Chapter Four: More To Find

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love

-The Lion King

Fred realized (much, much later) that they might have just continued on like that. Happily sharing the flat and becoming friends, had two unknowing people not interfered. Neither interferer (Fred loved making up words) had any idea they were interfering, and Fred never technically met either of them. He found it endlessly amusing that two complete strangers would end up changing everything about his life. It was a brilliant prank by the universe.

And it all started with a rather pretty flash of orange and heat one Wednesday evening.

"Fred? Freddie!? Fred, can you hear me?" George's frantic inquiries would have been lost on Fred if he hadn't been staring at his twins mouth. Which was right in front of his face or some reason. Fred wasn't a hundred percent sure what had just happened, but the room was spinning. (Which was a frightfully regular occurrence for the wizard.)

He'd been working on something… was it soap or Chameleon Chews? Everything was fuzzy.

"Fred, answer me!" Fred heard George this time, and couldn't fight the twitching of his mouth. Fred grinned.

"Yeah. Gads, why are you so close? What happened?" George sat back on his haunches, giving Fred space and making Fred realize that he was lying on the floor of their inventing lab.

"Why am I so close?" Irritation was clear in George's tone. "I'll tell you why, you git! You mixed wormwood with Chameleon Chews-what in the great baggy pants of Merlin were you thinking?"

Oh, well that made sense. He must have mixed his cauldrons up. He put the soap ingredient in with the Chews cauldron. Fred knew there had been a reason he wasn't supposed to do more than one product at a time. They tended to go 'BOOM' on him when he wasn't paying attention. They were devious like that.

Fingers snapping right at the edge of his nose brought Fred out of that reverie and back to the still spinning room. "Hey! What gives?"

George frowned and dropped his hand, studying Fred intently. "You prat. You're still really out of it. Did you hit your head?"

How was Fred supposed to remember? He barely recalled the explosion. He didn't have any memories after that. "I have no idea. Probably." Fred looked around and noticed how dark the room was. "What time is it anyway?"

"Just after Eight. Why?"

"Shit! I was supposed to make dinner tonight-Hermione had a late meeting and was depending on me to pick up something. She has to be in bed in like, five minutes."

George raised a thin, but very expressive, eyebrow. "She goes to bed at eight?"

"Eight-thirty, actually. She has to be at work at four in the morning." George blinked twice and shook his head.

"No job, or pay, could get me out of bed at four in the morning."

"Two-thirty. She takes a while to get dressed and ready."

"Bloody hell." Fred completely agreed with the sentiments. He couldn't even voice how much he agreed. There was nothing that would be able to make him regularly get up that earlier. Just no.

"I've got to go! Thanks for waking me up!"

Fred jumped up, ignoring the still slightly off kilter world and George's worried shouts. He didn't stop until he reached the flat, and that was only to unlock the door. He slipped into the flat and then abruptly stood still, his blue eyes widening in surprise.

Hermione was curled up on the couch, her head lying on the couch arm and her arms curled around her legs. She had a comforter over her shoulders and a box of leftover curry in front of her on the table. Her breath was coming in quiet little gust and her dark eyes were shut.

She was fast asleep.

Guilt and relief welled up in Fred in equal parts. Hermione had found some food, so he hadn't completely failed her, but she'd clearly fallen asleep waiting on him.

Fred shook his head hoping to clear his thoughts and tiptoed towards Hermione. He had plenty of practice moving around sleeping witches. Ginny was notorious for falling asleep on the couch. George and Fred were the only siblings who could move her without waking her. And no one wanted to wake up Ginny. She was not a happy sleepy person.

Fred slowly scooped Hermione up, exhaling in relief when she didn't wake up. It was a quick trip to her bedroom and then he carefully deposited her onto her bed. He slipped out of the room without waking her and grinned victoriously. He did it. Fred Weasley, sneak extraordinaire. No invisibility cloak needed.

Realizing that he himself was actually quite hungry, Fred shut the bedroom door and headed towards the kitchen, only to stop short for the second time in less than ten minutes.

Crookshanks was perched atop the kitchen counter, his horrible pale eyes locked on Fred. It wouldn't have freaked Fred out (too badly) normally, but it wasn't his normal position. He was sitting primly with his bushy tail flicking back and forth, normal enough, but he had a mouse in his mouth.

A very dead, very bloody, very mangled mouse in his mouth. It looked like he had tortured the creature before deciding to kill it and camp out on Fred's counter. He'd have to sterilize the entire area now.

Crookshanks, with his yellow eyes locked on Fred, blinked twice and raised an eyebrow in obvious challenge.

Fred considered his options. Hermione was fast asleep and unlikely to wake up so he couldn't call her for aid. Crookshanks was evil and had commandeered the kitchen. He could face the nasty cat and possibly obtain dinner, but he would be more likely to be injured and not get any food for his troubles.

Fred did the sensible, if not slightly odd, thing. He stepped back, grabbed up what was left of Hermione's takeout and ran for his bedroom.

He'd get George to clean up the dead mouse tomorrow.

-o-o-o-

The shop was pleasantly busy the next day. The Pygmy Puffs sold completely out, and Verity was left with a small mob of uhappy, puffless people. There were at least three dozen different people who wanted to wish George well on his engagement, and another dozen that wanted to thank them for their contribution in the battle. (Fred never failed to be amazed that people still did that.) They had a spill in the magical make-up that caused a few people to change colors, and a minor explosion in the defense section that caused a few soon to be first year students to panic. All in all it was just a regular day.

