. Somewhere, far below, a clock chimes the hour with a distant, hollow sound.

Fred’s voice comes again, smaller now, threaded with the last of his anger.

“I wanted to hex him,” he mutters.

“I know,” I whisper into his hair.

“I didn’t,” he says quickly, as if he needs that fact to be recorded.

“I know.”

He shifts his head slightly, and his lips brush my collarbone through the fabric of my pyjamas. It sends a strange, sharp warmth through me, like my skin has suddenly remembered it’s alive. My fingers tighten in his hair.

“I did think about it,” he admits, voice muffled. “I thought about turning his hair into— I don’t know— ferrets. Something poetic.”

“You’d have to pick something Percy hates,” I murmur, my voice going soft with the sleepiness of being held and the private pleasure of planning ridiculous revenge. “Ferrets might be… too exciting.”

Fred makes a low sound that might be laughter. “You’re right. Something dull. Something—” He pauses, thinking, and even in this he sounds like himself. “Something that makes him look like he’s joined a Muggle accounting firm.”

“That’s already happened,” I say.

He snorts properly this time, and the sound vibrates against me in a way that feels unfairly comforting. His arms tighten again, then loosen. He breathes out slowly, and I feel the tension drain from him in increments, like he’s been untying knots all day and only now has the patience to undo the last one.

We stay like that for a long time, the world shrinking down to the warmth of the quilt and the weight of him and the slow movement of my fingers through his hair. My mind wanders the way it does when it feels safe enough to wander—past the day, past the Great Hall, past Percy’s voice like a thorn.

It lands, inevitably, on the fact that Fred came here because he trusts me with the parts of him he doesn’t show.

It lands on the fact that we argue, that we clash, that sometimes his chaos scrapes against my steadiness until sparks fly. It lands on the fact that even when I’m sure I’m going to push him away with a well-timed remark or a look that’s too honest, he comes back anyway, like he’s decided I’m worth the trouble.

It lands on the tenderness of his hand splayed against my side, the way his thumb moves in slow, absent circles as if my skin is a worry stone.

In the dark, it’s easier to admit things to myself.

Not out loud. Not where they can become real and frightening.

Just in the secret place inside my chest where my thoughts live before I turn them into words.

Fred shifts slightly, and his voice comes again, barely above a whisper.

“Stay,” he says.

It isn’t a question. It’s something in between—something raw and honest that he tries to cover with a faint, tired edge of humour. “Don’t go doing that thing where you fall asleep and I have to be responsible for myself again.”

My lips brush the top of his head. “Merlin forbid you being responsible for yourself. It would be tragic.”

“Utterly tragic,” he agrees, and I can feel him smiling now, small and real, against my skin.

My eyes close. The candlelight behind my lids turns orange and soft. Fred’s breathing evens out, his body settling further, heavier with each exhale, as if he’s finally letting the day go because he’s decided he’s safe enough to.

The castle keeps creaking. The wind keeps pressing at the windows. The world keeps being sharp and difficult and full of Percys.

But here, under the quilt, with Fred Weasley holding me like I’m the only solid thing in a shifting world, the sharpness blurs at the edges. The warmth wins for now.

My eyes don’t know what to do with him. They keep returning to his face like a tongue to a missing tooth—checking, checking, checking, expecting pain and finding only absence. His hair is flattened in places, pale dust clinging to it like flour, like the aftermath of some ridiculous prank gone wrong, like he’s rolled out of a joke and will spring up any moment and grin at the horror on my face. His lashes rest against his cheeks in a way that looks too delicate, too neat. His mouth is slightly open, as if he meant to say something and simply… didn’t get the chance to finish.

It doesn’t fit. Not with the last few hours. Not with the way he’d leaned toward me in the corridor—so close I could smell smoke and sweat and that sharp, familiar scent of him, like soap and mischief and the faintest trace of ink. Not with his voice in my ear, bright and easy, threaded through with that reckless faith he always carried like a charm.

“We’ll be fine. See you in a couple hours.”

And then, because he couldn’t help himself, because he couldn’t leave anything untouched by humour even when the world was falling apart, a joke—some stupid, stupid line meant to make me roll my eyes and shove him and tell him to stop flirting with death like it’s a game he can win. I remember my mouth twitching. I remember the relief, the tiny flare of it, because it was Fred and if Fred could joke then surely the universe was still obeying whatever rules it used to obey.

The joke is a jagged thing inside my head now. It isn’t funny. It’s a knife I keep pressing into myself just to make sure I’m awake.

My lungs refuse to deepen. Air skims the top of my chest like it’s afraid to go any farther. I can feel my heartbeat everywhere—throat, wrists, the soft place behind my ears—loud and frantic, like it’s trying to pound through my skin and escape. The hall smells of smoke and blood and stone, and underneath it all that strange, clean scent of magic that lingers after spells have burned the air raw. It feels like standing in the aftermath of lightning.

I don’t move. I can’t. If I move, I’ll have to accept that this is where I am: in a room full of the dead, staring at the dead, and one of them is the person who was meant to be mine.

Not meant in a possessive way. Meant in the way you mean something when you’ve already begun building around it without realizing. Like your life has been quietly arranging itself for years into a shape that fits another person. Like future plans stop being fantasies and start being assumptions: we’ll leave Hogwarts, we’ll find a place, we’ll argue about curtains, we’ll laugh about it, we’ll have a kitchen full of noise, we’ll have children with his eyes or his grin or his stubborn refusal to be serious when the world demands seriousness. We’ll grow old and tell embarrassing stories at weddings and he’ll still try to make me laugh when my hair turns grey.

All of that sits behind my eyes like a landscape I’ve been living in, and now I watch it collapse in silence.

It’s wrong that the castle stands. It’s wrong that the ceiling still arches, that the banners still hang, that the air still moves. The world is continuing without asking my permission.

A hand squeezes mine.

The contact is so sudden I flinch as if struck, my fingers curling reflexively, like my body is trying to protect itself from tenderness. For half a heartbeat my mind does something stupid and hopeful—Fred—but I turn and it’s Lee Jordan, his face streaked and swollen, eyes red-rimmed as if he’s been crying so hard his body has forgotten how to stop. He is still holding my hand like it’s an anchor, like I’m something that might float away if he lets go. There’s a rawness to him, the kind that makes him look younger and older at once, as though the war has pressed a thumb into his forehead and left a permanent dent.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. The promise is in the grip itself, tight and shaking: I’m here, I’m here, I’m here—because Fred told him to be, because Lee has always been the sort of person who takes loyalty like a vow.

His gaze is fixed on Fred too, but he’s looking at him the way you look at a door that should open and won’t. His mouth trembles once, the smallest betrayal of composure, and he swallows it down like poison, like he is trying—still—to be the steadier one for my sake.

I turn back because I can’t stand to witness anyone else breaking before I do. Because if Lee breaks, I’ll have to admit there’s something to break over. My eyes drag across the bodies like they’re crossing a battlefield again, searching for proof that this is a trick of my mind, that I’ve been hexed, that someone has brewed some nightmare potion and slipped it into the air.

And then I see George.

He’s beside Fred, not standing, not even kneeling properly—just collapsed, folded in half like someone has taken the hinge of his spine and snapped it. His forehead is pressed to Fred’s chest. His hands clutch Fred’s shirt as if fabric is all that remains between him and falling forever. The sound coming from him isn’t pretty. It isn’t the kind of crying you see in films or in quiet bedrooms. It is full-bodied and animal, dragged up from a place too deep for dignity to survive. Every so often his shoulders jerk violently, and the movement looks like drowning.

Ron is close, too close, face twisted, tears running down in rivulets that leave clean tracks through grime. His mouth opens and closes like he’s trying to make words happen and can’t find any. Ginny stands near Percy—standing, not sitting—her arms wrapped tightly around herself as if she’s holding her ribs together. Her eyes are wide, fixed, blinking too slowly. Percy looks like a man who has spent his entire life choosing the wrong things and has just realized, in one brutal breath, that apologies can’t be cast like spells. And Mrs. Weasley—

Mrs. Weasley is at Fred’s head, stroking his hair with a tenderness so gentle it feels obscene, like the world shouldn’t be allowed softness in the same room as death. Her fingers move the way they might have moved when he was a child with fever. Her mouth works soundlessly, as if she’s speaking to him in a language grief invents on the spot, the kind only mothers know. Her face has gone oddly calm, stretched thin over something unbearable. Like if she lets the expression crack, she’ll shatter into pieces and never be put back together.

The hall tilts.

Not dramatically. Not in a way anyone else would notice. Just a subtle shifting of reality, like the ground has decided it would rather be water. I stare at Fred’s chest.

It doesn’t rise.

I stare harder, like intensity can conjure breath, like my eyes can bully his body into obeying.

Nothing.

The cold fear that had been waiting just outside my skin floods in all at once, a rush so fast it steals sound from the room. For a second I hear only my own blood, roaring, and then a small sound pushes out of me—a soft, strangled cry that doesn’t feel like it belongs to a human throat.

It grows.

It grows like a crack spreading through glass.

My feet move without asking. One moment I’m standing still and the next I’m running, the stone floor blurring, bodies and faces and grief streaking past in a smear of grey and red. I dimly register Lee’s hand slipping from mine, and when I glance back he folds downward, collapsing to the floor as if the tether has been cut, hands flying up to cover his head. He makes a sound that is half sob, half something else—something broken and stunned.

I don’t stop.

I can’t stop.

I hit the space in front of Fred like a wave breaking against shore, my knees slamming stone so hard pain sparks white behind my eyes. George jerks upright at the movement, face wet and contorted, looking at me like he doesn’t recognize me as a person—only as another piece of the world coming apart. His eyes are identical to Fred’s and that detail is so cruel it makes my vision swim.

All of them look at me. Even the people who were trying not to look. Even the ones pretending composure.

My hands reach for Fred without permission from my mind, as if they’ve been trained for years to find him. I grab his hand.

It lies in mine like a thing left behind.

It doesn’t curl back. It doesn’t squeeze. It doesn’t do the smallest, stupidest, most vital thing in the world—respond.

“No,” I hear myself say, and the word comes out wrong, thin and cracked. “No—no—no—”

It becomes a chant, a refusal, the only spell I have. Each no slams into the air and echoes off stone and banners and the dead, and it sounds pathetic and childish and necessary. My throat burns. My chest locks. My breath comes in sharp, panicked bites that don’t go anywhere. The air tastes like ash.

Mrs. Weasley’s hands come to my shoulders, gripping, trying to steady me, and I barely feel her. Her voice reaches me as if from underwater, saying something I can’t hold onto—“It’s all right, it’s all right,”—words that don’t belong here, words that make me want to tear the air open.

All I can see is Fred’s face, still and unfamiliar in its stillness.

I lean forward—fall forward—and my cheek hits his chest.

Cold.

Not the coolness of a winter walk. Not the chill of a damp corridor. This is a dead kind of cold, a temperature that feels like absence, like the world has withdrawn its warmth in disgust. His shirt is stiff with dried dirt and who knows what else, and the scent that rises from him isn’t Fred. Not properly. There’s a faint trace of him buried under everything—like a memory caught in cloth—but mostly it’s smoke and stone and something metallic and wrong. Something that tells my body, with brutal clarity, that this is not sleep.

His chest doesn’t move beneath my face.

My hands clutch at him, fingers digging into fabric, searching for any sign of life the way you search for something lost in dark water. My body shakes so hard my teeth click. Tears smear my vision until the world becomes a watery distortion of hair and hands and grief. I try to suck in air and it scrapes through me like glass.

Images keep stabbing in, uninvited.

Fred’s grin, tilted and bright, the way it always looked like it belonged to sunlight. Fred’s laugh, deep and ridiculous, vibrating through my ribs when he pulled me close. His fingers tapping a rhythm on my wrist in the middle of class, trying to make me smile. His voice—“See? Told you it’d be fine,”—like the universe was a prank he could outsmart.

I lift my head because I have to see him, have to force my eyes to accept it, and when I look it’s just… him.

Still.

Unmoving.

Every part of me insists this is wrong, that this is a mistake someone will correct if I scream loud enough. But the room doesn’t correct itself. The castle doesn’t shift. Time doesn’t rewind. No one laughs and says got you.

He stays dead.

Somewhere behind me, George makes a sound—not a sob this time, but a rasping inhale like he’s been punched. Then his voice, hoarse and ruined, says my name.

It’s not even a full word. It’s broken on the way out. But it has Fred’s shape. It has Fred’s cadence. The similarity hits me like a curse. My body recoils before my mind can catch up, and I turn on George with something wild in my face, because I can’t bear it. I can’t bear Fred’s voice living in someone else’s throat when Fred’s throat is silent.

“Don’t,” I say, and the word comes out strangled, ugly. “Don’t—don’t do that. Don’t—” I can’t finish the sentence because it’s too vile to name: don’t hurt me with him, don’t give me echoes, don’t make me hear him when he’s gone.

George’s face caves. The expression isn’t anger or offence—just the immediate, helpless collapse of someone who has been trying to keep breathing and has just been told that even his voice is a weapon. His mouth opens. Nothing comes. His eyes shut hard for a second, and when he opens them again they’re shining in a way that looks like pain turned liquid.

He turns his gaze back to Fred, as if to apologize without words. As if he has to remind himself that he’s still allowed to exist.

The room blurs again. The hours don’t pass properly. They slip sideways, folding in on themselves. People move around us—quiet steps, whispered spells, the soft murmur of names. Someone offers water. Someone lays a cloak over someone’s shoulders. The light shifts in the high windows from grey to a paler, weaker gold, and still I don’t move.

My body is pressed to Fred like proximity can bargain with death.

At some point my sobbing dulls into a raw, constant trembling, like my muscles have been set vibrating and forgotten. My eyes ache. My throat feels scraped out. I keep thinking: if I stay still enough, if I don’t accept it, perhaps the universe will tire of this and give him back. Perhaps this is a punishment I can outwait.

But Fred stays cold.

Mrs. Weasley’s voice finds me again—closer this time, more insistent, and there is a tremor beneath the gentleness like a thread about to snap. Her hand strokes my hair once, the way she might have done for her own children, and I realize with a strange, distant horror that she has been doing this for hours—mothering me while her son lies dead beneath her fingers.

“It’s time dear,” she says.

The words don’t make sense. Time for what? Time is over. Time ended when his chest stopped moving.

I shake my head, small, frantic, as if refusal is still a power I possess. My cheek presses harder against Fred’s shirt. My fingers tighten around his hand until my knuckles ache, trying to force heat into him through sheer pressure.

“I just got here,” I manage, and my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else—thin and wrecked and pleading in a way I’ve never heard from myself. “I just—”

Mrs. Weasley’s breath catches. Not loudly. Just a small, involuntary sound. Her hand pauses on my shoulder as if she’s trying to remember how to keep touching the world without falling apart. “It’s been hours,” she says, and the quiet certainty in her voice is worse than a scream.

Hours.

I look up, blinking, and the hall looks different than it did when I ran. The light has moved. People have shifted. The bodies—some have been covered, some have been moved. The world has been continuing while I have been pinned here like an insect under glass.

Mrs. Weasley glances toward George.

It’s not a request spoken aloud. It’s a mother’s look, heavy with a kind of authority forged in tragedy: help her. Please.

George moves like he’s walking through water. His hands come to me, careful—so careful—fingers hovering before they make contact, as if he’s afraid I’ll shatter. When he touches my arm, his hand trembles. The tremor runs through me like a current and, for a terrible second, it feels like holding Fred again—like the echo is pressing itself into my skin.

I want to fight him. I want to dig my nails into stone and refuse to leave. I want to curl around Fred’s body like a shield and dare the world to take him any farther.

But George’s hands shake, and there is something in that small, uncontrollable movement that makes my resistance falter. It isn’t strength. It isn’t persuasion. It’s simply proof that he is still here and still breaking, and if I fight him, if I make him wrestle me away from his brother, something in him might tear beyond repair.

So I don’t.

I let him pull me upright.

My knees protest. My body sways. The room tilts again, and for a moment I think I might vomit, might collapse, might fling myself back down. George’s grip tightens—not hard just firm enough to keep me from falling into the space where Fred lies.

My fingers slip from Fred’s hand.

The loss of that contact is so sharp my vision goes white around the edges. My mouth opens, a soundless gasp, like I’ve just been cut loose from the last thing tethering me to reality. I stare down at him—at the way his hand lies where I left it, unchanged, indifferent to my leaving—and something inside me whimpers like an animal.

George steadies me, his face close enough that I can see the freckles of grime and the swollen skin around his eyes. He looks at me once, and in that look is a whole lifetime of shared laughter turned into ash.

And as he guides me away—away from Fred’s cold chest, away from Mrs. Weasley’s hands stroking hair that will never lift to laugh again—the Great Hall stretches around us, vast and echoing, and I can’t stop thinking one unbearable, looping thought:

I was supposed to leave this room with him.

Not without.

~~~

The Burrow is wrong.

Not in the way it used to be wrong—charming-wrong, crooked-wrong, like it was held together by laughter and stubbornness and the kind of magic that didn’t care about straight lines. This is a different wrong. This is a house that has had something vital pulled out of it and is still standing anyway, stunned by its own survival.

The kitchen is dark except for the weak spill of moonlight through the window, the kind that looks like it’s afraid to touch anything. The air sits heavy. Cold. The Burrow has never been cold. Even in winter it always carried warmth in its bones—heat from the fireplace, heat from bodies, heat from voices bouncing off every wonky wall. Tonight there’s only the thin, metallic chill that clings to stone after battle, and it crawls up my arms as if it’s trying to find the places I’m still bleeding.

The quiet is worse than the cold. The Burrow has never been quiet. Not truly. There was always something: the tick and hiss of the kettle, the creak of stairs, someone calling someone else’s name, Ron’s laugh, Ginny’s sharp voice, Mrs. Weasley’s constant motion. Even when everyone went to bed there was always the house itself—settling, sighing, breathing. Even the ghoul in the attic used to rattle and moan when it got too still, like it couldn’t bear the silence either.

Now the attic is mute.

Not a pipe knocks. Not a groan. It’s as though even the ghoul is listening, horrified, and doesn’t dare interrupt.

The clock on the wall doesn’t help. I wish it were smashed. I wish it had been burned in the war with everything else. It hangs there, stubborn and ordinary, and the hands that used to swing to Home and Work and School like it was all so simple—like there were places you could go that meant safety—now sit in their painted warnings, refusing comfort. My eyes catch the little circle where Fred’s picture is, the face that used to grin up at us from the dial, and the hand beside it is pointed somewhere it has never pointed in my memory.

Mortal peril.

The words are so neat they make me feel sick. As if danger is something you can label and frame and hang on a kitchen wall. As if Fred can be reduced to a tiny hand pointing at ink.

I sit at the table because my body doesn’t know where else to go.

My usual spot. The one I’ve had every summer, every Christmas, every time I came here and let myself pretend the world was steady. The table is old under my fingers—older than I’ve ever noticed. The wood is worn smooth in places where elbows have leaned for years. Chipped along the edges from a thousand plates, a thousand hurried breakfasts, a thousand arguments and reconciliations. There are stains that will never come out, pale rings from tea mugs and dark marks from spills and burns. It feels like a living thing, scarred and familiar.

And beside me—

Fred’s chair.

Empty.

It isn’t even pushed in properly. It’s angled, slightly out, like someone has just stood up and will be back in a second. Like his weight has only just left it and the air hasn’t had time to settle. My throat tightens so sharply it feels like a hand closing around it from the inside, and something small breaks loose from me—an ugly, involuntary sound, half sob, half breath. I clamp my jaw down immediately, as if I can swallow it back, as if I can keep it from becoming what it wants to become.

It doesn’t work. Nothing works.

I have been crying since George and I got here. It’s just been… leaking. Constant. A steady, unstoppable seep, like my body has decided tears are the only language left. My cheeks feel raw. My eyelids burn. My throat tastes like salt and smoke.

Across from me, George sits hunched over in his chair as if gravity has doubled on his side of the table. He hasn’t looked at me properly since we walked through the door. He’s staring at Fred’s empty seat next to mine like the space is a wound. Tears slide down his face without any sound. They don’t even seem to surprise him. They just happen, as inevitable as breathing used to be. His hands grip the edge of the table so hard his knuckles are white beneath grime and dried blood, and for a second I think he might snap the wood clean in half just to feel something break that isn’t him.

The candle stubs on the counter are cold. The sink is empty. No plates left from supper, no lingering smell of stew or treacle tart or Mrs. Weasley’s bread. It’s as if the kitchen has been scrubbed clean of life. The air doesn’t smell right. The Burrow always smelled like warmth—flour and washing powder and smoke and something sweet, something safe. Tonight it smells… stale. Like rooms closed too long. Like magic that’s been burned out. Like loss.

And I keep thinking, absurdly, that the house knows.

That the walls are listening for Fred’s laugh and can’t find it.

My gaze drifts again to the chair beside me, and the memory comes without warning—sharp, bright, cruel.

Second year. We were still small then, still awkward in our robes, still laughing too easily. Iy had been my first summer spent at the Weasleys. Fred had been sitting beside George like he always did, twin symmetry, two halves of a whole, and then one day he just… didn’t. He slid into the seat beside me as if it had always belonged to him. As if the decision had been made long before my brain caught up. George had arched a brow, amused, not angry—never angry, not then. Ron had looked mildly offended, grumbling as he took the seat to my right instead, like someone had stolen a piece of the table he thought was his. Mrs. Weasley hadn’t noticed at all because she was always busy, always moving, and Fred had leaned in and stolen something off my plate with the ease of a person who believes the world exists for his hands.

I remember slapping his shoulder—light, annoyed, pretend-annoyed—and the way he had laughed, delighted, as if being told off was a gift.

He did it constantly after that. Always my favourite bits. Always the things I saved. He’d eat them with that infuriating grin, eyes sparkling, and when I’d protest he’d only shrug and say something awful like, “If you wanted it that badly, you should’ve guarded it better,” like I was a dragon and my chips were treasure.

And under the table—always under the table—his hand would find mine.

Warm. Solid. Fingers threading through like a promise too private to say out loud in front of his family. Sometimes he’d squeeze once, quick, just to remind me he was there. Sometimes he’d rub his thumb over my knuckles absentmindedly while Mr. Weasley talked about Muggles and Ron complained and Ginny rolled her eyes and Mrs. Weasley fussed. It was such an ordinary kind of intimacy, so woven into the fabric of my life here, that I never thought to be grateful for it.

Now my mind yanks up the other memory, the one that doesn’t belong in this kitchen, the one my body tries to reject: Fred’s hand in mine in the Great Hall.

Cold.

Lifeless.

My fingers gripping and gripping and getting nothing back.

My stomach turns. My throat closes. I press the heel of my hand hard against my mouth to keep the sound in, because if I let it out it will fill the room and I won’t be able to stop it.

I can still feel the cut on my side when I move, a sharp tug beneath dried blood and torn fabric, but it registers the way a distant thunder registers—something happening somewhere far away to someone else. My hands are bruised, knuckles split, small cuts along my palms from spells and stone and panic. I stare down at them as if they’re hands I borrowed. They don’t look like hands that should be touching a table in the Burrow. They look like hands that belong on a battlefield, reaching for bodies that don’t reach back.

I bury my face in them anyway.

The skin is gritty, sticky with old blood. The smell of smoke is still trapped in my hair. My tears soak into the cracks of my knuckles and I hate that they’re mixing with what’s left of the war. It feels like contaminating him, contaminating this house, contaminating everything that used to be clean and warm.

The silence stretches so long my ears start to ring.

Then George inhales.

It’s a sharp, ragged sound, like something inside him catches and tears as it rises. I lift my head slowly, as though the motion costs too much, and I look at him.

He looks… ruined.

Not just tired. Not just grief-struck. Ruined in the way a thing looks when you’ve broken it at its core. His hair is tangled and damp at the temples. His eyes are swollen almost shut, rims red and raw, lashes clumped from crying. There’s a smear of dried blood along his cheekbone that I can’t tell if it’s his or someone else’s. His mouth is set in a line that trembles at the corners like it can’t hold itself steady. His shoulders shake, small violent tremors that he seems to be trying to control, and the effort of that control makes his whole body look tight, brittle, like one wrong word could splinter him.

And his eyes—

His eyes are locked on the empty chair beside me.

As if Fred might appear there if he stares hard enough.

My mind goes blank in a horrible way. Not calm blank. Hollow blank. Like someone has scooped the inside of my skull out and left only flashes: Fred’s grin. Fred’s voice. Fred’s hand. Fred’s last words. Every thought I try to form dissolves before it reaches my tongue, because what do you say to someone whose twin has been ripped out of the world?

What do you say when the only truth is unbearable?

I make myself speak anyway because the silence is crushing me from the outside and I need something—anything—to break it.

“George.”

It comes out wrong. Not my voice. A rasp. Hoarse and torn, like I’ve been screaming for days. It sounds like it hurts to be said.

He doesn’t look at me at first. His gaze stays pinned to the chair. The tears keep falling.

I swallow. The movement scrapes my throat. “We should… we should go upstairs,” I manage, words clumsy, too big for my mouth. “Its… late.” I glance toward the window, toward the darkness outside. “It has to be past three.”

The mention of time feels obscene. Time is the thing that carried Fred away. Time is the thing that keeps moving without him.

“And your parents…” My tongue sticks. “They’ll be back soon.”

George’s eyes shift then.

Slowly. Like dragging something heavy through mud.

They find mine.

For one sick moment my brain does the most desperate, treacherous thing it can do: it reaches for Fred.

Not because George looks like him in a playful way, not because the twins have ever fooled me—not once, not even when they tried. I always knew. It was always obvious. Fred moved with a certain reckless brightness, like he was lit from inside. George was steadier, softer around the edges, quieter in the way he watched people. Even their smiles were different if you paid attention: Fred’s was sharper, more performative, like a spark thrown into air; George’s sat deeper, like embers.

But now—

Now my brain is starving.

It is clawing for any scrap of Fred it can find, and George’s face is the nearest thing shaped like him, and my body reacts before my mind can stop it. My chest tightens painfully. My pulse jumps. My breath hitches. I feel myself want to recoil and lean forward at the same time, like my instincts are at war with each other.

It’s George. It’s George.

It’s…George.

I repeat it silently like a prayer. Like a spell. Like if I say it enough I won’t fall apart.

His eyes look at me in a way Fred’s never looked at me. There’s something in his gaze that is raw and exposed and hollowed out, like he has been scraped clean. There’s no mischief in it. No sparkle. No familiar light.

It’s just… pain, laid bare. The kind of look you give when you’ve watched half your soul die and you don’t know how to carry the remaining half alone.

I force myself not to flinch away from him. I sit there, holding myself rigid, nails digging into my own palms under the table to keep myself anchored to the chair, to the kitchen, to this moment.

George’s gaze slips off mine after a beat—too fast, as if looking at me burns. It returns to the empty seat beside me like a magnet snapping back into place. His head dips forward and he lets it drop onto the table with a soft thud, forehead against wood. His hands come up, covering his head, fingers tangled in his hair.

A sound escapes him.

Small. Broken. The kind of sob you make when you’ve run out of air to do it properly.

Something inside my chest tears in a slow, horrible way. Not dramatic. Not clean. Just a gradual ripping, like fabric stretched past what it can take.

I want to reach across the table and touch him. I want to put my hand over his and squeeze once, the way Fred used to squeeze mine, and tell George whatever people say in moments like this—It will be all right. We’ll get through it. He’s at peace. You’re not alone.

But the words die in my mouth before they’re born because they are all lies.

It will not be all right.

Getting through it is not the same as surviving it.

Peace is for people who can still breathe without choking on grief.

And alone—George is alone in a way no one can fix.

So I sit frozen, useless, my hands shaking under the table where no one can see, and I stare at his blood-streaked knuckles, at the dirt ground into the lines of his skin. I stare at the cuff of his shirt, ripped and frayed, and I can almost hear Mrs. Weasley’s voice in my head—“Honestly, George, look at the state of you”—and the ghost of that normality hurts like a blade because it belongs to a world where Fred is alive to roll his eyes and make some smart remark, where the lecture ends in laughter and not in silence.

My gaze drifts past George to the window.

The backyard lies beyond it, a dark, empty stretch of nothing. This window has always framed beauty—sunsets that set the sky on fire, summer evenings full of noise, gnomes running, Harry and Ron stumbling around with brooms, Fred and George in mid-flight, shouting, laughing, chasing. I used to stand outside and watch them play Quidditch like it was the most natural thing in the world, like tomorrow was guaranteed.

I remember Fred swooping low, deliberately near me, shouting something ridiculous just to make me look up, and then veering away at the last second, laughing like he’d stolen my attention and was pleased with himself. I remember him landing on the grass and sprinting toward me with the Quaffle tucked under his arm, chasing me like I was the Snitch, hands outstretched, and me trying not to laugh as I ran, and Ron—always Ron—throwing a ball at Fred’s head with a grumpy shout because he couldn’t stand how Fred made games out of everything.

Fred had laughed then too. Always laughing. Always as if he could outrun death by making it a joke.

Now the yard is still, and the sky above it is black and empty. No moon. No stars. Just a heavy dark stretched over everything like a shroud. It looks like the sky has turned its face away, ashamed to witness what happened. Or maybe it’s listening too, like the house—holding its breath, waiting for a sound that will never come.

The night refuses to end.

It feels as if dawn would be a betrayal. As if morning would mean admitting that this is real, that the world is going to ask us to live in it anyway, to wake up and eat and speak and move through hours that Fred will never touch.

I can’t imagine a morning without him. My mind tries, fails, recoils, tries again. It’s like staring down a cliff and forcing your feet to step forward.

Fred is dead.

The sentence doesn’t fit in my head. It won’t settle. It keeps bouncing around like a curse I can’t stop hearing.

I think of him as a collection of sensations: warm hands, bright voice, the smell of his hair when he leaned close, the way his laugh would vibrate against my cheek when he kissed me. I think of his future as if it’s still somewhere waiting—somewhere behind a door we simply haven’t opened yet.

But the door is gone.

The hallway is gone.

The entire house of that future has been obliterated, and I am sitting at a kitchen table staring at his twin.

Across from me is the face that mirrors him. The same bones, the same eyes, the same familiar angles—everything my body learned as home—and yet it is not him, and my grief keeps lunging forward anyway, greedy and desperate, trying to latch onto anything that resembles the shape of what I’ve lost.

I hate myself for it. Not with words—words feel too neat. I feel it in the way my stomach twists, in the way my chest tightens, in the way my gaze keeps flicking to George and then away, as if looking too long will burn. I feel it in the guilt that arrives like a second skin: Fred would hate this. Fred would laugh at this. Fred would say something filthy and sweet and stupid to break the tension. Fred would be here.

George’s muffled sob seeps through his fingers again, and it drags my attention back from the window like a hook.

The sound is so small for the size of what it contains.

I find myself breathing shallowly, as if deeper breaths would make too much noise. I sit with my hands clasped in my lap, fingertips pressing hard into each other, nails biting skin, trying to feel something sharp and real that isn’t this. My body wants to fold. My body wants to crawl into the space beside Fred’s chair and curl up like an animal in a den and never move.

Instead I stay upright because George is upright. Because if he collapses fully, I don’t know what happens to either of us.

Outside, the darkness presses against the glass. Inside, the kitchen holds its silence like a held note. Somewhere upstairs the ghoul remains still, and the clock remains merciless, and the empty chair beside me remains empty, and I sit at the table with the echo of Fred trapped in my ribs, staring at the only living person in the world who looks like him, and the night stretches on and on as if it, too, is afraid to let morning come.

~~~

Two weeks.

That’s what the calendar says if I force myself to look at it, if I let my eyes track the stupid little squares like time is something tidy you can box up and hang on a wall. Two weeks since the Great Hall. Two weeks since stone under my knees and Fred’s hand like winter in mine. Two weeks since the world proved, without flinching, that it can keep turning even when it rips the centre out of you.

But my body doesn’t know what two weeks means. My body still wakes like it’s yesterday. Still expects to hear his laugh in the corridor before my brain catches up and slams the truth down like a door in my face. Still reaches for him in that half-dream state where hope is a reflex, and then I open my eyes and the absence is so immediate it feels like a physical blow.

I haven’t left the Burrow since that day.

I tell myself it’s because there’s too much to do, because Mrs. Weasley needs help, because the house is full of people stumbling into corners of their grief and someone has to hand them a cup of tea they won’t drink. I tell myself a lot of things. The truth is simpler and uglier: the Burrow is a cage and a sanctuary at the same time, and I don’t know how to exist anywhere else without Fred’s ghost catching up to me.

The day after his funeral—if you can call it that, if you can call anything a funeral when your mind keeps refusing to believe there’s a body in the ground—I stood at the front door with my hand on the latch. I remember the cold metal under my fingers, the way my wrist trembled like the hinge of me had gone loose. I remember the sun outside looking indecently bright, like it hadn’t been told what had happened. I remember thinking: if I step out, it becomes real. If I step out, I’m choosing a world that contains Fred’s death.

I took one breath.

And then George’s footsteps sounded behind me—soft, uneven, as if he was learning how to walk again—and I couldn’t do it. My hand dropped from the latch like it had been burned. I turned and there he was in the hallway, hair unwashed, face hollow, eyes too sharp for the amount of crying that had carved them out. He looked at me, and my chest clenched with that sick, instinctive lurch—my grief lunging for Fred and meeting George instead—and I hated myself for the way relief flooded me anyway.

Because George is a tether.

As long as he’s in the room, my mind doesn’t spiral quite as far. As long as he’s across a table, or beside me on the stairs, or somewhere upstairs breathing, the memory of the Great Hall stays at the edges instead of slamming into me full force. When he leaves my sight the pain rushes back with a violence that makes me dizzy, like my body remembers what it’s meant to do—collapse—and tries to obey.

So I’ve stayed with him.

Every second. Every hour. Like if we hold each other close enough, the empty space where Fred should be will stop screaming.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that Fred would have been unbearable about it, would have made it into a joke—“Look at you two, clingier than a pair of Cornish pixies”—and the thought almost makes me smile before it snaps into something sharper. Because he’ll never make that joke. He’ll never make any joke again. The silence that follows that realization is so thick it makes it hard to swallow.

George and I move through the Burrow like we’re haunting it.

We don’t say much. There are only so many words that don’t sound ridiculous. How are you? What do you answer when your whole existence is an exposed nerve? Fine? Not fine? Dead? Alive? Sometimes he’ll ask if I’ve eaten and I’ll lie. Sometimes I’ll hand him a mug of tea and watch it go cold between his hands like he’s forgotten what warmth is for.

At night, when the house settles into uneasy sleep, I hear him moving across the landing. A soft creak, a hesitant pause outside my door. Some nights he knocks. Some nights he doesn’t. Some nights he just stands there, as if he’s trying to decide whether he’s allowed to be alone.

He never is. He never wanted to be. He couldn’t.

The first time he tried to go in his and Fred’s shared room, it happened like a trap. We were in the corridor, and he stopped so suddenly I almost walked into his back. The door was ajar—only a crack, just enough to let a sliver of darkness breathe out. George stared at it like it was a mouth. Like it might swallow him whole.

“I should…,” he began, and his voice died. He swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed like he was trying to force down something too big to fit in his throat. “I should get—”

He didn’t finish.

He stepped forward anyway, hand reaching for the door, fingers hovering for a second before touching the wood. The contact looked like it hurt. The moment the door creaked open wider, something in him snapped. Not loudly. Just… internally, like a cord cutting.

His knees buckled.

He sank to the floor so fast it was as if the ground had pulled him down, and the sound that came out of him was raw, strangled, too large for the hallway. It wasn’t a sob you could tidy away. It was grief pouring out in an unstoppable rush, like he’d been holding his breath since the Great Hall and had finally exhaled.

I dropped beside him without thinking. My own knees hit the boards. My hands found his shoulders, his arms, anything solid, and he folded forward, shaking, face buried against my chest like a child. I held him and stared past his hair into the room.

Two beds.

Identical, neatly made in a way that felt wrong now, as if Mrs. Weasley had tried to fight death with sheets and corners tucked tight. Fred’s bed was there—the left one, always the left one—and the sight of it was like a punch straight through my ribs. The pillow was indented slightly, not enough to be real, just enough to let my mind torture me: he was here, he was here.

The room smelled faintly of the boys—dust and broom polish and old parchment—but it also smelled haunted, as if the air had been breathed out by someone who would never breathe again. I could see it so clearly: Fred sneaking me in after everyone had gone to sleep, pulling me onto that bed like it was the most natural thing in the world, his arms warm around me, his laughter pressed into my hair as George snored like a foghorn across the room. I could hear Fred whispering jokes in my ear, trying to make me smile, his fingers tracing idle circles on my wrist as if touching me was something that grounded him.

Now the bed was just a bed.

A rectangle of fabric and wood and absence.

George’s sobs shook through me. My own tears slid down silently, slipping into his hair, onto his shoulder, and I couldn’t look at Fred’s bed for long because my body kept trying to move toward it, like an animal trying to return to its dead mate, and the urge terrified me. I didn’t go near it. I didn’t touch it. I didn’t breathe too deeply in that room. It felt like if I did, I might collapse on the mattress and never get up again.

We left the door open a crack when we retreated, as if closing it fully would be a betrayal. As if we were locking him away.

After that, neither of us tried again.

We stopped speaking Fred’s name, not because it wasn’t on our tongues every second, but because it did something to the air when it was said out loud—like it made the absence sharper, more defined. The others tried to keep him alive with words. Ginny would mention him in passing, voice trembling, as if she was testing whether saying his name would make him appear. Mrs. Weasley would talk about him in the past tense and then flinch as if she’d bitten her own tongue. Arthur would sit at the table staring at the clock like he could will its hand to swing back toward Home.

