Tension

Chapter 38: Tension

Spring 1998

Annie couldn't believe how good it felt to have the weight of constant deceit finally lifted from her. She no longer had to hide anything from the people she loved. Of course, she was still trapped in the Burrow, for all intents and purposes; no one else in the world, wizarding or otherwise, could be permitted to find out their secrets. But even that confinement was bearable – especially now.

Molly and Arthur were happy for them, after all! As the afternoon wore on, it became clear to Annie that after the initial shock of their secrets revealed, George's parents had no objections to her or her marriage to their son. Their approval meant so much to her; it was an almost physical relief.

And to learn they had done the same thing! She had sat with Molly for a while afterward, sipping tea, while George busied himself putting together what would be their room together for the foreseeable future, musing about all the things the two women shared in common: falling in love with a sweet, ginger-headed Weasley boy, their romantic elopement, how Molly had feared their families' reactions, just as Annie had done.

Then, of course, came the inevitable discussion of Annie's pending motherhood. How was she feeling? What could she expect in the coming months? It was a bit awkward to discuss pregnancy with her new mother-in-law, but also the most wonderful, comforting thought that Annie could look forward to help from an expert like Molly, willing to share her wisdom and guide her along the way.

"You're still here!" Fred joked, pretending to be shocked when he finally returned to the Burrow that evening at dinnertime. "What sort of house are you running here, Mum? Absolutely scandalous!" he teased as he sat down at the table.

"George, have you told your brother all the good news?" asked Arthur with a smile as Fred took a seat.

"Dad, I was there. I think I know more about it than you do." Fred rolled his eyes. "Didn't you show them the snap of all of us?" he asked Annie without looking up from his plate as he helped himself to some food.

A moment later, Fred did look up to a silent table. His parents had curious, shocked looks on their faces. Annie was staring at her plate, blushing outrageously. George was the only one looking directly at him, only the barest hint of uncomfortable amusement on his face.

What exactly are they talking about? Fred wondered. Then his father's words finally registered: what had he meant by "all" the good news?

"Fred...." George began to speak, but halted as he searched for how to say the words.

And in the space of the pause, Fred guessed the truth. It didn't require a giant leap of intuition – his brother hadn't spent a night in their room for weeks now.

"A baby." His voice rang flatly hollow. It wasn't even a question. He dropped his fork loudly onto the table as he glanced momentarily at Annie, then back to his brother.

Fred and George continued to stare at each other, stone faced, for another minute. Annie's alarm was growing by the second. This was not the reaction she had expected or hoped for.

Fred rose from the table. "I'd like a private word with you, George."

"Certainly, Fred."

The words were civil, but the glares were not. Fred followed George out of the kitchen, up a flight of stairs, into the far bedroom George and Annie now officially shared, and shut the door.

*

"You stupid son of a bitch! What the hell do you think you're playing at?" Fred spoke low and threateningly.

"I'm warning you now, Fred. Don't say something you'll regret," George responded in kind.

"Regret? Are you joking? If anyone should feel regret at the moment, some scrap of remorse...."

"I will never feel regret for any of this. Ever," George averred.

"Then you're a bloody stupid idiot! I told you the first day we met her. I said it again when you started to realized you wanted her. Don't. Hurt. Her. She doesn't deserve it. She wasn't even supposed to know about us... from the beginning! Why the hell did you ever drag her this far into it?"

"You're so full of shit! We spent practically every day with her back then. At no point did you ever not want to see her. You wanted to be with her just as much as I did when we were kids. You never once said no!"

"I had to, to keep an eye on you..." Fred spluttered angrily.

"Bullshit. This entire conversation is complete bullshit," George sneered.

"Fine. So you fell in love. Whatever. That, at least, was a mutual decision. Annie's a grown woman, and what mistakes she makes are her own...."

"Mistakes?" cried George, incredulous.

"A stupid mistake when she decided to go along with you, knowing full well the danger you were putting her in!" Fred replied, raising his voice. "That's right. Because it's bloody dangerous now, isn't it? Or maybe you haven't noticed, since you've obviously not been thinking with an intellectual organ lately," Fred spat.

