31st december, 1995 (11:50pm!)
.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。.
JOHANNAH ATTLEE thinks the phrase 'new year, new me' is - well, frankly, dragonshit.
Because here's the thing: it isn't that she doesn't want to believe it. 1995 got a bit sour-lemony towards the end, and Joey would rather walk barefoot to Pluto than do all that over again! She just finds it ridiculously hard to be optimistic that 1996 will be anything other than a little bit glum, even with all the fun and giggly Weasley-shaped scrapes that she's probably going to get lumped in with against her will.
Speaking of Weasley-shaped scrapes...
'Ready, Joeypoos?'
Fred's voice calls down from the shadows of the attic, so all Joey can see is his feet in their thick red socks, George's shuffling beside him - thick blue socks - in anticipation. From her own spot just below the trapdoor, she twists quickly round, glancing down the claustrophobic corridor, lined with its enticing ebony doors and mouldy paintings that have depressed her ever since Christmas.
'Yep,' she calls back softly, imagining her voice drifting up into the attic and hugging them. 'All clear.'
'You sure you aren't gonna buckle under the weight of all these? What with you being so bloody tiny?'
'Just throw them down, will you, or I'll - I'll blow a raspberry at you!'
'Ooo, well, that's got me quaking in my socks, that has,' comes George's sarcastic drawl, followed by a cloud of silver dust as the cardboard box comes hurtling through the trapdoor and straight into her hands.
Immediately she's startled by the way the box wibbles and wobbles in her palms, almost like the contents are... moving? She peeks uncertainly into its ominous depths and reels upwards, nostrils overflowing with a smell more manky than Fred and George's farts combined - and that's saying something! 'What in the name of Venus are these?'
'A truly delightful delicacy that goes by the name of the Chinese Chomping Cabbage,' George answers, swinging from the latch down into the corridor.
'Fancy trying 'em?' Fred says, sniggering, jumping down beside them with as much grace as Hagrid doing ballet.
'Yuck, no way! I won't eat a vegetable!'
'Calm down, only yanking your wand,' Fred says with a smirk, stuffing his hands into his pockets and leaning against the wall in that casual way Joey admires so bad. 'Besides, these are for products. Not fit for consumption - well, not by us at least.'
George snorts. Joey rolls her eyes, sticking her tongue out in concentration as she carries the box to the twins' bedroom, wary of its precarious wobbling in her hands. She doesn't know why they've trusted her with this - come on, everybody knows she's too clumsy for her own good!
Passing the door to Buckbeak's bedroom, where a gloomy Sirius has begun retreating for hours at a time now Harry's departure is creeping up, Joey can't help worrying like crazy about him. He's been a bit doom and gloom lately, and it's been really, really sad, especially because only Remus or Frances can get him out of his 'fits of the sullens', as Mrs Weasley likes to call them.
She turns to the twins, gesturing towards the box that is now dancing madly in her hands. 'Are you sure Sirius said we could have these?'
Fred's cheeks split into a wide grin. 'Well, young Johannah, I'm sure he would say that-'
'- if we, y'know, asked him,' finishes George with a grin as wide and mischievous as his brother's.
'Think of it as just... taking them off his hands.'
Joey sticks out her tongue, carefully placing the box of cabbages on Fred's bed, who grunts with disgust. Then, she flops out contentedly like a starfish on George's, shoving her face into the comforting cinnamon of his pillows so she doesn't have to confront the tick tick tick of the clock, which seems to be taking great pleasure from reminding her that there's only ten minutes to go.
Ten minutes to go until 1996 decides to unleash fresh hell upon them.
'Reckon it's time for a drink, don't you, George?' Fred digs around underneath his bed and produces a Firewhisky bottle with triumph.
'Completely agree, Fred, it'd be a sin if we didn't start the new year off as we mean to go on.'
Fred's grin broadens even more, slipping the bottle under the burgundy material of his latest Weasley jumper. Joey can hear its wicked contents sloshing against his chest as he gestures towards the door with his head. 'C'mon, we gotta show you something in the attic.' He winks. 'Reckon you'll like it, promise.'
Practically everything about him is radiating with mischief, and it's infectious, completely and utterly getting the better of Joey. 'Ooo!' she says delightedly, jumping off the bed and skipping back down the corridor, excitement fizzing all over.
