It's Better If You Do

Downstairs, Fred was flipping frantically through his French-English dictionary and George was holding a flesh-colored ear in his hand, a string trailing down the table and up the stairs from it. How Bellamy had missed the matching flesh-colored ear on the doorframe when she had cleaned was beyond George with how observant she was. He had been smart enough to place one on the doorframe the night the girls had arrived, since he was curious to listen in to what they talked about to each other. However, when they carried on their conversations in French, he was a bit downhearted that his plan to eavesdrop had been foiled. His brother had thankfully, and unknowingly, taken care of that problem when he purchased that handy dictionary.

“Okay, Bellamy just tried to say she was sorry, but Rose cut her off,” Fred murmured as he thumbed through the book frantically. They spoke so fast it was nigh impossible to try and pick out every word. “And then Rose said something about…apologizing and forgiving…or maybe she said something about a manatee…I didn’t really catch it.”

“I doubt they’re talking about a manatee, Fred,” George replied with a snicker. Fred quickly hushed him as Bellamy’s soft voice began speaking again softly from the ear in George’s hand.

“Vous devriez au moins être heureux que vous êtes intelligent ... et vous avez très certainement ne devrait pas être timide ou le cacher.” Fred immediately took to flipping through the book frantically once more and thankfully Rose did not reply straight away.

“She said something about being happy that she’s smart and not shying away from that fact…or she said something about ironing a cat,” Fred said, shaking his head slowly as George let out another snicker. “Those French girls speak so fast I don’t understand how they can comprehend what the other is saying.”

“Je sais…” Rose started in a small voice, “Je me sens mal pour vous.” George looked up from the ear to Fred as he flipped through the pages of the book yet again. It was surprising he hadn’t ripped a page or torn it in two with the speed he was flying through the pages. “Je sais combien vous aves étudié et d’avoir ce travail difficile de ne pas payer…”

“Rose said that she knows, but she feels bad for Bellamy,” Fred said, “then she went on to say something about how hard she studied and how it didn’t-” Bellamy’s voice cut in and George quickly hushed Fred this time.

“Ce n’est pas votre faute si je suis fondamentalement une Squib,” she spoke in a very thin sounding voice that had both brothers looking at each other, being able to derive from English words what she had just said. There was complete silence on the other end spare for the clanking of plates and cutlery hitting one another.

“She thinks she’s a squib?” Fred asked in a whisper, in case they could hear them up the stairs. George shook his head slowly, pulled a face as he looked over at his twin.

“I’ve only seen her do simple magic with her wand,” he said quietly with a shrug. “And she’s obviously brilliant at potions…but that’s mostly just following the instructions in a book and knowing ingredients.” Fred nodded slowly in agreement, glancing between the door of the flat to the half-open French-English dictionary in his hands.

“It’s obviously a touchy subject for Bellamy, so we can deduct that she didn’t get very many O.W.L.’s or N.E.W.T.’s…but it wasn’t by choice like us. She probably tried very hard and studied for weeks,” Fred said in a solemn sort of voice.

“And Rose did better than her in a lot more, with probably a lot less studying,” George added with another sad shake of his head. Both of the twins were suddenly made away of clacking footsteps just outside the flat door, causing George and Fred to shove the Extendable Ear and French-English dictionary into their pockets, respectively. George only hoped that the girls didn’t notice the flesh-colored string that traveled out of his pocket and up the stairs.

Soon enough, Rose and Bellamy made their was down the stairs, in that order, and looked between the twins. Apparently, they still wore sad expressions, since both girls got a frantic look on their faces.

“Why do you two look like that?” Bellamy asked softly.

“What’s happened?” Rose asked at the same time. It was clear that they immediately thought the worst and that word had gotten back from the letter that Rose had written to her father. The twins quickly and nervously glanced to each other before looking back to the girls, who both were looking paler than normal.

“We were just talking about how sad there are no more stromboli,” Fred said quickly, sparing another glance to George before smiling at the girls. George glanced over to Fred and drew in a deep breath of air before getting a genuinely displeased look on his face.

“It is a real shame that you won’t be making any more for a while, Bellamy” he said, looking over at Bellamy with a sort of puppy dog pout. Both of the girls had quickly recovered from their sudden scare as Rose let out a little laugh at this and Bellamy characteristically rolled her eyes and a scoff as she walked over to her small kitchen area and produced a deep, large sauté pan and placed it over a low fire. Rose sent a small smile to Fred and sat next to him, taking his hand under the table and intertwining their fingers. She wouldn’t be jested if neither sibling knew they were holding hands under the table.

“I’m just going to bother you until you tell me, so you might as well just say when you’ll make them next,” George said, thinking this was a brilliant threat to get Bellamy to tell him.

Keeping her back to him as she pulled out a bag of granulated sugar, a glass of corn syrup, and a measuring cup, she replied, “Then I’ll just tune your whining and pining out, George.” Fred let out a snort of laughter, to which George sent a dark look to him. It didn’t shut him up, like it intended to, and Fred continued to laugh, Rose joining him. George merely crossed his arms over his chest, letting out a large huff of air as he did, staring darkly at Bellamy’s back. Rose suddenly looked very panicked and trying to get George’s attention by pulling her hand over her throat, mimicking a blade slicing over and over again. George, however, didn’t get the silent memo to cut it out. “And,” Bellamy continued in a lofty voice as she measured a stream of water from her wand into the cup, “I most certainly won’t make any stromboli for you when you look at me like that, George.”

Rose and Fred had a hard time containing their laughter at the George’s look of sheer surprise at Bellamy’s uncanny ability to sense George’s glare on her back. Rose grinned proudly at her sister, who sent a sidelong glance and a matching grin, before focusing on measuring out a few cups of sugar.

“Mate, you should have known,” Fred said, once his laughter had subsided, “she’s just like our mum.” George let out a groan and shook his head a bit.

“Too much so,” he grumbled from his spot at the table, sending a less potent look to Bellamy’s back. “I wonder when she’ll start sucking the fun out of everything and telling us we can’t do things.” Instead of getting upset, like Rose and Fred both expected to. She turned around and looked at George with a calm look, bordering on smiling a bit.

“Who said that I didn’t like to have fun?” She asked sweetly, crossing her arms over her chest. George looked up at her, flabbergasted at how stoic and serene she appeared.

“Uh…um…”

“I don’t know what’s given you the impression that I don’t like fun or don’t know how to have fun. And I did not come here to play the role of your mother. If you choose to do something stupid or idiotic, I won‘t stop you,” she said with a smirk. An easy quiet lingered around the room before Bellamy turned and faced the sauté pan that was bubbling with the added ingredients. “But I assure you that I can have fun,” she finished with a proud sort of tone in her voice.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” George said in a voice dripping with disbelief. Bellamy shot him a look over her shoulder, accompanied with a sprite-like upturn of her painted red lips, and didn’t say a thing before she turned back to the bubbling sugar. Fred also found it very hard to believe that Bellamy could, in face, have fun. George, however, saw the look of mirth on Rose’s face and the look she was sending him and was unsure of the entire situation. Last time, he had a bucketful of dirty water dumped over his head and Bellamy considered it "fun". This time, he had a feeling the retaliation would be much sneakier and much worse.