"This is ridiculous!" George retorted, shaking his head and throwing up his hands.

But Fred wasn't finished. "And then you got married. I went along with it. Reckoned it was still your decision to make, even though it put a fucking target on her – on you both. Like I said, you're both adults, technically. But did you ever stop to think that by making her part of our family, you dragged us into it? Now we're all guilty by association, aren't we?"

"You want us to leave? Fine, we'll go. Don't put your arse on the line for me – save it for a real reason, like an adrenaline thrill," George snapped.

Fred dismissed his brother's threat with a snort. "But a baby? You bring a baby into this... this fucking WAR? How could you, you selfish prick? What chance are you giving your kid?"

"You obviously wouldn't understand..." George barked condescendingly.

"That you couldn't keep your dick in your goddamn pants?" Fred snarled.

"The difference between love and lust!" George fairly screamed now. "The difference between what I feel for Annie and what you feel for every girl you've gone home with from a pub and never spoken another word to again! I know what it feels like to love her!"

Fred rolled his eyes in disgust.

"Should I crawl on my knees, then, asking the Ministry for permission to love Annie?" George demanded. "You think I would get it? I refuse to let them or anyone else dictate my life! This is exactly what we're supposed to be fighting for! The right to decide our own lives!"

Fred sneered, shaking his head. "And will that be enough – your righteous fucking ideals – when they come for you both? What do you think the Death Eaters will do with Annie? Or your kid? Send them off along their way with a pat on the head?"

"They'll never get a chance..." George swore.

"Like they never have before..." Fred cut him off.

"I'll die to protect my family!" George shouted.

"And where does that leave them?" Fred yelled.

They were at each other's throats, literally. George's fist was cocked, ready to plow into Fred's face. Fred's fist was pulled back, ready to launch as well. Their voices were raw from shouting, panting with exertion. Neither was sure what the other was waiting for, and each was braced for impact.

"Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, then," Fred growled as George slowly released him. "I'm out of here," he spat with a final shove to his twin brother.

*

The atmosphere at the table during the brothers' argument was intense, to say the least. No one sitting in the kitchen could make out the precise words, but the gist was clear from the occasional word that did ring clearly through the house.

Molly began to cry. "Arthur, do something..." she begged.

"They've got to settle it themselves," he disagreed, keeping his seat.

The volume of the twins' voices continued to increase. They heard scuffling sounds as the argument grew even more heated. They all jumped, startled when the bedroom door upstairs suddenly banged open. They heard someone stomp up another flight of stairs, remain quiet there for a few minutes, then march back down and through the house.

Fred strode into the kitchen then, carrying a small satchel. "I need some space. I'll be fine – don't worry," he said, speaking to his parents. He deliberately avoided any eye contact with Annie.

"Stop this, Fred! Don't go! Arthur?" cried Molly, looking to her husband for support.

Arthur shook his head slightly, and Molly turned back to look at her son with a pleading look.

Fred ignored his mother. As he turned to leave, he paused at the door. "Congratulations, Annie," he said softly, in a voice that clearly indicated he didn't mean it. With that, he was gone, slamming the door behind him.

"ARRGH!" a frustrated, angry shout came from the back bedroom above, followed by a loud thud.

Annie turned away from the door and surveyed the scene around the kitchen table. Molly was silently weeping on Arthur's shoulder. He looked over to Annie.

"Go see what that was about, would you, Annie?" he asked softly as he continued to comfort his wife.

She was grateful for a reason to leave the kitchen. Slowly walking through the house toward their new room together, Annie felt horribly responsible for this new mess. Already, her presence – their marriage – was tearing her new family apart. How could she have not seen this coming? How deluded she had been all afternoon, thinking that everything would be fine now!

Were they doomed, then? Was her love for George, the only good thing she had left in the world, going to destroy his family? Now, when they had so much to look forward to, so much depending on them? She couldn't bear to be the reason for that to happen. All the happiness of the afternoon had drained away. The wedding ring now felt heavy on her finger, and she fidgeted with it nervously as she reached the door to her new bedroom.