And Percy—

Percy moved like a man wearing armour made of guilt. He avoided mirrors. He avoided silence. Sometimes I’d hear him pacing late at night, feet soft on the stairs, and it sounded like penance.

Ginny changed in a way that felt like watching a candle go out.

She wasn’t her old sharp, fiery self anymore. The girl who used to fling words like daggers, who used to laugh loudly and roll her eyes and shove her brothers with affection—she drifted now, pale and quiet, as if she was trying not to take up space in a world that had already taken too much. She spent hours in her room. When she came down, her eyes were puffy and raw, and she moved like every step was effort.

Most days she would barge into George’s room without knocking, not caring who was there or what we were doing. She’d burst in already crying, the sound catching in her throat like she’d been trying to hold it in and couldn’t. And she would throw herself at George—arms wrapping around him, face burying into his shoulder, clutching him like if she held tight enough she could keep the remaining twin from slipping away too.

Every time she did it, I watched George’s face.

For a second—always for a second—his expression would go utterly blank, like his mind left his body. Then his arms would come up and wrap around her, tight, protective, necessary. He’d kiss the top of her head, because Fred used to do that. Because someone had to. Because it was the only language he still had.

Sometimes I’d see the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth, a ghost of a smile as he tried to reassure her, and it looked like a muscle he no longer knew how to use. It never reached his eyes. His eyes stayed broken, staring past her as if he was seeing the Great Hall again.

Ginny would cling and sob, and George would hold her like a lifeline, and I’d sit on the bed beside them with my hands clenched so tightly my nails left crescents in my skin, because there was nowhere for me to put my grief in that moment without spilling over them.

We all became vessels overflowing.

Mrs. Weasley broke in small, terrifying ways.

Once I found her in the kitchen staring at the shelves as if she’d forgotten what belonged where. Her hands were still, which was the first sign something was wrong—Mrs. Weasley’s hands were never still. She stood there for a long time, eyes fixed on a jar of flour, and when she finally moved she pulled it down and held it to her chest like it was a child. Her shoulders began to shake without sound, and then the sob tore out of her so violently she had to grip the counter to stay upright.

It wasn’t just crying. It was collapse. It was her body finally admitting what her mind had been refusing.

Arthur came in behind her, saw her, and went to her like instinct. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and held her while she slid down to the floor, flour jar still clenched against her, her mouth opening and closing around a name she couldn’t seem to speak. The sound she made then didn’t sound like a mother. It sounded like something wounded.

Percy appeared in the doorway like a ghost. His face crumpled in a way I’d never seen from him before—no pride, no composure, just bare, ugly regret—and he dropped to his knees too, reaching out with shaking hands as if he could scoop her up, fix it, undo it. He kept saying “Mum,” over and over, like he was trying to summon the version of her that existed before this.

It didn’t work. Nothing worked.

The joke shop sat in Diagon Alley like a closed mouth.

George couldn’t look at it. The thought of it made his shoulders tense, jaw tighten, eyes go far away. Fred and George had poured their souls into those shelves—bright boxes, ridiculous inventions, laughter bottled into products. Now it all felt like a mockery. Like joy was something we weren’t allowed.

Ron went back first. Not because he was ready. Because someone had to.

At first, it was only for a few hours. The shop didn’t feel like a shop anymore; it felt like a shrine. Ron would sweep floors that didn’t need sweeping, rearrange items that didn’t need rearranging, speak to customers with a politeness that looked strange on him, all the while flinching every time a bell chimed, every time someone laughed. He would come back to the Burrow with red-rimmed eyes and shaking hands, like he’d been holding himself together with sheer anger.

I went with him most of the time because the Burrow was suffocating and the shop was worse, and somehow the worse felt necessary.

We opened the doors and let in strangers, and they walked in smiling, thinking they were stepping into a place of mischief, and then they’d see the missing twin—feel it without even knowing why—and their smiles would falter. Some would whisper apologies. Some would leave quickly. Some would buy things they didn’t want just to contribute, hands trembling as they placed coins on the counter.

Every time someone asked, “Where’s George?” Ron’s eyes would flash, and he’d say something clipped, something final, and then turn away before his face betrayed him.

George stayed away. The flat above the shop stayed empty, dark, like it was holding its breath too.

The weeks blurred into months the way smoke blurs a room.

Not in a neat healing way. There was no steady climb upward. There were days that felt almost bearable, and then one small thing—a laugh in the wrong pitch, a pair of boots left by the door, a line in a book that reminded me of him—and the ground would drop out again and I’d be back in the Great Hall, lungs refusing air.

I started going to his grave every day.

At first I didn’t tell anyone. I just slipped out early, before the house fully woke, before Mrs. Weasley could watch me like she was afraid to lose another person. The path through the garden felt longer each time, the air biting colder than it should have been, the world looking too ordinary. Birds sang sometimes, and the sound made my stomach twist with rage because how dare they. How dare anything be alive and loud and unbroken.

Fred’s grave sat beneath a tree that caught the light in the afternoons, as if the sun kept trying to touch him. The stone was still too new, too clean, the name cut into it so solid and permanent it made my teeth ache.

FRED WEASLEY.

The letters looked like a joke written in the wrong place.

I brought flowers. Always. Sometimes stolen from the Burrow’s garden because it felt like bringing him a piece of home. Sometimes bought in Diagon Alley because I needed to do something, anything, to prove he still mattered in a world that had already started moving on. I’d kneel in front of the stone and arrange them carefully, hands shaking, as if neatness could be a kind of respect.

Sometimes I talked.

Not big speeches just… updates. Little things my mind clung to because they made him feel close.

Ginny cried again today. Mrs Weasley made breakfast and burned the toast because she forgot she’d lit it. Ron’s been opening the shop. George hasn’t laughed in weeks.

And sometimes—when my throat would close and my eyes would blur and I couldn’t hold myself upright anymore—I’d press my forehead to the cold stone and whisper things I couldn’t say anywhere else.

I miss you.

I don’t know how to do this.

I keep thinking you’ll come back.

Most of the time I just cried. My shoulders would shake and my breath would hitch and I’d wipe my face with my sleeve and smear dirt across my skin and not care. I’d sit there until my legs went numb and the sun shifted and the air turned colder, and even then I’d struggle to leave because leaving felt like abandoning him again.

The first time George came with me, he didn’t speak. He stood beside the grave with his hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders tight, eyes fixed on the stone like he wanted to punch it. His jaw worked, swallowing something back over and over. When he finally moved, he dropped to his knees so abruptly it looked like the ground had yanked him down, and he pressed his palm flat against Fred’s name.

His hand stayed there for a long time.

It shook.

And then he made a sound that wasn’t quite a sob, just a broken exhale, like his body didn’t know what language to use.

After that, he started coming less, and when he did come he would leave faster, like being near the stone burned him alive.

Then one day—months in, though it didn’t feel like months, it felt like a long night that refused to end—George said he was going to the shop.

He said it like it was a sentence handed down. Like it wasn’t a choice, it was a task he had to force himself through.

“I can’t keep…” He stopped, eyes flicking away from mine, throat working. “I can’t keep not going.”

I didn’t tell him not to. I couldn’t. The shop was the last piece of Fred that still existed in bright colours, in laughter-shaped objects. It was also the place that would hurt George the most. Both things were true. Grief doesn’t choose one.

He went. He didn’t come back to the Burrow that night.

He stayed in the flat above the shop instead, alone with all the ghosts packed into shelves.

At first I panicked. My hands shook. My breath caught. My mind replayed the Great Hall like a curse and I had to sit down on the kitchen floor to stop myself from running to Diagon Alley in the dark like a mad thing. Mrs. Weasley made me tea I didn’t drink. Arthur tried to talk about something—anything—and his voice faded in and out like distant radio.

That night I slept with my wand under my pillow like I was still at war.

In the morning, there was an owl from George. Two lines, scrawled and crooked.

I’m alright. Come by soon.

The come by was the only thing that kept me breathing.

Weeks after that, I went home.

Not because the Burrow stopped hurting. Because staying began to feel like drowning. Because every corner held him. Because my own house—my own bed—felt like a place where I could fall apart without being watched by a family that was already collapsing under its own weight.

When I left, Mrs. Weasley hugged me so tightly my ribs ached. Her hands trembled against my back. She smelled like soap and exhaustion and something sharp and fragile.

“Come back,” she whispered, voice breaking on the words like a plea.

I promised I would.

Promises felt dangerous now. But I said it anyway.

I kept seeing George, of course. He’d come by sometimes, or Ron would drag me to the shop when he thought I’d been alone too long. But there were stretches where days passed without seeing him, and those days felt like missing a limb all over again. Like the world had decided to take Fred twice—once with death, once with distance.

And then—after a couple of weeks that felt like months—I found myself standing outside Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes after closing.

The street was quiet. The shop windows glowed faintly, colours dulled by the late hour. The sign above the door looked too cheerful, too bold, like it didn’t know how to mourn. For a moment I couldn’t move. My hand hovered near the knob, my stomach twisting, because stepping inside felt like stepping into a time capsule full of him.

When I finally pushed the door open, the bell didn’t ring. George must have charmed it.

The shop smelled like sweets and smoke and something chemical, like fireworks. It was warm inside compared to the street, but the warmth didn’t comfort. It only made the emptiness sharper—like heat without laughter is just… air.

The shelves stood in neat rows, packed with bright boxes and grinning cartoons, the products still shouting joy even after everything. It felt obscene. It felt like a theatre set left standing after the actors have died. My eyes moved over a display of Skiving Snackboxes, and my throat tightened so quickly I had to press my tongue hard against the roof of my mouth to keep from making a sound.

I could picture Fred there so vividly it hurt: leaning over the counter, elbows on wood, winking at some customer, tossing a joke over his shoulder at George. The image was so sharp it made my hands tremble, because for half a heartbeat it felt possible. Then the truth slammed back in and the shop went silent again.

There was movement upstairs.

Soft footsteps.

I looked toward the back, toward the staircase that led to the flat, and the ache in my chest shifted into something more complicated—fear and relief tangled tight. Because I wanted to see him. Because seeing him would hurt. Because seeing him meant Fred’s face again, but broken, altered, changed by grief.

George appeared at the top of the stairs, one hand on the banister. The light from the flat behind him threw shadows across his face, carving him into angles. He looked thinner than he had at the Burrow, as if the shop had been eating him slowly. His hair was messier. His shirt was wrinkled. There was a dark smear of something on his cheek—ink, maybe, or soot from some experiment. He stopped when he saw me, and for a moment he didn’t move.

The silence between us was huge.

Not awkward. Heavy.

His eyes—Fred’s eyes—found mine, and my body did that traitorous lurch again. My grief reached forward like it was starving. My chest tightened. My breath caught. My hands went cold.

It’s George. It’s George. It’s George.

I repeated it silently until the words felt like they were written into my bones.

He came down the stairs slowly. Each step careful, like he was afraid the floor might crack. When he reached the bottom, he stopped a few feet away from me, not close enough to touch, not far enough to pretend he didn’t want to.

“You’re here,” he said.

Two words. Flat. As if he didn’t know what else to call it.

My mouth opened. Nothing came out at first. My throat felt lined with ash.

“I—” The sound was rough, scraped out. “I hadn’t… seen you.”

His gaze flicked down and then back up, like he couldn’t bear to look at me too long. Like my face hurt him as much as his hurt me. He swallowed, and the movement looked painful.

“It gets…” He stopped, jaw tightening. He looked past me at the bright shelves, at the ridiculous products, at the place he and Fred built with their hands. When he spoke again his voice was quieter. “It gets loud up here.”

I understood immediately.

Not loud with sound. Loud with him. Loud with Fred. Loud with the version of the world where laughter was still allowed.

My eyes stung. I blinked hard, but tears slid out anyway, hot and humiliating. I wiped them quickly with the heel of my hand, angry at my own body for still doing this, for still collapsing at the sight of him.

George’s gaze softened in a way that didn’t look like comfort—it looked like recognition. Like he knew exactly what was happening inside me because it was happening inside him too.

“You’ve been going to him,” he said, not a question.

The image of the grave flashed in my mind—cold stone, carved name, flowers wilting under my fingers—and my chest tightened so hard I had to grip the edge of a nearby display to stay steady.

“Every day,” I managed.

George’s mouth twitched, not a smile, not really. More like the ghost of one. Like a muscle remembering what it used to do and failing.

“I can’t,” he said, almost soundless. “Not every day.”

“I know,” I whispered, because I did. Because for George, the grave wasn’t just a place where Fred lay. It was a place where half of him was buried too.

He nodded once, slow.

And then the silence returned, pressing in from all sides. The shop around us gleamed with false cheer, bright packaging and painted grins, and we stood in the middle of it like two burnt-out stars, orbiting the same dead centre.

My gaze slid over him—over the hollow under his cheekbone, the way his shoulders sat slightly forward as if he was bracing for impact all the time, the faint tremor in his fingers. I could see how his eyes kept drifting to the corners of the shop, as if he expected Fred to step out from behind a display at any moment, laugh at the tension, call us idiots for looking so grim.

He didn’t. He never would.

The truth sat between us like a third person.

Fred is dead.

The words didn’t form neatly. They weren’t a sentence. They were a weight. A constant pressure in my chest, pressing down, pressing down, until breathing felt like work.

I let out a shaky breath I didn’t know I’d been holding and whispered, barely audible, “I hate that it keeps… getting farther.”

George’s eyes snapped back to mine. Something sharp moved across his face—agreement, pain, maybe both.

“It doesn’t,” he said, voice hoarse. “Not in here.” He lifted his hand, two fingers touching his temple briefly like it was sore. “It’s always… right there.”

I nodded because that was exactly it. The world was insisting on distance—days, weeks, months—but in my head it was always the same moment, replaying, looping, refusing to let go.

We stood there in the closed shop, surrounded by jokes that had outlived their makers, and neither of us moved closer. Neither of us reached out. We were both holding ourselves back with the last threads of what felt like loyalty, like morality, like rules.

But my eyes kept finding his face, helpless. Familiar. Wrong and right at the same time. My grief kept lunging toward him like it was trying to climb into his skin and find Fred there. My stomach churned with guilt, because what kind of person looks at a twin and feels relief? What kind of person thinks, for a split second, at least something of him is still here?

And yet my feet didn’t retreat.

Because the truth I couldn’t say out loud sat in my throat, heavy and shameful and honest:

When I’m not near you, the Great Hall comes back and I can’t breathe.

George’s gaze dropped to the floor, then to my hands gripping the display. He looked like he wanted to say something and couldn’t find the shape of it.

Finally he stepped forward—just one step—closing the distance enough that I could smell him. Soap, smoke, a faint trace of gunpowder-like magic. Not Fred. Never Fred. But close enough to twist the knife.

He didn’t touch me. He only stood there, close, sharing air, and somehow that felt like the most intimate thing in the world.

“I’m glad you came,” he said, voice low.

My throat burned. I nodded once, because if I tried to speak my voice would break completely.

Outside, the street remained dark and ordinary. Inside, the shop held its bright false smiles. Between us, the absence pulsed like a heartbeat.

And somewhere inside my head, Fred’s laugh echoed—sweet and cruel—because even now, even months later, even with his name carved into stone, my mind still expected him to walk in and ruin the silence.

He never did.

So I stayed standing in front of his twin, letting the devastation wash through me in waves, letting the weight settle, because this was what grief was: not a single moment, not a clean wound, but a life rearranged around an emptiness that would never stop being there.

My mouth finally found a shape that wasn’t screaming.

“I’m… glad too,” I managed, and the words came out thin, like they’d had to squeeze through something tight inside me. “I—” My fingers flexed around nothing, a small, useless movement. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

George’s eyes flickered, quick and sharp, like the word interrupt struck something tender.

“You’re not,” he said immediately. Too quickly, almost. As if the idea that I could be an intrusion made his stomach lurch. He shook his head once, barely there, like he was shaking off a thought he didn’t want. “You’re not interrupting anything.”

The shop around us hummed with its bright, false cheer—colourful boxes stacked too neatly, painted faces grinning like they didn’t know how inappropriate joy could look. The air held that familiar sharp sweetness—sugar and smoke and something chemical that tugged at old memories. My eyes kept catching on things without meaning to: a row of Extendable Ears hanging like pale dried leaves, the corner where Fred used to lean with his elbows on the counter, the display that had once made me laugh so hard I’d had to grip George’s arm to stay upright—

And then the memory would skid, hard, into the present and I’d feel that sick twist, like my brain had stepped on a stair that wasn’t there.

George cleared his throat. His gaze dropped briefly toward the back of the shop, toward the staircase.

“I put a kettle on,” he said, like the sentence cost him something. “Upstairs.” He hesitated. The hesitation wasn’t shy; it was wary, careful, like he was approaching a creature that might bolt. “Will you… come up? For a cup of tea.”

The invitation wasn’t casual. It wasn’t fancy a cuppa? like it used to be, thrown over a shoulder with a grin, no weight to it.

This sounded like a hand extended in the dark.

I swallowed and felt the burn of it all the way down.

“I… I shouldn’t stay long,” I heard myself say, because my body is still clinging to rules even when my mind has none left. Because the moment I step into that flat I’ll be stepping into a place where Fred existed, where Fred laughed, where Fred kissed me against the kitchen counter and told me I was hopeless at pretending I didn’t adore him. Because staying means letting the night stretch, letting the grief loosen, letting myself want something that will ruin me.

George’s face changed. Not dramatically. Just a tightening at the edges, like a thread pulled too hard. His jaw set and then wavered. His eyes looked… younger, suddenly. Exposed. Like he’d been bracing himself for this exact refusal.

“Please,” he said, and it wasn’t a demand. It was worse than that. It was bare.

The word hit my ribs like a soft punch.

He didn’t add I’m lonely. He didn’t add I can’t sleep. He didn’t say I can’t stand the silence. He didn’t need to. It sat in his posture, in the way he was holding himself like he might fall apart if he moved too quickly.

He lifted his hand as if to touch his face, stopped halfway, then let it drop. His fingers trembled. He tried to hide it by curling them into a loose fist.

“I don’t…” His voice scraped. He inhaled, steadied himself by sheer force. “I don’t want you to leave yet.”

The sentence landed heavy between us. Not romantic. Not hopeful. Just honest, and in that honesty there was something terrifying—because it matched the part of me that had been aching since I walked in. The part that wanted to press my forehead to his shoulder just to feel a living person breathe.

I nodded once, before my mind could change its mind. My own body felt relieved in a way that made me ashamed.

“Okay,” I whispered, because anything louder felt like it would crack me open.

George’s shoulders loosened by a fraction, like he’d been holding his breath. He turned toward the staircase without looking at me again, as if he didn’t trust his face to stay composed. I followed him, footsteps quiet on the floorboards, the shop around us watching with its grinning boxes and painted jokes.

The staircase was narrow, steep, worn from years of feet. Fred’s feet. George’s feet. My feet, trailing up behind them on nights that used to feel safe.

The air changed as we climbed—less sugar, more dust and wood, the faint warmth of a place lived in. The flat above the shop was dim, lit only by a small lamp near the kitchenette and the low, orange pulse of a fire that had been coaxed into the hearth. Shadows pooled in corners. The ceiling slanted slightly, as if the building itself leaned into the night. It was quieter up here, but not dead-quiet like the Burrow had become—this was quiet like someone had intentionally lowered their voice out of respect.

George moved through the space like he was half expecting it to reject him.

There were little signs of him everywhere—an open book on the table, a jumper slung over the arm of the sofa, a half-finished list scrawled on parchment near the sink. And then there were the other signs, the ones that weren’t him but were still here: an extra mug in the cupboard he hadn’t thrown away, two hooks on the wall by the door, a second toothbrush absent now but the ghost of it lingering in the way my eyes kept searching for it.

The kettle began to whisper.

George busied himself with it like he needed the movement to keep his hands from shaking. He took down mugs without looking—two, familiar, chipped at the rim. His body remembered this place in a way his mind couldn’t bear to fully acknowledge. He reached for the tin of tea like it was instinct, fingers popping the lid with a practiced motion.

Then, without pausing, he scooped leaves into my mug—my mug, the one I always used when I stayed here—before I’d even spoken.

It was my favourite. The one Fred used to tease me about because it smelled like “old women and libraries” and I’d told him he had no taste. He’d kissed me after saying it, lips warm, eyes bright, and I’d threatened to throw the entire tin at his head.

George set the tin down and froze, just for a second, like his hands had acted on their own and his brain had arrived late to witness it. His gaze flicked to mine—caught, startled—and something tightened in my chest at the sheer intimacy of the mistake. Not romantic intimacy. The intimacy of being known. Of being folded into their life so completely that even George’s muscle memory remembered what soothed me.

He looked away first.

“How’s… your family?” he asked, and the question sounded careful, like he’d chosen it because it was safer than asking what he wanted to ask—How are you alive right now? How are you still standing?

I watched him pour the water. His hands were steadier than his breathing.

“They’re… good,” I said, because the word was the easiest lie in the world. My family was intact, which already made me feel like an intruder in this grief. They were alive. They were whole. They hadn’t lost the axis they spun around.

The tea steamed. The smell rose, familiar and gentle, and for a moment it hit me so hard I had to blink—because Fred used to make it for me, always too strong, always with that maddening grin, saying you’re welcome as if he’d performed some heroic act instead of boiling water. He’d bring it to me when I was studying, kiss my temple, steal a biscuit, act like my concentration was something he could toy with.

I wrapped my hands around the mug when George passed it to me. The warmth seeped into my fingers slowly, like my body didn’t trust heat anymore.

“How’s the shop been?” I asked, voice low, because the question felt like touching a bruise. My eyes drifted to the corner of the room where a box of prototypes sat half-hidden under a cloth. I could almost see Fred crouched over it, tongue between his teeth, building mischief like it was art.

George’s mouth twitched—not a smile, not quite. More like a reflex, remembered.

“It’s…” He exhaled through his nose, then tried again. “It’s been busy. People come in and they… they look at me like I’m a—” He stopped, jaw tightening. He picked up his own mug and held it too close to his chest. “Like I’m supposed to be two people.”

My throat tightened.

“Ron’s been helping,” he added, and there was something like gratitude in the way he said it, something rough-edged and sincere. “He tries. He doesn’t…” George’s gaze dropped to his tea. “He doesn’t know what to say most of the time. But he shows up.”

I nodded slowly. I could see Ron’s effort like a physical thing—clumsy and honest and fierce. Ron had always loved his brothers in a way that sometimes came out as irritation. Now there was nothing to irritate. Only the raw, constant truth.

George motioned toward the sofa with the tilt of his mug. We sat down by the fire, close enough to feel its heat but not close enough to be comfortable. The flames moved slowly, licking at logs, throwing shifting gold across the walls. It made the room look softer than it had any right to, like warmth was trying to pretend it still belonged here.

I curled my legs up on the cushions without thinking, knees to my chest, mug balanced carefully in both hands.

It was exactly how I used to sit.

I felt George’s gaze catch on the movement. He didn’t say anything. He just watched for a second too long, and something flickered across his face—an expression so quick I could have missed it if I wasn’t trained now to notice every fracture in people. A small, aching softness. Like he’d been hit by the memory of Fred sitting right there, arm slung behind me, lazily tugging my foot toward him with his ankle because he liked pulling me into his space.

George looked down into his tea again. His fingers tightened around the mug.

“Lee’s been around,” he said after a moment, voice deliberately casual, as if he was offering a neutral fact. “A couple times. He… he comes in and pretends he’s looking at stock, then stands there for ages like he’s waiting for someone to shout at him for being in the way.”

The image brought a small, sharp ache to my chest. Lee’s grin, Lee’s loud voice, Lee’s laughter with Fred and George—it all belonged to a world I kept trying to reach and couldn’t.

“What’s he doing now?” I asked, and my voice sounded steadier than I felt.

George shrugged, a small lift of one shoulder. “Helping. Here and there. He said he’s been with Angelina sometimes.” He paused. “You haven’t… seen him.”

The question wasn’t asked like gossip. It was asked like a wound being probed gently.

I stared at the tea, watched steam curl up and vanish. My thumbs rubbed slowly over the rim of the mug, back and forth, back and forth, as if repetitive movement could smooth the jaggedness inside me.

“Not since the funeral,” I said, and the word funeral landed like stone. My mind flashed the grave again—fresh earth, flowers, carved name. My stomach tightened.

George’s eyes shut briefly. He let out a breath through his teeth. When he opened them, he stared at the fire like he was trying to read meaning in its movement.

We sat in that quiet for a few heartbeats, the kind of quiet that is never empty—full of things you can’t say without breaking them open.

Then George did something I hadn’t heard him do in months.

He reached for the past.

Not the unbearable past—death, war, the Great Hall—but the other past. The one that was stupid and messy and alive.

“Do you remember,” he said slowly, and his voice held the faintest thread of something lighter, like he was testing it, “that time we all got detention for putting dung under Snape’s desk?”

My head lifted sharply. For a second, my brain didn’t know what to do with the question—like it had been handed something from a life that no longer existed.

And then the memory hit, vivid.

The stink.

The way it clung to the dungeons for days.

The way everyone blamed Filch at first, and Filch had gone purple with outrage, stomping around muttering about “filthy little—” while Snape’s face had been a kind of pale, murderous calm.

I let out a sound that was half laugh, half strangled breath. It startled me. I hadn’t heard that sound from my own throat in so long.

George’s mouth twitched again, and this time the curve was closer to a real smile—small, fragile, like a candle flame in wind.

“It was there for weeks,” he said, eyes flicking to mine, and there was a spark of humour underneath the ruin. “Weeks. And he didn’t even know where it was coming from. He just—kept getting angrier and angrier, stalking around like—”

“Like he could smell it personally offending him,” I said, and the words slipped out easily because the image was so clear.

George huffed, and the sound was the closest thing to laughter I’d heard from him since the war. “Fred said—” He stopped, the name catching in his throat like a hook. His eyes went glassy for a second, and I thought he might recoil from the memory, slam the door shut again.

But he didn’t.

He swallowed, hard. “He said Snape’s hair probably absorbed it. Like some sort of… curse.”

A laugh broke out of me—real, small, involuntary—and it hurt in the strangest way, like stretching a muscle that had atrophied. My eyes stung immediately afterward. Grief was waiting right behind the humour, teeth bared, ready to lunge.

“He looked genuinely offended when Snape started accusing Hufflepuff,” I managed, the smile on my mouth trembling at the edges. “As if Snape had personally insulted his artistry.”

George nodded, that fragile smile still there. “He was offended. He said—” George’s voice dipped, and for a second I could hear Fred’s cadence in it so clearly my chest tightened. “‘If you’re going to accuse someone, at least accuse someone with standards.’”

I laughed again, and this time it came with a small sob threaded through it. I pressed my lips together hard and stared at my tea, trying to keep myself from splintering.

George watched me, his eyes softening with something like pain and gratitude. Like it hurt him to say Fred’s name and also saved him, just a little, to hear it spoken in a sentence that wasn’t about death.

“It’s strange,” I whispered before I could stop myself. “Talking about him like this.”

George nodded once, eyes flicking to the fire. “Yeah.”

“It hurts,” I said, not as a statement of emotion but as a fact, like saying fire burns. My fingers tightened around the mug. “But… it’s like—” My throat closed briefly. I forced the words through. “It’s like he’s still… close.”

George’s gaze snapped to mine. Something in his face shifted, like the truth of it landed in him too.

“He is,” he said, and his voice cracked on the words. “Sometimes I—” He stopped, swallowed. “Sometimes I swear I can hear him in the shop. Like he’s behind a shelf, about to throw something at my head.”

My lips trembled. “You know, now that I think about it I don’t think I’ve ever truly seen him angry,” I said, and it wasn’t just a thought—it was a grasp at something safe, something normal. Fred had always been laughter first, fury second, as if anger was too serious a thing for him to indulge.

George’s eyes went distant, and for a moment the humour faded.

“Oh, I have,” he said quietly. “You just… you weren’t meant to. He didn’t—” He paused, jaw tightening, and I saw the protective instinct that still lived in him, even now. “He didn’t like you seeing him like that.”

I frowned, the memory stirring. “When?”

George’s mouth twitched again, half-smile, half-wince. “Sixth year. That Slytherin boy. What was his name—Vane? No, not Vane, the other one—tall, greasy hair, thought he was charming because his father had money.”

My heart gave a strange little lurch. The memory surfaced—me standing near the common room entrance, robes half undone from rushing up the stairs, that boy leaning too close and smirking, asking me to the Yule Ball with that smug certainty that girls said yes to him because they were supposed to.

He’d done it in front of Fred.

In front of everyone.

Fred had been walking behind me with George, had been mid-sentence—something ridiculous, something confident—when the boy said it. The way Fred stopped… I can see it now like a painting. The way his entire body went still for half a second, like a predator pausing before it strikes. His smile had still been on his mouth, but it had sharpened into something else.

I let out a small laugh, breathy. “I remember.”

“You said yes,” George said, eyebrows lifting slightly, and there was a flicker of that old twin mischief in the look, the kind that used to make me roll my eyes.

I laughed again, because the memory of it was so absurd now. “I did.”

Fred had gone completely silent. The common room noise had swelled around him, laughter and chatter, and he’d just stood there as if he couldn’t decide whether to hex the boy or drag me away. His ears had gone pink, furious, betrayed—like he couldn’t believe I’d just agreed.

And the thing was—at the time, I hadn’t fully understood. I’d known Fred liked me, sure, in that vague, irritating way you know someone is always near you, always touching your shoulder, always stealing your food. But I hadn’t let myself name it properly. Not until I saw his face.

So I’d said yes because I wanted to see what he’d do.

I’d wanted to force the truth out of him.

George leaned back slightly on the sofa, watching me with quiet amusement. “He was livid.”

“He looked like he wanted to set the boy on fire,” I admitted, and the laugh that escaped me was warmer this time, then immediately fragile. “I only said yes to make him angry enough to actually ask me.”

George’s eyes widened a fraction. Then his smile—proper, real—flashed briefly, and it hurt because it was so close to Fred’s kind of grin, the one that used to light up a room. George’s smile didn’t last. It flickered like a match and then dimmed, but it existed, and that alone felt like something sacred.

“He did,” George said softly.

“He did,” I echoed, and the memory unfolded—Fred stalking up, shoulders squared, eyes bright with contained fury, cutting in front of the boy with a grin that was too sharp to be polite. He’d leaned toward me and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Actually, she’s already going with me,” like it was obvious, like it had always been decided.

The boy had sputtered, offended. Fred had smiled wider. “Unless you fancy losing a toe,” he’d added lightly, and George and Lee had snorted behind him like idiots.

I’d pretended to be annoyed. I hadn’t been. My chest had been full of something hot and bright and terrifying.

George’s gaze lingered on me as if he could see that memory too, as if it lived in the air between us. He looked down at his hands, flexed his fingers like he was trying to rid them of tension.

We fell into a quiet that didn’t feel as suffocating as the others.

The fire crackled. The tea cooled. Outside, the street remained dark, life carrying on in the way it always did, indifferent.

George spoke again, voice lower, more careful. “I don’t know if it’ll ever… get easier.” He stared into the fire as if it might answer. “But you—” His throat worked. “You’re helping me talk about him again. I didn’t realize how much I’d… stopped.”

Something in my chest loosened painfully. I looked at him, really looked—at the tired set of his shoulders, at the way he held himself like he was bracing for a blow that never stopped coming, at the faint shadows under his eyes that no sleep could erase.

“I feel the same,” I said quietly. “When you’re… around, it’s like…” My voice faltered. I hated how desperate it sounded. I forced myself to keep going. “It’s like my head isn’t screaming quite as loud.”

George’s eyes lifted then, and they met mine and stayed.

He didn’t look away.

He looked at me with something bare and steady, like he’d been holding himself upright for months and was suddenly letting himself lean, just a fraction, into the truth.

“Thank you,” he said, and the words sounded like they hurt to say. “For the shop. For opening it with Ron when I couldn’t. For—” He stopped, swallowed. “For not letting it die.”

The shop. The only place Fred still existed in bright colours, in loudness, in mischief bottled into products. The thought of it squeezed my throat.

“Of course,” I whispered, and my voice shook. I held the mug tighter, then realized my hands were empty—somewhere in the conversation I’d set it down on the low table, forgotten it. My fingers curled on air instead.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of it being closed,” I said, and the words came out like confession. “It felt like…” Like shutting a door on him. Like letting the world erase him faster. Like agreeing that he was gone.

George’s gaze dropped—not to my hands, but to my mouth.

It was so subtle I might have missed it if I hadn’t been hyperaware of everything now. But I saw it. The way his attention flickered there, the way his breathing changed. The way the air between us tightened, suddenly charged with something that wasn’t humour or grief alone.

My stomach turned, not with disgust—worse—with recognition.

Because I understood it. The instinctive pull. The way grief makes you reach for warmth like a starving thing. The way looking at him hurt like hell and also soothed something raw inside me because his face carried Fred’s shape. Because his voice, when it softened, sometimes brushed too close to Fred’s cadence, and my body reacted before my mind could stop it.

George blinked, as if he’d caught himself doing something he shouldn’t. His jaw tightened. He looked away quickly toward the fire, as if staring at flames was safer than staring at me.

But the moment had already happened.

It sat between us, undeniable.

My heart thudded, heavy and stupid. My skin felt too tight. I tried to swallow and found my throat dry.

George’s fingers flexed on his knee. He inhaled, slow, controlled, like he was trying to steady himself. He didn’t speak. He just sat there, shoulders rigid, staring at the fire.

I should have stood. I should have made some excuse—late, tired, have to go—and left before the air could turn into something else.

I didn’t.

My eyes drifted back to him anyway, because my grief was hungry and stupid and human. Because I hadn’t been held properly since Fred died—held in the way that quiets your nervous system, that tells your body it can unclench. Because the loneliness had become a physical thing living under my skin, gnawing.

George turned his head slightly, just enough to look at me again.

His eyes caught mine and held.

The firelight made them look like amber and shadow. Fred’s eyes. George’s eyes. The same shape, but the expression inside them was different—wary, pained, longing without permission. Like he was standing at the edge of something he hated himself for wanting.

He shifted closer by inches. Not dramatic. Just enough that his knee brushed mine.

The contact sent a shock through me—small, electric, wrong.

I didn’t pull away.

George’s hand lifted slowly, hovering near my cheek like it wasn’t sure it was allowed to exist in this moment. His fingers trembled faintly. I could see him fighting himself—his breath shallow, his jaw clenched, his gaze flicking once to my eyes as if to ask a question he couldn’t say.

I should have said no.

I couldn’t.

His fingertips touched my cheek, feather-light, and my whole body reacted like it recognized the gesture. Fred used to cup my face like that sometimes, thumb brushing once as if he was soothing me without words. The memory made my chest ache so sharply I nearly gasped.

George’s thumb brushed once too, almost unconsciously, and his breath hitched.

Then he leaned in.

Slowly. As if moving fast would make it more real. As if slowness could make it gentler. His nose brushed mine, a soft, accidental touch, and I could feel the warmth of his breath against my upper lip. My eyes fluttered shut without my permission. My hands curled into the fabric of the cushion at my sides, gripping for something solid.

His lips met mine.

It was a quiet kiss. Not clumsy, not hesitant in the way of inexperience—hesitant in the way of terror. Like he was touching something sacred and forbidden at the same time. His mouth was warm. Soft. The contact sent heat through me that I hadn’t felt since before the war, and it scared me so much my stomach tightened.

I didn’t stop him.

I kissed him back before my mind could fully form the thought of what I was doing.

His hand slid to the side of my neck, fingers resting there like an anchor. The touch was firm enough to steady me. His other hand found my waist, palm spreading against my side, holding me as if he was afraid I’d vanish. I felt his breath deepen, a soft exhale through his nose, and the kiss changed—still slow, but less careful. A little more sure. A little more desperate.

The air felt thick. The fire crackled louder. The room narrowed to heat and breath and the press of his mouth against mine.

Ten seconds is nothing, and it was also an eternity.

For those seconds, my body did the most treacherous thing: it softened. It leaned in. It responded as if this were comfort instead of catastrophe. As if a kiss could stitch anything back together. My lips parted slightly on instinct, and George made a low sound in his throat—almost a groan, swallowed immediately as if he was ashamed of it. His thumb pressed lightly against the side of my neck, and my pulse hammered under it.

And then—like a blade slicing through silk—the truth surged up between us.

Fred.

Fred’s laugh. Fred’s hands. Fred’s bed. Fred’s grave.

My eyes snapped open mid-kiss and I saw George’s face close, too close, and my brain screamed wrong. My chest seized. My stomach dropped.

George must have felt it too, because he stiffened. The kiss broke abruptly, like someone had yanked us apart by the throat.

We stared at each other, breathing hard, horrified.

George’s hand fell away from my neck as if it had burned him. His eyes were wide, glassy, shocked with what he’d done. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

“I—” he started, and his voice cracked. “I’m sorry. I’m—” He scrubbed a hand over his face hard, dragging it down as if he could wipe the moment off his skin. “I shouldn’t have—”

My body surged into motion like panic given limbs.

I stood so fast the sofa creaked. My knees wobbled. I grabbed my bag from the floor with shaking hands, the strap slipping through my fingers once before I managed to hook it over my shoulder.

“I need to go,” I blurted, and the words tumbled out too loud, too sharp, the way you speak when you’re trying to outrun something inside you. “I shouldn’t—George, I shouldn’t have—”

George rose too, just as abruptly, as if he couldn’t bear to stay seated while I fled. His hands were open at his sides, helpless. His face looked stricken, like he’d punched himself in the stomach.

