Milena stood in front of one the most colourful buildings in all of Diagon Alley and she knew this had to be their shop. Fireworks were whizzing around in one window and little gag gifts were displayed around it. A large sign was hanging in the window reading "U-No-Poo" advertising a joke product making fun of Voldemort. Diagon Alley seemed quieter in comparison to the shop.
"So, what do you think?" Fred asked eagerly.
"I think it's incredible, Freddie." Milena said in awe.
"Well no point in standing out here and staring at it." Fred said, opening the door for her. "Let me show you inside."
She happily obliged and entered into the building where she was greeted by a gallery of all of their best products and everything they had ever shown her, plus things she had never seen before and knew they must be new.
"This is fantastic, Freddie!" Milena exclaimed as she picked up what looked like a kaleidoscope from a shelf.
"George and I have developed a lot more since we've moved out and had no one to confiscate our products." Fred said, moving Milena along through the store. "Over there are our muggle products, trick cards and things for people like dad who enjoy muggle stuff," he pointed to a corner where a table was displaying some decks of cards and muggle magician things, "and over there are our new line of skin potions, pimple removers, bruise and minor cut remedies, and my personal favourite, our faux freckle finish." He picked up a little spray bottle to show her.
"Wow, this is really impressive. Do they really work?" Milena asked, looking at the bottle of pimple removing potion.
"Yep, all of them, George and I tested them ourselves." Fred said proudly.
He continued to walk her around the bright and colourful store, showing her everything else that was wizzing and whirring around them and their minor protective charm clothes they had invented which the ministry had been buying from them in bulk.
"Anyways, George should be upstairs in the flat," Fred concluded, "shall I take you up to see your new abode?"
Milena was so entranced by the shop itself and all the incredible products the twins had come up with, she had almost forgotten entirely about the flat.
"Right, yeah, show me the way!" Milena smiled.
Fred led her to a door marked "Employee's Only" and opened it for her, gesturing for her to enter again. It was a small room with a set of stairs going up two floors and some small boxes scattered around which the twins had clearly rummaged through, but hadn't done much with.
"All the way up to the top." Fred said.
Milena began walking up the stairs and with being so used to having to climb so many staircases at Hogwarts, she was up at the top in no time. The pair entered the door at the top of the stairs which led into a small living room with an old but sturdy dark red love seat, two arm chairs that did not match, a small and old coffee table and a fireplace that felt a little too large for the room. Off the right, she could see a small kitchen only separated from the living room by some of the counters which held a few dirty dishes from breakfast. Just past the fireplace was a hallway that led further back into the flat and she could see four closed doors. Her luggage was sitting by the fireplace in a little pile and Fidget was out of his cage, prancing around the old rug in the living room. George must have let him out, she thought.
"HEY GEORGE! WE'RE HERE!" Fred suddenly yelled and a moment later, George poked his head out from the furthest door on the right in the hallway.
"Oi! No need to be so loud, I can hear you just fine!" George said as he left his room, leaving the door open a little.
"Just wanted to be sure you heard me." Fred smirked.
"I think they heard you in Australia," George said, "Hi Milly!"
"Hi George!" Milena greeted back, pulling him into a hug.
"Well, welcome to the flat, I let Fidget out of his cage when the luggage showed up, figured I'd let him roam around while we waited for you." George said. "And I suppose Fred's already given you the tour of the shop?"
"Yeah he has and not to inflate either of your egos, but you two really are brilliant." Milena said.
"You had a hand in some of this two, you know." Fred said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "We wouldn't be here without you, Mills."
At his last words, Milena was suddenly reminded of the dream she had had during her last night at Hogwarts. You can't save him. She felt her heart sink a little, but she tried to ignore it. This was supposed to be a happy occasion.
"Anyways, I have to get back to what I was doing, so I'll leave you two for now and if you're coming into my room, don't open the door too fast, you might set something off." George warned before leaving to his room again.
"I don't think I want to know what he's doing in there..." Milena said.
"Apparently, he has an idea for a new product, but he's determined he wants to do this one on his own." Fred explained. "Said he wants it to be a surprise. Anyways, I don't know if I mentioned it, but the flat only has two bedrooms, so I was hoping you'd be alright with sharing a room with me?"