George was leaning his forehead against the wall. A fist-sized dent was in the wall next to him.

"Do you want to be alone?" she asked him quietly.

George straightened up when he heard her speak. He shook his head and held out a hand to her, keeping the other one held tight to his body. Annie embraced him, carefully avoiding his injured hand. After several moments, she offered to get him some ice. He merely nodded silently.

The kitchen was empty when she got there. Molly and Arthur must have gone up to their room, she figured. Out of their seven children, tonight, only one was still left to them at home. How could they stand it? How could they stand her, after this? She wrapped a small bit of ice into a towel and hurried back to the room to George.

He was sitting on the bed, running his good hand through his hair. She gingerly took his injured one and wrapped the ice pack around his knuckles.

"Thanks. That feels better," he said softly. George turned out the light with a wave of his hand and they lay down together on the bed, fully dressed.

Annie rested her head on his chest. "I feel terrible that you two had a row," she said. "I don't want to be a wedge between you and your family."

"Fred's issues are with me alone. He's not angry with you," he said, trying to reassure her.

"The distinction between 'you' and 'me' doesn't mean much anymore, George," she corrected him. "It's 'us' from now on."

He hugged her tightly with his good arm and kissed the top of her head. "The thing is – he's right, in a way. We both are. I'm just... more right, I think."

"Fred thinks it's wrong for us to be together. That I put you all in danger," she said.

That part of the argument she had heard. And she was forced to admit she was starting to agree with him – just not for exactly the same reason. Like George, she refused to let anyone intimidate her into living her life in any way but how she chose to. But it was hard for her to justify her own happiness at the expense of others'. She hated that her presence was causing strife in her new family.

"Fred doesn't understand that the danger doesn't matter. It's not what's important," said George.

"How can you say it doesn't matter? With everything you and your family talk about every night at dinner?" she argued.

"I'm not saying the danger isn't real. And because of it, none of us take any unnecessary risks. You and I almost never leave the house together. No one else knows we're married or about the baby. But love is a necessary risk.

"See, Fred's partly right. When you love someone, you give your enemy a weapon to use against you. You show him where you're most vulnerable," George explained.

"I'm a chink in your armor," she said ruefully.

"You could say that, yes," he conceded. "But then, so is the rest of my family. All our friends. The Order.

"But there's another side to it that Fred isn't seeing. Love makes you that much stronger, as well. It gives you the strength to resist your enemy, to fight back. It gives you something to stand up for, to live for.

"I don't blame him for not understanding. I never did until I felt it myself – for you. And he's not the only one who makes that mistake: discounting the power that love gives you. That's what will bring them down in the end – the Death Eaters, I mean. They don't understand that love isn't a weakness. It's what makes us invincible."

"Dumbledore said something like that to me when I met him. 'Love is vital to our cause,' he said," Annie reminded him.

"Which makes my argument that much stronger: that someone like Dumbledore agreed with me. I know I'm right. And you have to know that I would never, will never... sacrifice what we have... for anything. Especially not fear."

Tears were streaming down her face as she clung to him, soaking his shirt. It felt right, what he was saying. And she loved him so much – loved him even more for believing it. But if anything ever happened – to any of them – she didn't know if she could live with the consequences.

*

Seven days ago, Bill arrived at the Burrow in the wee hours of the morning, shouting to wake them and frantically urging them to leave. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been caught by a band of Snatchers, he explained. Then, by some miracle, they'd escaped the clutches of the Death Eaters and were now hidden at Shell Cottage.

"Dad, you've got to get everyone out of here! This'll be the first place they'll look for them!" Bill cried. "NOW!"

The five of them had taken ten minutes to gather all they could, then fled to the infamous Aunt Muriel's.

As crowded as the Burrow could sometimes feel, this was worse. As grateful as they all felt to Aunt Muriel for taking them in, hiding them in their time of need, they were tempted to throttle her for her never-ending, pointless monologues and insulting, judgmental comments. And as tense and heated as things had been between Fred and George that night when Fred stormed out of the house nearly two weeks ago, relations between them now had become positively frigid.