“Please,” he said, and it wasn’t even about the kiss—at least not only. It was about the leaving. About the emptiness that would slam back into place the moment the door shut.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, voice rough, words tumbling now, frantic. “I’m sorry, I didn’t— I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay,” I said too quickly, because I couldn’t stand the sound of him blaming himself when my own body was still buzzing with the memory of his mouth, still reacting in ways that made me feel sick with guilt. “It’s fine. It’s—” I shook my head hard, like I could dislodge the sensation. “We’re tired. It’s late. We were talking about him and—”

And.

And I wanted it.

The thought hit me like a slap.

George’s eyes flicked to my mouth again, involuntary. He looked away immediately, jaw clenched, throat working. His hands curled into fists and unclenched, fists and unclenched, like he was trying not to reach for me.

He whispered my name once, hoarse.

It sounded too close to Fred’s voice, and the sound cracked something in me.

I flinched, small, and George saw it. His face tightened with pain. He looked like he hated himself for existing in the wrong shape.

“I have to go,” I said again, softer now, and my voice shook despite my effort. “I can’t— I can’t stay.”

George nodded once, stiff, as if forcing his body to accept it. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Yeah. Of course.”

But he didn’t move out of my way. He stood there, in front of the stairs, like a barrier, like a person trying to memorize the sight of me while he still could. His eyes were red at the rims again. The firelight made the wetness in them shine.

I walked past him, shoulder brushing his arm.

The contact made my skin flare hot. George went rigid like he’d been struck. His breath hitched. For a second I thought he might grab me—hold me—say don’t go, not yet, I need you—and my body both dreaded it and wanted it with a desperation that made my stomach twist.

He didn’t.

He let me pass.

The stairs were steeper on the way down. My feet felt wrong. The shop below looked like a dream—a brightly coloured lie. I moved through it quickly, heart pounding, the bell still charmed silent. The door was cold under my hand when I yanked it open. Night air rushed in, sharp and clean, and it hit my face like a slap.

I stepped outside.

The street was empty. The darkness didn’t care what I’d just done. The sky didn’t split open to punish me. The world didn’t pause.

I walked fast. Too fast. Like if I slowed down I’d feel the full weight of it—the kiss, the guilt, the way my body had responded, the way for ten seconds it had felt like being held by a ghost and a living person at the same time.

Behind me, through the glass, I saw George move.

Just a blur at first—his silhouette turning, his hand dragging through his hair hard, fingers gripping at the roots like he was trying to pull himself back into control. He paced once, two steps, then stopped and braced his hand against the counter as if the floor had shifted under him. His shoulders rose and fell in a sharp breath.

He said something—silent through the glass, a curse maybe, the shape of it bitter.

And then he lifted his head and stared at the door.

At where I’d been.

At where I’d left.

His face looked wrecked. But underneath the wreckage, there was something else—something flickering, small and dangerous, like a coal that had been buried under ash and had just caught a breath of air.

The same flicker burned under my skin as I walked away.

Not comfort. Not healing. Something worse: proof that I was still alive enough to want. Proof that grief didn’t kill everything—it only twisted it into shapes you didn’t recognize.

Fred is dead.

The sentence slammed into me with every step.

And yet my mouth still remembered the feel of George’s lips, warm and soft and real, and my body hated itself for it, and needed it, and the contradiction made me nauseous.

By the time I reached the end of the street, my hands were shaking so badly I had to press them against my thighs to steady them. My breath came in uneven pulls. My chest felt too tight, like the air wasn’t reaching the deepest part of me.

I didn’t look back again.

If I looked back, I might turn around.

If I turned around, I didn’t know what part of me I’d be obeying—love, grief, hunger, or the raw animal need to not be alone in the dark.

So I kept walking, carrying the kiss like a bruise on my mouth, carrying Fred’s absence like a second spine, and knowing—terrified, ashamed, unbearably aware—that something had shifted.

Not toward better.

It had been my first week at Hogwarts—my first week of pretending I belonged in corridors that moved and staircases that changed their minds halfway up, my first week of learning to sleep with other girls breathing around me and to fold my homesickness into neat little squares and tuck it under the mattress where no one could see.

I had been so careful, then. I’d brushed my hair until it shone, checked my robes twice, practised my name in my head as if saying it correctly might keep the castle from swallowing me whole.

And then I walked into the Gryffindor common room with my chin up and my stomach full of nerves—and Fred and George Weasley turned me into the punchline of a joke I didn’t even understand until everyone was already laughing.

It was a simple thing, in the way that all the worst things are simple. A charm, whispered and flicked like it was nothing. Warmth at my collar. A strange tug behind my ears. A sudden lightness at my scalp, as if my hair had decided it could no longer tolerate gravity.

There was a beat of silence—one sharp, sparkling second where the room registered I was wrong somehow—then the laughter broke out in a wave that felt physical, like being shoved.

I remember reaching up, fingers catching in something that wasn’t hair anymore, something feather-soft and ridiculous. I remember the heat crawling up my neck, my face turning traitor-red before I’d even spoken. I remember trying to laugh too, because at eleven you think laughing along might save you, might make you look clever and unbothered, might keep the world from deciding you’re weak.

But my voice came out thin and odd, and I heard it wobble, and I knew I sounded like a child trying to pretend she wasn’t one.

Fred Weasley had looked delighted, eyes bright, a grin so wide it seemed to split his face. George stood beside him. He laughed too—but when my gaze snapped to his, something in his expression tightened, quick as a blink, as if he’d only just realised I wasn’t in on it. As if he’d only just noticed the way my hands had gone clumsy at my hair, the way my shoulders had pulled in.

That was the thing about the Weasley twins. They didn’t just cause trouble. They made it look like sunlight.

It was hard to hate someone who could make a room feel warmer just by walking into it. Hard, but not impossible. I learned.

I didn’t cry until later, when the common room had thinned out and the fire had burned lower and my dormitory was full of whispering girls who had already found their places in the world. I lay in bed with my face turned into the pillow, gripping the sheets so tightly my fingers ached, and made myself a promise with the kind of grim certainty children are capable of: I would not let them do that to me again. I would not be someone’s joke.

Of course, that promise became a sort of curse.

Because somehow—somehow—their jokes kept finding me.

A levitation charm meant for someone else that sent my stack of books drifting into the air like startled birds. A handful of enchanted dungbombs that rolled under my chair in History of Magic just as Professor Binns glided past, and suddenly it was my desk that smelled like a sewer while Fred and George sat two rows back with faces of perfect innocence. A set of bewitched quills that scribbled I’m a flobberworm in looping, enthusiastic handwriting across a parchment that was most certainly mine.

And always, always, it was me standing in front of a professor with my hands empty and my cheeks burning and the Weasley twins behind me wearing expressions that said wasn’t that brilliant? wasn’t that funny?

I learned the shape of their laughter the way you learn the feel of a bruise you keep bumping. I learned their loudness—how it filled space, how it demanded attention like a firework. I learned how George’s eyes flicked to me when no one else was looking, as if he were measuring the damage.

Detention came to me the way rain comes to a stormcloud: not as a surprise, but as an inevitability.

By third year, Filch knew my name. By fourth, I knew every corridor from the trophy room to the dungeon classrooms by the scent of the stone and the way the torches hissed. By fifth, I could scrape dried potion residue from a cauldron with one hand and write Charms homework in my head with the other.

And somewhere in all that time—somewhere between the late evenings and the dust, between the way we’d sit on opposite ends of a corridor waiting for a professor to stop lecturing us about our moral failings—something inside me shifted.

Not loudly. Not all at once.

Just… quietly, like a page turning in a book when no one’s watching.

Because Fred was always Fred—bright, careless, brilliant, the sort of boy who could smile after being told off and make you feel as though you’d been the one scolded for not laughing harder.

But George—George had edges that didn’t catch the light unless you looked for them. He’d pass me a rag without a word when my hands were full. He’d make a joke and then, if I didn’t laugh, his eyes would dart to my face, quick and wary, as if checking whether he’d gone too far.

Sometimes, when Fred’s energy ricocheted off walls, George seemed to step aside from it for half a second, and in that half second you could see something like thoughtfulness, like softness, like a person underneath the performance.

It infuriated me, because it made no sense.

It was much easier when they were both simply unbearable. It was much easier when George was just Fred’s twin—an extension of the same trouble, the same grin, the same hands flicking wands in corridors when they were supposed to be hurrying to class.

It was much easier before my eyes started snagging on him like thread catching on a nail.

I told myself it was because of proximity. Because you can’t spend years being dragged into the same detentions as someone without recognising the slope of their handwriting, the way they bite the inside of their cheek when they’re concentrating, the slight tilt of their head when they’re listening. I told myself it was normal, the way you start to notice the creak of a stair you step on every day.

But there are certain thoughts that don’t feel like stair creaks. They feel like lightning—silent until it isn’t.

And the worst part was: the more I tried to stop noticing him, the more my body betrayed me anyway. My mouth would sharpen its words without my permission. My shoulders would square as if bracing for impact when he came too close. My laugh—my real one, the one I didn’t share with just anyone—would get stuck behind my teeth when he said something that, under different circumstances, might have made it out.

It was easier to be difficult. Easier to be prickly. Easier to keep him at a distance where he couldn’t see the thing I didn’t want him to see—couldn’t see that a part of me leaned toward him like a plant turning to the sun, even while the rest of me insisted the light was unbearable.

George, for his part, did something I only realised in hindsight.

He stopped.

Not completely—not in a way Fred would ever have noticed, but in the small, particular ways that mattered. When pranks sparked in the air like static, George began to redirect them around me. When Fred’s eyes lit with a new idea, George would catch his sleeve and murmur something under his breath, and the idea would shift course. When I walked into a room, George’s gaze would flick to me and then away again quickly, as though looking too long might burn.

It should have made things easier.

Instead, it made them worse, because it meant he was paying attention. And if he was paying attention, then he might have seen too much.

The day we ended up in the dungeon again—again—it started in the most ordinary way possible, which is how trouble likes to begin at Hogwarts. Ordinary, and then suddenly you’re in too deep.

I was on my way back from the library, arms wrapped around a stack of books that smelled like dust and old glue, thinking about a Transfiguration essay that refused to arrange itself into proper paragraphs. The corridors were dimmer down there, the stone colder, the air damp and faintly metallic, like the castle was bleeding.

I turned a corner—

—and stepped straight into the middle of something that should not have existed in a school.

A snort of laughter—too quick to be real, too sharply swallowed—leaked from behind a suit of armour, and then the corridor itself seemed to misbehave.

Something bright and peppermint-sweet hit the air first, that unmistakable whiff of Weasley mischief, like a joke you can smell before you hear it. A second later, the flagstones just ahead of me turned slick and glassy, a thin sheet of shimmering green creeping outward as if the castle had decided to grow a pond in the middle of its own hallway. It wasn’t water, not quite—more like enchanted soap, too glossy and alive, catching torchlight in little cruel sparks.

Right in the centre of it, a Prefect’s badge—Percy’s, I’d recognise that pompous shine anywhere—hung in midair, bobbing gently as though it were bait on a fishing line. Each time it dipped, it let out a prim, amplified little cough.

“Ahem.”

The sound echoed off stone, officious and insufferable, and it was so perfectly Percy that for half a heartbeat I forgot to breathe. Then the badge cleared its throat again, louder, the way he did when he wanted an entire room to remember he existed.

“AHEM.”

The badge flashed, and a neat little ribbon of parchment unfurled beneath it like a proclamation, ink appearing on its own in tight, fussy handwriting:

PREFECT PATROL. PRESENT YOURSELF FOR INSPECTION.

My foot slid the instant I tried to stop. My books lurched against my chest, corners biting my arms, and the world tilted in that quick, stupid way it always does right before you lose dignity in public. I windmilled—there’s no elegant way to windmill—caught myself by grabbing the armour’s elbow, and felt cold metal under my palm where I’d expected stone.

The suit of armour shifted, offended, and something inside it clanked.

I hadn’t even finished pulling my hand back when the “puddle” decided it wasn’t finished being clever. The glossy green spread another inch, as if reaching for me, and a line of bubbles rose from it—fat, wobbling things—each one popping with a tiny, rude little sound that almost sounded like laughter.

My books shifted again, and my stomach dropped with the sudden, familiar certainty of what this was.

From behind the suit of armour, Fred and George Weasley appeared—Fred first, of course, as if he’d been fired from a cannon, laughing already; George right after him, a fraction slower, eyes widening the moment he saw me, like the scene had rearranged itself into something he hadn’t planned for.

Fred’s wand was still half-raised, as if he’d been mid-flourish. George’s hand hovered near his brother’s sleeve, that small, instinctive gesture of stop, stop, stop that no one ever seemed to notice unless you were watching for it.

And then—like the punchline delivered by the universe itself—Professor Snape emerged from the shadows at the far end of the corridor, robes billowing like a stormcloud given human form.

“What is this idiocy,” Snape snarled, his voice slicing through the corridor as his black eyes locked onto the three of us.

Everything in the dungeon seemed to tighten around him. The torchlight looked dimmer in his wake. The air went colder, as if it had been waiting for him to arrive.

Snape’s gaze moved over the scene—the hovering Prefect badge barking out its self-important ahems, the ridiculous inspection notice, the spreading slick of enchanted green—and then landed on me, pinned there with all the warmth of a blade.

“I leave the castle unattended for five minutes,” Snape snapped, “and I return to this.”

The hovering Prefect badge gave one last officious ahem and then went suspiciously quiet, as though even it had learned fear.

“Explain!”

I drew a breath and felt it scrape on the way in. Snape had that effect—made the air feel smaller, like the dungeon itself leaned in to listen. Words crowded the back of my throat, tripping over each other, all of them suddenly aware of how useless they were going to be.

“I was in the library,” I said, because it was true and because truth was all I had. “I just turned the corner and it all just appeared. I swear Professor, I didn’t do any of this.”

My voice didn’t shake, but my fingers tightened around my books until the edges pressed into my arms. I refused to look at the Weasleys. Refused to give Snape the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.

Fred let out a sound—something between a cough and a snort—far too close to laughter to be wise.

George didn’t make a sound at all.

Snape’s eyes flicked to Fred, slow and deliberate, the way one might examine an insect before deciding how best to squash it. His lip curled, just slightly, as if the expression had been practised.

“How diligently rehearsed,” he murmured. “One might almost believe you had prepared that defence in advance.”

“I didn’t—” I started, and immediately hated myself for how small it sounded.

“Silence.”

The word cracked through the corridor, sharp enough to make the torches gutter. Snape took a step closer, robes whispering over stone.

“I have grown exceptionally weary of this… little constellation of chaos,” he said, gaze sweeping over the three of us as if we were stains on the floor. “Every corridor I patrol, every corner I turn, I find Gryffindor fingerprints smudged across my evening.”

His eyes settled on me again, and I felt that familiar, infuriating sense of being weighed and found wanting.

“And you,” he continued, tone thick with false curiosity, “always seem to be standing conveniently nearby when such… innovations occur.”

“That’s because they drag me into it,” I said, before I could stop myself.

Fred’s eyebrows shot up, impressed. George’s head snapped toward me, a warning flicker in his eyes that said don’t, said please don’t.

Snape’s mouth thinned.

“How refreshing,” he drawled. “An accusation. How very Gryffindor of you. Bold. Loud. Utterly unconvincing.”

“I wasn’t part of it,” I insisted, heat crawling up my neck despite myself. “You can check—my wand—”

“Do not presume to instruct me on my own methods,” Snape cut in smoothly, and there it was—the satisfaction, dark and unmistakable. “Your talent for finding trouble is quite adequate without assistance.”

“Sir, I really wasn’t—” I stopped short at piercing look Snape gave me before he turned his attention to the twins at last, and the temperature in the corridor seemed to drop another degree.

“Weasley,” he said, singular, as if they were one creature with two heads. “Your tireless dedication to idiocy continues to astound me.”

Fred opened his mouth—clearly possessed by a death wish.

George’s hand shot out and grabbed his sleeve, fingers tightening just enough to warn him. Fred shut his mouth with an audible click, though the grin lingered, defiant and bright.

“One week of detention,” Snape said silkily. “Every evening. You will scrub my classroom from floor to ceiling until every surface reflects your regret back at you.”

His eyes slid to me again, pinning me in place.

“You will join them,” he added, as if it were an afterthought. “Consider it a lesson in choosing your associates more wisely.”

“That’s not a lesson,” I said, and this time I couldn’t stop the edge from creeping into my voice. “That’s just convenient.”

For a heartbeat, the corridor went utterly still.

Then Snape smiled.

It was thin. Cold. Triumphant.

“Detention,” he repeated. “Unless you would prefer I deduct points as well. I am certain Gryffindor can spare them.”

I bit down on whatever I’d been about to say so hard I tasted metal.

Snape turned on his heel, robes snapping like a struck nerve, and swept away down the corridor, leaving behind the slowly dissolving puddle, the deflated Prefect badge, and the three of us standing in the aftermath like survivors of a small, personal disaster.

The silence he left behind rang louder than shouting.

I looked at them—at Fred’s grin, already fighting its way back onto his face, at George’s expression tight and pale around the eyes—and something in me snapped cleanly, like a thread pulled too hard.

“You two are unbelievable,” I said, and my voice sounded strangely steady, as if all the shaking had gone inside instead. “Do you guys wake up and decide, today I’ll make someone else’s life difficult, or does it happen naturally?”

Fred’s grin widened, because of course it did. “We don’t have to decide,” he said cheerfully. “It’s a gift.”

I shifted my books higher in my arms to keep my hands from doing something stupid like throwing them at his head. “Well,” I said, “congratulations. Your gift has earned me a week of scrubbing Snape’s cauldrons.”

“It wasn’t meant for you,” George said quickly.

The sound of his voice—lower, more careful—hit me in a place behind my ribs I didn’t want to acknowledge.

I scoffed, because scoffing was safer than listening. “Funny how that keeps happening.”

George’s mouth opened as if he might argue, then closed again. He looked at the floor for half a second, like he could find a solution in the cracks between stones.

“It was for Percy,” Fred said brightly, entirely unhelpful. “Or maybe for someone even more deserving. Percy’s got that face that begs for it, though.”

My lips pressed together so tightly they almost hurt. The name Percy felt like salt in the wound—Percy, it was always his pranks I seemed to take but I’d barely seen him on the receiving end of this stupidity.

I turned before my temper could make me say something that would echo in the walls later. “I’ll see you in detention,” I said, and walked away with my shoulders stiff and my footsteps too fast.

Behind me, Fred’s laughter followed like a thrown pebble.

George’s silence followed like a hand held out and then withdrawn.

~~~

The next evening, the dungeon classroom waited for us with all the warmth of a tomb.

The door creaked when we went in, and the smell hit at once—sharp, sour, medicinal. Potions ingredients clung to everything: to the air, to the stone, to the wooden shelves lined with jars of things that should not be jarred. The torches burned low, their flames struggling against the damp, and shadows gathered in corners like they were listening.

Snape didn’t bother with a speech. He didn’t need one. He simply stood at the front of the room, dark eyes sweeping over us, and dropped a pile of rags and scrub brushes onto the nearest table as if tossing scraps to animals.

“You will begin,” he said, and the words were slick with satisfaction. “And you will not stop until I say so.”

Then he swept into his office and shut the door, leaving us with the silence and the smell and the faint drip of something from somewhere.

Fred, naturally, broke the quiet first.

“Well,” he said, clapping his hands together as if this were a party. “Quality time.”

I chose the far end of the classroom with the deliberation of someone choosing a battlefield. As much distance as the room allowed. I set my books down carefully—too carefully—and picked up a rag, because if I didn’t start cleaning immediately, I might start doing something else.

The stone under my fingers was cold and slightly tacky with residue. My rag came away stained a sickly green after the first swipe.

Behind me, they talked. They always did. Their voice bounced off the walls and made the dungeon feel smaller.

“Do you think Snape polishes his hair with bat’s blood?” George mused, scrubbing at a table. “Because honestly, it’s got that sheen.”

“Maybe it’s just slime,” I said, without turning around. The words slipped out before I’d decided to give him anything at all.

Fred made an appreciative noise, as if I’d just tossed them a sweet. “See, George?” he said. “Y/N does have humour. Deep down. Buried under a mountain of bitterness.”

Something inside my chest tightened at hearing my own name in their mouths like that. My scrubbing grew faster. The rag squeaked against the tabletop.

“I’ve got plenty of humour,” I said, and my voice sounded too light for the way my throat felt. “Just not for you.”

Fred laughed outright.

George didn’t laugh.

I could hear him moving around the room—quiet footsteps, the scrape of a brush against wood, the soft clink of a jar being lifted and moved. He wasn’t on my side of the room, but sometimes the air shifted as if he’d glanced up, and my skin prickled along my arms in response, unreasonable and sharp.

“You really think we’d set you up?” George asked after a moment, and his tone was careful, almost… gentle, which made it worse, because it made the anger in me feel suddenly too big for the room.

I didn’t look at him. Looking at him was dangerous. Looking at him meant noticing the way his sleeves were rolled up, forearms dusted with grime, the way his hair fell over his eyes when he bent to scrub. Looking at him meant remembering a hundred detentions, a hundred late evenings, the way he’d once passed me a chocolate frog in the corridor without meeting my gaze.

“I think,” I said slowly, “that you always have a reason. And somehow I always end up standing in the middle of it.”

Fred’s brush paused. “It’s not personal,” he said, sounding faintly offended, as if I’d accused them of something crude. “We don’t even think about you that much.”

The words should have been relief.

Instead they landed like a slap.

I let out a short laugh that didn’t belong to me. “How comforting.”

George’s brush stopped. I felt it more than heard it, the sudden stillness.

“That’s not—” he began, and then he inhaled, as if rearranging his thoughts. “We didn’t mean— I didn’t mean—”

I scrubbed harder, as if friction could erase the past. The rag dragged over a spot of something that looked like old potion spill, and the smell rose sharp and unpleasant. My eyes stung—not from tears, I told myself immediately, furiously, but from fumes. From the damp. From everything.

I kept my gaze on the tabletop.

“You don’t have to explain,” I said. “Honestly. I’ve had five years of explanations. They all sound the same.”

There was a beat of silence. Fred, apparently, couldn’t stand it.

“Well,” he said briskly, “if we’re taking a stroll down memory lane, I’d like to remind everyone that you did hex my eyebrows off in second year.”

“That was self-defence,” I said.

Fred laughed again, delighted. “See? Fire. Passion. You’d be terrifying if you weren’t so—”

“Fred,” George said quietly.

It wasn’t a reprimand exactly, but it was enough. Fred’s grin faltered just a fraction, which on Fred Weasley was practically a moment of solemnity.

I kept scrubbing. The rhythm of it became a sort of anchor. Back and forth. Back and forth. The sound of cloth against wood, the faint rasp of brush, the drip-drip-drip somewhere in the shadows.

After a while, George moved. His footsteps came closer—not all the way, not brazen like Fred would have been, but enough that I felt him without turning. The air seemed to shift around him, warmer where he stood, as if he carried some of the common room fire down here with him.

“I can do that bit,” he said, voice low.

I didn’t look up. “I can do it.”

“I know.” He hesitated, and I could picture him running a hand through his hair, the way he did when he didn’t know what to do with himself. “I just— you’ve been scrubbing the same spot for ages.”

I realised then that my hand had cramped. That my knuckles were pale. That the tabletop under my rag was already clean enough to reflect torchlight.

I forced my fingers to relax, one by one, like prising them off a wand after too long.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“It does,” George replied, and there was something in his voice that made my stomach do a strange, stupid dip, as if I’d missed a step on a staircase.

I hated my own body in moments like that. Hated that a soft tone could undo me, hated that I could stand in a dungeon classroom telling myself I had every right to keep him at arm’s length, and still the sound of him trying—trying—could make something ache in me that I couldn’t name without wanting to throw myself into the Black Lake.

I turned my head slightly, just enough to see him out of the corner of my eye.

He was holding a rag in his hand like he didn’t quite know what to do with it, shoulders angled toward me, expression carefully blank in the way boys get when they’re pretending nothing matters. But his eyes weren’t blank. His eyes were too bright in the dim torchlight, fixed on me as if waiting for something—approval, permission, forgiveness, any scrap of peace.

For a second, I saw it: the softness. The gentleness he tried to hide beneath jokes and trouble. The way he could look like someone who didn’t want to hurt anyone, even if he kept doing it by accident.

Then I remembered the common room, eleven years old, laughter crashing over me.

And I swallowed the softness back down like a bitter potion.

“Please,” I said, and made my voice as even as I could manage. “Just—leave it. I don’t need you hovering.”

Something shifted in his face so quickly I almost missed it—like a shutter closing.

He nodded once. “Right,” he said lightly, and the lightness was too practised. “Hovering. Terrible habit.”

Fred, on the other side of the room, snorted. “I knew you were a hovering sort, Georgie.”

George’s mouth twisted into a grin that looked like it belonged on someone else. “Shut up.”

I turned back to my work because it was easier to scrub a table than to sit with the weight of what I’d just seen in his eyes.

The rest of detention blurred into a steady, stubborn motion—wipe, scrub, rinse, repeat—broken only by Fred’s running commentary and Snape’s occasional appearance from his office, gliding around the room like a bat checking its prey.

When Snape finally dismissed us, it was with the kind of reluctant displeasure that suggested he’d been hoping we’d never leave.

I gathered my books, fingers still smelling faintly of potion ingredients no matter how much I’d wiped them. My arms felt heavy, as if the dungeon had poured lead into my bones. I didn’t look at the twins as I walked out, because looking meant noticing, and noticing meant thinking, and thinking meant feeling.

But I could feel George’s gaze anyway, a quiet pressure between my shoulder blades, as familiar now as the castle’s draft.

The corridors outside were warmer, the air less sharp, but the dungeon cold clung to me like a memory.

By the time I climbed back into the Gryffindor common room, the fire’s crackle sounded too cheerful, the laughter too easy. Everyone was doing homework or playing Exploding Snap or arguing over Quidditch.

I dropped into an armchair near the edge of the room and opened my book, staring at the words without reading them.

Because somewhere behind my eyes, George’s expression kept replaying—the way his mouth had tried to make a joke out of something that wasn’t funny, the way his eyes had looked as if he’d been bracing for a blow.

And my own thoughts, traitorous and soft in the wrong places, whispered the same unbearable question they always did when it came to him:

What if I’ve been wrong?

I tightened my grip on my quill until my fingers ached, as if pain could pin my mind back down.

Across the room, someone laughed—bright, loud, unmistakably Weasley.

And my heart did that stupid thing it always did, like it didn’t know the difference between trouble and warmth.

~~~

It was a Tuesday, I think. Or maybe it only felt like a Tuesday because everything about it had that grey, inevitable flavour: stone cold under your shoes, torches sputtering like they couldn’t be bothered, the air tasting faintly of damp and old secrets. I was coming from the library again—because of course I was—and I caught a glimpse of them through a crack in a tapestry I shouldn’t have been looking behind.

Fred Weasley’s red hair flashed like a warning flare in the dim corridor. Lee Jordan’s shoulders were hunched the way they got when he was trying not to laugh too loud. And George—George was there too, turned slightly away, as if he were listening harder than the others, as if the sound of their own joke had to pass some private test before he could let it live.

I didn’t mean to stop. My feet just… did. That treacherous pause, the way your body betrays you into curiosity even when your mind is shouting do not, do not, do not. I told myself it was tactical. If you know where the trap is, you can avoid stepping in it. If you know what they’re planning, you can keep your name out of it.

You’d think I’d have learned by now that their plans didn’t require my participation to include me.

“—that’s the best part,” Fred was saying, voice low with glee, the words fizzing like fireworks right before they go off. “He’ll have to. He can’t not. He’s Percy.”

Lee snorted, muffling it with his sleeve. “What if he doesn’t drink it?”

George’s shoulders rose and fell—one slow breath, the kind you take when you’re trying not to laugh at your own idea too early. “He will,” he said. “You leave something labelled Prefect’s Private Reserve on his desk and he’ll drink it out of spite.”

Fred leaned in, conspiratorial. “And he’ll march into breakfast and start telling McGonagall what he really thinks about her tartan.”

They were bent over something small, glassy. A bottle, I realised, the sort Madam Rosmerta served butterbeer in, but this one was cloudy and pale, like watered milk, with a sheen on the surface that made my teeth itch just looking at it. Potion, then. Not the usual bubblegum-smelling nonsense they used for their joke sweets—this looked older, sharper. Real.

I should have walked away.

Instead, I listened long enough to catch the word Lee said next, quieter, like it mattered.

“Where’d you even get this?”

Fred’s grin widened in the dark. “Borrowed it.”

“Stole it,” Lee corrected helpfully.

George’s mouth twisted. “Liberated.”

“From who?” Lee pressed.

“From a very badly supervised cupboard,” Fred said. “And before you ask, yes, George tested it.”

Lee’s gaze snapped to George. “You what?”

George lifted his hands, palms out, as if surrendering to a crime he didn’t particularly regret. “Not on me,” he said. “On a gnome.”

Lee stared. “You brought a gnome into the castle.”

Fred shrugged, utterly shameless. “It didn’t complain.”

“That’s because it can’t speak,” Lee said but leaned closer, suddenly wary. “How long does it last?”

George looked down again. “Depends how much,” he said. “And how concentrated it is. This one’s strong.”

Fred made a pleased sound. “As it should be.”

I should have left then. I told myself I would. I even shifted my weight, the tapestry’s edge rough against my shoulder as I began to step back.

And then Fred held the bottle up to the torchlight like a jewel.

Footstep sounded down the corridor. Not one of theirs. They all froze.

The tapestry shifted as Fred shoved it—too quickly, too carelessly—trying to make it lie flat again. My shoulder caught on it; the fabric tugged; I swore under my breath, already too late.

The bottle, in Fred’s hand, jerked.

It slipped.

My head snapped to the side as I heard someone laughing down the corridor—high, cracked, echoing off the stone like it had teeth. Peeves. I closed my eyes for half a second, pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth, as if that might keep him from noticing me. It never worked. It never had. The castle liked its little cruelties too much to spare anyone.

I straightened anyway, smoothed my robes with hands that didn’t need smoothing, and muttered something under my breath that sounded like encouragement if you didn’t listen too closely. Just keep walking. Don’t react. Pretend you don’t exist.

Naturally, that was when he swooped into view.

He burst out from behind a suit of armour with all the subtlety of a firework, cap bells jingling, eyes bright with the kind of joy that only comes from ruining someone else’s day. He hovered upside down in front of me, his face inches from mine, breath cold and sour like old dust.

“Well, well, well,” Peeves crooned, spinning lazily in the air. “If it isn’t the detention darling herself. Skulking and skulking and skulking—what’s the matter, hm? Lost your little Weasley shadows?”

I kept my face carefully blank, eyes fixed on the stone just past his shoulder. Engaging Peeves was like feeding a stray dragon: once you started, it never stopped.

“Tut, tut,” he went on, clicking his tongue. “No hello? No smile? That won’t do at all. Peeves doesn’t like being ignored.” He swooped closer, bells chiming right by my ear. “Maybe I should sing! Or shout! Or tell Professor Snivelly that someone’s loitering where they shouldn’t—”

“I’m going to lunch,” I said, evenly, though my fingers had curled into my sleeves, nails digging into fabric. “Same as everyone else.”

Peeves cackled. “Lunch! Boring, boring, boring! You humans are always scurrying somewhere important.” He leaned back in the air, peering at me with exaggerated scrutiny. “You look wound tight as a clockwork toy. Someone steal your laugh?”

I didn’t answer. I took one careful step forward, as if he might be solid enough to bump into, as if I could push through him by sheer will.

For a moment, it looked like he might block me just out of spite.

Then, mercurial as ever, his attention flicked elsewhere—down the corridor, toward the faint murmur of voices and a flash of blonde hair half-hidden by a tapestry. His grin widened, delighted.

“Oho,” Peeves sing-songed. “Secrets and scheming and sneaky little plots. Smells like trouble. Smells like fun.” He winked at me, exaggerated and gleeful. “Don’t worry, darling. I won’t tell. Not yet.”

Before I could stop him—or thank whatever small mercy had intervened—he shot off down the corridor in a whirl of laughter and bells, his voice fading as he turned a corner and vanished into the castle’s endless mischief.

The silence he left behind felt almost startling.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding and leaned back against the cold stone for just a second, letting the chill steady me. Then I pushed off the wall and moved again, softer now, footsteps careful, attention pulled back to the reason I’d stopped in the first place.

Fred’s face was blank.

Lee’s eyes round.

George was froze with his fingers against his lips, and for a second he looked exactly like he did in those rare, unguarded moments—like the joke had stopped being funny and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do without it.

Confused I tried to see what the hell the boys had in their hands but stopped short as the approaching footsteps grew louder.

Fred hissed, suddenly alive again. “George—don’t—”

George swallowed.

His throat bobbed once.

Then he slowly lowered his hand and stared at the bottle like it had bitten him.

“Right,” he said, voice too calm. “That’s… that’s not ideal.”

Lee’s mouth opened and closed. “How much did you—?”

George’s eyes darted, quick, panicked, as if searching the corridor for an answer that wasn’t there. “Not much,” he said immediately. The words came out before his mind could stop them. “Enough.”

Fred grabbed the bottle, jammed the cork back in with more force than necessary. “We can fix it,” he said rapidly, the way he talked when something had gone wrong and he wanted to outrun it. “We can— we can water it down— get you something—”

Lee leaned in, voice dropping. “Is there an antidote?”

George blinked. “No,” he said at once, and the bleak certainty in the word made Fred’s hand tighten around the bottle. George looked like he hadn’t meant to say it so quickly, like his own mouth had betrayed him. He swallowed again. “Not… not a proper one.”

The footsteps turned the corner.

Percy appeared, of course he did—Prefect badge gleaming, hair perfectly combed, a stack of papers under his arm like they were an extension of his personality.

He saw them.

He saw the bottle.

His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”

Fred opened his mouth, ready to lie with the ease of breathing.

George beat him to it.

“We were going to spike your tea,” George said, clear as daylight.

The corridor went silent so abruptly it felt like someone had jammed cotton in my ears.

Percy stared. Lee made a choking sound. Fred’s head snapped toward George so fast it was almost violent, as if he were trying to physically drag the words back into his brother’s mouth.

George’s eyes widened in horror at what he’d just said, like he was watching himself from outside his body. He clapped a hand over his mouth, too late.

Percy’s face drained of colour.

“You were going to—” Percy sputtered, voice rising. “You were going to poison me?”

“It’s not poison,” George said immediately, hand still half-covering his mouth, the words slipping out around his fingers like water through a crack. “It’s a potion. And you’re insufferable.”

Fred made a strangled noise that might have been laughter if it weren’t so close to panic. “George,” he warned, sharp.

Lee leaned close to George’s ear. “Stop talking,” he whispered desperately. “Stop—”

George stared straight ahead, as if focusing hard might keep his mouth shut. It didn’t help.

“And you’re always telling Mum on us,” George added, helplessly honest. “And you’d deserve it.”

Percy’s face went purple. “I will be reporting this to Professor McGonagall!”

“You do that,” George said, and then, with a sudden flinch, as if realising what he was about to do, he clamped his lips together so hard his jaw trembled.

Fred grabbed George by the elbow and steered him away, fast, hauling Lee with them.

I stepped back from the tapestry, heart hammering, the corridor suddenly too full of air. What the hell was that all about? Must’ve been some stupid prank I didn’t get, but still I watched as they vanished around the corner in a rush of robes and panic, Percy’s outraged voice echoing after them like a siren.

I stood there for a beat longer than I should have, staring at the place George had been, the way his eyes had looked. Surely a prank. I shook myself, forced my feet to move, and told myself—very firmly—that whatever trouble the Weasley twins had brewed this time, it was not my business.

It didn’t matter what I told myself.

It never did.

By the next day, George was still acting strangely. It started small, the way all catastrophes do. Little slips that made people blink.

George answering Professor Flitwick’s question without the usual joking deflection, bluntly, correctly, then looking faintly horrified at how pleased Flitwick looked. George telling Seamus Finnigan that his hair looked like a startled puffskein and then clapping a hand over his own mouth like he’d been slapped.

At lunch, Angelina Johnson leaned over from the opposite side of the table—Quidditch captain’s posture, eyes sharp and amused. “George,” she said, as if tasting the strangeness, “are you feeling all right?”

George stared at his plate like it might answer for him. He opened his mouth.

Fred kicked him under the table.

George flinched. “Ow,” he said. Then, before he could stop himself, he added, voice tight, “I’m fine. I’m just… cursed.”

Angelina’s eyebrows lifted. “Cursed?”

Fred laughed too loud, too fast. “He means tired, Angie,” he said breezily. “Exhausted. Poor lad. Quidditch training’s ruined him.”

George’s gaze flicked up—quick, sharp—and his eyes met mine across the table for half a second.

It was like being noticed by sunlight you didn’t ask for.

I looked away immediately, as if I’d been caught doing something wrong.

Because for three days—three long, strange days—George Weasley stopped being background noise.

He stopped being that constant, maddening presence in the corridors who always had a quip on his tongue and a prank in his pocket. He became instead a boy moving very carefully through the castle, shoulders drawn in, eyes scanning like he was looking for landmines.

And whenever I appeared—whenever I turned a corner or walked into the Great Hall or stepped into the dungeon for detention—he went very still, as if my existence tightened something around his ribs.

Fred and Lee stayed close to him like bodyguards.

Fred Weasley, who normally couldn’t go ten seconds without making some dramatic commentary about the universe, developed a kind of forced sobriety that made him look like a poorly disguised imposter. He kept his mouth shut so hard you could see the strain in his cheeks, and every so often he’d glance at George with a look that was half amusement, half this is going to ruin us.