"As long as the bed's comfortable," Milena smiled.
"Only the best!" Fred exclaimed. "Now, why don't we get your stuff moved in."
Fred pulled out his wand again and waved it at the pile of luggage which began to float behind him as he led Milena to the door at the far end of the hallway but on the left side. He entered and the luggage floated in behind him and placed itself down in front of a wardrobe. The bedroom was quite large and had its own ensuite off to the left. Sitting in the middle of the far wall under a large window was a queen sized bed with a couple of pillows and a fluffy looking comforter on top. The room was a little messy with some of Fred's shirts tossed onto the bed as if he had struggled to decide what to wear today and a desk in the corner was covered in papers that Milena could only assume were a mix of the notes and letters she had sent him along with orders and forms for the business.
"Sorry the room's a bit messy, didn't have much time to tidy up." Fred apologized, rubbing the back of his neck.
"It's fine, Freddie," Milena assured him, "I think this room alone is triple the size of my room back home."
"Why don't you get yourself unpacked and I'll fix us some lunch?" Fred suggested. "I've done my best to leave you space in the wardrobe for your clothes, as for the rest of your things, feel free to put them wherever, I don't have much decoration in here anyways."
Milena began sorting through her clothes as Fred left for the kitchen. When she opened the wardrobe to take a look, she saw that Fred had left almost half the space empty for her, though she wondered if some of that space had been taken up by the shirts strewn across the bed. With a wave of her wand, all of her clothes began to sort themselves onto hangers or neatly folded themselves into empty drawers. She also had Fred's random shirts put themselves away again too as they fit themselves onto hangers and back into their space in the wardrobe. When she was done, she put all of her now empty luggage into the back of a linen closet to store them away, leaving Fidget's cage out on a little table.
Milena could smell the food Fred was making all the way in the bedroom and just the scent alone was making her mouth water, realizing that she had forgotten about breakfast during her morning rush. She left to the kitchen where Fred was plating some shepherd's pie that was still steaming.
"It's just leftovers from dinner last night, hope you don't mind." Fred said, handing her a plate.
"Not at all," Milena said, scooping a mouthful of shepherd's pie into her mouth. "Oh, I put your shirts you left out back into the wardrobe, but everything's all unpacked."
"Great," Fred said, taking a bite of his food as well. "So, tomorrow the shop'll be open again and we've been pretty busy recently, so I was hoping I could show you how to run the register and get you to do that for us?"
As the two continued to talk about the shop and Fred explained how well they were doing, George soon joined them for lunch and they all continued their conversations catching up on all the twins had missed after leaving Hogwarts early. They both seemed impressed by the amount of mayhem people had continued after they left.
The next day, the store was open for business and just as Fred had warned her, it was almost immediately busy with customers crowding into the store. Seeing how well the business was doing firsthand excited Milena and helping out around the store was even more fun than she had expected. She ran the register at the front, greeting customers who were mostly student aged, but nevertheless, seeing everyone else's excitement made her just as happy.
As the day went on, Milena continued rushing through the line up of people. Every so often, Fred would stop by to see how she was doing or to simply give her a quick kiss on the cheek as he passed by. He would sometimes purposely restock shelves near the register just so he could wink at her and make little faces at her just to try and get her to blush.
By the end of the day, George was locking up the front door and waving his wand so the "open" sign now said "closed". Milena walked up to the front window of the shop and looked around outside. It was beginning to look dark and gloomy as if a bad storm was about to roll over and most of the streets were empty already. Some of the other shops around had been closed for a while with wood planks hammered over their windows and lights out in many of the buildings. Some stalls had been set up just outside the stores selling items claiming to be able to protect people from dark magic. The atmosphere of Diagon Alley was almost an exact opposite to what it was inside the twins' shop.
Milena began to feel that sinking feeling in her stomach again as she noticed dark clouds beginning to roll over the sky. She wrapped her arms around her lower torso as she watched the clouds loom over the alley.
"A lot of places have been closing recently." Fred said, walking up behind her carrying a bag of food for the pygmy puffs. "Some by choice, some by force. It's getting bad out there again."