She scrambles up the stepladder into the cave on the very top floor of the house. Thick as her patchwork quilts, dust adorns every surface, its rancid sweet smell tainting the whole attic with the stain of neglect. Joey, remembering all too well the day in summer when she and George accidentally stumbled upon some old school photos of her father, distracts herself as best as she can by drawing smiley faces and hearts and stars in the canvas of dust.
She's been trying - and failing - not to think about him obsessively for the past week, ever since she was even more stupid than usual and went home on Christmas. It's not been easy, especially with the twins nagging her about it every single blooming second of every single blooming day. Joey feels kind of bad, actually, that every time they'd given her those eyes and she just knew they were on the brink of asking, that she'd quickly busy herself with tarot or deciphering somebody's zodiac chart or helping Sirius with Buckbeak. But what exactly is she meant to do? Tell them everything? Um, she thinks not!
Joey will never tell them anything. Ever. She decided this as soon as Cedric Diggory's body came back, just over six months ago, laughtered lips blue. If anything, her papa's cruel taunts, Matthew's name twisting within her like a white-hot knife, only confirmed it.
'What're you showing me?' she demands, as scarily as she can (AKA, not scary at all!), when they've finally joined her in the attic. 'Come on, I've seen flobberworms that walk faster than you two, pathetic!'
'Our sincerest apologies for not living up to Johannah Attlee's extraordinarily high standards,' George retorts drily. He's so flipping sarcastic, it does her nut in!
Fred scoffs, nudging his twin. 'Yeah, they are extraordinarily high, considering I've seen goblins that are taller.'
Joey sticks out her tongue, blowing a raspberry in between each word. 'You're - both - such - meanies!'
Fred and George roll their eyes, in that twin synchrony they have (twin-chrony?), which Joey finds cute, but also a little creepy. OK, she's lying, she always loves it when they do it. She watches with chocolate eyes intrigued and giddy as they stride across the attic, sending dust fairies soaring, to something on the ceiling that looks suspiciously like a window.
And Joey gasps. 'We can go out on the roof?'
Fred grins. 'You bet, Joeypoos.'
She jumps up and down, helplessly, whilst the twins look on with their devilish grins carved in sheer amusement. 'Ugh, I can't flipping reach!'
'Here,' and she feels Fred's rough hands grab her waist and lift her upwards, the warmth of his freckled fingers, butterfly-faint, on the corduroy of pink dungarees that swathe her hips.
Joey feels like a fairy for a teeny-tiny moment, kicking her short legs delightedly in the air, but she still can't reach the lock of the window; the night and its stars remain tantalisingly close yet infuriatingly far, unable to be clasped in her desperate hand.
'Try this,' Fred suggests, pulling her onto his back and shoving his wand into her hands, the warm wonder of it weaving through her calloused fingers.
'Oh no Freddie, I won't be able to-'
'Just try,' he says. 'For me.'
So she does, scrunching up her face in complete childlike concentration as she mutters Alohomora. Nothing happens, the lock remaining stubbornly still in a very Taurus-y way. Who is surprised? Not Joey, that's for sure!
Instead, she uses his wand to hook through the lock and pulls the skylight open, immediately tasting near-midnight on her tongue, and cursing whoever made her so criminally small. (She'll make them pay, she swears. She'll find them and she'll, like, hug them to death or something.)
Being on the roof is everything. Joey feels like she's floating so high, she is so dangerously happy. The whole of London glitters, stars stretching out in front, cars streaming behind. Far away from Grimmauld Place and all its death and decay and despair, Joey hears partygoers laughing raucously, hyenas cackling as they stumble out of taxis into the bitter night.
She rolls out onto her back, feeling Fred and George collapse down either side of her, and intertwines her hands with theirs without thinking. All Joey's looking at is the moon (who is in Taurus, by the way!), her fat gold curve, wide and enticing as a lost Galleon, found glinting in a gutter.
'You look beautiful tonight, my love,' Joey whispers, lifting her pinky up to it as though she'll find a way, somehow, to tug it down to her on a thread. Because nothing would ever go wrong if you lived on the moon, she's sure of it, so don't even try to convince her otherwise!