Fred refused to make eye contact with, speak to, or even acknowledge the presence of either George or Annie. Not to be outdone, George took the silent treatment further, refusing utter a single word to anyone at all if he found himself in the same room with his brother.

They'd been in Muriel's house for an entire week. Between the old bat's insensitive comments about Annie's Muggle heritage ("If you lot say she's worth it, I suppose that's your business. I just don't see the point of risking your necks any further than you already have.") and the childish behavior of her husband and his brother, compounded by the tragically misnamed morning sickness that amused itself by literally popping up unannounced throughout the entire day, Annie had reached the end of her rope.

She had spoken to George about it one night as they lay cramped in yet another tiny bed that was never meant to hold two people. Muriel hadn't seen the necessity of providing them with a larger room ("Well, she's terribly small, isn't she? Can't take up any room, eh? You're certain they're properly married, Molly?"). Trying to cheer her, George claimed he preferred the sleeping arrangements this way, having become used to his arms going numb while wrapped around her.

"Can't you do something about this?" Annie begged her husband, not referring to the dimensions of the bed they were lying on. "It's ridiculous that it's gone on as long as it has. Swallow your pride already."

George sighed. "I know! I have! But what can I do? He won't even talk to me."

"Try harder," she urged. "There must be something else we could do."

"Look, you've known Fred nearly as long as I have – you know how stubborn he gets. We just have to be a little more patient. He'll come around soon," he assured her. He has to, he grumbled silently to himself.

Annie took her turn to sigh. "And you've known me for nearly as long, so you should also recognize by now when my patience has reached its limit. I can't stand it anymore!"

George began trying to distract her by kissing her earlobe, but she ducked away from him.

"What makes you the expert on interpersonal relations, anyway? Just because you shared a womb with him?" she snapped frustratedly.

George chuckled, tracing his finger from where the little heart charm rested on her neck, down her sternum, finally resting his hand on her still-flat stomach below her navel. "Who knows... maybe it runs in the family?" he whispered just before he kissed her.

The next night, the four of them sat together in the small living room. Annie, Ginny and George had been trying to coax Fred into joining a conversation with them to no avail. Annie took it as a good sign, however, that this time, Fred had not left the room entirely, choosing instead to hide behind an old issue of The Quibbler. He must be listening to them, at the very least, she figured.

"I'm hungry. Come help me find something to eat, Ginny," she asked, holding out her hand to her sister-in-law. Over the past couple weeks, since George's sister had left school at Easter, she and Ginny were becoming fast friends. She liked the cheerful yet sassy young girl whose personality seemed more like that of the twins than anyone else in the family she had met so far.

"What a surprise! Annie's hungry yet again," she teased with a smile. "Maybe if you'd try a little harder to keep something down, you'd last longer between meals."

As Annie and Ginny left the room, Annie turned to look pointedly at her husband. She nodded her head subtly toward Fred, urging George to try once again to speak to him. George rolled his eyes but nodded all the same.

The girls scrounged around the kitchen searching for a snack. Annie cried out in delight as she discovered a cache of popcorn kernels. Ginny helped her fire up the stove, and they popped a large batch for the four of them to share.

Each girl carried two full bowls of steaming popcorn back into the living room. Annie was somewhat disheartened to discover Fred was still hiding behind the newspaper while George was seated across the room now, looking out a darkened window. Her disappointment only served to fuel her determination to break through Fred's wall of silence for good.

She purposefully sat next to Fred on the small, cramped love seat and set the bowl of popcorn roughly onto his lap. He hadn't seen it coming from behind his paper, so was quite startled by it. He overreacted to a heavy thing being dropped onto his crotch – consequently, the bowl was overturned, dumping popcorn onto the seat and floor. Three of the people in the room chuckled; Fred merely smirked and returned to his reading.

While Ginny magically whisked all the kernels back into the bowl, Annie sidled up a bit closer to him. "Whatcha readin', Fred?"

Silence answered her.

Ginny tossed a popcorn kernel at Fred, which landed on his hair and slid off onto his lap. He made a show of noisily folding his paper and huffed, "Go bother someone else, pest," to his sister.