Lee Jordan—who usually fed their chaos like oxygen—hovered with the air of someone trying to hold a lid on a boiling cauldron.

And me?

I did what I always did when something didn’t make sense: I pretended it wasn’t happening.

I told myself I enjoyed the quiet. I told myself it was a relief not to have my name dragged into their jokes, not to have Fred’s laugh bouncing off stone like a thrown spell, not to have George’s eyes flicking to me like he couldn’t help it.

But the castle doesn’t like quiet. It fills it with echo. It makes your own thoughts louder.

So every evening, when I walked down to Snape’s classroom for detention, my steps seemed to sound sharper than they should have. The torches hissed. The stone sweated cold. And on the far side of the room, George Weasley scrubbed in silence with his jaw clenched, and I found myself watching him anyway—watching the way he held himself like someone bracing against a storm that lived inside his own mouth.

On the second last day, it finally snapped.

Snape set us to work with his usual black-eyed glare, then disappeared into his office as though he couldn’t bear to share air with us longer than necessary. The classroom settled into that strained hush—brushes scraping, rags squeaking, cauldrons clinking faintly when moved.

Fred, after ten minutes of wrestling with a mop that looked like it had been cursed in the Middle Ages, muttered something under his breath and left to fetch another.

The door shut behind him.

And suddenly it was just me and George, with the dungeon’s damp pressing in and the silence so thick it felt like my lungs had to push through it.

George stayed at the far table, scrubbing methodically, eyes fixed on the wood as if looking up might be fatal.

I scrubbed too, but my mind kept snagging—on the strangeness, on the unnatural quiet, on the way he was behaving like a boy trying not to make a sound in a room full of sleeping dragons.

Without Fred’s noise, it was unbearable.

I didn’t want to speak. I didn’t want to give him anything.

But the words rose anyway, dry as dust.

“So,” I said, not looking up, keeping my tone casual in the way you keep a wound covered with a neat bandage. “Did you lose the ability to talk, or are you saving it for someone important?”

George’s brush paused. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t answer. For a beat, only the drip-drip somewhere in the dungeon spoke.

I scrubbed harder, because my hands needed something to do.

“Right,” I muttered, more to myself than him. “Fine. Ignore me.”

George’s shoulders shifted. A breath. His fingers tightened on the brush handle, whitening at the knuckles.

Then the door opened again and Fred strode in, triumphantly holding a mop like a trophy.

Lee Jordan followed him, slipping through the doorway with the careful look of someone arriving at a crime scene.

George’s head snapped up at once.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, and his voice sounded almost too loud in the silence, like it had been stored up. “Lee—Snape’ll—”

Lee held up his hands. “Relax,” he whispered. “I’m just… checking.”

“Checking what?” George shot back.

“Whether you’ve exploded yet,” Lee murmured.

Fred’s grin twitched. “He hasn’t,” he said. “Not properly.” I turned slowly, rag hanging from my fingers, eyes narrowing.

“Oh,” I said softly. “So you can talk.”

George’s gaze flicked to me, panicked, and then away again as if my face was a lit match. He opened his mouth—and whatever was inside him slipped out before he could catch it.

“I wasn’t ignoring you,” George said quickly. “I was trying not to say anything stupid to you.”

The words hit the dungeon air like a dropped glass. For a heartbeat, my mind simply… stopped.

Fred made a strangled noise. Lee muttered something that sounded very much like, “Oh, for—”

My chest tightened, sharp, and my first instinct—always, always—was to defend myself. Was he really mocking me after days of pretending I don’t exist? The nerve.

“Stupid?” I repeated, voice very steady. Too steady. “Is that what you call it? Because it sounds like you’re trying to be clever.”

George’s head jerked toward me, eyes widening again, the panic returning full force. “No—” he said, and then his mouth betrayed him again. “I mean—sometimes you look at me like you want to hex me, and I can’t decide if that’s fair or—”

Lee stepped forward fast, like he was throwing himself between a curse and its target. “Right!” he said loudly, clapping his hands once. “Mop delivery. Brilliant. Fred, mate, you’ve saved the day. Come on, Weasley, we’ve got to— er— check the corridor, make sure Snape isn’t—”

“I am capable of checking a corridor,” George snapped, and then immediately went rigid because he’d said it like he meant it.

Fred’s eyes danced with the urge to laugh and the knowledge that he shouldn’t. He swallowed it with visible effort, cheeks twitching.

My fingers tightened on the rag. The sting in my chest sharpened into something that wanted somewhere to go.

“What was that supposed to mean?” I demanded. “What the bloody hell has gotten into you recently? First you ignore me than you mock me?”

George stared at the floor like it might open and take him.

Lee, apparently deciding survival required distraction, turned to me with a grin too wide to be innocent. “Fancy a bet?” he asked rapidly. “On whether Snape’s shampoo is actually bat blood?”

I blinked at him.

“What?”

Lee beamed. “Bat blood. Or maybe… eel slime. Fred thinks eel slime.”

Fred’s mouth twitched. “It’s a strong contender.”

“Why are you talking about Snape’s hair?” I said, because it was absurd and because my mind was still snagged on George’s words like a sleeve caught on a nail.

Lee leaned closer, voice dropping dramatically. “Because,” he whispered, “if you don’t stop looking like you’re about to bite George’s head off, he’s going to say something catastrophic, and then we’ll all be scrubbing these shelves until we die.”

That earned a laugh from somewhere in the room—small, involuntary, sharp enough to surprise me. It startled out of me before I could stop it, like a sneeze.

George flinched as if he’d heard it.

I hated that.

I focused on the practical instead: Lee’s presence.

“Get out,” I hissed, turning my attention on him because it was safer than turning it on George. “Lee, you’re going to get us into even more trouble. Snape will have you mounted on the wall like a trophy.”

Lee lifted his hands again, mock-innocent. “I’m leaving, I’m leaving.” He backed toward the door, still grinning. “Try not to be too terrifying while I’m gone, yeah?”

I glared at him until he slipped out and shut the door. The room settled again into that thick, dungeon quiet.

Fred went back to scrubbing, eyes bright with suppressed laughter, as if he were biting the inside of his cheek to keep it contained.

George moved to the far corner of the classroom as if distance could save him. He scrubbed with vicious concentration, shoulders tight, gaze fixed anywhere but me.

I scrubbed too, but the tabletop under my rag blurred. George’s words kept replaying, not in the way a joke replays, but in the way an insult does—sharp, lodged.

Why had he avoided me for days? Why had he looked like he was bracing for impact every time I entered the room? Why was Fred Weasley—who never shut up for anyone—suddenly behaving like he’d taken a vow of silence?

The thought tugged at me, infuriatingly persistent, the way a loose thread keeps catching on your fingers.

Detention ended. Snape dismissed us with the same sour satisfaction. I left the dungeon with my books pressed to my chest like a shield.

At dinner, I sat with Angelina, Katie, and Alice. Angelina’s laughter cut bright through the Great Hall noise. Katie was talking with her hands, animated, cheeks flushed from the warmth and the chatter. Alice—steady, observant—kept glancing at me like she could tell I was somewhere else.

Fred and George and Lee sat nearby, close enough that I could hear Fred’s laugh when he let it loose, close enough that I could see George’s profile if I lifted my eyes.

I didn’t lift my eyes.

I told myself that was pride.

Across the table, Angelina leaned slightly toward Lee, calling, “Oi, Jordan—tell Fred he still owes me for that Bludger incident last term.”

Lee’s grin flashed. “He says it built character.”

“It built bruises,” Angelina shot back, laughing.

“I don’t know,” I said, voice carrying just enough. “Fred’s idea of character-building usually involves property damage.”

Fred’s laugh burst out, bright and immediate—relief in it, like he’d been starving for permission to be himself again.

And George—

George, who had been keeping his eyes firmly on his plate as if it were the only safe thing in the world—reacted without thinking.

“You always do that when you’re nervous,” George said too quickly. “Get sharp. It’s… predictable.”

The words hung in the air for a fraction of a second too long.

My fork paused halfway to my mouth.

Angelina blinked, eyebrows lifting, amusement sharpening. Katie’s eyes flicked between me and George with quick curiosity.

Fred made a noise that sounded like he’d swallowed a laugh and a groan at the same time.

Lee coughed loudly—far too loudly—and said, “George isn’t feeling well,” with the exaggerated sincerity of someone delivering a lie to a teacher. “Probably ate something dodgy.”

George’s chair scraped back sharply. He stood so fast it looked like the bench tried to keep him.

“I’m going,” he said, voice tight. “Before I ruin everything.”

Fred sprang up after him, half-laughing, half-alarmed. “That’s my brother,” he called, as if it were meant to sound normal. “Dramatic as ever!”

Lee hurried after them, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed.

The girls at my table stared after the three of them.

Angelina’s mouth curved, interested. “Well,” she said lightly. “That was… new.”

Katie leaned forward, eyes bright. “What was that about?”

Alice looked at me, quiet and unblinking, as if she could see the exact place in my chest where the words had landed.

I set my fork down carefully, because my fingers had gone strange—too tight, too cold.

Get sharp. It’s… predictable.

It sounded like a joke someone else might make. Except George hadn’t laughed. And he’d run like he’d been burned.

I pushed back from the table and stood, so abruptly my bench squealed.

Angelina’s eyes followed me. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” I said, because I didn’t want to give the truth a name. I didn’t want to say after him. I didn’t want to say why does he keep doing this.

I gathered my things and walked out of the Great Hall with my spine straight and my steps controlled.

Because whatever game George Weasley had decided to play—whatever strange, quiet, cutting thing he’d turned into this week—I wasn’t going to sit there and let him throw words at me like stones and then run before I could throw them back.

And if he thought I wouldn’t follow the thread until I found what it was attached to—

He didn’t know me at all.

~~~

The common room was the same as it always was—firelight licking at the edges of everything, red-and-gold warmth pooling on threadbare armchairs, voices rising and falling like waves—yet something in it felt… misaligned. Like a portrait hung slightly crooked.

I was tucked into the corner with my back against the arm of a chair that had seen better decades, my book opened on my lap purely for the comfort of having something to stare at. The words didn’t go in. They sat on the page in tidy little lines, politely waiting while my mind kept wandering to places it had no business going.

Across the room, Fred and George and Lee drifted in like they owned the air. Fred’s laugh usually arrived before he did; Lee’s voice followed, loud and warm and relentless; and George—George was the quieter current underneath it.

Tonight, the current didn’t touch me.

They passed near my chair as if I were a piece of furniture. Fred’s eyes skimmed right over my head. Lee didn’t even flicker in my direction. George kept his gaze fixed somewhere above the mantle, like he’d decided that if he didn’t look at me, I didn’t exist.

It is so unnatural I felt it in my teeth.

They didn’t so much as breathe in my direction. They didn’t toss a single irritating comment over their shoulders. No little quip meant to hook into my sleeve and drag me into their orbit. Nothing.

Just… absence, placed carefully around me.

A laugh bubbled up behind my ribs, sharp and incredulous. It didn’t make it out. My throat was suddenly too tight for any sound that wasn’t meant for war.

George’s words from dinner keep replaying, vivid as if he was still standing there with candlelight on his face and disaster in his mouth.

You always do that when you’re nervous. Get sharp. It’s… predictable.

As if I were a trick he learned. As if he had been watching me long enough to map out my reactions and file them away like notes for later.

And then he’d sat there with that expression—tight, wrong—like he’d bitten down on something hot. Like he’d hated himself for saying it. And then he ran.

Now he wouldn’t even look at me.

The audacity of it settled in my chest like a stone. Heavy. Round. Unignorable.

They moved toward the stairs to the boys’ dormitories, still talking among themselves in low voices that didn’t carry the way they usually did. Fred’s shoulders were tense in a way I’d never seen on him—he kept glancing sideways at George as if waiting for a fuse to spark. Lee walked close, murmuring something, the way you might murmur to a skittish horse.

George kept his head down.

Like if he didn’t just get upstairs fast enough, he could outrun whatever it was that kept making him act like this.

My book slipped a fraction on my lap. I didn’t notice until it thudded softly against my knee.

They were already up the stairs when something in me finally moved —like a latch giving way.

I closed my book with a slow, deliberate snap.

My feet carried me up before I’d fully decided to move.

I walked through the common room with the kind of calm that only arrived when you were past the point of reason. The fire crackled. Someone laughed. A first-year darted past me. I hardly registered any of it. My hand slid to my wand.

The staircase to the boys’ dorms was technically off-limits. There was no spell to stop me—nothing like the one that turned the girls’ stairs into a slide—but rules had never been my strongest restraint when my blood started to sing.

I took the steps two at a time.

The boys’ corridor smelt like soap and old wood and Quidditch gear left to dry badly. The door to their dorm room was ajar, light spilling out in a warm stripe onto the floorboards.

I didn’t knock. I pushed it open so hard it banged against the wall.

Three heads whipped toward me.

Fred looked like he’d been caught mid-conspiracy, hair sticking up. Lee’s eyes widened, then narrowed, as his brain caught up to the problem in front of him. George was sitting on his bed, shoulders hunched, hands clenched so tightly together his knuckles look pale.

For a heartbeat, no one spoke. It was, bizarrely, the quietest I’d ever heard three Gryffindor boys.

Then Fred recovered.

“Blimey,” he said, voice bright with forced normality. “If it isn’t—”

“Don’t,” I’d cut in, and the word landed like a door slamming. My wand was already in my hand, not raised—yet—but present enough to make the air feel pointed.

Lee straightened, taking a step forward, his palms were out in the universal sign for let’s not make this worse. “All right, all right,” he said, attempting charm. “You can’t just—”

“I can,” I said, and my voice didn’t shake. That’s how I knew i was in too deep. “I just did.”

Fred’s grin faltered into something more careful. “This is the boys’ dorm,” he pointed out, as if the concept of boys’ dorm was a warding charm.

“Yes,” I said, gaze flicking to George for a split second—and catching nothing because his eyes were fixed firmly on the floor. Didn’t even a glance. Didn’t even a flinch. “I noticed.”

George’s jaw flexed.

Lee cleared his throat. “Look,” he began, lowering his voice, “whatever’s going on, you don’t want to be up here when someone sees you—”

“Oh, spare me,” I said, and the sarcasm came out sharp. “I’ve been blamed for half the crimes committed in this castle and I’m still walking around. I think I’ll survive being seen standing in a room.”

Fred’s eyes flickered to George again, quick and warning.

George stayed silent, staring at his hands like he could physically hold his mouth shut.

My gaze returned to Fred and Lee, and something cold and clear settled into place.

“I saw you,” I said, softly enough that they had to listen. “Earlier this week. With a bottle. A potion.”

The air changed. It was immediate—like someone pulled a thread and the whole room tightened.

Fred’s expression got just a shade too blank. Lee’s mouth opened, then closed, like he was recalculating the situation.

George’s head snapped up for the first time, eyes wide—right at Fred, right at Lee—with a kind of naked fear that made my stomach dip unpleasantly.

And then he looked at me.

Just once.

It wasn’t a warm look. It wasn’t even an angry one. It was a look like a person watching a trapp door open beneath them.

“What was it?” I asked.

No one answered .

“Was it something you brewed?” I pressed, stepping farther into the room. The wooden floor creaked under my shoes. “Something you stole? Something you were stupid enough to put in Percy’s drink and then—what—missed?”

Still nothing.

George’s lips pressed together so tightly they got white.

My grip tightened on my wand. I was aware, distantly, of how ridiculous it was—me standing in a boys’ dormitory at night with my wand out like i was about to duel someone. But my pride had teeth, and right now it was the only thing keeping my chest from splitting open with the sheer wrongness of being ignored by someone who never shut up.

“Right,” I said, and my voice got flatter, dangerous in its calm. “You’re all going to sit there and pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Fred tried for light again, because it was his instinct. “Well, when you say it like that, it makes us sound terribly suspicious—”

“Get out,” I said.

Fred blinked. Lee stopped breathing.

“What?” Lee said.

“You,” I repeated, pointing my wand at the door, then at them—enough to make it very clear I was not playing. “Out. Both of you.”

Fred’s brows lifted. “Now hold on—”

I took one step closer. The tip of my wand steady without effort.

“I’ve spent five years taking the fall for your rubbish,” I said, and I didn’t raise my voice, which somehow made it worse. “If you think I won’t hex you out of this room, you’ve severely misjudged how attached I am to your continued wellbeing.”

Lee’s eyes flicked to Fred. Fred’s eyes flicked to George.

George’s face had gone tight, his hands gripped the edge of his mattress like he was anchoring himself to the earth.

“Don’t,” George said, and the word scraped out of him like it hurt. He looked at them—pleading, raw. “Don’t leave.”

Fred’s expression shifted—something real underneath the mischief. “Mate…”

George shook his head once, sharp, like he was trying to dislodge the whole moment. “Please,” he said, and his voice cracked on it, almost imperceptibly.

Lee swore under his breath, a quick, helpless sound. “This is bad,” he muttered.

Fred looked at me, then at George, and there was a beat where he’d weighed it—the way Fred weighed things: not with caution, exactly, but with a sense of timing, of damage control, of what made the best story and what might make the worst one.

Then he sighed, long and dramatic, like a man being marched to execution.

“All right,” Fred said lightly, because he couldn’t not. “If you die, I’ll tell Mum you died handsome.”

“Out,” I said again, unwavering.

Lee stepped toward the door first, shoulders tight. Fred followed, pausing just long enough to clap George once on the shoulder—harder than necessary, the way boys do when they don’t know how to be gentle without making it obvious.

“Better now than later,” Fred murmured, voice low. “Yeah?”

George’s eyes flashed. He shook his head again, fierce. “No.”

Fred didn’t argue. He just let out a small breath through his nose, as if laughter was trapped there and he was forcing it back, and then he was gone.

Lee slipped out behind him. At the threshold, he glanced back at me with a look that said good luck and you’ve doomed us all in the same expression. Then the door clicked shut.

The room felt too quiet without them. Like you could hear the castle breathing.

I turned back to George.

He was still on his bed, shoulders rigid, hands folded together so tightly it looked painful. His jaw was clenched. His eyes were down again.

As if looking at me was the most dangerous thing in the world.

I folded my arms across my chest, wand still in my hand, and leant back against the door.

“Well?” I said.

George didn’t move.

The silence stretched. It wasn’t the comfortable kind. It was the kind that filled your ears until you couldn’t tell if you were hearing your own heartbeat or the room’s.

“What is wrong with you?” I asked, and the words came out sharper now, because the quiet was scraping the inside of me raw. “You spend all week acting like you’ve been possessed. You say—” my throat tightened around the memory and I pushed through it anyway, “you say things at dinner like you’ve been watching me through a telescope, and then you can’t even be bothered to look at me afterwards.”

George’s fingers twitched. His eyes flicked up for a split second—toward my wand, not my face—and then away again.

That did something to me that I hated. I pushed off the door and took a step closer.

“Talk,” I said. “Or I swear—”

George’s head snapped up at last. His eyes locked onto mine, wide and bright and wrong, like there was too much inside him and nowhere for it to go.

“Put your wand down,” he said quickly.

“Give me a reason.”

His mouth opened.

And then whatever it was that seemed to be torturing him this whole week jerked him by the throat and dragged itself out.

“I always thought it was—” he started, and then his eyes squeezed shut like he was trying to stop the sentence with sheer will. He failed. “I always thought it was—” he swallowed hard, “hot when you get like this.”

I didn’t move.

I didn’t breathe.

It hit me the way a Bludger hit—sudden, solid, stupidly physical. My body reacted before my brain could arrange meaning. I flinched back half a step as if the air between us has snapped.

“What?” I said, and it came out small, because I didn’t have anything else ready.

George made a sound that was half groan, half curse. He slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wild. My heart was doing something frantic and humiliating in my chest, like it was trying to climb out.

“What did you just say?” I demanded, and the words shook at the edges no matter how hard I tried to iron them flat. “Are you—are you mocking me?”

George shook his head violently, hand still over his mouth. It was almost comical, how desperate he looked, like a boy trying to wrestle his own face into silence.

I stared at him, heat rising in my cheeks for reasons I refused to examine.

“This is—” I said, and my voice wanted to splinter. I forced it steadier. “This is a new one, I’ll give you that. Insult me and then pretend you can’t speak. Very creative.”

George dragged his hand down his face, as if wiping away the disaster. His eyes were bright with something that looked suspiciously like panic.

“I’m not—” he started.

He clamped his mouth shut again, but it was useless. The words kept pressing at his teeth like they were alive.

I lifted my wand a fraction. Not to hex him—no matter what my pride was pretending, I wasn’t actually going to hex him—but to kept myself feeling like I had control of the room.

George’s gaze dropped to the wand and he lifted both hands, palms out, surrendering.

“Okay,” he said quickly. “Okay—don’t—just—put it down, yeah? Please.”

There it was again.

Please.

It landed strangely. Not like Fred’s theatrical pleas, all grin and performance. George’s plea had weight to it, like it cost him something to say.

I lowered my wand—only a little—because I wasn’t a fool.

George exhaled, and then the truth, relentless as gravity, finally won.

“I can’t—” he said, and the admission came out in a rush, raw with humiliation. “I can’t stop it. I’ve been trying all week and I can’t. I didn’t want—” his voice caught, and he swallowed it down harshly, “I didn’t want you to hear me say stupid things.”

My throat went tight again. “Stupid things,” I echoed confused.

George’s laugh came out sharp and miserable. “Yes,” he said. “Because every time I open my mouth around you it’s like—” he jerked his head, frustrated, “it’s like the truth has been sitting there waiting and now it thinks it’s got permission.”

I stared at him.

He looked back at me for the first time without dodging—really looked—eyes bright with something like dread.

I couldn’t tell if he looked terrified of me or of himself.

“You’re on something,” I said, and it wasn’t a question anymore. Pieces clicked in my head, one by one: the strange bluntness in the corridor, the slips at dinner, the way Fred had been strangling his own laughter, the way George had been moving through the castle like he was afraid of speaking within earshot of anyone.

George’s shoulders sagged as if the fight had finally left him. “Yes,” he said quietly.

“What?”

He flinched, as though the word itself hurt. Then, because he had to: “Truth potion.”

I blinked. The room swam faintly at the edges, not because of magic but because my brain was trying to hold too many things at once.

“You—” I started, and stopped. I tried again. “You drank a truth potion.”

George closed his eyes. “Yes.”

“And you’ve been avoiding me because—”

His eyes opened.

And then it all split out in one catastrophic, unstoppable flood, like he tried to dam a river with his hands and now the water had found every crack.

“Because I like you,” George said, words tumbling too fast, too honest, too vivid. “Because I’ve liked you for ages, and it’s pathetic, and I don’t know how to stop it, and I keep telling myself you hate me and you probably do because I’ve given you every reason to, and every time you glare at me it feels like—like you’re about to hex me and I deserve it, but—” he dragged in a breath, eyes fixed on my face like he couldn’t help it now, “but it’s also—Merlin, it’s also the only time you look at me properly.”

I didn’t move.

I couldn’t.

My hands had gone cold around my wand. George’s voice kept coming, helpless against the potion’s pull.

“I notice everything,” he said, and the words should sounded arrogant, but they didn’t—they sounded like confession, like a boy caught with something stolen in his pocket. “The way you set your jaw when you’re pretending you’re fine. The way you get sharper when you’re… when you’re not sure what to do. The way you act like you don’t care and then you care so much it leaks out anyway, and you hate that about yourself—” he broke off with a strangled laugh, like he knew he was stepping into dangerous territory, “and I shouldn’t know any of it, because you don’t give it to anyone on purpose, but I’ve been… watching. I can’t not. It’s like my eyes do it without asking me.”

My pulse was loud in my ears. My face felt too hot. My feet were rooted in place as if the floorboards had taken sides.

He swallowed, voice going lower, rougher.

“And you’re—” he shook his head, like the word was too big, “you’re… beautiful when you’re furious.”

I inhaled sharply, and it was the first real breath I’d managed since he started.

“No,” I said, because my brain was scrabbling for a rung to hold onto and that was the only one it found. “No. This—this is—”

He flinched immediately, like the refusal was a physical strike.

“I’m not joking,” George said, voice suddenly fierce, and it was so unlike the George I knew—so stripped bare—that it jolted something in me. “I would never— I would never joke about you. Not like that. Not—” his voice cracked, and the crack was worse than any loudness, “not about this.”

I stared at him, searching his face for the familiar shape of a prank—waiting for the grin, the wink, the bright cruelty of got you.

There was none.

Just George, sitting on the edge of his bed like he was waiting to be punished, hands clenched, eyes too bright.

And the worst part was: the more he spoke, the more my stomach twisted—not with humiliation, not with rage, but with something treacherously soft that made my chest hurt.

My wand dipped, forgotten.

“You’re expecting me to believe,” I said, and my voice was thin now despite myself, “that this is real.”

George let out a breath that sounded like laughter turned into pain. “I don’t have a choice,” he said. “I can’t lie.”

I shook my head. “Prove it.”

His eyes flickered up, startled. “What?”

“If you can’t lie,” I said, and the words scraped out of me like a dare I didn’t mean to make, “prove it. George’s mouth opened, and then he shut it, as if he could feel himself being dragged forward again.

“I—” he started, then winced. “I don’t know how to—”

I stepped closer, and the space between us felt suddenly too small, too charged. His gaze flickered to my face, then to my wand, then back again, like he couldn’t decide what scared him more.

“You’ve avoided me,” I said, quieter now, and the quiet was more dangerous. “All week. You looked right through me in the common room. You wouldn’t even look at me.”

George’s throat bobbed. “Because if I looked at you,” he said, and the truth came out as if it had been trapped behind his teeth for years, “I’d say things I can’t afford to say.”

My breath caught. I hated that it did. I hated the way my body betrayed me with small, involuntary tells.

George’s eyes flickered as if he noticed.

I lifted my chin—stubborn, defensive, Gryffindor to the bone.

“Fine,” I said, voice tight. “Prove. It,”

George stared at me for a long, unbearable moment. The room was so still I could hear the distant crackle of the common room fire below, muffled through floors and years.

Then he spoke again, because he couldn’t help it.

He said my name—just my name—like it tasted different in his mouth than it did in anyone else’s.

And that, somehow, was the most terrifying thing yet.

He pushed himself up from the bed slowly, like his body was arguing with his mind and winning. The mattress creaked behind him, a soft sound, and suddenly he was standing—really standing—close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look at him.

My gaze caught on his chest first, the way his jumper hung slightly loose on him, sleeves pushed up just enough to show forearms dusted faintly with freckles and scars that looked earned. I registered the height of him without meaning to—the way he blocked the lamplight, the way his shadow folded over me like it belonged there. I was aware, absurdly, of how warm he smelt—soap and smoke and something sharp underneath, like adrenaline.

George noticed.

Of course he did.

His breath stuttered—just enough to tell me he lost whatever fragile control he thought he had left.

“Don’t,” he said quietly.

I looked up. His eyes were dark, fixed on my face like he was memorising it against his will.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he added, and the words came out strained, like they’d been dragged through his teeth. “If you don’t stop, I’ll—”

He cut himself off, jaw tightening.

I lifted my chin a fraction. It wasn’t defiance exactly. It was instinct. It was the same thing that always made me step closer instead of back.

“You’ll what George?”

The silence that followed wasnt empty. It was crowded—packed tight with things neither of us had said out loud before now.

George’s laugh was breathless and disbelieving, like the sound had surprised him on the way out.

“You’re going to ruin me,” he said.

“Show me how,”

That’s all it took.

He leaned down and kissed me like he’d been waiting years and suddenly there was no one left to stop him.

It wasn’t careful.

It wasn’t polite.

It was the kind of kiss that stole the air from your lungs and left you dizzy in its place—his mouth warm and sure against mine, like he already knew exactly how this was meant to feel. My hands moved without consulting me, fingers fisting in the fabric at his shoulders, pulling him closer because distance had become unbearable.

His hands found my waist as if they’d always known where it was, steady and grounding and impossibly gentle for how much force there was behind the way he pressed me back against the door. I made a sound—small, involuntary—and he stilled for half a heartbeat, like he was listening for it again.

Then he kissed me deeper, slower now, as if he learned something and intended to keep it.

My head tilted without thinking, chasing the angle, and the world narrowed to heat and pressure and the way his thumb pressed into my side like he was anchoring himself. I was lightheaded—too aware of my own pulse, of the way my body seemed to lean into him like it’d been waiting for permission.

He made a sound—low, startled, almost a laugh—and then his hands shifted with sudden certainty. One moment I was standing there with the door cold at my back, and the next the floor dropped away.

I gasped as he lifted me, the movement smooth and instinctive, as if he’d done this in some other life and his body remembered even if his head didn’t. My fingers clutched at his shoulders, fabric wrinkling under my grip, and he carried me the short distance to his bed like he was afraid of setting me down too gently.

The mattress dipped beneath me. The lamplight swung. He followed, bracing himself over me, close enough that the air felt crowded, his weight a steady presence I didn’t want to escape.

My hips shifted up without thinking—seeking, answering—and the sound he made in response was rough and unguarded, torn from him like a confession. His hand tightened at my waist, fingers biting in just enough that it made my breath stutter, the other slid up to cradle my neck with a care that didnt match the hunger in his mouth.

“Merlin,” he muttered, and it wasn’t a joke.

His lips left mine and trailed along my jaw, unhurried now, as if he was mapping something he intended to keep. The sensation pulled a sound from me before I could stop it—soft, traitorous—and he caught it instantly, kissing me again to quiet it, a smile pressed into the corner of my mouth like he was pleased he found it.

He swore under his breath, the word lost to fabric and skin, and dipped to my neck. The warmth there was unbearable, dizzying; I tipped my head back without meaning to, fingers tightening in his hair as the world blurred at the edges. For a heartbeat, everything else—rules, pride, years of irritation held like armour—fell away, leaving only this: the way he held me like I were something precious and dangerous at the same time.

The door banged open.

“Right,” Fred’s voice announced, breathless and dramatic. “I had a bad feeling and—”

George froze.

I froze.

Fred took in the scene in one sweeping glance—and then he bursted out laughing, loud and delighted, like he’d just won a bet no one else knew he placed.

“Oh, this is brilliant,” he wheezed. “Absolutely brilliant. I go to rescue my brother and instead I—”

“Wow, mate,” George said dryly, not lifting his head, voice rough with laughter he was trying not to let loose. “Impeccable timing.”

Fred wiped at his eyes, still grinning. “Never would’ve guessed,” he added, ignoring what George just said as he glanced between us. “Honestly thought she’d hex you before she ever kissed you.”

George finally looked up, one hand still steady at my waist, eyes bright and unapologetic. “Out,” he says.

Fred snorted. “Touchy.”

“Fred.”

“All right, all right.” He backed toward the door, laughter trailing behind him like sparks. “Carry on, then. I’ll just—” he paused, smirked, “—pretend I saw none of that.”

The door shut.

The quiet that followed was different—softer, warmer, humming with something that hadn’t settled yet.

George looked back at me, thumb brushing my jaw like he was checking if I were real.

Still close. Still here.

“I’m not,” I whisper back.

Angelina doesn’t even turn. “You are,” she says, cheerful as anything, like she’s pointing out the weather. “If you start trembling, I’m telling Fred you’ve caught some rare, tragic case of Weasley Fever.”

“Angelina,” I warn, because my voice is all wrong—thin, pitched too high—and that just proves her point.

Alicia’s eyes flick to me, quick and bright. “We’re literally at the Burrow,” she says. “This is the safest place in Britain.”

That’s what anyone who hasn’t watched Fred and George Weasley turn safety into sport would say.

The kitchen is chaos in the way only a Weasley kitchen can be—chairs not matching, a clock on the wall that doesn’t care what time it is so much as whether everyone’s alive, plates stacked in defiant towers, and the table already crowded with people who look like they belong here.

There are Gryffindor robes thrown over the backs of chairs like discarded skins. Someone—Lee Jordan, obviously—has charmed a set of playing cards to sing rude songs every time they’re shuffled. Harry is perched awkwardly on a stool as if he’s still not convinced he’s allowed to take up space. Hermione is trying to look relaxed while watching everything like a hawk, because Hermione can’t walk into a room without accidentally becoming responsible for it. Ron is halfway through a conversation and halfway through a biscuit, which is, for Ron, a complete sentence.

And Fred is—

I don’t let myself finish the thought. I don’t give it the shape of words, because words make things real, and I have spent years surviving by pretending this particular thing isn’t.

He’s leaning against the sink, shoulder pressed to the cupboard, one foot hooked around the other ankle like he has nowhere to be and all the time in the world. His hair looks like it’s been attacked by wind and won, and his grin—his stupid, bright, infuriating grin—keeps flashing at people as if he’s handing out sunlight for free.

George is beside him, identical in the way that makes your brain trip over itself and then immediately recover by deciding to panic instead. Fred says something to Lee, and Lee laughs too loudly, and Fred’s eyes crinkle at the edges—

I look away too fast and nearly walk into the table.

Angelina catches my elbow without looking, because Angelina Johnson knows everything and will die before she lets me embarrass myself in public. “Breathe,” she murmurs, and it’s not kind, exactly. It’s practical. Like handing me a broom.

I take a breath. The kitchen air tastes like summer and bread and a faint trace of smoke from the fireplace. Outside, the garden is darkening, the sky bruised purple. The laughter feels thick, like it’s filling all the spaces where anxiety might try to crawl.

“You’re doing brilliantly,” Alicia says, too sweetly.

“That was sarcastic,” I say.

“It was,” she agrees, not even pretending.

I manage to exist for a while by clinging to my friends like they’re the only solid things in the room. I make small talk with Oliver Wood, who looks as if he’s been physically restrained from giving everyone a lecture on “proper formation” even though no one has a broom in hand.

I listen to Hermione argue with Lee about whether it’s ethical to charm the cards to swear. I laugh at something Harry says and then feel startled that Harry Potter can say things that are funny without meaning to. I keep my back to Fred like if I don’t look at him, my heart might stop attempting to climb out of my ribs and fling itself at him like a Bludger.

It’s ridiculous. It’s been ridiculous since first year.

First year, when I learned his laugh had different notes to it depending on whether he was actually amused or just performing for an audience.

Second year, when he’d leaned across the table in the Great Hall to steal a pinch of my treacle tart and I’d felt it like an electric shock, sharp and embarrassing and entirely unasked for.

Third year, when I’d made the Quidditch team and suddenly he wasn’t just a boy in my classes—he was a teammate, which meant I had to stand close to him and pretend it didn’t matter when his hand brushed mine passing a Quaffle.

Fourth year, when I became close enough to hear him mutter under his breath when he thought no one was listening, when I saw the way his eyes went hard and sharp at the wrong kind of joke, and I realized he was not all laughter; he just wore it like armor because it fit him better than fear.

And the worst part—always the worst part—was that Fred Weasley treated everyone like this. Like they mattered. Like being near them was easy.

So how was I supposed to know if I was special, or if I was just… included?

I’m standing with Angelina and Katie near the door when George claps his hands, loud enough to make everyone jump, and declares, “Right, gather round before someone decides to start a responsible conversation and ruin the entire evening.”

That gets cheers, groans, and a half-hearted protest from Hermione. “Honestly—”

“Honestly,” Fred echoes, and there’s mock solemnity to his voice that makes people laugh before he even says anything else. “We have a tradition to uphold.”

He produces a glass bottle like it’s a sacred relic. It might once have held pumpkin juice. It might once have held something far more suspicious. With Fred and George, objects have a habit of acquiring histories.

I feel it immediately, the way the mood shifts—like everyone’s leaning forward without meaning to, hungry for drama. Seven Minutes in Heaven is the kind of game that pretends it’s silly so no one has to admit they care who ends up in a cupboard with whom.

“Seven Minutes in Heaven!” George announces, far too cheerfully, setting the bottle down in the middle of the rug as if he’s laying out a centerpiece rather than a social landmine.

Angelina’s mouth is close to my ear. “Perfect,” she murmurs, and I don’t have to ask what she means.

“No,” I whisper.

“Absolutely,” Katie says, bright-eyed.

Alicia gives me a look that is half affection and half threat. “If you hex that bottle,” she says softly, “I will personally release a Bludger at you.”

I stare at her. “We don’t even keep Bludgers outside of—”

“You’d be amazed what I can get my hands on,” Alicia replies, serene.

Angelina laughs under her breath like she’s enjoying herself far too much. “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll do it for you.”

“You will not,” I hiss, because my voice is still doing that thing where it doesn’t sound like mine.

Across the circle, Ginny is perched on the arm of a chair like she’s been placed there as an ornamental weapon. She isn’t playing—of course she isn’t playing. Fred and George have stationed her like a guarded treasure, and every time someone glances her way George’s posture shifts subtly, a warning wrapped in a grin.

Ron, meanwhile, looks like he’s already regretting agreeing to be here, which is his default state in any situation involving romance and his sister existing in the same universe.

“Everyone knows the rules,” Harry says when George starts to explain, sounding faintly pained.

“We’re explaining them for Wood,” Fred says instantly.

Oliver bristles. “I know the rules.”

“Course you do,” George says, nodding as if humoring a child. “Which is why you’ll go into the cupboard and immediately diagram three different strategies for efficient snogging.”

There’s a burst of laughter. Oliver goes red, which is impressive considering how often he spends time in the wind.

Hermione’s eyes narrow. “This is juvenile.”

Fred’s gaze flicks over the circle and lands on Hermione with the lazy ease of someone who knows exactly how to poke at people. “And yet,” he says, “you’re sitting down.”

She opens her mouth. Closes it. Sits a little straighter, as if posture is a defense.

The bottle is set in the middle of the worn rug. Someone—Lee—charms a little hourglass to appear beside it, the sand gleaming. The cupboard they’ve chosen is the one under the stairs, because of course it is, because this house is full of stairs that lead nowhere and cupboards that have seen more secrets than most people.

The first few rounds go by in a blur of laughter and mock horror and the strange, breathless suspense of watching two people stand up trying not to look like they want to.

When Ron spins and it lands on Hermione, the room makes a sound like it’s been collectively struck by lightning.

Ron’s ears turn violently red.

Hermione’s face goes very still, as if she’s trying to remember whether there’s a law against this.

Ginny, from her chair, looks as if Christmas has arrived early.

“Five Sickles says they come out pretending nothing happened,” Fred says casually, loud enough for half the room to hear.

George snorts immediately. “Ten if they don’t make eye contact for the rest of the summer.”

Ron stares at the bottle like it’s betrayed him personally. Hermione stands with the stiff dignity of someone walking to trial. They disappear into the cupboard, and for seven minutes the entire room becomes a listening device.

I stare fixedly at the hourglass because it’s safer than thinking about what’s happening behind that door, but even the sand feels too loud, the grains slipping down like counting heartbeats.

When Ron and Hermione come out, Ron looks like he’s been hit over the head with a Beater’s bat and Hermione looks like she’s successfully completed a difficult assignment and isn’t pleased about it.

They don’t look at each other. They don’t look at anyone. They sit down as far apart as physically possible while still being in the same circle.

Lee whispers, “Well?” and Harry hits him hard enough to make him yelp.

The game lurches on, because it has to. Because stopping would mean acknowledging that something real just happened in a cupboard at the Burrow, and the world isn’t built to hold that kind of honesty.

Oliver ends up with Alicia, and comes out looking vaguely traumatized, as if he went in expecting a snog and got a lecture on teamwork. Alicia comes out looking pleased with herself, which is always a dangerous sign.

Angelina, when she gets her turn, spins with the casual cruelty of a person who likes chaos. It lands on someone from Hufflepuff. Angelina rises, grinning, and I realize with a jolt that not all terror in the world belongs to me.

Then the bottle keeps spinning, and time does that thing it does when I’m not watching it—slipping past, soft and fast, until suddenly it’s in front of me with teeth.

George leans back on his hands. “Right,” he announces. “Our darling brother’s up.”

There’s a chorus of “Oooooh,” because the room is full of teenagers and absolutely no one is above acting like they aren’t.

Fred stands like it’s nothing. Like this is just another harmless joke. Like he hasn’t been the main character of my private catastrophes since I was eleven years old.

“Ladies and gents,” he says, holding his hands out as if presenting a show. “Try not to miss me while I’m gone. I know it’ll be difficult.”

“Please,” Katie mutters. “Someone’s ego is going to need its own cupboard.”

Fred shoots her a grin and then, without looking, he drags the bottle into position with the tip of his finger—careless, confident, like he’s done this a hundred times and never once had to wonder if the universe was about to spit him into something he didn’t know how to handle.

My throat goes tight in that ridiculous way it does when I’m trying to pretend my body isn’t betraying me. I stare at the bottle like it’s a weapon. Like if I glare hard enough, I can make it land on literally anyone else. A random Ravenclaw. Katie. The hourglass. The floor.

Fred flicks his wrist, and the bottle spins.

The glass catches the lamplight, flashing gold and green, the room smearing into a ring of faces. The sound of it on the rug is soft at first, then slower, then slower still, like the world is deliberately torturing me.

My friends go very still.

Angelina’s fingers curl around my wrist, not tight, just… there, anchoring me to the moment whether I want it or not.

The bottle stutters.

The neck of it swings past Katie.

Past Harry.

Past Ron, who looks up too late.

Past Ginny, who leans forward, eyes bright as fire.

And then it stops.

Pointing at me.

For a second, nothing happens. It’s like the room has to remember how to breathe.

I don’t move. I can’t. My body has done something strange—gone light, as if it’s trying to float away and leave me behind, because surely this is not real and therefore I do not have to deal with it.

Somewhere in the circle, someone lets out a little sound—half laugh, half gasp. Lee’s voice breaks the silence first, of course it does, too loud and delighted.

“OHHH, NO WAY—”

Hermione snaps, “Lee.”

Katie’s nails dig into my knee in what might be encouragement or might be her restraining me from Apparating on the spot.

Angelina’s mouth is close to my ear again. “Don’t you dare faint,” she whispers, like fainting would be rude.

I hear my own laugh come out—small and wrong and sharp at the edges. It surprises me, because I didn’t decide to do it. It just… escapes, like my body trying to pretend it’s fine.

Fred’s grin is still on his face, still effortless, but his eyes have shifted. Not by much. Just enough that I notice, because I’ve spent years noticing him in ways I pretend I haven’t. The grin stays, but something underneath it tightens, like a thread being pulled.

He looks straight at me.

Not anyone else.

At me.

And the air between us feels suddenly… specific. Like the room has been full of warmth and noise and now there’s a narrow, bright strip of attention cutting through it, pinning you where I sit.

“Well,” Fred says lightly, and his voice lands in the silence like a coin in a fountain. “Looks like I’m in trouble.”

George makes a choking sound that might be laughter.

Ron looks like he’s just realized that if you go into a cupboard with Fred Weasley, he is going to have to witness the aftermath, and that is clearly a violation of his human rights.

Ginny’s smile is sharp enough to cut glass.

I can feel my own face doing something traitorous—heat rising, pulse jumping—my body betraying secrets I’ve kept locked up for years. I try to swallow and find I’ve got no saliva left, just nerves.

Fred steps forward, offering me his hand like it’s the most normal thing in the world, like he’s asking me to dance, like I haven’t spent the last hour avoiding looking at him because looking at him feels like leaning too close to a flame.

“C’mon,” he says, softer now—not quiet enough that everyone can’t hear, but close. Personal. “Seven minutes. We can survive that, can’t we?”

I stare at his hand.

It’s just a hand. Long fingers, a few faint marks like he’s been messing about with something he probably shouldn’t. I’ve seen those hands a hundred times—in class, on the broom, gesturing wildly as he talks, shoving George playfully, snatching food off plates.

But offered to me like this, in front of everyone, it feels like a dare.

Katie nudges me, and the nudge is practically a shove. “Go,” she mouths, eyes glittering.

Angelina’s grip on my wrist releases, slow, like letting a bird off a perch. “Don’t die,” she murmurs.

I let out another small laugh—because if I don’t, I might do something far worse, like run—and I place your hand in Fred’s.

His fingers close around mine.

Warm. Sure. Like he’s been waiting.

And I stand, legs a little unsteady, heart going far too fast for a game, as the circle parts and the cupboard under the stairs seems to loom in the corner like it’s been listening the whole time, patient, ready to swallow us both and whatever I’ve been pretending isn’t there.

Fred guides me toward it with that casual Weasley confidence—as if this is nothing, as if it’s already a joke he knows the punchline to—while behind me the room erupts into whispers and muffled laughter and Hermione’s sharp, “Honestly!”

At the cupboard door, Fred pauses just long enough to glance down at me, and there’s something in his expression that doesn’t match the grin he wears for the world—something quick and bright and dangerous, like a spark in a pile of paper.

“You all right?” he asks, and it’s ridiculous how much that little question changes the air.

I open my mouth, intending to say something clever—something sharp, something that will keep me safe, something someone would say if they had to go into a cupboard with the boy they’d been quietly losing their mind over for years.

What comes out is: “If you make this weird, I will hex you.”

Fred’s grin turns real in a way that makes my stomach flip, because it looks like he’s enjoying himself far too much.

“Brilliant,” he murmurs, and then, like it’s nothing at all, he pulls me into the dark and closes the door behind me.