'Why, thank you,' says Fred, all cocky, and Joey groans at his joke as she bites back the laughter in her throat. George makes some wry comment about being the more attractive twin, his nimble fingers idly braiding tiny sections of Joey's hair as he does so - a comment which, funnily enough, causes Fred to go temporarily deaf! What a bizarre coincidence.
'What're them ones, Joeypoos?' Fred asks once he's somehow regained his hearing, freeing his hand from hers and pointing towards one of her favourite constellations. (And why does she love it so much? Well, she just thinks its name is cute, obviously, does she need any other reason?)
'That's Onion's Belt,' Joey says with a contented beam.
George snorts. 'Ah yes, that famous constellation, that has the suspicious effect of making whoever looks at it hungry. Onion's Belt.'
'Don't be a Sarcastic Sally,' Joey whines, a petulant child, 'I just think Orion is a funny name, that's all! Plus, onion is a cute word.'
Fred scoffs. 'Merlin's tits, what're you bloody on? How can a word be cute?'
She pouts, watching with fascination as the belt of stars twinkles in the sky, knowing meteorite eyes winking at the three of them, splayed out on the roof. 'I dunno. I just think onion is a cute word. It reminds me of, um-'
'Bunions?' George suggests - very unhelpfully, she might add!
'No, Georgie. It reminds me of fun.' Golden laughter bubbles in her mouth, its taste sweet and full of promise. 'Hey, if you were onions, you'd be fun-ions!'
George snorts. 'If you were a vegetable, Joe, you'd be a cute-cumber.'
'Aww, George, that's actually... sweet? Are you feeling well my love?' She's only joking, duh, everyone knows George is much softer than his brother! (Mind you, she's seen Fred's soppy side, she's seen him sob at Dirty Dancing.)
Both Joey and George turn to Fred expectantly. And, ever the cocky, of course he says, 'If I was a watermelon, would you spit or swallow my see-'
'Fred Weasley!' Joey squeals, fully burying her face into George's chest this time as he lets out an exasperated groan at his twin brother's bravado. She is fully aware, inhaling George's scent of cigarettes and cinnamon through her hiccups, that her cheeks have flushed a violent shade of magenta, and she does not plan on looking Fred in the eye any time soon!
(Well, maybe not for the next minute or so, anyway.)
'Oh, bloody hell,' George groans, checking the shabby gold watch adorning his wrist. 'We did not just miss the start of the year because Fred was making jokes about his sodding dick.'
Fred half-rises from his lying down position, leaning back on his elbows, the epitome of smugness. 'Sounds like a perfectly good way to start a new year, lads, if you ask me!'
Joey turns to glance at him, drinking in the features of his face, so familiar she aches, all bathed in gold from the kiss of the moon. 'I dunno, I think there's room for improvement, Weasley.'
His eyebrows arch, and he leans in slightly so there's only night and starlight between them. She catches the tingle of Firewhisky on his breath. 'Oh yeah, Attlee?'
Maybe it's the Firewhisky, maybe it's Fred, maybe it's a bit of both. All Joey knows is that she is starting another year hopelessly devoted to him - Merlin's mismatched socks, is she screwed!
Cedric would've laughed. See, the thing is, she always spent New Year with the twins, normally at the astronomy tower, drunk on the dawn and the promise of twelve months' of elaborate pranks. But after doing that she'd always go back to the Hufflepuff common room, snuggling down on the sofa with Ced until the small hours, chatting until their lips hurt from all the gossip. For him, it was girls who he'd convinced himself that he must like, and then, eventually, it was Roger. But for her, despite knowing she shouldn't, it was always Fred.
Now, in the infancy of 1996, Joey cradles her patchwork quilt closer to her, cuddling up - for warmth, honest! - to the boy on her left, whose pinky twists round hers like a promise.
She's not sure of what, exactly. But it's a promise nonetheless.
'Best get thinking about some resolutions-' George begins, but Fred and Joey cry out in unison, Fred flinging his arm across her to push George with a jokey roughness.
'Don't give us any of that bollocks. Unless your resolution is to be the more superior twin, George. Wish for that all you want, mate, but I hate to break it to you: it'll always be me.'
'Oi, none of this, children,' Joey laughs before George can conjure up a witty retort. 'As long as we're all alive and well, that's all that matters, right?'