Annie made encouraging eye contact with Ginny, who then threw another kernel toward Fred. Annie dove in front of him to catch it in her mouth. She landed in his lap with a thud, smiling up at him with the popcorn puff between her teeth.

Fred stared straight ahead at the wall, refusing to acknowledge Annie in his lap. Laughter from everyone else filled the room.

Annie examined his face carefully and saw that Fred was trying far too hard to maintain the façade of being angry with her. She was encouraged to see him struggle to quash the twitch of a smile hiding at the corners of his mouth. Even he could see how ridiculous it was for him to ignore her now.

Ginny tossed another volley of popcorn kernels their way. Fred retaliated by vaporizing the remaining popcorn in Ginny's bowl, leaving behind only ash.

"That's quite enough of that..." he said flatly.

Yep. He's trying way too hard to be so grouchy, Annie reckoned. "Fred!" she whispered.

No response.

"Psst... Fred! Hey, Fred," she continued, the volume of her whispery voice increasing. "Down here. In your lap. Fred!"

He was really struggling not to smile now. She knew she was in.

"I have a suggestion for you, Fred," she whispered loudly. "Have you ever thought of keeping your wand in your pocket instead of up your arse?"

"You are an utter fucking cow, you know that?" he yelled sternly at her, looking her directly in the face for the first time in weeks, but it was no use. By the end of the sentence, he was laughing along with the rest of them.

"I didn't know it was possible to fuck an udder, but I'll take your word for it, Fred. I guess you learn something new every day!" she teased him.

"I hate you," he said, smirking, shaking his head.

"No you don't. You love me, Fred. Say it."

"I absolutely do not."

"It's pointless to deny it, Fred."

"You wish."

"Three little words, Fred. So easy to say."

"Never."

"That's all right. Everybody knows it, anyway. It's written all over your face. And you know what? I love you, too, Fred."

"You've proven your point. Get off me already, you fat cow," he teased, shoving her off his lap onto the floor with a thump.

"Hey now!" cried George. "Let's be a little more careful with other people's wives, if you please!"

"Then keep her under better control," Fred argued, speaking to his brother for the first time. "Or on a leash, at least, in polite society."

"Since when are you polite society?" echoed three voices in unison.

*

The next couple of weeks were spent obsessively dissecting and analyzing the topic of Harry Potter and, to a slightly lesser extent, their brother, Ron, and Hermione. What did it signify now that the three of them were holed up at Bill's? What had they been doing all this time without a word to any of them? And what were they planning? For Bill was sure they were planning something, even though they had refused to tell him what.

Now that Fred and George had repaired their relationship, they redoubled their efforts with the owl-order business. Demand for shield items was at an all-time high – for some strange reason no one wanted fake wands anymore – and they scrambled to fill every order as fast as they possibly could. And the result was an astonishingly large and growing pile of gold, hidden every night under the floorboards in the back room of Muriel's house, which they had taken over months ago after the Wheezes shop in Diagon Alley had been finally forced to close.

Annie often sat with them in their work room in the mornings, helping to open the post for them, entering the accounts. She had been so pleased with them when, on the first day, she had opened a letter from a wizard begging for hats for his family but lamenting the fact he had no access to funds for the time being.

"Here's one with no money," she began, moved by the fellow's plight and hoping to convince the boys to help anyway.

Fred stepped over to her and immediately flipped to the back page of the account book. "Put the name here," he instructed, indicating a list that occupied nearly a whole page of the large book. "No one is refused. They'll be good for it later," he said.

"That's very wonderful of you!" she had exclaimed sincerely.

"Don't sound so surprised," he said, sounding slightly offended. "It's just good business, after all."

Another refugee soon joined them at Aunt Muriel's: an ancient, decrepit man who apparently commanded a great deal of respect amongst wizards. Aunt Muriel certainly was pleased to have him, and therefore Annie was as well, because this Ollivander fellow now occupied Muriel's time and conversation, finally abating the increasingly offensive comments that she felt necessary to spew whenever Annie was within earshot.

The old man had merely raised his eyebrows when Muriel told him of Annie's marked deficiency. "Not even a Squib, mind you... but an actual Muggle," Muriel had informed him. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.... But really, I don't know what the boy was thinking, the times being what they are...."