~~~

The cupboard under the stairs at the Burrow is not like Filch’s broom cupboard—there’s no stink of confiscated polish and old punishment in it—but it still has that same cramped, secretive feeling, like it was built for hiding things that weren’t meant to be seen.

The door clicks shut behind us and the noise of the kitchen—laughter, Lee’s too-loud commentary, Hermione’s sharp voice trying to herd chaos into something sensible—drops away as if someone’s shoved cotton into my ears.

Darkness presses in immediately. Not complete, because there’s a thin, stubborn line of lamplight bleeding in under the door, and it draws a pale stripe over the floorboards like a boundary neither of us is supposed to cross.

For a second I can’t move. My body simply forgets how to be casual when Fred Weasley is suddenly close enough that I can feel heat radiating off him, close enough that if I turned my head the wrong way my hair might brush his shoulder.

The cupboard is full of ordinary things—brooms leaning at an angle, a stack of old boxes, the faint smell of dust and wood—but the ordinary doesn’t stand a chance against the fact that he’s here with me, in the dark, behind a shut door, because a bottle decided it would be funny.

He doesn’t fill the silence straight away.

That’s the first thing I notice, and it’s the strangest. In the kitchen Fred is a bright, moving thing—sound and grin and elbows and noise, a person who seems to produce warmth wherever he stands. In here, in this small space, he goes still. Not awkward. Just… attentive, like the moment has weight and he’s letting it settle instead of trying to juggle it.

I hear him shift, the soft scrape of his shoe on the floor. I can just make out the shape of him against the darker darkness—taller than he looks from across a room, shoulders broad in that careless way that boys get when they stop growing up and start filling out.

He leans back, and the cupboard gives a faint creak as he rests against the wall with his hands folded loosely across his chest. He doesn’t crowd me. He doesn’t angle himself to block the only strip of light. He gives me space in a cupboard that doesn’t have much to spare.

Then, like he’s decided I’m not going to bolt through the door screaming, his voice cuts gently through the dark.

“Well,” he says, and it’s so mild it’s almost unfair, “could’ve been worse.”

My lungs remember what they’re for. I let out a breath that sounds louder than it should in a space this small, and it’s ridiculous that I’m grateful for that one normal sentence, for the way he says it like we’ve ended up in a mildly inconvenient queue at Flourish and Blotts.

“At least it’s not Filch’s broom cupboard,” he adds, and I can hear the smile in it—soft around the edges.

I manage something that might qualify as a sound of agreement. “Give it time,” I say, because if I don’t answer with something sharp, something flippant, I’ll answer with the truth, and the truth is a thing I’ve kept behind my own locked doors since I was eleven.

There’s a pause.

“Right,” Fred murmurs. “We’ve got seven minutes. Plenty of time to acquire a traumatising broom-related memory.”

In the kitchen, outside, someone howls with laughter at something else—George, probably—and the sound muffles through the wood like distant thunder. It makes the cupboard feel even more private, like we’ve slipped through a crack in the party and ended up somewhere time runs differently.

I can feel my pulse in my throat. It’s an absurd, traitorous thing, thudding away as if I’m running drills on the Quidditch pitch. I press my fingertips against the side of a box without meaning to, grounding myself on cardboard edges and dust. The strip of light on the floor makes the space feel like a stage and I want to step off it, but there isn’t anywhere to go.

Fred shifts again—small. He doesn’t come closer, not yet, but I can sense him turning slightly, orienting fully on me in the dark the way you do when something matters.

“You all right?” he asks, the same words he used outside the cupboard, but different now. In here they don’t land like banter. They land like he actually wants an answer. Like he’s paying attention to the parts of me I work hard to hide.

“I’m brilliant,” I say at once, too quick, as if speed can make it true. “Never been better. Love cupboards.”

A soft sound leaves him—half laugh, half breath. “Of course you do.”

It shouldn’t be possible for two words to feel like fingers brushing your wrist, but it does. Of course you do. Like he knows me. Like he’s noticed things. Like I’m not just someone who exists near him in classes, on the pitch, in the same House, orbiting around his friends.

My stomach does something slow and horrible, like it’s falling down a staircase one step at a time.

“You don’t have to be brilliant,” Fred says, and his voice is quieter now, lower, the way people sound when they’re not talking for anyone else. “It’s only a stupid game.”

Only. Stupid.

The words are meant to shrink it down. To make it safe. To make me safe. Which is a strangely intimate thing to do, when he could have made a joke about kissing quotas and walked away emotionally untouched like he always pretends to be.

I swallow. The cupboard seems to notice. The dust in the air catches that thin line of light and hangs there like something enchanted.

“Tell that to Angelina,” I say, because my mouth is determined to keep running in circles around the truth. “She’d probably Apparate in here herself if she thought I was wasting her entertainment.”

There’s another beat of silence, and then Fred’s laugh comes properly this time—quiet, contained, warm.

“Angelina’s terrifying,” he agrees, very sincerely, and then, after a second, “Katie too. Alicia’s just… quietly violent.”

I make a sound that might be a laugh, and it betrays me, because it’s real. It slips out before I can choke it back into something controlled.

Fred hears it. I can tell he hears it by the way his stillness changes—almost imperceptible, like a thread pulling taut. It makes my skin prick in the dark.

“You laugh like you’re surprised you’re allowed,” he says, and it’s such a strange thing to say that it knocks the sarcasm out of my hands for a moment. There’s no teasing cruelty in it. Just observation—sharp, gentle, unsettlingly accurate.

I stare into the dark where his face must be. “Do I?”

“Mm.” A pause. “Sometimes.”

My chest tightens. I search quickly for a joke, for anything that will put the distance back where it belongs, but the cupboard is too small for lying to feel comfortable.

Outside, the party is rolling on—somebody spinning the bottle, somebody shrieking, George’s voice rising like he’s narrating a Quidditch match. In here, it’s just the hush and the thin strip of light and Fred Weasley noticing me in a way he never does in a room full of people.

“I didn’t think you noticed anything,” I say before I can stop myself, and the words hang there, unforgivably honest.

Fred goes quiet again.

“I notice loads,” he says at last, and there’s the faintest edge of amusement to it, like he’s trying to make it lighter for both of us. “I just don’t always… say it.”

The strip of light on the floor seems brighter, suddenly. Or maybe it’s just my eyes adjusting, trying to make sense of him.

I shift my weight without meaning to, my shoulder brushing the side of a box. The cardboard whispers. The movement feels loud. I hate that I’m aware of every inch of myself, every heartbeat, every breath. I hate that my mind keeps flashing backwards—eleven years old, watching him laugh with George at the Gryffindor table, thinking, stupidly, that if I could just make him look at me the way he looked at the world, I might be all right.

“Right,” I say, because I can’t leave that thought in the air, naked. “So. What now? Do we… discuss the weather? Compare notes on broom maintenance?”

Fred’s mouth curves in the dark.

“We could,” he says, and then he shifts. The air changes. He’s a little closer to the strip of light now, and I catch the faintest glimpse of his jaw, the curve of his grin softened, less sharp than usual. “Or,” he adds, very carefully, “we could do nothing.”

I blink, thrown. “Nothing?”

“Mm.” He pauses again, and it’s like he’s giving me time to decide what that word means. Then: “We don’t have to do anything, you know. Seven minutes is a long time.”

The sentence lands like a hand offered instead of a shove. Like he’s setting something down between us and stepping back from it on purpose. Pressure evaporates so quickly it leaves a vacuum behind, and in that vacuum my nerves spike, because without the pressure there’s no excuse for my fear. If I want to run, it’s not because he’s forcing me. It’s because I’m terrified of wanting something and being wrong.

I stare at the strip of light on the floor until it blurs, then look back into the dark at him. My voice comes out quieter than I meant it to. “You’re… being unusually decent about this.”

Fred’s laugh is a soft huff. “Don’t spread it around. Ruin my reputation.”

Something in me loosens—just a fraction. The cupboard feels warmer than it did. Or maybe it’s just the way he’s looking at me, patient, like he’s not in a hurry to win. Like the point isn’t to prove anything to anyone outside this door.

I take a tiny step, not because I’m brave, but because the floorboards shift under me and I have to adjust. It brings me closer by accident, a ridiculous, unplanned inch. My shoulder is nearer to him now. The air between us tightens.

Fred doesn’t move forward to meet it. He simply goes still again, his gaze dropping to my feet, as if he’s felt the inch and is waiting to see if I flinch backward.

I don’t.

I can’t tell whether that’s courage or stupidity.

“You’re quiet,” I say, and it’s the kind of observation that comes out when you’re trying not to say what you actually mean, which is: you’re different in here.

Fred’s eyes stay on me. “So are you.”

“Am I?” My attempt at levity comes out thin. “I’m usually this charming in cupboards.”

“Yeah,” Fred says, and there’s a smile in it, but it’s smaller, gentler. “But you’re not trying as hard.”

That hits too close. I open my mouth and nothing sensible comes out. I settle for, “You’re imagining things.”

“Could be,” he agrees, too easily, and then he breathes in, slow, like he’s deciding something. “Or,” he says softly, “maybe you’ve been avoiding me all night.”

My chest goes tight again. I’m suddenly very aware of how close we are, of how the cupboard is full of shadows and ordinary brooms and a strip of lamplight that feels like it’s watching. I want to deny it. I want to laugh it off. I want to do anything except let him be right.

“So what if I have?” I say. “Maybe you’re exhausting.”

Fred’s grin flashes briefly. “I am exhausting,” he says, proudly. “It’s a gift.”

Then his expression shifts again, just a shade—less joke, more Fred—like he’s stepping closer to something real without taking a physical step at all.

“I wouldn’t mind,” he says, “if you didn’t want to do, you know… nothing,”

The words are simple. Almost nothing. But they make the cupboard feel smaller.

My throat works around a swallow. I stare at his mouth because it’s safer than staring at his eyes. It’s also not safer at all.

Fred watches me do it.

Then, as if to give me one last escape route, he speaks again, softer than before.

“Or we can just… talk,” he says. “Or just stand here until they start banging on the door like a pack of hippogriffs.”

I let out a breath that trembles slightly. I hate that he notices everything. I hate that he’s kind about it.

“And if we don’t?” I ask, because the question slips out before I can catch it. “If we don’t just… stand here?”

Fred’s stillness deepens. I see him in that thin spill of light now—enough to make out the shape of his face, the way his hair falls over his forehead, the way his freckles scatter like constellations. His grin is gone, not entirely, but tucked away somewhere safer.

He doesn’t answer right away.

He lets the silence do its work, lets it stretch until it feels like a held breath. Then he shifts, just slightly, closing the distance by the smallest, most deliberate amount—enough that I can feel his warmth more clearly, enough that the air between us becomes charged.

He doesn’t reach for me.

He just tilts his head, studying my face like he’s reading the answer there.

“You tell me,” he says, low, and it makes my knees feel untrustworthy.

I don’t move away. I can’t. I feel rooted, pinned by my own want, by years of swallowing it down until it became part of my blood.

Fred’s gaze flicks once to my mouth and back to my eyes, like he’s checking again. Like he’s still giving me the chance to say no without having to say it out loud.

When I don’t step back, something in him settles.

And then he leans in.

Slowly. Carefully closing the space, like he’s walking across a narrow bridge and he’s not going to risk shaking it. His hand lifts—fingers brushing the side of my face near my jaw as if he’s steadying the moment rather than me.

I could stop it. I know I could. There’s room. There’s time. He’s made sure of it.

I don’t.

The first touch of his mouth against mine is gentle enough that it feels like a test, like he’s asking and listening at the same time. Warmth spreads through me in a slow wave, not fireworks—something steadier, something that has been waiting quietly for years and is finally allowed to exist.

My hands, which have never known what to do around him, hover uselessly for a second before they find his shirt and curl there, gripping fabric because it’s the only way to convince myself he’s real and this is happening and I’m not about to wake up back in my bed at Hogwarts with my heart still in my throat.

Fred’s breath hitches, barely, against my mouth—so small I almost miss it—and then the kiss deepens, still slow, still careful, but surer now, as if my stillness has answered him. His fingers rest more firmly at my jaw, thumb brushing once, like a quiet reassurance.

The world tilts.

It tilts the way a room does when you’ve been spinning too long and only just stopped—like gravity is deciding where it wants you now. His mouth is warm, impossibly so, and there’s a softness to it that doesn’t match the noise he makes in the world outside this cupboard. This isn’t the Fred who laughs first and thinks later. This is something quieter, steadier, all attention and intent, like he’s holding the moment with both hands to see what it’s made of.

I breathe him in without meaning to. Soap and summer and that familiar, comforting Weasley warmth, like standing too close to a fire you trust not to burn you. My hands slide to his arms, solid beneath my fingers, real in a way my brain is still struggling to keep up with.

His other hand slides to my waist, fingers curved like he’s making sure I don’t drift away. The cupboard feels smaller. Or maybe it’s just that he’s closer now, guiding me back a step at a time until my shoulder meets the wall behind me, wood cool through my clothes, a contrast to the heat of him in front of me. He doesn’t rush it. He never rushes it. He moves like he’s aware of every inch between us.

The kiss changes again—not faster, just fuller. His mouth presses a little more firmly to mine, and the space between us closes until I can feel his chest when I breathe in, feel the way his breath stutters when mine does. There’s something dizzying about how deliberate he is, about the way his focus narrows until it feels like there’s nothing else in the cupboard but the two of us and the thin line of light at our feet, patiently pretending not to exist.

I tilt my head without thinking, instinct guiding me more than courage, and his response is immediate—subtle but unmistakable. The kiss deepens into something that feels like a conversation finally happening after years of almosts and not-quites. My thoughts scatter, leaving impressions instead: the warmth of his mouth, the steady pressure of his hand at my waist, the quiet seriousness in him that I’ve never seen before because he never lets anyone look at it this closely.

My fingers curl tighter around his arms, knuckles pressing into fabric as if that’s the only thing keeping me upright. My head spins in slow circles, the way it does when you’ve been laughing too hard and suddenly realize you’re not laughing anymore, you’re just… here. Present. Aware. Every nerve lit.

Fred leans in just a fraction more, and the sound he makes this time is unmistakably real—a low, involuntary noise that vibrates between us, like he’s been caught off guard by how much this matters. It sends a shiver through me that I don’t have words for, and my hands move before I can overthink them, sliding up to his shoulders, fingers brushing into his hair, tugging like I need him closer than close.

He stills at that, breath uneven, forehead nearly touching mine. For a heartbeat, he looks… serious. Eyes dark in the low light, like he’s seeing me clearly for the first time and it’s knocked the grin clean off his face.

“Blimey,” he murmurs, so quietly it feels like a secret meant only for me.

I huff out something that might be a laugh if I weren’t so breathless. “You talk too much.”

“There it is,” he says softly, that familiar crooked smile flickering back into place, smaller now, gentler. “I was worried.”

He leans in again, not quite closing the distance this time, just enough that I can feel his breath, warm against my cheek, like he’s deliberately slowing things back down before they tip too far, too fast. His hand stays at my waist, steady and grounding, thumb tracing a small, absent-minded arc like he’s memorizing where I am.

Somewhere outside the cupboard, someone knocks—too loud, too soon—and George’s voice drifts through the wood, laughing, calling time like it’s a joke.

Fred exhales slowly, forehead dropping to mine for half a second, a private, grounding touch that feels more intimate than the kiss itself.

“Looks like they want us back,” he says, regret threaded lightly through the humor. Then, softer, just for me: “We’ll talk, yeah?”

It’s not a question dressed up as confidence. It’s a promise offered carefully.

I nod, because words feel unreliable right now, and his smile widens, something warm and pleased and very, very Fred.

“Good,” he murmurs. “I’d hate to think this was just a cupboard thing.”

You don’t measure time in the Glade the way you used to—by birthdays, by seasons, by holidays that used to mean something. You measure it by smaller, meaner things. By how many times the Doors groan shut and the night swallows the stone. By how many names get carved into memory because they don’t get to stay attached to faces. By how many mornings you wake up and the air tastes like damp earth and smoke and you have to decide, again, that you’re going to step into the Maze like it hasn’t been trying to eat you alive since the first day you arrived.

Minho was already a runner when the Box brought me up.

That’s the first thing I remember about him: not his name, not his face, not anything soft. Just motion. Heat. The way he moved like the Maze belonged to him in the same brutal way it belonged to the Grievers—like it could snap at his heels all it wanted, and he’d still keep running, still keep coming back, still keep dragging information out of those shifting stone corridors like the Maze was a puzzle he could win if he was stubborn enough.

Four, maybe five months after he came. That’s what I’m told. That’s what the older boys said back then, as if numbers could make it make sense. As if the distance between his arrival and mine was something you could hold in your palm and weigh. It never felt like a gap. It felt like I’d stepped into a story already in motion, already bleeding at the edges—Minho already leaner than he should’ve been, already carrying a job no one else wanted, already wearing that look behind his eyes like he’d seen something in the Maze that had reached in and twisted something inside him and he’d decided it didn’t get to win.

Back then there wasn’t a “Runners” thing. Not officially. Not like it became.

It was just Minho, and desperation, and the way the Glade watched him disappear into the Doors every morning like they were swallowing their best chance at survival. It was Minho with his runner legs and his runner lungs, and Albie hovering at the edge of it like the Maze was his responsibility but the stone was Minho’s. It was Nick—sharp-eyed and quieter than people think a leader has to be—standing with his arms folded and his jaw set like if he stared hard enough, the Maze would give up its secrets out of spite.

No one else wanted to go out there. No one wanted to be the one the Doors might not open for. No one wanted to meet the thing that screamed at night and left claw marks in the stone like the Maze itself was alive and angry.

So when I showed up and the Glade asked the same question it asks every new kid—What are you good for? What will you do to earn the food you eat?—my answer came out of me like it wasn’t even a choice. Like my body knew what it was built for before my mind caught up.

I didn’t want to be brave. I didn’t want to be special. I just couldn’t stand the way everyone watched Minho go alone.

The first time I ran with him, it wasn’t heroic. It wasn’t cinematic. It was ugly and messy and humiliating in the way survival always is when you don’t know the rules yet. The Doors towered over us, and the light beyond them looked wrong—too bright, too clean, like it didn’t belong in a place built out of stone and fear. Minho didn’t give me a speech. He didn’t tell me to be careful. He didn’t soften his voice like I was something fragile. He just glanced at me with that blunt, assessing stare and went, “If you slow me down, I’m leaving you.”

And I remember thinking—strangely, stupidly—Thank God.

Because it meant he believed I could keep up.

That’s how it started. Not with a crush. Not with some stupid little flutter of a heart that had no business beating in a place like this. The Maze didn’t leave space for that. The Glade didn’t leave space for that. You didn’t look at people and think about romance; you looked at them and thought about whether they’d be alive tomorrow, whether you’d be alive tomorrow, whether the world would ever stop tightening around your throat.

Minho was just… Minho. A friend. A partner. A person who understood the specific kind of quiet that settles into your bones after you’ve seen the inside of the Maze too many times. The kind of quiet that isn’t peace—it’s exhaustion.

But people die, and the Glade learns the same lesson over and over until it finally listens.

It happened after one of the boys didn’t come back. I can still see it if I let myself—how the sun had shifted, how the shadows stretched longer, how the air started to change like the Glade could feel the Doors getting ready to close. How everyone gathered at the opening, pretending they weren’t counting minutes like prayer beads. How Minho came stumbling through alone, eyes too bright, chest heaving, blood on his hands that didn’t look like his.

Nobody said the dead kid’s name out loud at first. As if saying it would make it more real.

That night, Nick’s voice cut through the firelight like a blade. Calm, controlled, but with something shaking underneath it. Albie didn’t argue. He didn’t need to. The grief was too fresh, too sharp. The fear was too thick.

They started making rules. Real ones.

Keepers. Builders. Cooks. Med-jacks. Runners.

And suddenly the thing Minho had been doing alone—this daily ritual of risking himself for scraps of information—became a position. A responsibility. A structure the Glade could cling to like it meant they had control over anything.

Minho became the Keeper of the Runners because he’d been the first one to survive long enough to deserve the title. I became the second because I’d refused to back down after the first run nearly ripped my lungs out and left me shaking in my sleep for a week. Because I’d looked at the Maze and decided if it was going to take something from me, it was going to have to work harder than fear.

And then, slowly, the runners became a real thing. A small unit of boys with legs like wire and eyes like storms, boys who learned how to read stone the way other people read books.

Ben came next—restless, hungry to prove himself, the kind of kid who ran like he had something to outrun inside his own head. Hank after him, steady and broad-shouldered, quieter but not soft. Dan with his sharp mouth and quicker grin, the one who used laughter like a shield and threw it like a weapon when the Maze tried to get too inside him.

We stopped being just people who ran.

We became a pack. A language. A separate pulse inside the Glade that nobody else could quite hear.

Because no one else knew what the Grievers really looked like.

Not the way they were described in half-panicked retellings, not the way they became monsters in the mouths of boys who’d never seen them. We knew the sound—a metallic, insectile churn that made your skin prickle before you ever saw the thing. We knew the way they moved, wrong and too fast, all parts and blades and wet clicking. We knew what it felt like to be halfway through a corridor when the sky began to dim and the Maze started deciding whether you’d make it back before the Doors closed.

Other gladers talked about the Maze like it was a wall. A border. Something outside their lives.

For us, it was the inside of our lungs. It was the thing our dreams learned to mimic. It was the taste of stone dust in the back of our throats even when we were eating at the Homestead. It was the way your heart didn’t stop sprinting even after your legs did.

That bond does something to you. It threads itself through your ribs and cinches tight. It makes you trust people without needing to say you trust them. It makes you read each other with a glance, a breath, the smallest shift in posture.

It made Minho and me… whatever we were.

Not romantic. Not delicate. Just inevitable.

We ran together because it made sense. Because Minho’s pace matched mine in a way no one else’s did, like we’d learned each other’s stride over the years and now our bodies remembered it without thinking. Because he didn’t have to explain himself to me, and I didn’t have to pretend the Maze didn’t scare me sometimes when it got too quiet. Because he could crack a joke at the worst possible moment, and I could throw one back, and for a second the stone didn’t feel like it was closing in.

Minho trusted me more than he trusted anyone, and I don’t think it was because I was special.

I think it was because I was honest in the same brutal way he was. Because my humor ran sharp and mean when I was tired, because I didn’t flinch from the ugly parts of this place, because I didn’t ask him to be softer than he could afford to be. Because I never treated his role like it made him untouchable—I treated him like a person who was carrying too much, and I stood beside him anyway.

For a long time, that was enough.

The inner sections of the Maze were familiar in the way a nightmare becomes familiar after you’ve had it for years. We knew their patterns. We knew which corridors tended to shift into traps, which dead ends had marks we’d left months ago, which stones felt colder under your palm because a Griever had passed there recently. We mapped them until the map room started looking like madness—lines and arrows and measurements scrawled over paper like if we drew it enough times, it would suddenly become a door.

And then the inner sections were done.

Not solved. Not conquered. Just… known.

So we pushed outward.

The outer sections didn’t feel like the Maze expanding. It felt like it was revealing how big it had always been.

The first time we ran out there, it was like stepping off a cliff in your mind. The walls rose higher, the turns were crueler, the silence between shifts stretched longer in a way that made you feel watched even when you couldn’t hear anything. The stone underfoot seemed older, darker, like it had been waiting for us to get brave enough—or stupid enough—to come looking.

At first, it was exciting. Not fun. Never fun. But there was a pulse to it, that dangerous thrill of being close to new information. Hank and Dan came back with scraped knuckles and bright eyes, talking over each other about a new pattern they’d spotted, a corridor that shifted twice in one day, a section that smelled like metal and rain. Ben got cockier, convinced every new turn meant we were close. Even I felt it—the thin thread of hope tightening in my chest every morning as the Doors opened.

Minho didn’t say much, but he moved faster. He spent longer in the map room. He started eating like fuel instead of food, shoving bites into his mouth without tasting them, eyes already somewhere else.

I noticed before anyone else did, because I’d learned his normal the way you learn the shape of your own scars.

He stopped leaning into the jokes.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t like he suddenly became a different person overnight. It was smaller than that—like watching a light dim so slowly you don’t realize how dark it’s gotten until you can’t see your own hands. His sarcasm started arriving a second late, like he had to drag it up from somewhere deeper. His laugh turned from something that cut through tension into something that flickered and died before it could catch.

Sometimes, when we hit another dead end—another wall, another corridor that spit us out into the same damned loop—his jaw would lock so hard I could see the muscle jump in his cheek. His eyes would go flat. Not angry, not panicked. Just… set. Like he was shoving something down so hard it might break.

He started writing more notes. Measuring twice. Staring at the map like he could burn a hole through it.

And the Maze kept giving us nothing.

Dead end after dead end. Turns that led nowhere. Paths that felt promising and then twisted back on themselves like the Maze was laughing.

Days became weeks. Weeks became months.

The outer sections expanded under our feet like a cruel joke, and the map room paper piled up, and Minho’s hands started looking rougher, knuckles split more often, nails bitten down to nothing. Sometimes I’d catch him rubbing at the heel of his palm like it hurt. Sometimes I’d catch him staring at the map with the kind of expression you get when you’re doing math in your head and the answer keeps coming up wrong.

Nobody said it out loud.

Not Hank, who liked to pretend he was invincible. Not Ben, who ran like faith alone could get him out. Not Dan, who made everything a joke so it didn’t have teeth.

But the air between us changed.

Hope didn’t vanish. It just… thinned. Like smoke. Like the last warmth in a fire when the embers are dying and you’re still holding your hands out, pretending you can’t feel the cold creeping in.

I started noticing it in my own body before I admitted it in my mind.

The way my stomach would tighten before a run—not from nerves the way it used to, but from something heavier. The way my fingers would flex and unclench while we waited by the Doors, like my muscles were trying to shake something off. The way I’d look at Minho’s back as he stretched, and a thought would flicker, unwanted and sharp: What if this is it? What if this is all there is?

Because the Maze stopped feeling like a puzzle.

It started feeling like a cage designed by someone who didn’t care if you ever found the latch.

Minho never said, There might not be a way out.

He didn’t have to. It leaked out of him in the way he moved, in the way he stopped meeting my eyes when we came up against another blank wall. In the way he started running a half-step ahead, like he could outrun the fear if he stayed fast enough. In the way he would pause—just a fraction—before marking a dead end, as if he was fighting the urge to slam his fist into the stone.

We’d stand there sometimes in the outer corridors, the light weird and gray above us, the walls so tall they made you feel small in a way that was almost humiliating. I’d press my palm to the cold stone and try to breathe like my lungs weren’t full of dust and doubt, try to keep my face neutral like I wasn’t counting how many directions we had left before we ran out of places to search.

Minho would stare down the corridor like it had personally betrayed him.

And I’d want to say something—something that made space for the truth between us, something that let him breathe instead of choking on it—but every time I opened my mouth, the words caught. Not because I didn’t know what to say.

Because I did.

Because once you say it, it becomes real.

So instead, I’d do what I’d always done with Minho.

I’d run beside him.

I’d match his pace even when he tried to speed up, even when his silence grew sharp enough to cut. I’d let his bad moods glance off me like stones, not because they didn’t hit, but because I knew what was underneath them. I knew the weight he was carrying. I knew that the Keeper wasn’t allowed to fall apart in front of the others. Not when everyone’s hope was tangled up in his ability to keep going.

Sometimes, though—on days when the Maze felt especially endless, when the shifts seemed to mock us by changing at the last second, when the route we’d been sure about crumbled into nothing—his control would slip in tiny, dangerous ways.

A shorter answer than usual. A clipped, impatient gesture. A sharp inhale through his nose like he was holding himself back from saying something worse.

And I’d feel it like a pressure change, like the air itself tightening.

Not fear exactly. Not anger exactly.

Just… the sense of standing beside a storm that was refusing to break.

Because that was Minho. Stubborn to the bone. Fierce in a way that didn’t always look like aggression—sometimes it looked like refusal. Like grinding his teeth and walking forward anyway. Like dragging the rest of us with him because he couldn’t stand the idea of stopping, couldn’t stand the idea of admitting the Maze might have won.

I didn’t know how to help him with that.

Not really.

All I knew was that when we ran, there were moments—brief, brutal moments—when the world narrowed down to footfalls and breath and the thud of our hearts, and the Maze became simple again. Left. Right. Mark. Measure. Remember.

In those moments, I could almost pretend we were still in the inner sections, still chasing a solution that existed.

But then we’d hit another dead end, and the illusion would shatter, and the cold would seep back in.

Minho would look at the blank wall like it had stolen something from him.

And I would feel it too, deep in my chest, like an ache that didn’t know how to become words.

Because the scariest part wasn’t the Grievers. Not really.

The scariest part was the silence after the sprint, when you realized you’d run as far as you could run and you were still inside the Maze.

And Minho—my partner, my friend, the person who’d been doing this longer than anyone—was starting to look like he was running out of places to put the hope.

And I could sense it the way you sense the sun dropping before you see the shadows stretch.

Something was coming.

Not a Griever. Not a trap. Not a shift.

Something inside him.