'Oh, Joe, I wish I had your horrifying lack of ambition,' George says melodramatically.
She shrugs. 'I just want to be happy. Get a NEWT or two. I don't think it's much to ask for, do you? I wasn't put on this earth to work, ew, I was put here to see the flowers and play in the trees. Besides, my loves, I think I would rather have all my placements in, I dunno, water signs, than worry about the R-word!'
(The R-word being, of course, responsibilities. Duh!)
'Nah,' Fred says, exchanging a wicked look with his brother. 'The only newts me and Georgie need this year'll be the ginger ones.'
It takes Joey a moment to realise he's on about Ginger Newts, as in Lee's favourite biscuit, and not NEWTs, as in, exactly what Molly Weasley birthed them to achieve. She frowns, unease settling into her skin. Plus, she's also frowning because she misses Lee now, so it isn't an inherently positive start to the year, if she's honest with you! 'What d'you mean?'
He shrugs. 'Well, y'know, we leave old Hoggy this year, and it's about time we flew the nest, don't you reckon?'
Her frown deepens. Joey hadn't really thought about it like that, the fact that they really are leaving Hogwarts, and suddenly she's swept by a wave of terror. How is she meant to navigate a whole flipping future? She can't even use 'Alohomora', for Venus' sake!
She is so very proud of the twins though, obviously (she didn't even realise they could even work as hard as they've been doing, it's scary!), but still. It's a little embarrassing, Joey knows, but she really wouldn't mind it if life just stayed the way it is now: just her and her two best friends, leaning on each other, over each other, watching the shimmering constellations and wondering if anybody will ever be safe again.
Her pinky tightens on Fred's, subconsciously, almost like she's paranoid he's leaving now. Which he can't, they just can't. Joey can't do life without either of them, her sacred souls, and if 1996 is the year that decides to tear their harmony apart, pinky by pinky, well. All her nightmares will come true.
And, honestly, she just doesn't know what she'll do.
'You've had this bloody thing since September,' he's saying, his voice a lullaby. When Joey tears her eyes from Orion's cute fashionista belt she realises he's fiddling with the bright pink bandage on her hand from Umbridge's detentions. Her stomach somersaults and she realises, this is when they find out.
She didn't want it to happen ever, ideally, but she is surprised they've been satisfied so long with her lies about what it's hiding. 'I told you, it's a-'
'Quidditch injury, yeah, yeah.' He rolls his eyes. 'Only, they're not meant to last months, don't lie. Even that time we bewitched Marcus Flint's toes into fingers it wore off after a week. Unfortunately.'
Joey's not really sure what to say, partly because she never realised it was them that did that to Flint and she's a bit disappointed, and partly because her panicked thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of a certain Weasley sister...
'Oi, you three.' Ginny pokes her head through the skylight, glossy hair billowing in the breeze. 'Happy New Year. Seen my wand?'
'Have you checked up Harry's arse?' Fred says without missing a beat.
George snorts. 'Yeah, I can't possibly think of a more suitable location!'
'Fuck off,' Ginny sing-songs. Her twinkling eyes land on Joey, narrowing slightly at the bandage on her hand. 'Has fucking Umbitch been using them on you too, the cow?'
'Such foul language for a lady, baby sis!' George gasps, clasping his hand to his chest.
'I will Bat-Bogey Hex you,' Ginny threatens. She waggles her hand tantalisingly in front of their faces, saying as if it's obvious, 'Blood quills.'
Oh, flipping pancakes. Either side of Joey, she feels the twins stiffen.
'What?' they say in synchrony, only it really isn't funny any more.
Ginny shrugs, tossing her lion's mane of hair as she disappears back into the house. 'I told you, she's a fucking cow. Night, idiots.'
'Goodnight Gin, my love!' Joey calls, wishing more than anything she could go with her. Her eyes are darting maniacally at everywhere but them.
'What's up with your hand, Joe?' George asks softly, breaking the empty silence.
'Please, it's nothing...'
'Nothing, my arse.' Fred scoffs, his voice a hardened razor blade. 'Can't you fucking tell us something, for once?'
Guilt flowers within her at the exasperation in his words. Joey finds herself unwrapping the bandage, staring with desperate longing at his name, etched in her scraggly handwriting, as if somehow he'll come and rescue her from this awkwardness. Cedric Diggory's death was an accident.
