Falling For

“Get a room!”

Fred Weasley returned from the scrub area that hid the large pond, dragging a red-faced Veela behind him. George, who was nearly asleep on my shoulder, mumbled something inaudible and I rolled my eyes at his gallivanting brother who was slowly making his way towards us.

“Sure, Fred, I think the same goes for you.” I told him as he arrived beside me, patting his brother on the back. “Frolicking around the pond does not cancel the need for a room, you know?” He gave me a grin, ignoring my statement.

“Feeling a bit under the weather, Georgie?” He asked his brother, who shifted a little to let the pressure off my legs. His eyes appeared from behind his hair, and he cocked his head, yawning loudly in Fred’s face.

“Just a wee bit tired.”

“I think the whole unbalance of his auditory sense has put him off centre.” I told the second redhead, watching as the first flexed his back and scratched his bandage. “I might have to put him to bed early.”

“Ah, he’ll be right.” The bolder twin slapped George on the back. “Just need to get a bit more firewhiskey into you!” Grinning, Fred let his eyes wander towards the tent. “I think we should get back inside now anyway, it’s getting dark outside and Ghouly will be wanting to press himself up against the attic windows again.”

Scoffing at the thought, I took George’s hand and led him towards the tent, the boy waking up a little more every step he took. He looked down at me and smiled softly with his sleepy eyes half open.

“I really think I should have brought some pep-up potion. I look like the biggest prat right now, I bet.” He complained to me as we wandered through the empty fields surrounding the Burrow and leading into the Orchard.

“I think everyone will understand.” I told him, patting his hand tiredly with my own. “I’ll ask your mother when I see her. She probably has some in the house.”

He smiled down at me and grasped my hand tighter, leading me into the tent where we settled into talking to Bill about his new house near Cornwall, a cottage that sat alone on a wuthering cliff, soaking in the salt breeze that burst around so casually.

“And I’m guessing your wedding will be soon?” Bill suddenly asked and I froze, face turning red.

“I don’t know. Ask your brother.” I palmed the response to George, who just brightened at the thought.

“Maybe.” He teased his older brother. “It really all depends if she can survive another year being the test girl for our products. The last Skiving Snackbox edition nearly killed her.”

“Gangrene Gummies.” I nodded at the older Weasley, and his face screwed up.

“Sounds revolting.”

“Really was. Took him forever to kiss me again.” I sniffled a laugh and George shrugged. “But I don’t know about a wedding. I was thinking of getting rid of George for Ron. I seem to have been in love with him since the Yule Ball. Those dress robes, you see…”

“She kids.” George pardoned tiredly and Bill scoffed lightly at the both of us, shaking his head humorously before excusing himself to catch his brand new bride that was slinking past our table. She smiled at me when she caught my eye, completing the idea that we were actually friends. “Next Saturday we should probably go looking for rings, then.”

“Sounds really lovely, sweetheart.” I sent him a look and his face softened, reaching to take my hand. Entwining our fingers, we rested as the sky behind us began to darken into a dark blue.

It was really all a good time until a soft blue light slinked through the tent towards the centre of the dance floor, producing a glowing neon ball. People backed away and George stood up, taking me with him. I looked up at him, and he took my hand and gripped it tight.

"The Ministry has fallen.” The voice reiterated around the silent tent, the sound of people withdrawing their breath collectively echoing inside our thinning party. “Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."

People began to start disapparating; loud cracks sounding and breaking through the terrified screams of the older women and younger children. The sky above us began to falter as the protective barrier around the Burrow burnt away in shards of blue and red.

George grabbed my forearms, looking down at me.

“Go to your mother’s.” He told me. “Now.”

“What?” I asked, looking around at the people fleeing around me. “George, who’s coming?” Black plumes of smoke ricocheted off the tents blank walls and the screams grew louder as curses were suddenly thrown. Red shot everywhere, and my mind went into overdrive. Everything became so chaotic and I threw a kiss onto his lips before he could have a chance to speak again.

“Now, Mignon!” George let go of me as my brain spun into apparition mode, focusing on my mothers sitting room. I could just see her sitting behind her desk with her reading glasses on, hidden behind piles of manuscripts… a curse shot passed my ear and I shrieked, getting sucked off into the tightly squeezed space time continuum and regretting it instantly.

“Mignon! Oh Mignon what are you doing here!?”

I staggered across my mother’s living space, ankle snapping over in my heels and throwing me onto the couch.

“You’re bleeding! Oh, sweetheart! What have you done?!” Mum was up beside me, sitting me up. My hand ached and my ankle throbbed, stomach turning with the sudden atmospheric change. My mind whirred over my current situation and my stomach flipped too fast and I ended up vomiting on the rug. “I’m taking you to St. Mungos, okay? You’ve splinched yourself.”

She crowded me into the fireplace and we were swallowed by green fire, making me shut my eyes and concentrate on fighting the pain that was radiating from my right hand.