And the worst part was how familiar it felt—like I’d been carrying the same fear quietly for months, only now it was leaking into the air between us, thickening it until every breath felt like work.

~~~

The Maze is quieter today in a way that feels wrong, like it’s holding its breath just to see if we’ll notice. The light overhead is that washed-out gray again—sun diluted through something unseen—casting everything in flat, merciless clarity. Stone. More stone. The same carved seams, the same cold breath rising off the walls as if the corridors exhale. My footsteps and Minho’s land in rhythm without thinking, two bodies trained into the same pace, the same turns, the same instinct to keep moving before the Maze decides to move first.

We’ve been running long enough that my mind starts doing what it always does out here: splitting. One part of me counts. Measures. Watches the corner angles, the scratches in the stone, the changes in airflow that mean a shift is coming. The other part drifts—half a step behind my own body—staring at the longer truth like it’s a horizon I can’t stop looking at even though it burns.

Minho doesn’t speak. He hasn’t spoken for most of the morning. Not the usual running commentary, not the sharp little jokes he throws like stones to keep the silence from swallowing us. Just the sound of his breathing, controlled, clipped, a machine determined not to sputter. When he glances back at me it’s quick, almost impatient, as if checking I’m still there is a chore he can’t afford.

We hit another corridor that should open, that should lead somewhere new—at least different—and it doesn’t. The walls turn it into a narrow throat that funnels us right back into the same dead end we marked last week. I recognize the scuff I left with my boot near the corner, the shallow notch Hank carved into a seam with his knife. A breadcrumb trail that loops back to itself like a cruel punchline.

Minho stops so abruptly I almost collide with him. He stands there for a second like a statue somebody forgot to finish, shoulders rising and falling in a tight pattern, his gaze fixed on the blank face of stone in front of us. The dead end doesn’t even look dramatic. It’s just… wall. Unmoved. Unimpressed. It doesn’t care how many miles we’ve put into our legs, how many mornings we’ve stepped through the Doors like we’re not afraid.

I shift my weight, roll my shoulder, make myself look like I’m not watching him as closely as I am. I let my eyes skim the floor, the seams, the corners—anything but the tension in the set of his jaw.

“We ran this,” I say, because it’s what we do. We name it. We confirm it. We make it real on paper so the map room can pretend it means something. “Same route as—”

“Yeah, I know.” Minho’s voice slices through the corridor, too sharp, too loud for how close the walls are. It ricochets and comes back thinner. Meaner. He turns on me like the Maze itself just shoved him. “You think I don’t know what we ran?”

The words land with the weight of something he’s been holding in his teeth all morning. For a split second my body reacts before my mind does—a tightening in my chest, a small flare behind my ribs—because it’s instinct to bristle when someone snaps at you. Even if that someone is Minho. Even if he’s earned more patience from me than anyone alive in this place.

I swallow it down. I force my face into something neutral, the way you learn to do when you’re surrounded by boys who mistake emotion for weakness and the Maze for mercy. I flick my gaze away like I’m examining the wall again, like I’m giving him space to pull himself back into control.

“You’re the one who asked me to keep track,” I say, and it comes out softer than it should, not because I’m trying to be kind but because there’s a part of me that understands the math behind his anger. I don’t say that part out loud. I let it sit in the pause between us like fog.

Minho exhales through his nose. The sound is almost a laugh, except there’s no humor in it. He scrubs a hand over his hair, fingers snagging, and for a second he looks… not young, not old, just stretched. Like a rope pulled too tight for too long.

“Keep track, yeah,” he mutters, and the way he says it makes the phrase taste bitter. He jerks his chin toward my notebook as if it personally insulted him. “So write it. Mark it. Add it to the pile of nothing.”

That’s the moment—tiny, almost invisible—where the argument starts to breathe. Not because he’s screaming, not because I’m screaming back. Because he’s bleeding irritation into everything he touches, and I’m standing close enough to get it on me.

I move toward the wall anyway. My fingers brush the stone, cold enough that it feels damp even when it isn’t. I find the notch Hank made and trace it without thinking. A map of our disappointment carved into granite.

“It’s not nothing,” I say, because if I don’t say it I can feel the Maze winning, just a fraction. My voice doesn’t rise. I don’t need it to. The corridor is already tight with sound. “It’s information.”

Minho’s head snaps toward me. His eyes are bright—not with excitement, not with humor—just bright the way they get when something inside him is awake and restless and too sharp for comfort. “Information?” he repeats, and it’s almost mocking. “Yeah, great. We’ve got tons of information. We’ve got information coming out of our shucking ears.”

There it is—his sarcasm. But it’s the wrong kind. It doesn’t lighten anything. It just cuts.

My grip on the notebook tightens until the edge presses into my palm. I can feel my pulse in my fingers. I keep my shoulders loose. I keep my jaw unclenched. I keep my voice steady because if I let it slip, if I let the heat rise too fast, it turns into something bigger. Something we don’t have the energy for.

“Minho,” I say, and the way his name sounds in my mouth is familiar enough to be dangerous. “We knew the outer sections would take longer.”

“We didn’t know it would take forever,” he shoots back, and then he immediately goes still—as if the word surprises even him. Like he didn’t mean to say it out loud. Like he didn’t mean to give it shape.

The corridor holds that word between us. Forever. It sinks into the seams of the stone. It makes the air colder.

I don’t respond right away. Not because I don’t have anything to say. Because I have too much, and none of it is safe. My tongue presses to the back of my teeth. I taste dust. I taste the morning’s sweat and the metallic tang of fear that comes when someone you rely on starts to crack in small ways.

So I do what I always do. I give him the smallest out. A narrow door he can choose to step through if he wants to come back to himself.

“We’ve still got corridors left,” I say carefully. “We’re not done.”

Minho’s laugh is one sharp breath. “Not done,” he echoes, and then he turns away like looking at me is making it worse. He paces two steps, stops, paces one step back. His boots scrape stone. His shoulders are tense, like he’s holding his body together by force. “You keep saying that like it means something.”

My throat tightens at the accusation tucked inside that. It’s not even aimed at me, not really—it’s aimed at the idea of hope, the idea of patience, the idea that this isn’t all there is. But I’m the one standing in front of him, the one close enough to take the hit.

“I’m saying it because it’s true,” I answer, and I hear the slight hardening in my own voice now. Not anger, not a shout—just steel. “And because if we stop acting like it’s true, what’s the point of running?”

Minho’s gaze flicks to me again, quick and hot. “Don’t—” he starts, then stops. His mouth opens like he’s about to say something worse. Something that would stick to both of us and not wash off. His eyes dart away, to the ceiling, to the seam where the corridor turns. His chest rises and falls in a measured rhythm that looks like discipline from the outside and like drowning from the inside.

Then he snaps, smaller, but still a snap. “Just write it down.”

It’s the way he says it—flat, final—that makes something in me want to recoil even as I nod. The argument doesn’t explode. It doesn’t need to. It settles into my bones instead, heavy and unpleasant, like damp cloth clinging to skin.

“Fine,” I say, and the word comes out too tight, too clipped. I flip to a fresh page even though it feels pointless. My pencil scratches. Coordinates. Marks. Same dead end. Same shift pattern. Same nothing dressed up as data.

Minho is already moving, already turning us around like he can outrun the moment. I fall into step beside him because that’s what I do, because the Maze doesn’t care about our moods, because the corridors don’t wait for you to patch things up. We run in silence, the kind that isn’t comfortable—no shared breath, no easy understanding—just two people moving through stone with a thin line of tension stretched tight between them.

On the way back, the Maze feels narrower. Or maybe it’s just me. The walls loom. The light seems paler, colder. Our footsteps echo too loud. Every turn we take feels like it’s closing rather than opening. Minho doesn’t look at me once.

When the Doors finally come into view, it’s like seeing the edge of a dream you don’t want to wake from. The Glade’s green looks almost obscene after so much gray stone. Warmth spills out from inside the walls—smoke, food, voices. Life. The air smells like wood and sweat and something cooking. For a second I let myself breathe deeper, like the Glade can fill the hollow place the Maze digs into you.

Chuck is standing near the doors with an unfamiliar face. He’s not wearing the usual fear most greenies do when they see the place they wake up in.

This is tighter. More focused. Head turned toward the entrance like if he looks deeply enough, he’ll someone manage to see what the walls aren’t letting him.

He’s taller than Chuck, obviously—most people are—but he’s still green-new in the way his posture gives him away. Like his body doesn’t know the Glade’s rules yet. Like he hasn’t learned where to put his hands, where to stand so he isn’t in the way, how to look at the Walls without letting the fear show.

His clothes hang wrong, too clean in places. His hair is mussed like he’s been running his hands through it. There’s a restless energy in him that doesn’t match the calm the Gladers try to wear like armor.

Chuck is talking—of course he is—gesturing wildly the way he does when he’s trying to make a new person feel less alone. His face lights up when he sees me, like I’m a promise he recognizes. Like I’m safe.

I slow without meaning to. My gaze catches on the greenie for half a second—curious, automatic, the brief mental note of a new variable in an equation that never stops changing. His eyes flick to me, sharp and searching, like he’s already trying to figure out who belongs where.

Minho doesn’t even pause.

He takes one look at the cluster of people and his expression doesn’t shift, doesn’t soften, doesn’t do the usual Minho thing where he throws a comment like a pebble just to watch it ripple. He just mutters, “Greenie,” like it’s a nuisance, like it’s an interruption he didn’t budget time for, and walks straight through the Glade toward the map room without so much as a sideways glance.

The dismissal is so cold it leaves a trail behind him.

I stand there for a beat longer, the notebook heavy against my hip, watching his back disappear into the slant of afternoon light. The urge to follow is immediate, automatic. But Chuck’s eyes are on me, bright and hopeful, and he’s still a kid no matter how hard this place forces him to grow up. He’s still something soft in a world that eats soft things.

“Hey,” I say to Chuck, and I let my voice warm even if my chest is still tight with the Maze. I crouch a little like I’m making myself smaller for him, like I’m meeting him where he is. “You causing trouble already?”

Chuck grins, relief bursting across his face like sunlight. “I’m not causing trouble,” he protests, and the lie is so bad it’s almost sweet. “I’m just— I’m helping. Alby says I gotta show the new guy around.”

The nickname lands like a stone dropped into water. He glances between Chuck and me, then past me toward where Minho went, and something in his gaze sharpens, like he’s taking inventory.

I don’t give him much. Not because I’m trying to be rude. Because Minho’s absence feels like a hook in my ribs, tugging. Because the map room waits. Because the Keeper is already in there, already turning our run into lines on paper like paper can save anyone.

“Looks like Alby’s giving you a premonition,” I say, softer as I squeeze his shoulder. My hand lingers for a fraction—an apology for leaving so quickly, for not staying in the warmth. “Be nice, don’t make him demote you.”

“Im always nice,” Chuck says, offended.

“I know,” I answer, and it’s true enough that it presses behind my teeth like something tender. Then I look at the greenie—just a glance, nothing else—and I give him the barest nod. Not a welcome. Not a conversation. Just acknowledgement. A new piece placed on the board.

Then I turn and head for the map room.

The inside is dimmer than outside, the air cooler, paper-scented. The walls are lined with maps, sketches, pinned sheets covered in lines and notes and frantic little measurements. It smells like graphite and sweat and old fear. The room feels like a mind that never sleeps.

Minho is already at the table.

He doesn’t sit. He never sits when he’s like this. He stands bent over the central map with his hands braced on either side, shoulders tight, eyes scanning like he’s trying to force a new shape out of old lines. The map is a patchwork creature now—layers on layers, routes stitched together in desperate logic.

“Tell me everything,” he says the second I step in.

Not hello. Not a look. Just the demand, immediate and sharp.

I move closer, set my notebook down, flip it open. The paper rustles too loud in the silence. Minho shoves a blank sheet toward me without looking, then points to a section of the outer ring on the main map.

“Write it. Mark where it doubles back. The shift time. The dead end. Every detail.”

His voice doesn’t have humor in it. It doesn’t have that usual bite that makes his orders sound like banter. It’s stripped down to function—pure Keeper, pure pressure, like if he lets one unnecessary word slip in, the whole thing will collapse.

I pick up the pencil.

For a second my fingers hesitate—not because I don’t want to do it, but because the pencil feels like a joke. A tiny wooden stick against a Maze made of living stone. I press the point to paper and begin to write anyway. My handwriting is neat at first, controlled, then slightly tighter as I go, as if the words themselves are pulling my muscles taut.

Outer corridor—third left past the marked seam. Shift at mid-morning. Route repeats. Dead end confirmed. Same notch. Same scuff. No openings.

My pencil keeps moving, and the more I write, the more obvious it becomes, line by line, that there is nothing new. No discovery. No corridor that leads to a different pattern. No clue that makes the map breathe. Just the same path wearing a different face.

Minho hovers over me like the air around him is electric. He taps the edge of the map once, impatient. Not angry, exactly—just urgent, like the seconds are slipping through his hands.

“Anything else?” he asks.

I stare at the paper. At the words I’ve just put down like they matter. My mind runs back through the Maze with me—stone, turns, seams, the dead end that greeted us like an old enemy. I find nothing new no matter how many times I replay it. The absence is almost louder than sound.

“No,” I say, and it’s only one syllable, but it feels like it takes up the entire room.

Minho’s jaw tightens.

He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t soften. He just drags the page toward him, scans it fast, then pulls it into the stack with all the others—paper piled like hope in thin sheets. His fingers press hard enough to crease the corner.

“Okay,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like okay. It sounds like a door closing. “We’ll run the next section tomorrow. Same time.”

I nod because that’s what I do. Because arguing with him in here feels like throwing a match into a room full of gasoline. Because the argument in the Maze is still sitting between us, unspoken now but not gone. Because I can feel the pressure of his need to fix this, to solve it, to hold the Glade’s hope in his hands and not let it slip.

I keep my face steady. I keep my posture loose. I keep my voice from doing anything that might sound like accusation or worry.

But inside, something scratches—quiet, persistent—as I look at the map and see the lines looping back on themselves like a heartbeat that can’t find a way out.

And Minho stands over it like he’s trying to will the stone to open, like if he stares hard enough, the Maze will flinch first.

~~~

Night in the Glade always arrives like a verdict.

One minute the last spill of daylight is still clinging to the ivy on the Walls, catching on the edges of leaves like it’s trying to pretend this place can be gentle, and the next the sky has turned to ink and the air cools fast enough to raise goosebumps on your arms. The Doors have already groaned shut hours ago—metal on stone, final and absolute—and the sound of it still lives somewhere behind my ribs, a reminder that the Maze sleeps with one eye open.

They build the bonfire near the center, where everyone can see it, where the light can push back the dark for a while. The flames crackle and throw sparks up into the night like tiny, frantic stars trying to escape. Smoke rolls low and sweet at first, then sharpens as it gets into your hair and clothes, and the heat presses warm against your face while your back still feels the cold creeping in from the edges of the Glade.

New Greenie means ritual. It means laughter has permission tonight. It means people get to act like this is just a strange camp, just a rough place with rules, and not a cage built to watch boys break.

I drift toward the fire with Minho at my side, still carrying the weight of the map room in my bones, still feeling the thinness of that argument like a hairline crack in glass—easy to ignore until you catch the light and see it spreading. Our shoulders brush once as we squeeze through a cluster of builders, and he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t lean into it either. Just keeps moving with that hard, efficient focus he’s been wearing like armor for weeks.

Hank, Dan, and Ben have already claimed a spot close enough to feel the heat. They’re sprawled like they own the ground, faces lit up by firelight, eyes bright with the kind of excitement that only comes when something breaks the monotony of fear. The second they spot us, Dan sits up like he’s been waiting to perform.

“Oh, there they are,” he announces, voice carrying, grin too wide. “The King and Queen of Late.”

Ben snorts, shoving at Dan’s shoulder. “Not their fault. Minho was busy being a—”

“Don’t,” Hank cuts in, but he’s laughing too, one hand covering his mouth like he can’t stop it even if he tries. His eyes flick to Minho, quick check-in, but Minho doesn’t give them anything to latch onto. He just drops down onto the log bench with a stiff kind of ease, like sitting is another task to complete.

Dan ignores the warning anyway because Dan has always ignored warnings. “We saw it,” he says, breathless with glee, leaning forward like he’s about to tell a ghost story. “We saw the Greenie do his grand entrance.”

Ben throws his head back and laughs, loud and boyish, the sound cracking out of him like it’s been trapped for months. “Shank sprinted like the Maze was behind him.”

Hank points toward the fire with his chin, eyes crinkling. “He didn’t even look where he was going. Just—” He makes a vague, dramatic gesture with his hands, like a runner exploding out of the Doors. “Full speed. Arms everywhere.”

Dan’s grin turns vicious with delight. “And then—” He slaps his hands together. “Face. First. Right into the dirt. Like the Glade personally decided to humble him.”

The three of them dissolve into laughter again, and it’s contagious in a way that catches you off guard. It starts as a pull at the corners of my mouth—small, reluctant—because you can picture it too clearly: Thomas barreling forward like he has somewhere to be, like speed is safety, like the world is something you can outrun if your legs are fast enough. And then the sudden, brutal betrayal of the ground. The shock. The stunned silence. Chuck probably squealing. Everyone else watching like they’ve been handed a rare gift.

I feel the laugh rise before I can stop it, warm and sharp in my chest, and when it breaks free it surprises me with how real it sounds. It’s been a long time since laughter felt like anything other than a cover.

“Was it bad?” I ask, because the question is a formality. I already know it was. I can see it. The image lands behind my eyes like a bright smear of motion and embarrassment.

Ben wipes at his face, still laughing, cheeks flushed from heat and humor. “Bad?” he echoes. “It was the best thing I’ve seen since—” He stops, and the sentence almost trips over something darker. Since someone died. Since a Griever nearly took his leg. Since the Maze reminded them all what it is. He swallows that part and turns it into another laugh. “—since ever.”

Hank nods hard, eyes shining. “He tried to play it off too,” he says, voice still shaking with amusement. “Like he meant to do it. Like falling on your face is some kind of Glade greeting.”

Dan mimics a stiff, dignified voice. “Yes, hello, I am Thomas, and I will now become one with the dirt.”

I laugh again, louder this time, and it feels good in the simplest, stupidest way—like warmth spreading through fingers that have been cold too long. For a few seconds, the fire is just a fire and we are just kids around it, and the Maze is shut and quiet and not breathing down our necks.

Across from us, a few of the other Gladers glance over, drawn to the noise. Someone tosses another piece of wood onto the flames and sparks fly up, tiny orange insects. The crackle is loud enough to fill the spaces between conversations.

Minho doesn’t laugh.

Not even a smirk. Not even the ghost of a grin.

He sits with his elbows braced on his knees, hands loosely clasped, gaze fixed on the fire like he’s trying to read it. Like the way the flames lick and collapse and rebuild could translate into something useful if he stares long enough. The light paints sharp edges on his face—cheekbones, the line of his nose, the tight set of his mouth. The shadows under his eyes look deeper in the flickering glow, like the fire is digging them out.

It’s strange. It’s wrong. It’s… familiar lately in a way that makes something in me shift and tighten.

Because Minho is usually the loudest at this kind of thing. He’s usually the one throwing jokes into the circle like knives, the one making everyone laugh even when they don’t want to, the one who acts like nothing can touch him because if he stops acting like that, the truth might get in.

Tonight he looks like he’s not even here.

Dan keeps talking, because Dan can’t stand silence. “And then Chuck—oh my god—Chuck was like, ‘You okay?’ and the Greenie’s just staring at the ground like he’s trying to remember how legs work.”

Ben laughs again, nudging Hank. “I swear he was about to start crying.”

Hank shrugs, smile softer now. “Wouldn’t blame him.”

My laugh fades into a quieter thing, the humor still there but thinning around the edges as my attention drifts sideways, drawn like a magnet to the absence of Minho’s voice. The night air cools on my skin. The fire’s heat presses against my knees. Somewhere in the distance, someone is strumming something that might be a guitar, the notes rough and uneven but earnest. The Glade is doing its best impression of normal, and Minho is sitting beside me like a crack in the illusion.

I study him without turning my head too obviously, because I’ve learned how to look at Minho without making him feel watched. It’s a skill you pick up over years—how to read the shift in his shoulders, the way his fingers move when his mind is somewhere else, the way his eyes go flat when he’s pushing something down.

His eyes don’t flick to the boys. Don’t flick to me. They stay on the fire, pinned there, like he’s afraid to look away.

The memory of earlier presses at the back of my throat—the map room, his voice stripped of humor, the way he said write it down like it was the only thing keeping him from breaking something. The Maze today, the word forever slipping out of him like blood.

I let out a slow breath, the kind you take when you’re trying to decide how close you can get to something sharp without cutting yourself.

Dan is still laughing, still retelling, still making the moment bigger than it is because that’s what you do when you have something bright and rare. Ben’s shoulders shake. Hank leans back, eyes half-lidded with relief, like the joke has loosened something in him.

And then there’s Minho.

A silent, unmoving line of shadow against firelight.

The contrast is so stark it feels like standing with one foot in warmth and one foot in ice.

I try to pull him back into the circle the easiest way first—by giving him an opening, a hook, something he can grab without admitting he needs it.

“You hear this?” I murmur, just loud enough for him, nodding toward Dan’s dramatic reenactment. “Your new Greenie’s got potential. Could be a runner.”

Nothing.

No twitch of his mouth. No flicker of his eyes.

It’s like my words go into the space between us and dissolve.

I stare at him a second longer than I mean to, and something in my chest pinches. Not fear, not panic—just that slow, crawling sense of being shut out.

I shift on the log, the wood rough under my palms, and the movement makes my shoulder brush his again. He doesn’t react. Doesn’t even seem to register it.

Dan’s laughter rises, boisterous and bright. “I swear to shuckin’ god, I thought he was gonna eat dirt for dinner.”

I laugh reflexively—short, automatic—because everyone else is laughing, because the sound is expected, because it’s easier than letting the silence swallow me whole. But it comes out thinner this time. My eyes keep drifting back to Minho like I can’t stop.

"What's up with you tonight?" I ask, nudging his shoulder. He doesn’t respond. It doesn’t even seem like he feels my touch or hear my words. His eyes are connected to the fire, lost in thought, and there’s something about the way he stares—too steady, too distant—that makes the space between my ribs tighten like a fist closing.

The laughter around us blurs into background noise. The crackle of the fire grows louder. Sparks drift up, vanish into the night. The heat on my face feels suddenly too hot, like I’m too close to something I shouldn’t touch.

A little more worried now, I place my hand on his arm, fingers curling lightly against the muscle there, grounding myself in the fact that he’s real, that he’s here.

It takes a second—just a second too long—before he slowly turns his eyes on me.

And when he does, it’s like watching someone surface from deep water: the blink, the slow focus, the effort it takes to come back. His gaze meets mine and for a heartbeat I see everything he’s trying not to show—tiredness carved into him, something sharp and restless beneath it, something like fear that’s been forced into silence.

The firelight dances between us, throwing gold on his skin and shadows under his eyes.

I keep my hand where it is.

When he finally turns his eyes to mine, it’s slow, like it costs him something. Like he has to pull himself back from wherever he’s been. His gaze lands on me and I almost flinch. Not because it’s harsh. Because it’s empty in a way I don’t recognize.

“Hey,” I murmur. The word is small. Careful. A test. “You okay?”

His eyes move between mine, searching, skimming, like he’s trying to decide how much to give. For a second, he doesn’t answer at all. The firelight catches the planes of his face, the tension in his jaw, the shadows under his eyes that weren’t there months ago. He looks… worn. Not just tired. Used.

“Minho?” I say again, softer. Closer.

He exhales, the breath thin. “Yeah. I’m okay. Just—” A pause. A calculation. “Tired from the run.”

The words land wrong. They sit wrong. They don’t fit him.

Because Minho is always tired. We all are. The Maze eats energy like it’s starving. But this is different. This is the kind of tired that doesn’t live in muscles. It lives behind the eyes. In the way his shoulders don’t drop even when he’s sitting. In the way his hands stay clenched like he’s bracing for impact.

I tilt my head, studying him. Letting the silence stretch. Letting him feel it.

“Don’t lie to me.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, almost-smile, almost-defense. He reaches for Gally’s stupid jar and takes a drink like it might buy him time. “Can’t a guy be tired from running all day?”

“Sure,” I say. My voice stays level, but something in my chest tightens, coils. “But I know what you look like when you’re tired. And this isn’t it.”

His jaw shifts. The muscle jumps. He doesn’t answer. Just stares back into the fire like it might save him.

The flames reflect in his eyes, and for a moment he looks hollowed out. Like something’s been scraping at him from the inside.

“Why are you so worried?” The question slips out before I can soften it. Before I can protect either of us.

His gaze drops. Not to the fire. Not to me. To the dirt at his feet. Like the ground is safer. Like the truth might be buried there.

The silence stretches.

Long.

Thin.

Fragile.

When he looks back up, it hits me like a physical thing. The rawness. The fear he’s been sanding down into something manageable. My stomach drops. A cold, sick lurch.

If Minho is scared, something is wrong. Deep wrong. System wrong.

“Is this about the Maze?” I ask, quietly.

He turns his head away.

That’s all the answer I need.

“Minho,” I say, and there’s a plea in it now, whether I want there to be or not. “We still have all of the outer—”

“And what if we don’t find anything?”

The interruption is sharp. Sudden. It cuts clean through me.

He turns fully now, eyes locking onto mine, and the intensity in them makes my breath hitch. “What if we don’t find a shucking thing?” he continues, low and tight. “We’ve been running those sections for days and it’s the same pattern. Same dead ends. Same loops. It’s just like the inner sections, Y/N.”

The words hit something inside me. Not new. Not shocking. Just… finally spoken.

I’ve thought it. I’ve tasted it in the back of my throat on a hundred runs. I’ve felt it every time the map didn’t change. But hearing it from him—out loud—does something dangerous. It pulls the fear out of shadow and drops it between us, living and breathing.

I don’t answer right away. I can’t. My chest feels tight, like the air’s been thinned.

“You see what I see,” he presses. He leans closer, the jar lifting slightly as he gestures without realizing it. “You run the same routes. You read the same walls. Don’t pretend you don’t know what this means.”

My pulse starts to climb. My hands curl in my lap.

“You know that we might never get out—”

“Minho,” I breathe, and the sound is sharp, urgent. My hand flies up without thinking, pressing over his mouth, silencing him. The contact is desperate. Protective. Almost panicked. “Don’t say that.”

He freezes.

Doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t flinch. Just stares at me, eyes dark, knowing, as if I’ve only confirmed something he already believes.

“You can’t—” My voice shakes despite myself. “You can’t say things like that.” He gently wraps his fingers around my wrists and lowers my hands. He doesn’t let go.

Instead, he pulls me closer, his grip firm, grounding, his eyes hardening into something colder. Sharper. More real.

“Why not?” The question is quiet. Deadly. I swallow. My throat burns. My eyes sting and I hate it. Hate the weakness of it. Hate that he can see.

“Because,” I say, and the word trembles. “Because that means you’ve given up.”

His jaw clenches.

“And if you give up,” I continue, my voice rising just a fraction, “then we’re all screwed.” The words come faster now. Hotter. The dam cracking. “You’re our Keeper. You’re the one who’s supposed to keep us moving. Keep us believing. We go out there every day. We bleed out there. People have died out there.” My breath comes quicker, uneven. “If you say it’s pointless—if you say there’s no way out—then what are we doing, Minho? What are we dying for?”

The word dying hangs between us.

My hands rip free from his grip. I stand abruptly, the movement too fast, too sharp. My vision blurs. I swipe at my cheeks, furious that there’s wet there at all.

“I can’t do this,” I mutter, already turning away.

“Y/N, wait—” I don’t. I walk. Fast. Blind. The fire’s heat fades behind me, replaced by cold air and darkness and the familiar path toward my hut. My chest hurts. Actually hurts. Like something is pressing inward. I’ve never felt so scared before. Of course I was when I first got here but Minho gave me hope, hope that I wouldn't be here forever.

What is the point to anything now without hope. Hope from the only person I’ve ever needed it from in the first place.

“Y/N!”

I don’t slow.

A hand grabs my arm. I wrench it free without stopping.

“Please,” he calls, closer now. “Stop.”

“Why should I?” I throw back, my voice breaking as I wipe my face with the back of my hand.

He grabs me again, firmer this time, and spins me around. The force of it pulls me into him, and I can’t escape his space now. He’s breathing hard. His eyes are wide. Not angry.

Scared.

“Shuck,” he mutters. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, I just—”

“You just what?” The words rip out of me. “You just decided to give up?”

He flinches like I struck him.

“I didn’t say I was giving up.”

“You said there might not be a way out!” My hands shove at his chest. Not hard enough to move him. Hard enough to need to. “Do you have any idea what that does to me? Hearing that from you?”

He steps closer instead of back. His voice rises. “What do you want me to feel, Y/N? Why am I supposed to be the one everyone leans on for hope?” His hands spread, helpless. “You think I’m not allowed to be scared?”

“Minho—”

“Who do you think I go to?” he snaps, the control finally cracking. “Everyone looks at me like I’m supposed to have the answers. Like I’m supposed to be shucking unbreakable. Who the hell am I supposed to lean on when I don't shucking have it anymore?”

His voice fractures. Raw. Stripped.

“I get it I'm supposed to be your keeper but I’m shucking human,” he says, harsh and low. I’m starting to get scared, but I don’t back away the closer he gets to me. “And things aren't looking good right now, and I'm sorry if you don't want to hear it but I am terrified. I’m scared that we’re running ourselves into the ground for nothing! That this place is built to trap us. That this is something we just can't escape...”

The words slam into me. And suddenly the anger drains. The fight drains. All that’s left is him. Standing there. Exposed.

My breath catches. My hands lift slowly, trembling, cupping his face. He stills instantly, eyes flicking to mine the closer I get, the fight in him collapsing at the touch.

I had never realized just how much pressure he was feeling, to have everyone counting on him, leaning on him.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. The words are wrecked. “I didn’t know. I didn’t see how much you were carrying.”

He shakes his head eyes turning soft. “No Y/N I didn’t mean—”

“Stop,” I murmur, my thumb brushing his lips. “You don’t have to be everything. Not for me.”

His eyes soften. Darken. His breathing shifts.

“I never realized how much pressure I put on you. How much we all do. I never even thought you'd feel like we do which is so stupid...”

"It's not stupid. I'm your keeper, that is my job-"

"No it's not. It's not your job. Your job is to lead us, and tell us what to do and where to run. It's not your job to give us hope when we all see the same thing." His eyes trail down my face, my nose, lips, as if hes’s mesmerized.

"All of us runners have been leaning on you to give us hope, when we all know the same thing. But it's our job it give hope to the others who don't know what is going on out there. And lately you have been doing that alone."

He stares at me like I’ve just said something dangerous.

The space between us changes.

Thickens.

My heart starts to pound, loud and sudden, and I don’t know why. I just know he feels closer. Too close. Close in a way that doesn’t feel like years of friendship.

It feels like something else.

His gaze drops. To my mouth. Back to my eyes. The air tightens. He leans in, slow. Careful. Like he’s waiting for me to pull away.

I don’t.

Instead, I rise onto my toes. And when his lips touch mine, the world narrows. The kiss is soft at first. Uncertain. Like he’s afraid to break something. Then it deepens, instinct taking over, his hand finding my waist, pulling me closer. The heat between us is immediate. Overwhelming.

I gasp against his mouth. My hands grab his shirt, then his hair, because I need something to hold onto. His lips move against mine with a hunger that steals my breath, slow and intense and devastating.

Minho leaned farther down, tilting your head up with his finger under your chin so he could get further access to your mouth. Your hands tangled into his hair when his tongue swiftly slipped into your mouth, causing you to softly whimper.

When he tilts his head, when he lifts his finger under my chin, when he tilts my head up so he can get further access to my mouth, when I feel him really kiss me, my knees nearly give.

He catches me without thinking, arms firm around my hips, anchoring me to him like he always does. Like he always has.

Only now it feels different.

Real.

He pulls back just enough to breathe, his forehead resting against mine, our breaths heavy.

“I’ll be the one you can lean on,” I whisper.

It had been a couple of weeks since you all had gotten rescued from the maze, and since you found out that WICKED were the ones to do just that. Being on the run was no picnic, one of the reasons being because you were an awful runner or more so you had almost zero stamina, and also the fact that everything that was wrong with the world was running through your veins as well.

You had noticed it almost instantly, the way you wouldn't be able to catch your breathing, sure you had bad stamina but it was never that bad, you felt dizzier rather fast and your mood swings were all over the place. You didn't think much of it until you saw your arms, the black veins were a clear sign of how far gone you were.

It did scare you, maybe more than you let yourself believe but you were also so tired. So tired of running from one bad person to the next, it felt as if this world was full of nothing but bad people, you truly didn't know if you'd find what the other gladers were searching for. A safe place. Away from the people who wanted you for nothing other than what was in your blood.

You hadn't told anyone what was going on. You knew if you did they would do anything to keep you from dying this way. Maybe even postpone getting back Minho. And you couldn't let them do that, he was the one person who gave you hope in the glade, who told you he would get you out alive. And you believed him. He kept that promise, and now you'd do anything to get him out alive as well, even if that meant sacrificing yourself.

But the thing was, if you did do just that, there would be one person who would never forgive you. He would do just about anything for you, he would even take this flare if it meant you would get to live. He had always talked about how it would be if you finally got out of the maze, but you knew it had nothing to do with the life he wanted. No, it was your life he was so worried about. He said that you deserved a life far beyond the glade walls, a normal life.

But nothing was normal about this life, in fact the glade walls gave you more normality than this dump. In all honesty you missed the glade, missed the laughs, the friends you had to leave behind. At least there were times when life felt okay, but now it always felt like a struggle to keep moving, and there were no times when life felt okay.

The only times life felt just a little bit better was with him. You could tell Newt felt the same you did, in fact they all did, but he never showed it. He would always try to make you smile, laugh, distract you from the world you all came to know. Your feelings for him would grow just that much more when he would do that. And you hated it.

Newt was the one person that you had to tell, but he was also the only person you couldn't. He would drag you off to find a cure, back to Vince and force him to heal you. But you couldn't do that, Minho needed you all, and you couldn't just leave him in that place to rot.

"You know this isn't what I thought the world would be like," Newt's voice cut through the silence. "I thought the maze was the worst it could get. You know," He turned to face you, his dark eyes meeting yours, a half smile on his face. "I actually thought our parents would be out here, looking for us."

"Maybe they are," You replied, your gaze moving over the broken down buildings, wondering how everything used to look before the world went to shit.

"I don't think things work out like that for us," His voice grew soft, his hand coming up to tuck away a stray hair behind your ear which caused your whole body to warm. "But they should, at least for some of us," you turned to face him, the look in his eyes causing your heart to flutter. It was as if every time you looked into his eyes, they would just automatically grow soft. When you first met him you thought that was just the person he was, but then you saw how they shown different for you. You never knew why.

And you were starting to hate the way he would look at you, as if you were the only person in the world, the only one who he would not just die for, but kill for. Soon enough you would be gone, and he would blame himself endlessly. You knew you had a deep love for Newt, one that you would never feel for anyone else, but those feelings would fade away with your soul.

"You need to stop looking at me as if you're in love with me," And there it was, the words you never wanted to say. But you just couldn't keep them to yourself anymore, someone had to know, and if you didn't tell him then did you truly love him at all.

"What?" His expression switched like a blink of an eye. He pulled away a little, his eyes turning concerned. For a second he looked as if he was about to deny it, tell you it was all in your head, that he wasn't in love with you, you were just a good friend. But then he sighed, and it looked as if he was about to confess to something you already knew. "How can I not,"

The words were so soft, and for some odd reason they hit deeper than they should have. You were silent for a little, your eyes locked on his as he poured out his feelings through that gaze alone. But you shook your head, your hands covering his eyes. He wasn't allowed to look at you like that when you could very well become a monster next week.

"Stop it Newt-"

"Why? You know that I've loved you for years. I never tried to hide it," He took your hand off his face, holding it more gently than you even thought possible. "And I know you feel the same. Why would that ever be a bad thing-"

"Because," You couldn't seem to finish the sentence, you wanted to, your mouth was open but the words were stuck in your throat, refusing to come out, refusing to destroy the only boy you had ever come to love.

"You can't even give a reason-"

"I can! But you won't understand why I kept it from you!" This caught his attention, worry and fear coating his whole face.

"What… what are you talking about?" He knew. Of course he did, it was obvious, especially to him, someone who spent as much time with you as he has. But he was to scared to uncover it for what it really was, and you didn't want to be the one to spell it out for him.

Your eyes turned sad causing his breathing to get faster. "I'm sorry Newt," He shook his head slightly, looking as if he was about to have some kind of panic attack. But before he got the chance to do that, someone bursted through the roof door.