It's funny, now she thinks about it, that Umbrella hasn't given the twins detention at all. It's always been her. Always. Like every teeny-weeny thing she does sends their Defence Professor over the edge, even if it's just lining up her crystals on her desk, or giggling out loud in lesson when they're meant to be silent-reading. (It's not her fault Fred and Lola pull stupid faces at each other, is it?)
'It's nothing,' Joey insists, forcing her toothy smile, but she's clucking her tongue between her teeth as she does so.
'Oh, yeah, because it looks like nothing,' George retorts drily, wrapping his arm tight around her shoulders. She sinks into his touch, trembling.
'She can't - she can't...' Fred begins, his voice a ghost of its usual cocky bravado. 'Fucking hell, Joeypoos, I can't believe she's doing this to you. And you let her?'
Joey flinches. 'I don't mind, really, it's fine.'
Fred's face is hard as stone. 'Fine? Fine? I'm so gonna fucking get her for this. Why didn't you tell us?' His expression softens. 'Johannah, why didn't you tell me?'
'Well - well - I just didn't want to worry you over something so silly.'
'Listen, Joe,' George implores, taking her battleground hand in both of his, 'if you think we'd ever think that, you're the fucking plum, yeah? Right, Fred?'
They both look across at his twin, who's sat there with his jaw set, expression unreadable, almost like he's in pain. No, he can't be. Joey knew she shouldn't've told them. It's so blooming selfish of her to worry them like this. They're meant to be having fun tonight, for Venus' sake!
'No,' Fred says slowly, finally. Despite everything, Joey can't help wishing she knew what he's thinking. 'George is right.'
'George is right?' Joey repeats cheekily. 'Wow, that truly is the sort of miracle that only happens when the moon is in Taurus!'
Fred roars with laughter and George gasps in horror. 'I will not stand for this violation!' he sulks, crossing his arms defensively across his chest.
Joey's fighting to suppress laughter so hard, because she physically struggles to get the words out. 'Oh, well it's a good job you're sat down then, isn't it!'
(Say what you will about her, but at least she knows she's flipping hilarious, if she does say so herself!)
As for Fred, he's regretting everything he's said in the past ten minutes. (Not the watermelon joke, duh, that was comedic genius.) But an uneasiness has settled between the three of them, as Joey sits there, nervously twisting strands of her mad red hair and clucking her tongue. He wishes he knew what to say. He wishes he knew what to do.
To make matters even fucking weirder, he's noticed that butterflies have started ricocheting around his stomach, like caged fairies or some shit. Which is bloody great. Because although he's held her hand often before - mainly when they've been on the run from Filch, do not tell his mother or he'll end you - it's only now he's noticing its weight and how delicate it is, its rough softness from the Quidditch broom, how naturally it falls into his palm. And of course, those fucking scars.
When they get back to school, one thing's for certain: he's going to kill a Dolores on fucking sight, and it's not Lola he's on about.
He supposes he should, admittedly, have seen this coming, he thinks, as he glances at Joey's face as though he's seeing it for the first time. She's laughing at one of George's jokes, laughing fully in all its ugly squawky glory. Her smile's half mad, half wonderful, eyes aglow with rapture. Her freckled nose, slightly broken even now from its collision with his Bludger in second year, crinkling like a toddler's with unabridged joy.
Here's the thing: he'll never know the demons of her past, he knows that. It's not like she tells either of them shit. But now Fred knows in perfect clarity he wants to face the devils of her future with her. Now and always, always and forever. 1996, 1997, 1998 - whenever. Fuck.
Kill him.
The Firewhisky tastes stolen (because it is, sorry-not-sorry Frances), burning up a sun all the way down his throat. Like it's forbidden, like this moment and the way she glances across at him, with those wide chocolate eyes. The strands of red hair, tinged gold and glowing, hiding all her lies.
Honestly, if this is the sort of surprise he's going to be dealing with in 1996, Fred Weasley cannot be arsed.