By the end of it, Fred was starving. He'd had to work through his lunch-break and his porridge had long since worn off. Hermione wasn't home yet, but Fred remembered her mentioning something about working late. Why she had to stay so late when she went in so early was really beyond Fred.

Rather than dwell on it, Fred just went ahead and got ready for his dinner. It consisted of heating up left over spaghetti from a splendid Italian place Hermione had found. (Fred knew he should feel guilty about stealing all of Hermione's leftovers, but mostly he just felt hungry.)

Fred plopped down onto the couch and tucked his legs up before lifting his plate of pasta up. It smelled heavenly, and promised relief for his neglected stomach. Fred twirled a bit onto his fork and lifted the morsel up.

Only to drop it at the sound of a door slam. It was the door at the bottom of the stairs that actually linked the first floor to the flat. Hermione was home, and judging by the loud sound of her small feet, she was none too happy.

Fred sat his pasta down, he wouldn't enjoy it very much if Hermione was spewing long words out and huffing about how horrible the ministry was. It would be the third time this happened. She was steadily getting more unhappy the longer she worked there. Fred was fairly certain she'd joined the ministry in hopes of continuing her work with SPEW. He kind of thought she was in the wrong area for that though.

Fred swung his legs off the couch and gave his food one last longing look before shaking his head. He wouldn't enjoy it right now. And this pasta was going to be enjoyed too, if it was the last thing Fred did. He'd earned the right to enjoy his dinner, he was just going to have to wait a bit longer for it.

The door to the flat flung open and a flurry of brown, navy blue, and black rushed into the sitting area. The flurry, or Hermione, dropped all her items onto the sofa and began to rant.

"He is an utter imbecile! How can he do this? It's not bad enough that we've cut their lands by thirty percent! No, we're going to force them to register too!"

"Who?" Fred inquired as Hermione began to strip out of her business robe. Fred had nearly choked the first time she'd done it, only to discover that she was wearing a t-shirt and slacks beneath. He was used to it now, and he hardly blinked at the motion.

"The Centaurs!" Hermione spat, her voice dripping with a venom she only reserved for when she was really, really angry.

"You're registering them?" Fred was a little surprised Kingsley let them do that.

"I'm not!" Hermione shrieked and dropped her robe to the floor. The fact that she left it there showed just how unhappy she was. She flung her hands through the air in dramatic punctuation to her sentences. "It's that idiot Mullberry's idea!"

"Well, it's not a particularly good one, is it? They're going to rebel."

And then Hermione let Fred know exactly how angry she was in two shrill words. "Damn right!"

Hermione did not use 'foul' language. She just didn't. She had a vast, impressive vocabulary, in three different languages. She could talk anyone under the table, and make anyone feel like an utter idiot in five words or less. She didn't have to lower herself to the simplicity of swear words. In the months they'd been living together, he'd heard her cuss exactly two times. One was under extreme physical pain-she knocked a batch of acid onto her arm and it nearly burned all the skin off before she could put a reversal spell on it. The second was when she found out some horrible secret going on between two of her friends. Fred hadn't bothered to remember the details. It had reminded him of some radio show his mum would listen to with rapt attention when he was younger. The first time she'd said 'hell it hurts' and Fred hadn't even registered until after he'd wrapped her arm up in bandages, the second time she'd used shit and he'd chuckled.

Fred was a little curious as to if she knew any other 'foul' words.

"What are you going to do then?" Fred was rather proud that he managed not to look incredibly fazed by her use of damn.

"Nothing! I' can't do a damn thing about any of this!"

Fred's eyes widened as Hermione turned and gave the couch a hard (and in Fred's opinion, undeserved) kick. "Umm," he stuttered, staring at her dented trainer with wide eyes. He gave his head a little shake and refocused. "Umm, yeah, sure you can. Who is in charge of the registration?"

"Me!" Hermione wept out, and then she dropped to her knees, bringing her hands up to cover her face before sobbing. Fred blinked twice before scrambling up off his couch and dropping beside her. He wrapped an arm around without further thought and rocked gently. He couldn't recall ever having seen her cry before. Hermione was always in control of herself.

Fred rocked her for a full two minutes before he figured out what she could do. It was a trick Lee had used at the Prophet when they were trying to install a new protocol that he had disagreed with. "Then resign or switch departments. You'll force them to find a replacement-one you have to retrain-and that'll make them put a pause on all new projects. You can go to Kingsley while doing all that as well. He'll put a stop to it. The Centaurs helped us in the battle-he won't let them be taken like that."

Hermione hiccupped and then looked at Fred with a rather dumbfounded expression. "What?"

Fred grinned a little. It was all going to be alright.

A/N: Okay, Mya's doing much better, and is home from the hospital right now. I'm still doing a lot of babysitting, and with school and my job, updating might still be sporadic. But I think everything is going to be okay. Mya wants to thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. She's focusing on healing and is hoping to get back to her life soon.

I couldn't resist with Crookshanks either. My cat is always freaking me out at night sitting on the counter with dead critters. The plots about to really get going in this story. Buckle up, folks!