Annie had caught the old man looking at her a few times after that, and his penetrating stare made her highly uncomfortable. Mr. Ollivander spoke to her politely but only as politeness dictated, which was fine by Annie. She was glad to be spending most of her time holed up with Fred and George instead.

Something was brewing – everyone could feel it. Harry Potter was plotting something. You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters were getting increasingly impatient for a showdown, a fact that was made clearly evident in the newspapers and official radio broadcasts clamoring for the coward and false idol to show his face already. And they weren't the only ones; much to Annie's chagrin, the twins were itching to see action as well. Both were convinced a battle was both inevitable and rapidly approaching. A fire of anticipation lit in their eyes whenever they discussed it, which was dishearteningly often.

Annie understood how they felt: they were unsatisfied with what they had accomplished so far for the cause. Never mind the fact that their valiant efforts had provided protective armor for the masses, food and shelter for refugees and persecuted runaways, and vital, accurate and uncensored information via the airwaves. They didn't see it that way at all. Instead they felt cooped up – coddled, even – like children kept safely far away from the real action.

Annie understood it. That didn't mean she agreed.

*

George hadn't been sleeping well lately. His mind was too active, and he had difficulty keeping it calm enough to rest for more than a few hours at a time. He couldn't stop thinking about what was to come. So, as usual, it was three in the morning, and he was wide awake.

Annie didn't seem to have the same trouble lately. Now that she was pregnant – and his stomach did an elated flip every time he even thought the word: pregnant! – she was exhausted every night. He knew the days were hard on her, feeling sick all the time. Not to mention the stress they all felt, living with obnoxious Aunt Muriel while waiting for the next crisis to happen. He was thankful that Annie at least seemed to sleep deeply and peacefully all night long.

He buried his face in the soft curls at the back of her head, breathing in the scent of her. It couldn't be mere coincidence that her body folded perfectly into his as they lay together in this little bed every night. He took it as just one more piece of evidence that they were made for each other.

He'd futzed around one time last summer, crunching the numbers. Arithmancy wasn't his best subject, but maths in general had always come pretty easily to him. He reckoned he'd probably left a few minor aspects and vectors out, but even so, the results had confirmed what he'd suspected for quite a while now: there were an impressive number of alignments, an encouraging number of positive signs. It was mind-boggling how well-suited they were for each other.

Meredith had been right: Annie was his destiny, and he had never been more sure of it than right now. He would dedicate his life to doing everything in his power to being her real knight in shining armor. He owed it to her, after all. She was his every fantasy come true, so how could he be anything less for her?

Dumbledore'd had the true sense of it all along. Love was everything: the be all, end all. George pitied anyone who didn't feel the way he did. How did they face the world without it? How did they survive? He didn't think he could he make it through a single day now without seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, or simply gazing into the startling violet of her eyes.

Every night now they celebrated it, silently making love to one another. Once again, their bodies fit together precisely, brought each other joy and pleasure. More confirmation they belonged together, belonged to each other.

They had survived so much, both apart and together, over the past thirteen years. And now they were in love, married, with a baby on the way. Nothing could temper the happiness he felt – certainly not this stupid war. He couldn't wait for the battle to come – couldn't wait for it to be over – for he never spared a moment thinking they would be anything other than victorious. They had love on their side, after all.

And a battle was coming. He could sense the electrical portent of it, feel the tingling of it with his fingertips, hear the buzzing of it in his ears. It would prove to be his chance to make the vile, slithering Death Eaters pay for all they had done to his family. To Annie, especially.

George could picture the marble-white face and platinum blond hair of one in particular. Malfoy would be his personal quarry in the clash to come, he would make sure of it. George would find him and he would punish him with every ounce of fury in his soul for the ongoing persecution of his family. George's vengeance would be righteous, for he was made more powerful, invincible even, by Annie's love.

And George couldn't wait for the chance afterward to shout to the world how happy and proud he was to be her husband. How their lives would start in a home of their own, his own little family starting to grow. It promised to be paradise... with Annie by his side.