He rolls onto his side and turns, instead, to watch his brother and best friend. It's just started to snow, annoyingly, and Joey's leant forward like an excitable puppy, waggling her tongue to catch the crystals as they explode on her tongue. She keeps hiccuping, small rounded sounds that send a protective stab through Fred's heart every time she does so. It's pathetic, he knows, but he still can't help feeling jealousy roar within him at the sight of George fiddling with her auburn hair, twisting the strands round and round in between his ash-stained fingertips. He'd even trade his own perfect senses for George's shit eyesight, if it meant he could be the one with reading glasses perched on the very tip of his nose, brow furrowed in concentration, fingers in her hair.
Fuck it - Fred needs to learn how to braid.
It'd be pointless anyway, he convinces himself. He remembers what she'd said the morning after their kiss. Accident. Mistake. Meant nothing. He'd said it too, but he'd been fucking lying, obviously. He wish he knew when she was lying. Fred feels like she's tangled herself up with so many, you'd only need to unravel one and the rest would come spiralling free, like silk.
He wants to know her, it hits him. Yeah, of course he knows her, but truly, truly know her. What her voice sounds like in the dark, first thing in the morning, last thing at night. Her biggest fears, and how she'll eradicate his, easy as breathing. Because of the bloody Firewhisky, he can barely remember what her lips taste like. He wants to know the flavour of her neck and her thighs and her lips and her hair, and have the taste of her soft skin seared upon his one-track mind. He wants to memorise the flavour of her suncream potion like it's an exam, one that he won't actually fail this time. He wants her all over, every day, no matter what fucking zodiac sign she says the moon is in. He doesn't give a single shit.
(Except he does, because that's what makes her happy.)
Fred wants Joey to feel like every day is Christmas, her birthday - even though he knows she hates her birthday, and probably Christmas too now. He didn't think she could possibly ever hate Christmas, she has a right weird obsession with it. But then again, you probably feel a bit sore about the day you got Crucio'd for years afterward.
Someone tortured her. Her. Just the thought of it makes him scream with agony, rips him apart limb from fucking limb. He'll get whoever did it, he knows he will, and he'll make them beg. He'll make them wish they were never born, but more importantly he'll make them wish they never laid a finger on his Joeypoos, who, more importantly still, has cuddled closer to him on a long cold evening for warmth he was made to provide.
Sometimes, it feels like he was made to be hers. George's twin, sure, but her twin soul. Their pinkies stitched together through oblivion, through whole universes that she deserves and he doesn't.
FRANCES, SIRIUS AND REMUS are talking very quietly amongst themselves, like a trio, like a family, as Joey, Fred and George stumble into the kitchen.
Joey is not happy about this, she realises, clinging tighter to Fred and George's arms. Yeah, it's only flipping eight in the morning, and they've dragged her up out of bed to go back to school! Only five minutes ago she was still all snug and warm under a mountain of blankets, drugged on slumber, and now here she is, practically falling asleep at the kitchen table. She knows - outrageous!
Of course, what doesn't help matters - like, at all - is the fact that she and the twins were up way into the small hours last night... but come on, they have to herald in a new year in style! And if 'in style' means she'll end up snoozing into her Pixie Puffs, well, so be it.
Frances gives them the sort of beam that should be illegal at such an inhumane hour of the morning. She's sitting on one of the worktops, swinging her legs, golden hair all the shades of the sun. Her fingers are sticky with sugar crystals from a box of Fizzing Whizbees, and at the sight of this, Joey's eyes widen with horror, all sleep truly dissipating.
'Shit,' the twins mutter in unison, breaking free from Joey's arms and Apparating upstairs.
Frances snorts. 'What's the matter with them twats?' she asks, lowering her voice for the swear word, but not by enough, so she still gets a fierce scowl from Mrs Weasley that makes Joey want to giggle even more.
Because this is a funny situation, to be honest!
(Also, can she just talk about how the twins always leave her to deal with their mess? It's just not fair!)
'Well, um, thosearen'tactualFizzingWhizbeespleasedon'tkillme.'
Frances pauses comically with one halfway to her mouth. 'Johannah Attlee, what do I need to know?'
'Um, well, Fred and George and me, we - we were experimenting, and we - kind of, maybe, bewitched them to have dragon nuts in them...'
Frances raises both elegant eyebrows. 'And by dragon nuts I'm assuming you mean nuts shaped like dragons, hmm? Because if you mean dragon nuts as in, dragon nuts, I swear to fuck that will have been the last mistake you ever make in your lives...'