"We have a way in,"

~~~

"Okay this is crazy," You whisper yelled to Gally as your eyes frantically snapped to a bound Tressa, who had a bag over her head. You didn't even know how they got her here without causing some big commotion, it was a ridiculous plan that would most likely not work. None of you should trust her, she was the reason you were all in this mess to begin with. Why on earth would she agree to help if she didn't agree from the start. She was the one who got Minho captured, and who knew what she was doing to him behind closed doors.

"This is the only way in Y/N. Do you want this whole trip to be for nothing? Or do you wanna get Minho back?" Gally whisper yelled back, his finger pointing to your face, as it always was when he tried to prove a point. At any other time you would've grabbed it and tried to break it, but you stayed quiet because this did seem like the only way in. "If you’ve got a better plan, I’m all ears. Otherwise, shut it and let me handle this.”

"Fine, but don't say anything stupid. If that's even possible for you," Without waiting for his response, you turned on your heel and stalked back toward the group. The others were seated in a loose semi-circle, all eyes fixed on Tressa like she might explode at any second. They looked as wary as you felt, but none of them said a word as Gally asked Newt to remove the bag from her head.

You and Gally had a strained relationship and never really got along in the glade, maybe because you were the first girl and he hated change, but you knew it was only because you had accidentally broken three of his fingers while training to become a builder.

You felt Newts glare before you even turned your eyes up, you could feel how mad he was at you from miles away, and Newt was rarely mad—especially at you.

Newt tugged the bag from Teresa's head, she blinked, adjusting to the sudden light, but your eyes stayed on Newt as he stalked back towards you.

He clutched the bag as if it would turn back time to the day you found out, as if he held it any tighter it would've made you gone straight to him with the news. But it didn't, and Newt could be as mad as he wanted, it wouldn't turn back time, and even if it did, you would've done the same thing over again.

You turned away when he took a seat next to you, his anger radiating off of his form, almost sucking out the air in your lungs. But you didn't say a word, and just watched as Gally spoke to Teresa, a little surprised that he threatened to cut her finger off but you didn't much care if he did. So long as you got Minho back.

Soon enough she agreed, and one by one you all got the chips out of your necks with a lot of reassurance from Thomas that she wouldn't just cut your throats while she was at it. Newts harsh stare was on you the whole time Teresa was cutting you open, a cloth in his hand as he dabbing the place where she took his chip.

You didn't know weather to glare back or just ignore him, you could understand why he was mad, you knew you would be furious if he did the same to you but it was over and done with, his anger would only make it worse from here. So you opted to just give him a blank stare, but that only seemed to make it worse.

Because after you were done, and began getting ready to go into the city, Newt came rushing towards you. No one was in the room, so it was just the two of you. Which let Newt almost yell at you from his place in front of you.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He asked, grabbing the gun you were just about to reload out of your grasp, his stare almost as piercing as a sward.

"I was reloading my gun," You snipped back, trying to grab it out of his hands.

"No you're not," He said as he moved the gun further out so you wouldn't be able to grab it. You bit the inside of your cheek, trying hard not to lose your temper. "You wanna know why?"

"Why?"

"Because you aren't coming with us-"

"Oh please Newt don't make me laugh. I'm not just gonna sit here while you idiots go into WICKED alone-"

"Yes you are. You aren't fit to go out there-"

"Fit?"

"Yes fit. Look at your state, you can barely keep up with the rest of us, you would only be putting yourself in danger if you come-"

"I'm not gonna let you all go without me understand? The only way I'm staying is if you tie me to a chair, otherwise I'm shucking coming!" Newt's anger seemed to grow like a wildfire, fems looked to be coming out of his ears, and his eyes looked almost as if he would be the one to kill you before the flare even had the chance too.

"You are one of the most selfish people I've ever met," Your brows furrowed, anger slowly coming into your blood as well.

"Me?" You yelled, slamming down the bullets you had in your hands on the table, causing a load sound to ripple throughout the room.

"Yes you!" Newt yelled back, stepping closer as he pointed to your chest. "You are so shucking self centred you that don't see the rest of us who have to deal with your bloody decisions," you were about to yell back but he cut you off real quick. "No it's my turn to talk and you will keep your mouth shut until I'm done,"

You were shocked, he had never spoken to you, or anyone else like this before, and to be honest it scared you a little bit. Newt was always such a calm person, he almost never got angry, he was always the voice of reason, the one to tell the others to calm down. But it was as if he finally exploded.

"How do you think I felt when you told me that you got the flare? That you had it this whole time, and that if you told us before we left we could've gotten you cured like Brenda. How can you be so selfish that you kept this from not just me but everyone else." He got closer the more he spoke, his anger only getting worse, but you kept your mouth shut. "You know I always thought you were this perfect person, someone who didn't have flaws, which always seemed impossible because everyone had them but for some reason you never did. That was until right now, you wanna know what your problem is?" It was silent, as if he was really asking you, and even if he was, you for once didn't know what to say.

"Your problem is that you don't care about getting hurt. But you know how I'll feel? I'll be devastated. And if you die I will go out of my bloody mind!" He was so close that you debated on weather you should take a step back or not. "you see death doesn't happen to you Y/N it happens to everyone around you. To all the people left standing at your funeral, if you'll even be able to have one, but we'll all still be trying to figure out how we're gonna live the rest of our lives without you in it!"

"Newt-"

"No! You don't understand how much I love you, if you did you wouldn't never kept such a thing from me. You would've never left me here to live without you!" You flinched, his words hitting you like a blow as tears threatened to slip down your face. At your reaction his face softened, his eyes turning warm as he slowly shook his head. "No I'm sorry I didn't mean…" He trailed off, taking a step closer, watching your reactions to see if you'd step away. And when you didn't he took your face in his hands, turning it up so your eyes would meet with his.

"I'm sorry," They were the only words that seemed to come out, the only words that would mean anything right now. You couldn't say much else, you couldn't go back, you could only make him forgive you before everything would go to shit. Before it was too late.

He didn't say anything else, his eyes holding so much love you thought you'd drown from just looking into them. When he moved, it was sudden, you didn't even get the change to catch your breath before his lips crashed into yours.

It wasn’t gentle, not even close. His lips moved against yours with a desperation you’d never felt before, his hands sliding from your face to thread into your hair, pulling you impossibly closer. It was like he was pouring every unspoken word, every ounce of his love, anger, and fear, into this one moment. There was no hesitation, no gentleness.

You couldn't stop yourself. Your body reacted before your mind could catch up, your hands gripping his shirt tightly as if letting go would make him disappear. He groaned into the kiss, a sound low and husky that sent a shiver down your spine. His lips parted against yours, his breath hot and ragged. You could feel the tremble in his hands, the way his breath hitched against your lips, like he was terrified this might be the last time he’d get to do this. And maybe it would be.

When his hands slid down your sides, his grip firm, your knees buckled. He caught you effortlessly, lifting you from your thighs as though you weighed nothing, causing you to gasp softly into his lips.

For a second, you thought he might slam you against the wall, let the weight of all that anger explode into something even more uncontrollable. But instead, he carried you with a steady stride and sat you down in a chair.

The open mouthed kiss broke for a moment, just long enough for you to draw in a shaky breath, your lips swollen and tingling. Your heart pounded as he hovered over you, he had never looked so irresistible before with his hair messy and that look in his eyes that made your core burn.

His eyes locked onto yours, the love and anger swirling together into something almost unbearable. “You have no idea how much you mean to me,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, trembling. “No idea how much it kills me to think I might lose you.”

Your heart pounded so hard you thought it might burst. You reached for him again, your fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him back to you. This time, the kiss was slower but no less desperate, a mixture of apology and promise, of everything you couldn’t find the words to say.

But then his hands moved again, and you felt the rough brush of rope against your wrist. You pulled back, blinking up at him in confusion, your chest rising and falling rapidly.

"Newt…" you started, your voice weak and breathless. But before you could even try to stand, he tied it quickly to the armrest of the chair.

"Don’t," he said, his voice low but firm, almost breaking. "Don’t make this harder than it has to be."

You snapped out of your haze then, tugging at your wrist, anger bubbling up inside you. "Newt, what the hell are you doing? Let me go right now!"

His hands didn’t falter, even as you fought against him. He moved quickly, tying your other wrist down, and then crouched to secure your ankles. You thrashed in the chair, rage filling every inch of your body. "Newt! Stop this right now! You can’t leave me here!"

"You’re not coming with us," he said, his voice strained but unyielding. His hands moved with purpose, tying the knots securely despite your struggles. "You can hate me for it if you want. I don’t bloody care."

"You can’t do this! Newt, please!" Your voice cracked as you tried to pull free, but he’d made sure you wouldn’t be able to. "I swear to God, if you leave me here—"

"You gave me this idea, you know." His voice wavered slightly, and he glanced up at you, his eyes full of something that looked heartbreakingly like regret. "Told me yourself the only way you’d stay was if someone tied you down. So here we are."

"Newt, no," you begged, your tone shifting to desperation. "Please don’t do this. I need to help. I can’t just stay here—"

"I’m not losing you!" he snapped, his voice louder then you’d ever heard it, making you freeze. He leaned closer, his face just inches from yours, his eyes blazing. "I won’t bloody lose you. Not to the Flare, not to WICKED, not to anything. Do you hear me? I can’t."

Tears pricked at your eyes, but you refused to let them fall. "You don’t get to make this choice for me," you spat, your voice trembling with rage.

"You made your choice when you kept this from me," he shot back, his words cutting deep. "Now it’s my turn." He stepped back, his hands still shaking as he tied the last knot. He stared at you for a long moment, his jaw clenched tightly. Then, softer, barely audible: "I love you too much to let you kill yourself for us. You’re staying here."

"Newt, please!" you screamed, thrashing against the ropes as he turned to leave. "Don’t do this! Don’t you dare walk out that door!"

But he didn’t look back. He was already gone. And with him, the rest of the group. The door slammed shut, leaving you alone, your screams echoing in the empty room. You struggled against the bindings until your wrists burned, but they wouldn’t budge.

You were furious—at him, at yourself, at the whole damn world. But beneath all that rage, buried so deep it hurt to admit, was the smallest flicker of something else. Love. Desperation. And a fear so raw you couldn’t breathe. Because you knew, as much as you hated him for it, that Newt had tied you up because he loved you. And you couldn’t hate him for that. Not really.

Your eyes slowly opened, a pounding headache ripped through your skull like an awful shock. You let out a groan when the person helped you sit up, but nothing about it was gentle.

"We have to go!" It was Minho's voice. You turned your eyes towards his large ones. Panic and still a little bit of anger was written over his face, you furrowed your brows. You knew why he was angry but why did he seem so scared.

"What-" He pulled you to your feet before you could finish your sentence, harshly shoving you towards the huts door. "Stop Minho just stop!" You yelled, pushing him away from you with the little bit of strength you could muster.

"We don't have time!"

"What are you talking about-" Loud screams made way towards your ears, screams of the boys you had spent months with. Confusion laced your face as you looked to the door you were only inches from.

"They're here," Minho whispered, your head snapped towards his as panic slowly crept into your blood.

"What do you mean?" You asked but Minho wasn't even paying you any mind as he slowly opened the door to the hut. You wanted to ask more questions about what the hell was going on, you wanted to yell at him for causing you to panic, but the look on his face made you keep your mouth shut.

"Fuck," his breathing was getting a little more heavy, he looked stressed but scared, and when his eyes connected with yours you knew he was feeling all that for you. He grabbed your arm harshly before opening the door and tugging you with him as he ran out.

Your eyes grew twice in size when you saw it, no, them. Dozens of them, each just as big and horrifying as that day in the maze. You thought for a second you had forgotten what they looked like but no, they wouldn't let any of you forget.

Your heart pounded with each step you took, praying to whatever was out there that they wouldn't turn your way. You felt yourself let out a cry when you saw one of the boys right in the same position you were in only a couple of days ago. He wasn't dead yet, but you knew that this time they wouldn't just sting you and then leave.

You screamed when the griever did what you knew it would, causing the boy to let out a gargled yell. You knew him, he was on of the builders who was close with Gally, the only one who was brave enough to stand up to him whenever he got angry.

"Y/N don't stop!" Minho yelled but you couldn't stop your legs from giving out, you couldn't rip your eyes from that boy, he was still alive, barely alive. Minho pulled your arm but you only took one step, you were crying, it felt as if you were going to have a panic attack, or you were already having it. Minho was yelling at you but you couldn't even hear him, all you could hear was all the screaming, all the death.

You felt warm hands grab your face, causing you to turn your eyes to his. He was panicked, same as you but for some reason he seemed to be handling this a lot better.

"You need to get yourself together Y/N. I know this is scary but you will end up like him if we stop," he was referring to the boy you only just ripped your gaze off of. "We can't stop moving do you understand me! Just keep your eyes on me." His tone frighten you, his eyes, his body language, everything about him in this moment scared you.

But nonetheless you nodded. Forcing yourself to move, forcing yourself to keep your eyes on him. You don't know why but you trusted him, even after everything you had just told him, you still trusted him more than you have ever trusted anyone before.

"Open the door!" Minho yelled when you both reached the map room. The door swung open and without hesitation Minho shoved you inside, closing the door behind him.

"Y/N shuck your okay," Newt breathed as he pulled you in for a hug, your eyes went straight for Minho's whose eyes were already on you two. Confusion filled every part of you. He hadn't told them? Why?

But you didn't have time to ask any questions before you all heard a low growl. Your heart launched at the familiar noise, every sense in your body becoming alive. Your eyes followed the noise of each step until it got quiet.

You breathed out as silently as you knew how, scared that it would be able to hear the slightest of sounds. Everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing for you had never heard it be as quiet. You yet out a small yelp when it jump onto the top of the hut, everyone crouched down the more it walked.

You felt hands on your back, your neck, they were bringing you closer to him. They were softer this time, not as harsh as before, making surprise run through you when you saw that it was Minho. His eyes were however glued to the roof with one hand gripping tight to a sward.

You didn't even have time to let out a sound when the griever broke though the roof, grabbing a stick that held up the ceiling causing it to crash down. Minho harshly moved you behind him.

His quick movements and protective hand placements made your heart race even more than the thought of a griever looming overhead. The remains from the collapsing ceiling filled the air with dust and noise, making it almost impossible to see or hear anything clearly. You clutched at Minho's arm, fear making its way into your head, what if this was the last time you would ever see him.

"Why didn't you tell them?" you managed to shout over the noise, your voice shaking with more than fear.

Minho glanced back at you, his expression torn between frustration and fear. "Not now!" he shouted back, pushing you further behind him as another section of the roof gave way, sending splinters flying in all directions.

You didn't even have time to respond when around you Newt and the others were scrambling, trying to find weapons or anything that could be used to fend off the griever that was now fully intent on invading the space.

As the griever ripped through the remaining pieces of the ceiling, all hell broke loose. It was like total chaos, with the griever going wild, it's multiple limbs flailing around as it desperately searched for someone to attack.

And in the midst of all the noise and confusion, there was poor Chuck, frozen in sheer terror. Before any of you could even react, the griever's limb shot out and grabbed hold of Chuck with terrifying accuracy.

Alby sprung into action without a moment's hesitation. Armed with a sturdy piece of broken wood, he relentlessly pounded the griever's limb with a determination you could practically feel. The creature recoiled slightly, loosening its grip on Chuck just enough for him to scramble away. But in that brave moment of distraction, the griever shifted its attention to Alby.

Once again, the grievers limb sprung out, grabbing Alby and pulling him closer to the opening in the ceiling. The sight of Alby being pulled further and further towards the griever sent a jolt of fear and guilt through your whole body.

Acting on instinct, you and Thomas grabbed hold of Alby's arms and legs, straining against the strength of the Griever. You could hear the others yelling, you could hear Minho yelling, telling you to get back and let go but you didn't even try to listen to him. The guilt that this was all your fault was eating you alive.

Alby's face twisted with pain as he shouted above the noise. "Thomas get them out! Now!" You wanted to shout or cry out, you wanted to wake up from this nightmare, you wanted to make everything go away, but you couldn't. And when Alby let go of both you and Thomas you couldn't help but yell.

Minho was quick to grab a hold of you, forcing you back and into his arms. Tears dripped down your face as you felt yourself give in to the overwhelming fear. This was all your fault, they were all in here because of you, you let them be in here. Why the hell would you do that? You couldn't think of one good reason.

You could see everyone begin to leave the hut, and soon Minho was pulling you out as well. He tried his best to calm you down but you couldn't think past the fear and the guilt. They were all gonna die. And it would all be your fault.

"It's going to be okay," you could hear Minho whisper, and it made you angry. Why the hell wasn't he angry with you, what the hell is wrong with him? After everything you've told him you would've expected him to be angry a lot longer than 10 minutes.

You pushed him away from you, not moving from the place you stood as everyone else moved away from the hut. Minho wasn't moving either, his eyes glued to yours. And for once you couldn't read them.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" you yelled. "Why didn't you tell anyone? Why aren't you hating me or throwing me towards the grievers? Why aren't you angry-"

"Oh believe me Y/N I am very angry but I don't have time to be angry. Look around you-"

"Exactly Minho! Look around you!"

"Y/N-"

"This is all my fault, alby is dead because of me, everyone is dead because of me!"

"Can-"

"And if you don't get away from me than you will be dead too-"

"I do hate you, Y/N, but not for the reasons you think!" His words cut through the air, sharp and steady despite the chaos still lingering around you both. "I hate that they sent you here without a choice, that you’re caught up in this without knowing why. I hate that the creators are playing these games with our lives!"

You flinched, the harshness of his words a clear difference to the gentle person you knew him to be. His hands fell from your shoulders as if he realized how hard he was holding you.

"I know you didn’t ask for any of this. I know you might not even know why you were sent down here," Minho continued, his voice now a mix of anger and desperation. "But you being a part of them, even without knowing, it changes everything."

You searched his face, looking for the Minho you knew beneath the layers of hurt, betrayal and anger. You didn't even know what to say but Minho didn't seem to be done.

"I hate that you're part of them, Y/N. I hate what they did to us, and I hate that you out of all people..." he stopped himself, his voice worn. His hands clenched at his sides, fists tight as if trying to grasp the anger and wring it out.

"But what kills me, what I can't stand the most, is that even with all of that, I can't stop caring about you." His voice broke slightly. "I’m so mad, not just with them, but with myself too. Because no matter how much I want to, I can’t push you away. I can’t stop loving you."

You could feel your heart drop at his words, your breathing becoming heavy as you looked into his eyes, you could see the resentment that you are tied to the creators in him. And you didn't know if he would be able to forgive you for that, even if his words tell you what you always wanted to hear. He stepped closer.

"Every part of me wants to hate you for being part of what’s ruining our lives, but then I see you, I remember who you really are, and all I feel is this... this overwhelming love."

He paused, his gaze locked on yours, searching for some kind of reaction. "It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to me. We're caught in this terrible place, and I don’t even know how to control my feelings anymore. But here’s the truth—I love you, Y/N. And that’s why I’m so angry. I’m angry because I don’t want anything to ruin what we have, not even the mess that we're in."

The raw honesty in his words caused you to let out a small cry, tears spilled down your face as you felt relief fill your body. Relief that he didn't hate you. You reached out, your hand brushing against his, you opened your mouth to say something but Minho suddenly closed the distance between you.

His hands found the sides of your face, pulling you suddenly into a passionate kiss. It was a harsh, desperate, his lips moving against yours with so much anger.

The kiss was heated, almost punishing, as if Minho was trying to communicate all his frustration and hurt through this kiss. His grip was tight, not willing to let you go, as if afraid that you might slip away. Your hands griped his hair, pulling him closer towards your body, and with this single act Minho deepened the kiss quickly.

As Minho's hands slid from your cheeks to tangle in your hair, the kiss grew more intense, more demanding. You clung to him, pulled into the centre of his needs, becoming eager for more. His body pressed closer, aligning with yours, each touch sparking a fire that threatened all rational thoughts.

Of course it had to be you, the only girl in the glade, the one who was the closest to Nick in the first place. Right after you it happened thought it was some sick joke, a joke the creators played on you. Because the Grievers never came out in the day, never. And the day Nick decided to come out to help, that was the day they came.

It made no sense. Nothing made sense anymore.

Alby was made the new first in command only a couple of hours ago, you felt like you weren't even there when everyone was talking, you don't even remember what anyone said. All you remember was Minho bringing you in, and then walking you out again.

You honestly didn't care who the first in command was, all you wanted was for the pain to go away, the memories, his face, his screams. It was all you could hear, all you could see. And nothing you did washed it away.

It was your fault no one knew what happened that day, they all asked but you just couldn't talk about it without crying. And you were getting sick of everyone asking, getting sick of everyone looking at you as if you were some dying lamb.

You knew you had to tell them about it, and they all asked with care but it didn't matter. So when the keepers called a meeting and they brought you in you knew that it was for one reason.

"Y/N." The voice came from Newt, soft and calm. You looked towards him, the buzzing in your ears finally softening to where you could hear what was being said. "Did you hear me?"

"No," Your voice was quiet, soft, softer than it has ever been before. But you didn't care about how our voice sounded. And it seemed, you didn't care for much else either.

He gave you a small smile before taking a chair from the wall and bringing it in front of you, sitting down. Your eyes stayed on him, waiting for his questions, waiting for his words.

"Look I know this is hard to talk about, but you need to talk about it in order to get past it and start running again." Fear shot through your whole body like lighting, causing you to jerk up from your seat. Everyone in the rooms eyes shot towards you, as if waiting for you to break right in front of them.

"Start running again?" You whispered. It was question, a question you didn't want answered. For you knew your answer already. And you didn't know if you'd be able to go back in there.

Newts brows furrowed, his eyes shifting towards Minho and Ably who were seated on either side of you. The buzzing came back and in an instant you were right back in those walls, your eyes connecting with Nicks as the Grievers body hovered over him. Blood splattered on the walls, the ground, and all over the Grievers stomach. He was still alive. But not for long.

He was shouting your name, telling you to run, to save yourself. But you were stuck in place, just like that day. Unable to move no matter how hard you tried. Or wanted to.

"Hey." You blinked, your eyes adjusting to the new found light, you weren't in the maze. And that voice wasn't Nicks, it was Minho, who was grabbing your face and turning it towards his. He was speaking but you didn't know what he was saying, he looked so worried, and you wanted to tell his it was okay. But it wasn't.

Shivers ran up your arms when he brushed away your tears with his thumbs. Your brows furrowed at the feeling. You hadn't felt anything since that day, you hadn't felt alive or normal but Minho. Minho was making you feel as if your body was trying to come back alive.

"Please help us help you." You heard him say, his voice so soft. Your eyes connected to his, an overwhelming sense of grief hitting you all at once.

You had to get away from them. They were making it all come back, and you weren't ready to face it yet. You didn't think you would actually ever be ready.

"I'm sorry." You whispered, tears slipping down your cheeks, and your voice creaking as you stood up. Minho's hands dropped but he was quick to stand up. "I want to tell you all, I really do but I c-can't" You looked towards the rest who all had the same expressions on their faces.

"Y/N I know it'll be hard but we want to help you." It was Gally this time, his tall frame coming into view. "And none of us will be able to move on until we know what happened," He was right, you knew he was right but it didn't matter how much you wanted to tell them, the words just wouldn't leave your lips.

You looked up at him the closer he got, he looked worried like the rest of them, but they were suffocating you, this room was suffocating, and you just had to get out. Get away.

You pushed past him, and ran for the door. You could hear them yell for you but you just blocked it out. The wind hit your face, causing your hair to roll off your shoulders, your tears were spilling faster, and your breathing was getting heavier.

You didn't know where you were running, all you knew was that it had to be away from them. Your eyes shifted to the giant walls, to the openings, you could see the entrance of the maze, you could see the ivy, the darkness.

Your breath left your body complety when you saw a shadow, a figure moving in the darkness. You stopped running, trying to catch your breath as you wiped your tears away with the back of your hand. But it was like you couldn't catch your breath, you were trying to but it was as if all the air had been sucked out, leaving you with nothing.

Cold fear ran through you the more you looked, the more you thought of what the shadow really was. You took a step closer, your eyes trying to see it clearly, but it was too far away. But if it was what you were thinking, why the hell was it so close to the glade.

You looked back at the hut you just ran from, your mind going to him. Nick, he might have been tough and had rough edges but he was the sweets soul in here, who cared for everyone, who loved everyone. He always had hope that you'd all get out, and now. Now he will never know what freedom looks like.

And it was all that Grievers fault.

A cry escaped your lips when a loud rumble sounded throughout the glade, meaning the walls were closing. Your eyes shifted back towards the wall, your breathing coming in and out fast when the shadow seemed to come closer and closer.

"Nick." You whispered out, a hand coming to your mouth when his blurred figure came into view. He was running, or trying to run, his hand covering his stomach. He was looking back every so often, as if something were behind him. "Nick!"

You were yelling this time, you didn't even remember when your feet had started moving, or when you started running so fast. But you weren't stopping yourself, your eyes wouldn't leave Nick the closer you got, but it also seemed that the closer you were getting the farther away he was to the opening.

Your cries were getting heaver as the walls started getting closer and closer. You didn't know if you'd be able to make it in time, you were too far, he was too far. Your brain didn't seem to be making sense, you remember him, laying on the maze floor, you remember dragging him back to the glade.

But it feels like you are under water, and you need to get air, the air that has been taken away from you since the day you left him to die. This is your chance, chance to make it right, to save him like you should've done the first time. And to tell him that you will do everything in your power to get everyone out. Including him.

"Nick!" You yelled again, you were almost there. But he was getting slower, the greaver was getting closer, you could see the blood that was dripping down his hands, his arms, his neck and mouth. There was so much blood, too much blood. But you were so close.

You could hear something, it sounded like yelling, but it wasn't coming from Nick. It was coming from behind you. You were about to turn to see who it was but Nick fell to the ground, you screamed out, yelling, screaming at him to get up. But he didn't.

Instead he looked behind him, to the Griever that was just coming closer and closer. He tried backing away but he was too weak, and to slow. But you were right there, you would be able to make it. You could save him. You could make it right. Relief filled your body. Just one more step, and it would all go away. All the pain, the memories.

Someone grabbed your waist, no. They tackled you to the ground, your breath left your body as you made impact, and someone landed on top of you. You let out a yell as you tried to get whoever it was off of you but you couldn't.

Your eyes snapped to the walls that were beside you, it was still open, but it wouldn't be for long. You could see Nick, the griever was hovering over him, you could still save him. You could still save him.

Your attention get taken when your arms got pinned to the grass beneath you. You looked up. Your eyes adjusting to see Minho. His face was covered with worry and fear. You had never seen him scared before. But you didn't care about him, you cared about Nick, who was still in the maze, why would he stop you. Why wouldn't he help you when he is much faster, and stronger. What is wrong with him.

"Get off!" You yelled, trying to get your arms free but he wasn't letting up.

"What the hell are you trying to do! Kill yourself!" he yelled, he was angry, so so angry. It should have scared you. But it didn't. Instead you ignored it, your eyes shifting to the maze again. You could still help him.

In a desperate move you kneed him, causing him to let out a groan but he went stiff and let you go. You got to your feet in a hurry, making a leep for the maze but Minho's hands wrapped around your feet, causing you to hit the ground with a thud. You kicked at him, but he wouldn't let go.

"Stop it Minho!" You yelled, trying to crawl your way to Nick. Tears blurred your vison, so much to the point where you couldn't see what was happening to Nick. "Please! I have to save him! I have to make it right!"

"What the hell are you talking about!" He pulled you closer to him, your hands went out, grabbing into the dirt. Trying to get away from him but he was far too strong. Instead he pulled you closer, his arms warped around your torso as your back was leaned against his chest.

"Please!" You cried, your arms reached out as the doors finally shut. His face was buried in your neck and you could hear his heavy breathing. "No!" You tried to get away again but he wouldn't let you go.

"Please stop." He was calmer now.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" You yelled. "I could have saved him! I could have stopped this fucking pain! These fucking nightmares-"

"What are you talking about!" His arms around you loosened, and you boked at the chance. Getting out of his grip in a second and hurrying to get on your own two feet as you ran to the closed wall. "Are you fucking crazy! Killing yourself won't salve anything!" You spun around at his response, your brows furrowed but you were still burning with anger.

"What?"

"How the hell are you so selfish? You didn't even think about the people who love you! How do you think I'll ever get over you huh!"

"What are you talking about?" You yelled over him, taking a step closer. Your breath hitched when you saw how his eyes were filled with tears, his hands were shaking, and his nose. It was bleeding.

"How could you?"

"How could you! You saw him and you are far faster than me! You could have saved him! Or you could have let me!" He furrowed his brows, his eyes going to the closed doors before he looked back towards you.

"Who are you talking about?"

"Nick." He looked sick, his breathing coming out slowly and something in his eyes changed, as if something in his head clicked.

"Y/N," He said your name carefully, and he took a slow step closer. "Nick is gone, he is not in the maze," You furrowed your brows, shaking your head as you tried to explain how you just saw him. But Minho's sad eyes made you stop yourself from trying.

Your eyes burned with fresh tears as you heaved in a deep breath. You just saw him. He was right there. Right in front of your eyes. But then a light went off in your head, and everything came flooding back, hitting you like punch to the face.

A cry left your lips as your shoulders fell. Minho's arms warped around your smaller form, pulling you into him. He was saying something but you couldn't hear what he said, all you could hear was that same buzzing, and your whole world crashing down.

It wasn't real? How is that even possible? Were you going crazy? Your chest hurt whenever you took a breath in, your eyes burned whenever more tears spilled, and your whole body felt tired.

"I can't do this alone anymore." You whispered, letting yourself fall completely into Minho.

"I know." his tone was soothing, one hand was on the back of your head, while the other held your waist. And you had never felt so at peace before.

The world felt as if it were spinning- no coming to a complete stop. Time felt as if it wasn't a thing. You stood there like a complete idiot with a knife to your throat as you looked at the man you had come to love other the past three years. Millions of thoughts were coming to your head as everyone around you was yelling, you couldn't hear a word anyone was saying all you could hear were the thoughts running trough your head.

Did he even love you? If he did, wouldn't he give anything to be with you, give anything to have a normal life with you outside of this damn Glade. You knew the reasons for this, he was scared, so scared that everything else was blurred and blocked out. His feelings for you didn't feel as strong when the fear was much stronger. And at this moment you wanted to hate him, you wanted to yell and scream at him to just listen to everyone. Listen to you. But he wouldn't and everyone including yourself knew this.

Your eyes were filled with tears, your heart was going so fast you thought it would rip out of your chest completely and you felt as if the world was ending. You didn't think you'd ever feel so bad in your life, the feeling was far worse than fear, it was far worse than the many panic attacks you've had over the years, it was much worse than millions of stabs, you'd even prefer the stabs, you'd prefer the panic attacks. For anything was better than this.

The moment his eyes connected with yours you knew you would never see him again, you knew he was gone, he was already a dead man. And even the thought of leaving him behind made you want to throw up. The thought of begging him to come with you came across your mind many times but you knew better than to beg a dead man to leave his graveyard.

His hard eyes softened when he saw the pain in your eyes, he knew you wanted to go with them, he knew you wanted him to go with you, he knew it all. But he couldn't see past that damn fear.

"Let her go," His voice came out soft, softer than anything you've ever heard coming from his lips. Your eyes didn't leave his, not even when you felt the knife slowly drop from your throat. And before you could stop yourself you ran up to Gally, your shaking hands grabbing his neck and pulling his face down to meet yours.

His lips collided with yours and he didn't stop you, instead he dropped his knife and pulled you in closer, kissing you back with so much passion you thought that maybe this would change his mind, you thought for sure he loved you. But this kiss was a goodbye and you both knew this.

You gripped his hair tighter, going onto your toes to get more acses to him making his grip on your waist tight, so tight it hurt, but you didn't care. The hurt was nothing compared to what you felt in your heart. You wanted nothing more than to be in his arms for the rest of your life, and if you would've known that the last time you'd ever see him smile or laugh was that night you wouldn't have ever looked away.

You pulled away from him, your head leaning on his as he gazed into your eyes. Neither of you said anything, for you both already knew what the other wanted to say. You knew you'd never find another like Gally, and you never wanted to ever try to find someone to replace him. He was the one for you, and now. Now you had to leave him here to die. You were in a nightmare and you were just waiting until the morning came so that you could run back into his arms and everything would be fine again. But that was just a dream at this point. A dream you'd never be able to reach.

You felt cold the second you stepped away from his warm embrace. It took everything in you to keep on moving forward, you didn't even dare to look back. You felt a warm hard on your back right as you rejoined the group of teenagers leaving the Glade.

"It'll be okay," Newt whispered as he wiped your wet face.

The rest of it all came in a blur, you barely remember anything from running in the maze to running from Grievers. And soon you were in a room with dead bodies scattered all over, most due to gun shots. You remembered a video and then your world crashed and crumbed right in front of your eyes.

You remember screams and cries, all coming from you. You remember being pulled away from the only dead body you never wanted to see dead, you remember feeling numb. You remember his face, his eyes. They looked as cold and empty as you felt.

~~~

As the months went on you wished you had never left the Glade in the first place, for the world was nothing any of you expected, it was dark, and dead. Everywhere you looked you saw more and more death, you saw how survival was all anyone ever thought about anymore, your small group seemed to be the only ones who cared about friendship and loyalty.

You were surprised you lasted as long as you did without dying, or without getting the flare but in all honesty it was due to your group, you all saved each other over and over, never leaving anyone behind. So when Minho got captured each and everyone of you wanted to go back fro him, and thats exactly what you did.

You got shoved to the side by Newt as a truck passes by, yours eyes follow it when you see there were about five men sat on top all wearing masks. You start to feel a little uneasy when one of the men doesn't look away from you, his head moving to the side as the truck moves further along the road.

You snap your head back to Newt when he starts walking forward, your eyes roam around, seeing so many people in one spot was rare nowadays and you knew this wouldn't end well, WIKD would never allow it get like this and soon they would put a stop to it.

You saw how Thomas walked ahead of all of you, ignoring Jorge when he tried to stop him, you knew this wasn't the best way to get Minho back but none of you had a better plan so you kept on walking, ignoring the strange feeling in your chest that told you something bad was going to happen.

You looked behind you only to see that same man who you saw on the truck, his eyes were covered by the mask so you didn't know weather or not he was even looking at you, but either or it didn't feel right. Something about him made you feel uneasy, maybe it was his height, he towered over everyone it seemed like, and he had a really good build. He was intimating, and the mask made it worse.

Newt seemed to see this too, he pointed another one out to you, and this made the both of you move faster towards the rest of your group. And before you even realized you were all running again with bombs crashing into the ground all around you.

As you were running you saw someone behind you, you didn't think much of it for everyone was trying to get out before being killed but than you felt strong arms warp around your waist and before you could get out of their grasp they pulled you up.

You screamed and tried hitting the man but he was far too strong. Your wide and worried eyes searched for your friends but you didn't see them anywhere, making fear creep into your body. You turned your head to see it was the same masked man you saw on the truck, his eyes were looking stright ahead and before you knew it you were shoved into a van, hitting the floor with a grunt.

You quickly moved to the back wall when the man got in with you. You looked at them with fear laced in your eyes, there were about three men all in masks and just staring at you. Your breath was coming in and out fast, you looked around trying to see if there was a way out but you knew if you tried they would probably shot you dead.

You jumped when the door slid open but relaxed a little when they threw Thomas in. He was yelling at the man but his yells came to deaf ears when the man shut the door in his face, he turned around, his eyes finding your causing him to relax a little.

You both jerked when the Van started moving, and you tried your best to not freak out. What if they were with Wicked? All kinds of horrible thoughts came to mind but they all vanished when the Van stoped.

Thomas tried to fight off the men when they grabbed him and pulled him out. But due to his fighting they just threw him to the ground. You on the other hand, got out of the van by yourself, your eyes glaring daggers at the man who reached to get you out. But by the look you gave him, he backed away from you.

You ripped your gaze off his, the further you walked the more men you saw, all wearing masks, all carrying weapons, all looking like they could kill you without a single thought, or a single care. Thankfully you saw everyone you came here with, but they were all standing in front of the men, this could very well be your end. And Minho would rot in wicked for who knows how long.

Your heart picked up in pace when a man started talking, his voice was deep but it sounded way too familiar. He was the same man you've been seeing since you got in the city, there was something different about him, but you didn't know what exactly it was.

You could feel Thomas getting impatient the more the man spoke. You cursed to yourself when he finally had enough, pushing the man who was behind him and stepping forward. "What do you mean same side! Who the hell are you?"

Everyone went dead silent, and you could feel yourself holding your breath, waiting for the man to give some kind of reaction, a reaction none of you wanted. But he was quiet for far too long. You furrowed your brows when he turned his head, grabbing his mask with his free hand and pulling it over his head. He looked at the ground for maybe 5 second before turning his head to you all.

Your heart dropped to the ground, the air around you felt thick, and you could feel yourself having trouble breathing. Tears came to your eyes in an instant and every sound around you turned off, all you could hear was a faint buzzing and your pounding heart in your chest.

His eyes connected with yours so fast you thought you had gotten whiplash, you could feel everyones eyes on you, not just Gally's and it was making you feel suffocated. You didn't know what to do, or what to feel. You wanted to cry, yell and scream all at the same time, you wanted to run into his arms and hug him until you died but at the same time you wanted to hit him over and over again for the way he hurt you, and make you leave without him.

But before you could even take a step Thomas lunged forward, hitting Gally straight in the face, hard. So hard Gally fell to the ground with Thomas right on top of him. You wanted to move, run towards them and stop Thomas from hurting him but you couldn't move, no matter how hard you tried too.

Thankfully Newt did it for you, running towards the two boys, he fell beside Thomas, grabbing his hand, stopping him from going further. You could see their lips moving but you didn't know what they were saying, you felt as if you were in a dream, floating out of your body, it didn't feel real. Nothing felt real.

Thomas got off him fast, but you could see he was dripping with anger, anger you were slowly starting to feel. Gally got up and off the ground, moving his jaw with his hand before he eyes you again. His gaze softened, his voice dropped in pitch and he looked almost scared.

"Y/N?" Everyone turned to you again, but you didn't even see anyone, all you could see was red as you looked at the boy who was supposed to love you enough to leave with you. But he was a coward then he defiantly was one now.

And before you could stop yourself you moved forward, it all happened so fast as you grabbed the gun for the man behind you, he tried to stop you but you kicked him in the crouch casuing him to fall to the ground.

With the gun in your hands and adrenaline coursing through your veins, you tightened your grip on the firearm, your knuckles white with tension as moved towards Gally who didn't move from where he stood before. He held his head high, his eyes becoming glazed, but he clenched his jaw waiting for you to do what you wanted.

You could hear yelling from everyone behind you, but it was too late. Without a moment's hesitation, you swung the gun, hitting him hard across the temple with the back of the weapon. A sickening thud echoed through the air as the force of the blow sent him reeling backward. His eyes widened in shock, then dulled with pain as he crumpled to the floor.

It fell silent, except for your heavy breaths. You stood over him, chest heaving. The weight of what you had just done settled on your shoulders, but you pushed it away, the anger still seeping in your veins when he looked up at you, his nose bleeding.

You didn't know what was going on around you but whatever it was it died down when Gally raised his hand, telling them it was okay. His breathing came in and out harshly, his eyes connected with yours and the same softness still visible.

"You piece of shit," You breathed out, your voice dripping with hurt and rage. "You shouldn't have come back," Tears filled your vision as you remembered what he did, and how he made you feel. You had woken up screaming and crying because of him, and thinking you saw him die right in your arms. But he wasn't dead, and it was messing with your head, he was messing with your head.