“Where’s George, Mignon?” She asked as we stumbled from the fireplace in St. Mungos’ emergency ward. Picked up by a healer, I was taken off to a waiting room where I was given a potion to staunch the blood and was sat amongst four other people, each wiping chunks of oozing pus from their eye sockets. The combination of both made me sick again, this time all over my mother’s shoes.

This time she just sighed, using her wand to remove my stomach contents from her slippers. “Where is George, Mignon?”

“I’ll tell you later.” I finally mumbled.

“He didn’t do anything to you, did he?” She asked, leaning back in shock. My eyes widened and I sent her a withering look.

“Of course not! Don’t even say things like that! I will tell you later, mum. Just not here.” I shut my eyes, not baring to look at the aching hand of mine that was throbbing tiredly. My thoughts fled to George and the rest of my extended family, fighting off the Dark Lord’s minions without me. Why did I leave? was all I could think. What if I had left them there to die?

A blank faced nurse came in and carted the pus filled group away, leaving my mother and me alone. The pain began to dull after a while, leave me with a soft throb of uneasiness in my hand and stomach. I was not game to even open my eyes.

“Good evening, my name is Noël and I’ll be healing you to- Oh! Mignon!” I opened my eyes to see the lanky man standing in the doorway of the waiting room. His blue eyes startled me like they always did, burning into me, then my hand, then the nice vomit stain on my dress. “You’ve splinched yourself, I’m guessing?”

“I think so.” I told him and he helped me up into a plain white washed room.

“How’d you manage this?” He sat me down on a bed, taking my hand into his. His hands were soft, unlike George’s; running over whatever damage I had taken to my right limb. I force my eyes to take in my situation, running over the stub of what used to hold three of my fingers.

My middle, ring and little finger had been left somewhere in the Weasley’s orchard. The shock of the situation made the blood drain out of my face and my stomach began to turn. The thought of some part of me being stepped on in the middle of a blood bath made my throat seize up and my eyes began to water.

“Just a bit of a shakeup at the wedding. Nothing too serious.” I muttered, looking at my mother for support. She nodded, pushing her brown hair out of her face. Noël looked suspiciously at the both of us but returned to his grim demeanour, something of which was expected of a St. Mungos’ employee.

“I can fix this. It will take them a little while to grow back, however.” He drawled on, his French accent somewhat fading into a higher-class London standard. “You’re lucky you didn’t lose an arm, Mignon, because we would have had to have gone and retrieved it and fixed it back on. Fingers though, no problem.”

The pressure of the situation caused the dams to burst and the tears began to slide down my cheeks. I could have cared less about my fingers, because what was fighting in the back of my mind was much more severe.

“Don’t cry.” He hushed me, rubbing his fingers on my hand. “Please don’t cry. We can fix this.” He sighed at me, his soft fingers working their magic as I looked into his startling blue eyes and felt a little better. Knowing that one part of my life was not going to be destroyed so soon gave me a small sense of peace.

“Do you two know each other?” Mum asked as Noël fiddled with his wand. He looked up.

“My father is a friend of Derrick.” Noël muttered as a pain surged up my arm, tiny spider bites of bone pushing through my knuckles. “I also went to school with Mignon.”

I was glad he didn’t mention the part where he nursed me back to health a year-or-so ago.

“Well that’s nice.” Mum forced out, taking a swing glance at me and probably wondered what else I hadn’t told her about my school life. Regardless of this, she grabbed my free hand and squeezed it, sending me back to the last hour where George was telling me to leave. He was so tired, what if that had been his last downfall? “How long is this going to take, exactly?”

“Probably about an hour to get the tissue and skin to set.” He answered straight away. I frowned at the nubs that used to be my fingers, heart lurching at the fact that I had splinched myself for the first time. “But she’ll have to keep them bandaged for a day or so just to let the new skin toughen up.”

“Your English is a lot better, Noël.” I mumbled, and he brightened.

“That is why I took the job here, to further my English skills.” He told me proudly. “I caught onto my healing skills so quickly they promoted me to the splinching department.”

“That must be exciting.” My mother perked up, suddenly clicking that I knew a healer. I’m sure that beneath my mum’s cool exterior, she was a little worried about my boyfriend’s business ventures with his also risky brother. A healer, she once told me, was the complete stability. George, I thought again I hope he’s okay. I tried to calm myself with the fact that I didn’t see any unforgivable curses being thrown.

Trying to drown out the noises of my mother’s obvious approval, I attempted to convince myself that the leftover wedding party was fine. The Death Eaters were there for the scare factor, I argued with myself, they were there to frighten the Order into hiding.

The tears that were spilling down my face stopped with the ease of my stomach. I had thrown myself into a mental coma, imagining the warm bed I would return to in a few hours; my boyfriend’s soft touch and apology with my fingers in a jar as a souvenir of our very outrageous night.




“I think I’ll have you stay at my house tonight, okay sweetheart?” Mum patted me on the back once we were able to leave the hospital. Noël had bid me adieu with kiss on each cheek, letting me know we had to catch up sometime soon. “He’s a beautiful man, by the way.”

“Please don’t write him into your books, mum.” I grumbled at her and flexed my new fingers tiredly. “And I would like to go back to the flat, see if the boys are okay.”