'Sorry, Franniekins!' Fred says brightly as the twins Apparate back into the kitchen, in a tone that makes it very clear he's not sorry whatsoever. Not even an eensy-weensy bit!
Joey takes a cautious step back, unable to stop giggling, because she feels like a Frances-shaped bomb is going to detonate any second now... But the Auror who Bill adores just shakes her head in a sort of... awe? 'Oh, I want to hate you so bad for that. But it's fucking brilliant.'
'We know,' Fred and George sing-song in unison.
'But do it again-' Frances squashes the uneaten Whizbee fiercely in her hand '-and you'll have to watch out for your own nuts. Got that?'
'Yes, Alexandre.'
Joey's giggles explode into full-blown laughter, snorts and hiccups and everything. This is why she's going to miss Grimmauld Place, despite all its manky decorations. 'Bill's coming this morning, Frances!'
'And you're telling me that because...' but her perfect cheeks have flushed fierce chrysanthemum, and her blindingly emerald eyes are suddenly very interested in the dirt embedded onto the worktop.
'Why's that prick coming?' Fred demands, probably still salty because Joey joked that Bill was her favourite Weasley...
(She's joking, obviously! Joey can't imagine why on Venus that would cheese him off!)
'Because he wants to see me off, duh,' Joey replies with a hint of smugness.
'Bollocks,' George scoffs. 'Almost like we're not bloody related to him!'
Joey pretends to ponder. 'Yeah, it is almost like that, isn't it? Wonder why that could be?'
Her squeals reverberate through the entire house as Fred and George chase her down the corridor, her heart rising in her chest, fatigue finally replaced by feelings of happiness only.
It's that sort of happiness you get when you remember a really wonderful dream halfway through the morning: happiness followed by the taste of laughter and love on the tip of your tongue. Not that Joey has very many happy dreams, mind you, which is such a shame. She used to love going to sleep more than anything, and now? Alright, fine, she still loves sleep, but it's tinged with that corrugated-iron fear, that maybe tonight'll be the night a ghost comes back, accompanied by the chorus of Amos Diggory's screams.
Flipping brilliant, she's thinking about Ced again like she has been more and more lately, since Christmas. Her fingers are trembling on the straps of her bright-pink backpack, eyes suddenly very focussed on every scar of scruff adorning her knackered multi-coloured trainers.
'Write to me every week, won't you?' Frances is saying, squeezing her in a hug that nearly kills her, no joke, and it snaps Joey from her reverie. 'Tell me if your two dickheads bother you; I'll come to Hogwarts straight away and kick both their arses.'
'Will do!' Joey replies brightly, turning sideways to glance at the twins, who are currently being forced by their mother to wear matching hand-knitted mittens.
She turns to Bill and jumps into his arms, feels the hot cinnamon of his hair as he spins her round and round and round. 'Write every day,' he mutters to her hair. 'Even just to tell me what sign the moon's in, or how many Fudge Flies you're scoffing. I need to know you're alright.'
Joey musters up her brightest, most I-am-definitely-fine-thank-you! smile. She nods to the twins, worming her fingers tighter round her backpack straps. 'They'll be fine.'
Bill rolls his eyes, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. 'Yeah, and it's not them I'm worried about. Would it hurt once in a while, Annie, to put yourself first?'
This conversation is getting way too personal for Joey's liking! 'Why would I do that,' she mutters, and before he can object, 'and by that I mean write to you every day! Ha! Fooled you there, didn't I? Venus, I am just so funny sometimes!'
'Get lost,' Bill says, giving her a gentle shove in the direction of the twins, who are currently getting mauled to death by Frances.
'You're going to bloody suffocate us!' Fred complains, attempting helplessly to wriggle out of her hug. The world's best Auror (and friend!) retaliates by holding them tighter.
'You'll live, you big baby. Go on, get out of here!'
The twins don't need telling twice, the three of them tumbling out into a bitter, silver-laced January morning.
'Love the mittens, Freddie,' Joey teases, tugging at his thumb. He produces her favourite scowl in the entire world. (Apart from, maybe, Lola's. Or Pyotr's.) 'Fuck off. Here, you have them.'
'Ooo, no, I couldn't possibly, they make you look like a fashion icon, my love!'