"I'm so sorry Y/N," You let out a small cry at the sound of his voice, or the way your name rolled off his tongue. You didn't think you would ever hear him say your name again, and it caused your heart to physically hurt. Your breathing was getting faster and faster the more you let yourself feel the pain, you felt yourself give in slowly.

Tears slipped down your cheeks and you took a step away from him, dropping the gun on the ground in front of you. Gally didn't even waist a second, his eyes connecting with yours as he got up and off the ground, and making his way towards your form.

You gasped when he grabbed you and pulled you into his warm arms. And as he wrapped his arms around you, he could feel you trembling against him, your body shaking with the weight of all the emotions coursing through you. He held you close, his hug a shelter from the storm of doubt and fear.

Your arms wrapped tightly around his neck, fingers clutching at the fabric of his uniform as if afraid he might slip away once more. He could feel the dampness of your tears soaking into his shirt.

In that moment, nothing else mattered. Not the passing of time, nor the trials you had faced while you were apart. All that mattered in this moment was the warmth of your bodies pressed together, the rhythm of your hearts beating as one.

And as you held each other, lost in the sweet embrace of reunion, the world faded away around you, leaving only the echo of your love reverberating through the empty spaces between you. It was a moment frozen in time, a testament to the enduring power of your connection, and a promise of the future you would build together, one tender embrace at a time.

It was late, the sun was slowly starting to set, and still the boys weren’t back. At first you thought they were just late, sometimes it happened, where they just lost track of time, most of the time when they found something or when they get lost.

But they have never been this late before. And to make matters worse, your leader Alby was in there also. And everyone knew that if the doors closed with Minho and Ably inside, you would all be screwed.

So when the rain had stopped pouring, you along with every other glader stood at the entrance of the maze, watching, waiting. You bounced on your heels anxiously, your eyes trying to peer around the corridors for a shadow, a glimpse of life. But nothing.

It was getting darker, the doors would close any minute now, and you felt sick to your stomach. You hadn't felt like this since they banished Ben, and if you had to lose Minho too, you wouldn't even want to live anymore.

And if you were being completely honest with yourself, you always had something more than friendship for Minho. You two weren't as close as you would've liked to be, you've talked to him before but that was just because of Ben or Newt. Other then that you two never spoke, he didn't even seem to notice you, always looking somewhere else when you'd speak to him and just act cold towards you.

Which you never understood. You had come up only four months after Minho did, and right at the beginning he acted as if you were a burden to the whole glade. You knew straight away it was because you were a girl but you never called him out about it because you were also a little scared of him. Minho was a big guy, bigger than any boy in the glade. And you knew of his sarcastic banter but he never showed that to you, all you got was the cold shoulder and the blank stares.

But you couldn't help but fall for him, he might have so many bad traits, such as being cold towards you, never paying you any mind or maybe because he acted as if you were some child who everyone always had to look after. But the good ones overtook the bad, he seemed caring to his friends, funny, determined, always thinking of finding a way to get everyone out. He put his life on the line for everyone, and that was something that took a lot of amount of courage and will power.

You admired him, from afar of course. You wanted to have the determination he did, you wanted to be able to wake up every morning with a set mind and heart.

"What if they don't make it?" You heard the new greenie say, his words snapping you back to reality, the reality that this was actually happening, that they might not make it. And that you will never be able to tell Minho how you really felt for him. But you knew he wouldn't even care if you did.

"They're gonna make it." Newt replied, his eyes boring into the maze, searching, hoping. Like you all were. You could feel tears welling up in your eyes as you heart began to race. It was happening, you were letting your panic slowly take over. And you didn't know if you'd be able to stop it now.

You could feel your hands begin to shake. They just can't die, they can't. You could feel a warm hand on your back, it was Newts. He knew of your feelings for his friend, and you knew he was trying to reassure you but it did little to no help.

You felt your heart drop to the pit of your stomach when you heard that all to familiar sound, followed with the ground rumbling and soon the wind blew back your hair. Finally you let your tears slip when the walls slowly started to grind together.

But then.

"Over there!" Chuck yelled, his finger pointing at the two figures who staggered past the corner, reaching into everyones line of sight. Everyone went dead silent as they all tired to figure out why Minho was moving so slow.

"Somethings wrong," Someone, you didn't know who said. Your eyes widened when you saw Alby slouched over Minho's shoulders, unconscious or maybe even dead. It was taking everything in you to try and keep yourself from screaming his name, yelling at him to hurry the hell up. But you just couldn't keep your mouth shut.

"Come on Minho you can make it!" You were the first to break the silence, yelling as loud as you could and soon everyone else erupted into yells and screams at Minho. You couldn't even hear your own voice over all the noise, but you didn't care.

Dread filled your entire body when he dropped Alby to the ground, but he didn't just leave him like Gally was yelling at him to do, instead he grabbed his legs and started dragging him towards you all.

You stopped your screams, and everything around you seemed to go silent, like background noise. Your breathing was just picking up in pace and your whole body shook with fear. Everyone around you knew he wasn't going to make it, not if he moved as slow as he was. And everyone also knew he would never leave a man behind.

Absent tears slipped from your eyes as you stared at the scene in front of your eyes. Minho looked so tired, but still he dragged Alby as fast as he could, and the closer the walls got to each other the more he seemed to panic. Sweat dripped off his arms, his face and his muscles bulged through his shirt as he dragged Alby.

The more tired he got the slower he became. You could see him slowing down, everyone could. You could feel yourself on the furge of a panic attack, everything was happening too fast but he was moving so slow.

Minho let out a panic yell as he tried to will himself to move faster, but he was just too far away. Your eyes shifted to the walls as a thought came to your head, a stupid thought, a really really stupid thought. One that you didn't let yourself rethink.

"Y/N NO!" Newt yelled right as your feet stepped between the two walls. You kept your eyes forward and your panic at bey as you ran with everything in you to the other side. The side no one wanted to be on, the side that would most likely lead to your death. But that was the last thing on your mind. The only thing you could think about was the boy who you loved, and not letting him die out here alone.

You barely made it to the other side alive, having to push yourself out as the walls closed with a crash behind you. You didn't even have time to think about what you did before Minho came charging at you. His face full of anger, disbelief and fear.

"Y/N what the hell did you do!" He yelled, his eyes wide as he grabbed your arm, pulling you harshly towards him. Your heart raced with adrenaline as you stared back into his eyes. "You just killed yourself! What the hell is wrong with you!"

"I couldn't just let you die!" You yelled back, ripping your arm away from his tight grasp. He seemed taken a back by your tone but he regained himself quickly.

"And what? That means you just kill yourself too! What do you think you'll do that will save me? Save us? You know nothing about the maze!" He was so close to you, his tone scared you more than you wanted to let him know, and his words just made it a whole lot worse. You darted your gaze to the ground as they filled with tears.

"Crying isn't going to help us." He might have wanted it to come out harsher but his tone softened. He was right, you didn't know two things about the maze, or how to be a good runner, but that didn't matter, you weren't about to let him die, even if that meant to kill yourself too.

You turned your eyes up into his. "You're right." You wiped your face with the back of your hand as you took a step away from him, which caught Minho's attention immediately, his eyes following your smaller form. "I don't know a thing about the maze, and I might have just walked into my own death, but I wasn't going to let you die alone,"

He didn't say anything, his eyes just staring into yours. And this was the first time he didn't seem cold towards you, the first time his eyes weren't empty as he looked into yours. It made your stomach fill with butterflies, which was so stupid in the situation you were in.

"You don't deserve to die like this Y/N," His words caught you off guard, and for some odd reason made tears well up in your eyes again. You sucked in a deep breath as you turned away, your gaze darting towards Alby, who was limp on the ground.

"We should hide him somewhere," You said, already moving to kneel beside Alby. Your hand brushed over his face, and your heart dropped a little when you saw the gash on his head. But you didn't mention it, knowing why he had done it in the first place.

Minho didn't say a word as he took him by the arm, slinging on over his shoulder. Not knowing what else to do you followed suit, your knees almost bucking with his weight. But you just willed yourself to move even if he was heavy.

After maybe 5 minutes of walking around Minho dropped his side causing you to almost fall over as all of Alby's weight fell on you. Having no other choice you dropped him as gently as you could by the nearby wall.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" You breathed out in annoyance, getting up on your feet as you tired to regain your raged breathing. Minho turned towards you, his eyes hardening but you cut in before he got the chance to speck. "We can't just leave him here. He'll die. We have to put him somewhere. Or hide him-"

"Where?" He interrupted, his voice full of frustration and panic. You had never seen Minho panic before and while you understood you were also getting annoyed with him. He's supposed to be the Keeper of the runners and here he is not using his head and instead using his panic.

"I don't know." Your own voice matching his. Your eyes shifted around, trying to find somewhere out of sight. But he should be the one to know the maze better than anyone, or so you've been told. "You're supposed to know everything about the maze. Isn't there one place you can think of to hide him-" He let out a frustrated groan before he grabbed your waist, pinning you to the wall.

"You don't fucking get it! Take a look around, we're trapped and we aren't getting out of this alive!" Your breathing was fast from the shock and the truth to his words. His face was close to yours, his hands were warm which made shivers run up your spine.

"With an attitude like that, yeah no klunk we're dead!" You pushed him away from you with slightly shaking hands. "Be the shucking keeper Minho!" You yelled. "And lead me."

"You are a shucking builder Y/N! How the hell am I-" A horrifying cry rang through your ears, shutting both you and Minho's mouths as your eyes shifted behind Minho. You couldn't see anything but you knew what you heard and you did not want to meat the creature that made that terrible sound.

"Okay okay, it doesn't matter Minho. We just need to hide him," You were panicking, you could feel the rise in your stomach and your throat. But you had to keep it down, this was the worst place to have a full panic attack, and the wrong person to have it in front. "What about underneath?"

Minho looked to what you were pointing at, which was under the ivy at the bottom of the wall. "Okay okay but hurry, the walls are already changing."

For the next ten minutes you and Minho got Alby safely under the ivy, you didn't know if it would work but you prayed to whoever was out there that it would. You didn't even notice when Minho had stopped helping you, all your mind was focused on was making sure that Alby was safe to leave.

"We gotta go!"

"What?"

"We gotta go!" You felt Minho grab your arms, pulling you up onto your feet. Your eyes darted behind you as Minho dragged you forward, and thats when you saw it.

Your breath caught in your throat as you laid eyes on it for the first time. The thing everyone in the glade feared, the thing no one has ever seen and lived to tell the tale. It was unlike anything you'd ever seen—half-machine, half-monster, with twisted limbs. It's movements jerky and unnatural. Panic rushed into your body like lighting and thats when everything started to feel real. That you might actually not make it out alive.

You could feel your body turn stiff, and your blood turn cold. You thought for a second you were going to throw up, cry or scream. Maybe all of them and Minho sensed it immediately.

"Y/N Y/N no no no." Minho tried pulling you with him but your feet refused to move as you watched the griever turn into another corridor. "Don't do this now. We have to go!"

"I can't do this Minho!" You felt tears burn in your eyes, your breathing was ragged and heavy, and you were starting to see spots. "I can't-"

"Yes you can!"

"No I-"

"Listen to me!" He turned you around to face him, his hands cupping your face harshly, causing your eyes to connect with his. "Look I don't know if you're brave or just brain dead for running in here, but you did okay? So don't panic now, in-fact you aren't allowed to panic now. You have to learn to control it," Minho said, his voice low and dangerous. "Because if you can't, you'll get us both killed. So shove it down you got that. Shove. It. Down."

You nodded into his hands, your mouth trembling and the tears slipping down your face. You were about to wipe them away but Minho did it for you. You would have questioned it but you were far too scared to even think about anything other than death.

"Y/N, we need to run!" Minho shouted, his voice tinged with panic as his eyes widen, looking behind you. Your heart dropped to the ground as you heard it's dreadful scream and mechanical run but this time you didn't wait for Minho to drag you along. Instead you broke into a sprint, hot on Minho's heels.

The Griever's mechanical legs clattered against the ground as it raced after you two. You could hear its heavy breaths echoing behind you, driving you forward with a surge of adrenaline fueled fear.

"We can't outrun it," You panted, your voice strained with exertion as you darted around a corner, narrowly avoiding the Griever's grasp.

Your heart sank as you realized you were trapped, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. But giving up was not also not an option—not when your life, and were at risk. And not when Minho still didn't know your true feelings.

With a desperate burst of energy, you pushed forward, dodging the Griever's relentless attacks with quick reflexes and determination. Every step felt like a battle against death itself, but you refused to surrender.

Your legs burned, your lungs screamed for air, and yet the Griever remained hot on your heels. As exhaustion threatened to consume you, you felt your pace slowing, your steps faltering with each passing moment.

You swallowed hard, your throat dry. The relentless pace was wearing you down, both physically and mentally. The maze seemed to stretch on endlessly, its walls looming ominously overhead.

"We can't stop!" Minho's voice pierced through the darkness, sharp with frustration.

But despite his harsh words, you struggled to keep up, your muscles aching with every step. As you rounded yet another corner, you stumbled, nearly falling to the ground.

"I-I can't," you gasped, your voice barely above a whisper as you fought to catch your breath.

Minho's patience snapped, his frustration boiling over as he turned to face you, his expression a mix of anger and desperation.

"Dammit, Y/N!" he barked, his voice laced with frustration. "Get it together! Do you think the Grievers care if you're tired?" Minho snapped, his tone harsh. "Do you think they'll show you mercy because you can't keep up? No. They'll tear you apart without a second thought. We need to keep moving, or we're dead."

His words struck you like a blow, the harsh reality of your situation sinking in with chilling clarity. Despite the fear and exhaustion, you forced yourself to push through.

"Come on we can lose it down here! The walls are changing, closing! Keep moving, Y/N!"

Heart pounding, you glanced back to see the Griever's glowing eyes fixated on you, its mechanical limbs clattering against the stone floor as it got closer. With a surge of adrenaline, you broke into a sprint. As you ran, Minho's voice became a distant roar.

But then, a plan formed in your mind—a reckless, desperate plan. With a quick glance back, you veered off course, leading the Griever away from Minho's path.

"Come on, you ugly piece of scrap!" you taunted as you drew the Griever's attention to yourself.

Behind you, Minho's voice rose in panic, his yells desperate for you to turn back. But you ignored him.

As you ran, the walls of the maze began to shift and close in around you, sealing off your escape. With the Griever hot on your heels, you pushed yourself, every muscle burning.

And then, with a surge of determination, you made a leap, narrowly avoiding the closing walls as you launched yourself into the narrow gap.

With a sickening crunch, the Griever collided with the closing walls, its mechanical form crushed between the shifting stone. A triumphant roar echoed through the maze as you emerged on the other side, breathless and exhilarated, the sound of the Griever ringing in your ears.

As you caught your breath, Minho's voice reached you, sharp with a mix of anger and disbelief. "What the hell were you thinking, Y/N?" he barked, his tone harsh. "You could have gotten yourself killed!"

Your chest heaved, but you squared your shoulders, refusing to back down. "I did what I had to do," you retorted, your voice tinged with defiance. "We needed to stop that Griever, and I wasn't about to wait around for it to catch up to us. You're not the only one capable of making tough decisions, Minho."

Minho's eyes flashed with fury at your retort, his jaw clenched with suppressed rage. "You don't get it, do you?" he growled, his voice dripping with frustration.

"What don't I get?" you challenged, your own anger flaring as you met his gaze head-on. "Why do you suddenly act like you care huh? Back in the glade you've always acted as if you don't want me around."

Before you could even take a breath Minho was in front of you, with a harsh tug, he pulled you close, his eyes blazing with intensity as he stared into yours.

"Don't you dare say that," he snapped, his voice low and dangerous. "You don't think I care?"

Before you could form a response, Minho closed the distance between you, his lips crashing against yours in a bruising kiss. The anger and frustration melted away in an instant.

Caught off guard by his sudden change in demeanor, you found yourself melting into his embrace, your hands tangling in his hair as you deepened the kiss. In that moment, nothing else mattered—there was only Minho and the electrifying connection between you.

As you lost yourself in the heat of the moment, you couldn't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, there was more to Minho's harsh exterior than met the eye. And as you and Minho surrendered to the intoxicating pull of desire, you knew that despite the challenges that lay ahead, you would face them together.

The further Jacob drove from Emilys the more the pit in your stomach grew, the more you felt a sense of loneliness and incompletion. And if you were being completely honest you were freaking out. You tried to keep your mind off of it but it was only making you think about it more, your hands were fiddling with anything you found in the truck and your heartbeat was getting faster and faster.

Jacob was trying his best to keep you calm while also keeping himself calm as Bella kept asking if you were okay, but this led to both of them talking over each other and soon Bella started getting mad. After maybe 10 minutes of both of them arguing over what the hell just happened you snapped.

"Stop the truck!" You yelled, making both of them stop talking.

"We're in the middle of the bridge-"

"Stop the fucking truck!" The truck came to a halt on the side of the road and you were quick to get out of the stuffy cage. You took in a deep breath as you walked around the truck and onto the empty road. You felt overwhelmed with emotion, something you've never felt in your life and it scared the shit out of you.

You wanted to scream and shout, you wanted to take this awful feeling out of your chest and you wanted to punch Paul. Who even was Paul? You didnt know a single thing about him. Not one. And now Jacob was telling you that he was your soulmate. It was laughable.

Everything was laughable. And before you could stop yourself from acting like a crazy person you bursted out laughing, and you couldn't seem to stop yourself. You covered your mouth as Jake and Bella came closer to you.

When you looked up you saw where you were. It was the same bridge you stopped at when you saw Embry and the rest of the pack Cliff jumping. When you saw Paul Cliff jumping, and the thought of him made you start crying.

You felt Jake pull you towards him, he wrapped his arms around you as you put your face into his super warm chest. Yours hands were still covering your mouth as he hugged you tighter.

He kissed the top of your head before placing his cheek on your head, giving you maybe one of the best hugs you've ever received. You didn't even know how much you needed it until this moment.

~~~

Jacob stayed over that night, he was explaining imprinting in greater detail since now you were apart of it, since now you had been imprinted on. You weren't as freaked out anymore, you were more calm and collected.

Yes you did have a couple of mental breakdowns since being in your room, you honestly didn't know how to handle it. It didn't make sense to you how you accepted Vampires and Werewolves being real but this is where you freaked. Maybe because it involved you, and your life and your family.

The more Jacob explained the anger you got. Being imprinted on made it feel as if it wasn't your choice for whom you loved, and yes you could reject him but that would be so much worse for him then for you and you just couldn't do that to him. As much as you disliked him and even though you didn't know a thing about him you still felt connected to him in a way.

You groaned in annoyance once he finished explaining, and lied on your bed, looking up at the sealing. He only sighed as he lied beside you, you could feel his eyes on you but you just ignored him.

"How do you feel?" He finally asked after a long silence. You honestly didn't know how to answer that question. You felt so many emotions right now, angry, sad, conflicted. How was a person supposed to deal with this?

"I don't know," You said quietly. "How am I supposed to even feel? If its in love then no. No I don't feel in love. How am I supposed to even love a total stranger?" Jacob was quiet for a little, but he was still looking at you. You moved your gaze to him, and looked into his eyes.

You could tell he was hurt, sad, and confused, maybe even a little angry as well. The way he was looking at you was a way he never had before.

"I'm sorry. I wish you could've fallen in love the right way." He was silent for a little, as if trying to find the right words. "And I know you feel as if its not your choice but Y/N it is. Don't think about what this could mean for him, forget him completely. Think about you, and how your life will change,"

~~~

That night was a hard one. You don't even think you got an hour of sleep, the thoughts in your head kept you up the whole night and the future of your life made you wonder what you should do.

Common sense made you want to reject him, for the love of God you didn't even know the boy. You had only seen him once before this. And with that your mind was made up.

It took a couple of days before you agreed to meet with him. You would meet him at the bonfire that was being hosted by Billy, a bonfire you had always attended when you were a little kid.

If you were being completely honest you were a little nervous to see him again, and it took you forever to decide on what to wear that night. You didn't understand why you were this nervous, you hadn't felt this way since Christmas mornings as a kid.

Bella had come with you and Jacob, and as they were walking you had fallen behind. You looked nervously around the fire, trying to see the familiar face, and the feeling in your chest started getting stronger. And then it was like time had stopped all together, like everyone had vanished and it was just the two of you.

Paul looked up when he saw Seth run up to Jacob but his eyes found yours in an instant. You felt relived in the weirdest way possible, and you felt nervous, like he was the boy you'd been in love with since you were little, but it wasn't that case so why the hell did it feel like that?

You could see how nervous he was when his eyes slowly dragged down your body. You could see the way he blew out a breath before his eyes met yours again. You could see the confidence he had maybe 5 minutes ago leave his eyes, he looked scared and venerable. Like he knew what you would say to him.

"Y/N," You shifted your eyes away from Paul and looked towards Seth who was calling out your name, you had only met him a handful of times but he seemed like a good kid. "I heard about you and Paul and I just wanted to say that you should run-"

"Maybe you should run," You heard a deep voice say before he grabbed Seth by the shoulders and playful shoved him. Seth only laughed.

"You know I was just kidding." He looked towards you. "Or was I?" Seth started laughing when Paul tried grabbing for him again but Seth just ran away. Paul looked at you with soft eyes, something that made you take in a deep breath, and something that made the butterflies in your stomach go wild.

"You better stay a good distance away from her Paul-"

"Its okay," You said, smiling at Jacob who looked as if he wanted to punch Paul. Bella tried to hold in her laugh as she dragged Jake away. You gave Paul a small smile when you looked back at him and that smile made all his walls just crumple. He was different around you and he so desperately wanted to be the stone cold person he was before he set his eyes on you.

"Paul," You didn't know where to start. Or how to start. You didn't dare look into his eyes, because if you did you knew you'd never be able to say the words you had memorized in your head.

"Don't waste your time," He said, causing you to furrow your brows. You tilted your head, about to ask what he was talking about but he spoke first. "I never wanted someone like you to be my imprinter just like you never wanted to be with me,"

"Someone like me?" You knew you shouldn't care that he didn't want to be with you because you also didn't want him, but it was the way he said it, the way his face changed when he mentioned it. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means what I said. I don't like little girls who run around with 100 year old vampires. Ones who practically bag to be changed-"

"You have the wrong twin," You interrupted, clenching your fits. "I hate vampires just as much as yo-"

"Oh?" He raised his eyebrows, stepping closer towards you. "I've heard that you are dangerously close to a certain buff vampire," You scoffed, trying your best not to burst out laughing.

"Emmet? You've got to be joking. I couldn't care less about that idiot. And besides, why do you even care-"

"I don't,"

"You obviously do otherwise you wouldn't have brought it up-"

"I just don't like my imprint going near those things," His nose was almost brushing against yours. He was so close. Too close. You could tell he was mad, maybe even a little jealous. Protective. You didn't understand why, he made it clear how he doesn't want you.

"Well you can't tell me where I can and where I can't go. Or who I can and who I can't be with. I don't care if you imprinted on me or even if you peed on me to state your clam," You looked up into his eyes. "I am not yours. You don't have any clam to me and you never will," You backed away, never breaking eye contact as you made your way past him and towards Jacob and Bella.

As you neared your eyes spotted Jacobs little pack, all sitting together near the fire. Embry's eyes fell on you and he gave a small wave and a smile, which you returned. Although your smiled faded quickly when Paul sat down with them. You turned away the second he looked towards you.

"I'm guessing things didn't go well?" Jacob asked when you came and sat down next to them.

"Nope. I've never met anyone so." You couldn't even think of a word to discribe him, all you knew was you did not like him a bit.

"Yeah I know what you mean. But he gets better the more you know him," Jacob gave you an apologetic look as he rubbed your back. You didn't believe a word of that, from what you saw Paul was hot headed and might even have bipolar. Whatever it was, you wanted nothing to do with it, and even though the conversation didn't go as planed he got what you were trying to put across.

Your eyes slowly shifted towards Paul, and for some odd reason disappointment filled your senses. He was an attractive boy, you couldn't lie to yourself about that, and he may not be the type of guys you go for but something was different about him. Maybe it was the imprinting talking but it all felt to real for it to be just that.

Your breathing picked up in pace when his eyes connected with your own. There is was again, those stupid feelings you can't explain, you wanted to just rip them out of you and throw them as far away as you could because they were just too intense when they started. But you also loved the way they felt, they felt right in a way.

You were just too new to all of this, and no matter how much Jacob talked about or explained it you were still confused. You wanted to understand it so maybe you would be able to control the feelings for they made you feel like you're going crazy.

You could see Paul's demeanour change the more he looked at you, as if all his roughness and hard energy wasn't there anymore. He looked almost vulnerable, and lost. Just as lost as you. But then out of nowhere, his eyes hardened and turned cold which caused you to almost physically flinch.

You furrowed your brows but turned away nonetheless. You felt almost hurt by the mode switch and you had no idea why. You didn't want him, in fact you were the one to say it first. So why the hell did you care if he felt the same way about you?

You clenched your jaw, your eyes boring into the fire that everyone was seated around. You couldn't hear what Billy was saying, but you had heard the story about a-hundred times when you were younger.

But you also couldn't sit here while Paul was right across from you. Everything about him just pissed you off and you weren't one to get mad easy or dislike someone as much as you did Paul.

So you excused yourself, not looking at anyone as you made your way towards the house. You took a deep breath in as you entered the house, trying to relax yourself by rolling your shoulders back and letting your head fall against the wall behind you.

You felt so tense, which is yet another thing you never had problems with. But it seemed Paul brought all of those out, or he just made new ones.

You got off the wall with a sigh and headed to the kitchen, where you grabbed yourself a bottle of water from the fridge. But just as you were about to twist the cap off you heard the click of a door. Your heart beat picked up a little as you looked around the empty house, your hand slowly pushing the fridge door closed before you silently crept to the front door.

But no one was there. You swore you heard the door close, but it could very easily have been your mind playing tricks on you. You have been quite tense today after all.

You turned around, about to go back to the kitchen but right as you took a step forward someone stepped into your line of sight.

………

Taglist

The day you first entered the maze you knew something was off, not just the obvious fast that you were a girl in a glade full of boys but also your memories. You remembered. And not just the little bits and pieces the other boys did but you remembered faces, names, and the maze.

You didn't know the reason why you'd been sent to the maze, and you didn't remember who had sent you there but you remembered the maze and the glade, as if you'd been their before or seen it somewhere. You remembered the boys, you recognized their faces and that freaked you out more than you let yourself know. But there was one boy who you recognized more than the rest, you knew his name before he told you it and you knew he was a runner.

Minho.

You never shared this with any of the boys for you knew that they would most likely throw you in the maze to die. You feared everyone when you realized it, feared they would kill you, slice you in half and string you up for everyone to remember, so you stayed away from everyone and never talked. You felt something deep in your chest that made you feel as if you were different from them, as if you were sent here for different reasons. And it scared you.

All the boys were really nice to you, they all tired to get you come out of your shell, they would tell you it was okay to be scared but they didn't understand the reasons you were scared in the first place. You didn't fear the maze or the things that were inside, you feared them, and your secret.

And after two months of silence from you they all begun to wonder and worry. They made up their own conclusions as to why you never spoke and why you shut down whenever they came near. Some said you were just a scared little girl, others said you were mute and the rest said you were stupid. They were a wrong, they didn't know a thing about anything. About the maze, about the people who sent you all here. They were as clueless as a lamb for the slaughter.

But you hated it in there, you hated being trapped, you hated being the only one with memories and you hated that you didn't know why the hell they put you in there. Why they put all of them in there. No matter how hard you raked your brain you just couldn't think of one reason.

"Minho," You were surprised at the sound of your voice, it was a lot different than you had expected, and Minho who had turned around so fast that the water in his cup splashed all over your face must have thought the same thing.

That morning you had woken up and thought enough was enough, you were going to stop hiding around and wallowing in your own self pity and do something to get out. You were done with not talking, you were done with ignoring everyone and you were done with wondering how the hell to get out of here. It was time to go in there and see for yourself. And Minho was the one and only way to do that.

"Holy shuck," He whispered, stepping closer to your wet form, he didn't seem to notice how your face was dripping or it was just that he didn't care. His face was full of shock, or was it awe? You didn't know, all you did know was the way Minho was looking at you right now made your stomach turn in a way you've never felt before. "Say that again,"

"Do you not see my face?" You questioned, refuring to the water still dripping off. Then it seemed to click. His eyes widened and a small smirk made way on his face. One that you loved.

"Sorry," He said as he tired wiping it away with his sleeve, which only irritated you more. You pushed his arm away but he didn't even seem to care, for the look in his eyes never vanished. He seemed as if in a daze, or dream.

"Will you stop?" You questioned, shifting under his stare.

"Stop what?"

"That,"

"What?"

"Never mind its not important, what is important is why I came to talk to you," You said with a roll of your eyes, this only made the boy worse it seemed. You furrowed your brows but continued. "Uh anyways. I came here because I wanted to ask you about becoming a runner," It grew silent for what felt like forever, as if he was processing what you had just said.

"Are you joking?"

"Does it look like I joke?" He scanned your serious face for what also felt like forever.

"You? The girl whose never said a single word since she came from the box for who knows why wants to become a runner?" You nodded. And then he started laughing. You stared, watched and waited until he was done. Your jaw was clenched as were your fits. You did not find this funny.

"I'm serous. I think I can help,"

"I don't think so shebean," He patted the top of your head as if you were some child which only added to the irritation. You slapped his hand away before grabbing him by the coler of his shift and pulled his stunned face twards yours, your lips close, and your eyes never left his wide ones.

"Don't treat me like a child Minho. I know you must think the reason why I didn't talk was because I was scared but you sorely wrong. I know more than you think about the maze, I know I can help you, I can help us all get out. I know you haven't found a way out, I know you've searched the whole damn place and still nothing. You've lost hope and you think there is no way out, but I know there is and I can help you find it," He stood there shocked, his mouth opened but he didn't have a word to say.

"Okay," And thats how you became a runner. For the next week you trained and then finally you went into the maze. And it was like you expected, all familiar. You didn't feel scared as you ran next to Minho, and you realized how you already started turning before Minho had even told you were to go, as if you knew the way.

And Minho noticed this. He noticed it all. He saw the way you knew the maze as if it were written on the back of your hand, he saw the way you knew the order to which walls would open what days and it was starting to scare him. You knew far to much for someone who just started. But as much as it scared him he never said a word, he was going to at first but than something happened.

You happened.

He started to fall for you, and he hated himself for it. He was like every other shuck face in the stupid glade. But he didn't care, for when he was with you which seemed to be all the time, he felt as if he weren't in the glade, he felt as if they weren't trapped in a death prison with no escape. He felt alive, he felt sane and he felt a sense of normality.

And he just couldn't seem to get enough of you, you felt like a drug to him, and he caught himself thinking about you at the most random times, he would think about you in the dead of night, when everyone was asleep he was up, thinking about you. And he just couldn't keep you out of his head, no matter how hard he tried it just seemed impossible.

As for you, you felt a connection with the boy, one you've never felt, one you never thought could even be possible. He was like you other half, as if someone had ripped you apart and know you had found each other, making the other whole again. But you were still scared, each night you would have dreams, each reveling more and more of the past, and each one was filled with Minho.

You didn't know if they were just dreams or if they were memories, you hoped each morning they were just dreams for what you did to him was something you knew he would never forgive you for, something he would maybe even kill you for.

So you kept you mouth shut about them as-well.

And after three months another greenie had come up, one that you recognized in an instant, and before you even remembered his name you did. You had seen him in your dreams, but he was different, he was reblouse, and you knew he did something to get him put down here, but you just couldn't remember what it was. And it was driving you crazy. For you had little bits and pieces of it but not the full puzzle.

And too soon, much to soon the boy became a runner, a lot of things started going wrong the second he showed up, and everyone saw this. But no one said a word about it other than Gally of course. But the rest saw hope in him, a hope that maybe he was the key to getting out, so when Minho had declared him a runner everyone kept their mouths shut when you three entered the maze.

But that day, was a day you would never forget, a day you wished never happened, a day he wished never happened.

You were running a good distance behind Thomas and Minho, looking around the maze when you spotted it. It looked awful, worse than any nightmare, worse than any monster and you new that you wouldn't be able to get away from this thing. It was too close.

But you tired anyways, yelling out to the boys and running faster than you had before, the greavior right at your heels, screaming and snapping its jaw as if trying to catch you in its mouth.

When Minho saw you he knew, and it made his heart drop, it was too close, it was too fast, and you were already tired from the run. He could see you struggling to keep moving, he felt sick to his stomach when he saw the cold fear laced in your eyes, he wanted to run towards you and take your place but Thomas grabbed his shirt pulling him to run before him.

But Minho stopped running altogether the second he heard your screams, screams he knew he'd hear in his nightmares, screams that made his heart shatter into a million pieces. He turned around, his eyes going towards your screaming and bloody form that was laid on the cold stone floor. The greivor was on-top of you, its jaw inches from your crying face, the only thing that kept it away was the stick that was pressed agents it, one that you must have found near you.

He had never heard cries or screams like this and he hopped he would never hear them again. He tired running towards you but thomas held him back, yelling at him to keep going and how it was to late for you, but Minho was barely listening to him, his eyes were fixed on you. He felt his whole body shaking, he thought he might cry, yell something, anything. This couldn't be your ending. He didn't even get to say everything he wanted to. He never told you his feelings, or how much he thought about you, or how he craved to be kissed by you or even just hugged by you.

It all felt as if it were happening in slow motion, Thomas's yelling was background noise, as was you, all he could hear were the same thoughts in his head. You can't leave her. You can't leave her. You love her. You love her! They were yelling at him. His heart felt as if it would explode, he just wanted this nightmare to end. It had to end now!

You screamed louder, so loud that Minho was sure they heard you from all the way in the glade. You felt something stab your side and just like that you blacked out.

Minho and Thomas ran towards you the second the greavior ran off, leaving you there, bloody, crying and violent. You were stung. Dread filled both boys when they saw you, how you acted. They knew. And no matter what you were ruined.

They dragged your body back to the glade, all of the boys were already at the opening. They must have heard your screams.

~~~

You woke up with a gasp, sitting up with wide eyes as you looked around the room, trying to figure out where the hell you were. The room was dark, and empty except for a body that was slouched over on a chair. Minho.

You tired moving off the bed but this only woke him, cauing him to move towards you, worry written all over his face. You back away, tears coming to your eyes and your hands pushing at him. He was confused, and looked to be scared. You don't think you've ever seen him scared.

"Y/N wha-"

"Get away from me!" You yelled, falling off the bed completely when he tired to reach out to you again. You were quick to stand up but he was also quick to reach you.

"What the shuck is going o-"

"Stop Minho please don't come near-"

"Why not!? What did I do? What did you see?" Your hands were shaking, your face was wet and you were so scared. He could see it. And it only made him more and more worried.

"You," He blinked, confusion taking over all other emotion.

"What?"

"I saw." You paused, catching your breath and calming your nerves. "I saw you,"

"What did you see?" He asked again. Stepping a little closer. You looked at the ground, knowing if you told him you might lose him forever. You had grown to love him, and you were starting to wonder if maybe he felt the same.

"You will hate me Minho,"

"I couldn't ever hate you." You shock your head. He was right in front of you now. You could see his shoes and feel his warmed. He lifted your chin, his eyes connecting with yours. "It doesnt matter what you saw."

"Yes it does," You whispered, taking his hand away from your face. "Minho. I did this to you." His brows furrowed.

"Did what?" He already knew what you were talking about and he didn't know why he was even asking, but he wanted to hear it from you.

"I put you in here. The whole time you were here I was-I was watching from the other side. I saw everything that happened to you. I was in charge of you Minho," He blinked. And everything clicked. Why you knew so much about the maze. He didn't even know what to say, he didn't know how to react.

"What?" His voice was quiet, you've never heard him so quiet. He seemed confused, betrayed and hurt. He backed away from you causing your heart to drop to your stomach.

"I-I was your doctor, I did the tests. You were my test subject, you were the one I was responsible for..." You stopped, your voice breaking when you saw a tear slip from his eyes.

"You?" He was hurt, his heart was shattered. "You did this to me!" He yelled, making you flinch. He trusted you, more than he's ever trusted anyone else before, he fucking fell in love with you. And you were behind all of this! He couldn't believe his ears. He didn't want to believe it.

"I'm so sorry-"

"Sorry doesn't do shit! It doesn't make it all better! No matter what you fucking sa..." He paused, looking at the ground as you heard a sob. "You did this damage to me, to us. You traumatized us all and for what?"

"I-I don-" He moved so fast, so fast that you got wiplash. He pushed you agents the wall, taking both hands and pinning them to the wall.

"You what!?" He yelled. You let out a sob, shaking your head as you looked down. "Look at me!" You didn't do it, you couldn't look into his eyes without it ripping your soul into pieces. But he lifted your chin up, making you look into his eyes. "You what?"

"I don't know why, it hasn't all come back to me yet," he let go of you and took a step back, giving a small laugh as he shock his head.

"Isn't that fucking convenient," You were scared. He never acted this way. "You don't remember why. But it must have been pretty fucking important if it meant to traumatize and experiment on teenagers. Fucking children!"

"But that isn't me anymore!" You yelled back. "I don't know who that girl is anymore. I don..." You felt as if you were going to have a panic attack, you didn't know how to explain it to him, and you were so scared you had just lost him forever.

"Y/N?" His voice was like a background noise. You felt lightheaded and so warm. This wasn't good. You felt yourself waver and stumble. And soon he was right by your side, holding onto you so you wouldnt fall.