She paused. “If that’s what you think is right.” She hovered around me for a second only to stop to clean up the vomit that had soaked into her sitting room rug. Then she hugged me, pressing my head into her shoulder. I stopped moving for a while until she let me go, kissing me on the forehead and letting her face soften. “If no one is at the flat, I want you to come straight home. Send me an owl to let me know that you got there safe.”

“Okay.” I sighed, smiling weakly at her before hobbling off to the fireplace.

“Aren’t you going to apparate?” She asked dumbly and my heart sunk to my stomach.

“Not really in the mood for that, mum.” I compressed the chest pains and smiled awkwardly. “Goodnight.”

Her face was a little downtrodden, but she managed to smile regardless. “Goodnight.”

Getting spat out of a fireplace for the third time that night, I was welcomed by a dark flat. Retrieving my wand from my dress pocket, I held it in front of me and desperately hoped that whatever knowledge I had retracted from the defensive books Fleur had leant me would do me well. Placing each foot carefully in front of the other, I levitated my shoes into a resting point near the door and stalked towards my bedroom.

There was a light glowing from beneath the doorway and I stopped, scowling at the warmth radiating over my bare feet. I didn’t know whether to open the door and pounce in, or to stand there for the rest of the night.

Slowly turning the knob with my normal hand, I pressed the door open, revealing a dishevelled ginger boy and his brother, both sitting on my bed with grim looks on their faces. Once they noticed me, they jumped up, wands at ready, staring me down with blank faces.

“What did I take from you the night we broke up?” George asked, scratching his bandage absentmindedly whilst trying to look menacing. I just blank faced them, taking in the realisation that the both of them were not injured.

“My dignity.” I hissed at him, slightly confused although confident enough to keep stepping forward. They stepped back. “And my favourite rug, the one you’re standing on right now.” Fred looked down to see what I was talking about and George relaxed, dropping his arm and stalking towards me. He picked me up, wrapping his arms beneath my thighs and burying his face into my neck.

“Where have you been?!” He asked me, kissing my lips quickly. I swear I heard Fred’s eyes roll, but I saw him grin regardless.

“We were very worried about you, young lady.” He added from behind George. I sat, rather awkwardly, in George’s grip like a baby monkey who wasn’t ready to be separated from it’s mother.

“I splinched myself when I apparated to mum’s house.” I mumbled, showing them my bandaged hand. “Lost a few fingers but Noël fixed me right up. But that’s not really important, considering I left you two in the middle of a battle.”

“So those were your fingers!” Fred’s eyes widened. “I thought someone got lucky and hexed some ruddy Death Eater’s hand off.” I stared at him blankly until he rolled his eyes once more. “And it wasn’t exactly a battle. They just rounded us up and interrogated us about the whereabouts of Harry.”

“So everyone’s okay?” I asked, deciding not to press further on the subject. They both nodded.

“Ginny got a little scratched up from an exploding chair but really everyone escaped relatively unharmed.”

Whatever had been sitting on my chest had gotten up and left and my face relaxed into a rather content smile. It was silent for a while as we soaked up each other’s presence, Fred obviously calming down and George just returning to his place on my shoulder.

“I’m really glad you two are okay. I was worried sick about you.” I told them both and George let me slip to the floor again. “How about I make us all a cup of tea, then?”

“Well, I was actually thinking about bed.” Fred stretched himself and I placed my wand back in my pocket. “I’ll let you two settle back into being sickening, I suppose.”

“Goodnight Fred.” I gave him a quick hug as he left the room, him returning with a wink and a shut of the door. I looked up at George and his face turned into a rather grim smile.

“I went to your mother’s house to look for you.” He said as he began to take off his beaten up wedding suit. I watched him pace around the room. “All I could find was a puddle of vomit, which I am going to assume is yours because it is all over your dress.”

“I got a bit overwhelmed by the whole ‘missing fingers’ thing.” I justified, following suit and pulling the dress over my head. “Mum took me to St. Mungos to grow some more.” He sighed at me and scratched his bandage again, finally getting angry at it and ripping it off. His hair fell over the now blank canvas, the dirty old bandage hitting the floor next to my ruined dress.

“Maybe us getting married isn’t such a good idea, Min.” He told me, rubbing his bare stomach. “Not too soon anyway. Maybe after the war, when I’m completely sure it wont be taken over by a bunch of twats in masks.

“I understand.” I sighed back, removing my underwear in exchange for a fresh pair in our set of drawers. “Wait,” I stopped “you’re not dumping me again, are you?”

“Of course not.” He snorted at me. “Besides, where would I take the rug?” I rolled my eyes at him and he grinned. “I think we can last until then.”

“Sure we can.” I told him, removing my bra to replace it with one of his old button ups. “Who needs a piece of paper to confirm our love?” I whispered, closing my eyes and curling my good hand into a ball, dragging it towards my chest. He snickered at me and shook his head, pants hitting the ground.

I ran my bandaged hand through my hair and launched myself at our bed, rolling under the covers and face planting into our soft pillows while he watched me with an amused face.

“See? I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”