'Just take them, will you,' he says again, shoving them onto her shivering hands. 'Your hands are always bloody freezing, it pisses me off, because it makes me want to-' He clears his throat abruptly, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. 'Fuck, there's the Bus. Ready to travel in style?'
'You bet!' Joey sing-songs excitedly, clambering onto the steps with a wide smile at the young conductor, who looks startled, bless him (gotta be a Pisces). Even through layers and layers of lovingly-knitted wool, her pinky still finds Fred's.
IT'S A BIT OF A BUMMER, actually, how the thought of being back at Hogwarts sickens Joey as much as it excites her. It's her blooming magic school, she should adore every single second. But there's something about coming back - to Umbrella, to her scary NEWT lessons, to corridors haunted by Ced - that makes her feel a bit, or maybe a lot, pooey as they're stepping off the bus.
Good job, too, she isn't sure if she'll ever want to ride on the Knight Bus again. (Shouldn't they be calling it the Day Bus? Bit of a silly name, if you ask her!) Sure, she had a great conversation with Stan Shunpike about how flipping annoying it is to have so much acne, but apart from that the whole experience was terrifying! Can't they invest in some seatbelts, at the very least?
Snow blurs Joey's vision, clinging to the strands of Professor Lupin's soft hazel hair. She gives him a big hug, waving goodbye to Tonks - who, sidenote, is still the coolest ever - before they begin the stress of dragging their trunks up to the castle, struggling dangerously over the ice.
She falls over a few more times than she'd like to mention, much to the amusement of Fred and George (rude!), who are even more amused by how animatedly she's listening to Hermione's plans to knit hats for... elves? Joey honestly doesn't get why they're being so cruel. Elves get cold too, hence the hats! It makes perfect sense to her.
(Mind you, Joey has seen some of Hermione's knitting and it was so misshaped it's hard to believe they are hats... Still, you can't fault the girl, can you? She is trying her best!)
A few snow-angels and slip-ups later, they've reached the heavy oak doors of the castle. Joey bids farewell to the twins, promising to meet them both at dinnertime for prank planning and potatoes, before heading for the Hufflepuff common room, a little too uneasy to skip.
Outside the entrance she hears the low lullabies of laughter and music, plants humming and hugs being shared, and Joey hesitates a second. She isn't even sure why, but she feels stupid.
Flip this, she thinks to herself, tapping the bricks, and indulging in the earthen warmth of her Hogwarts home.
Honestly, Joey isn't sure what does it. Maybe it's the sight of Ivy painting, Pyotr deliberately trying to mess with her dreamy canvas, whilst they're both dancing to some Muggle musician they idolise. (Brian Spring Stream? Something like that!) Maybe it's the sight of Roger, smiling shyly as he's stretched out on a sofa, a little awkward, sketching out Quidditch positions in a moleskin notebook like one Ced used to have. Maybe it's the sharp pain of her trunk colliding against her ankle, dragging her back from dreamland and reminding her that the real world stings a little.
Whatever it is, it makes Joey's eyes well with tears.
Ivy notices her first. 'Joe honey, hey!' she cries happily, tucking her paintbrush into her apron pouch and bouncing over to the door - and then the frown materialises, worry lines wriggling deep into her umber cheeks. 'Shit, you good?'
Next thing Joey knows, Roger's beside her, mahogany eyes brimming with panic, mahogany fringe flipping anxiously to and fro. Followed by Pyotr, running a hand over his dandelion-clock shaved head, as he yells at all the students in the common room, 'I'll give Hufflepuff 100 points if you all fuck the fuck off.'
Surrounded by all these people she'd sell her soul for, Joey can't help feeling so alone. And she can't help wondering-
What if she's outgrown Hogwarts, and it isn't her home any more? What then? What now?
Most importantly, if she carries on falling apart like this, how is Johannah Attlee meant to keep everyone else safe in 1996?
a/n
hey hope ur all well, sorry this was a lil long but i hope u enjoyed it nonetheless? i kinda hate this one but :—) we move amiright BESTIES
hopefully my updates will be a lil faster from now on bc i have prewritten a few chaps so we'll see !!!!! plus im having leela withdrawal symptoms LMAO
ok that's it, love u all k byeeeee
— xxxxxxxxxx nolly