"So, why is our shop still doing so well?" Milena asked.
"Reckon people just need a good laugh in times like this." Fred shrugged. "We'll be safe in here though. Oh, that reminds me," Fred suddenly said, putting the bag of food down by the pygmy puff cage. "Lupin asked me if we were still interested in joining the Order now that we're graduated and of age. Mum's still not big on the idea, but she can't exactly stop us now."
"Yeah of course I want to join." Milena agreed without hesitation.
"Wicked," Fred smiled, "I thought that'd be your answer, but figured I should ask first. Next meeting's at the end of the week. I'll let Lupin know."
Milena nodded and Fred went to go feed the pygmy puffs that were all chirping at him for the food he had been carrying. Her eyes gazed back out to the street again which had fallen even darker and yet still no rain. As she stared out the window at the empty street, she began to grow cold and her head started to feel a little light.
"Mills? You okay?" Fred asked, dropping the bag of food again to check on her.
She started to feel dizzy, nearly losing her balance and Fred holding his arm around her back to steady her. Then, she heard a voice begin to speak.
A face seen before will be seen again. Darkness looms near his hand.
The voice said nothing else and just as quickly as she had felt dizzy, she felt fine again, ignoring the slight nausea in her stomach. She looked up at Fred whose face was in slight shock, staring back at her, his mouth slightly agape.
"Who was that?" Milena asked. "Who just spoke?"
"You did..." Fred responded, still looking a little shocked. "You were the only one who spoke."
"No, no, there was another voice. Did you catch what it said?" Milena asked.
"It was just you, Mills. You were the only one that spoke. You said 'A face seen before will be seen again. Darkness looms above his hand.' You said that." Fred explained with a tone of concern.
Milena herself was concerned as well. She could have sworn that it was another person's voice who had spoken. She had heard it so clearly, but didn't even realize it was her own voice. She couldn't feel herself speak, she had no memory of speaking, only hearing the voice.
"Mills... I know I was sorta joking back at Christmas... you know, about you maybe being a seer and all but..." Fred trailed off.
Milena didn't respond. She thought of all those times she had seen something happening or had been told in her dreams that something would be coming, but she had thought they were only just that, just dreams. Had she always spoken aloud when she had these dreams? Had anyone ever heard her say what she thought she was dreaming?
"Maybe we should bring this up at the Order meeting?" Fred suggested. "If any one of the death eaters were to catch wind of this, you would become an instant target."
"Well thanks Fred, that makes me feel loads better..." Milena said sarcastically. "Maybe we oughta bring it up to one of the members we trust first and then decide if it's best to tell the whole Order. Who knows who we can fully trust these days..."
"We can talk about it more later. Maybe for now we should just go have some dinner and get to bed for the night." Fred said. "I think you could use the rest."
Fred and Milena finished putting away the last of the stock and went back up to the flat for dinner, George joining them too. It was a relatively quiet dinner between the three which felt a little odd to Milena. There was never this much quiet around the twins, especially when there wasn't someone there to scold them for it. George finally broke the silence, turning to Milena.
"So, any thoughts on the quidditch offer?" George asked, taking a bite of his food.
"Oh um, I hadn't really thought about it too much since I got here... I mean quidditch season tryouts still aren't for a while as far as I'm aware." Milena explained.
George nodded, listening along to her and then continued. "What about the Order? Fred's told you about that?"
"Yeah and I've definitely agreed to that one. I assume we're all going to the meeting at the end of the week together?" Milena responded.
Both the twins made noises of agreement, their mouths both full of food. Fred quickly tried to swallow his food and speak, but caused himself to choke a little and cough for a moment before clearing his throat.
"Sorry," he said, his eyes watering a little, "um... oh right... they've asked that we apparate a little further out from the meeting spot and walk the rest of the way, you know, secrecy and all."
"Well I'm sure we can manage some walking, you know, as long as it's not like 100 kilometres away or something..." Milena joked, "it's not 100 kilometres away is it?"
Fred shook his head, "No, 'course not, probably more like one kilometre."
"Alright, that I can manage." Milena sighed with relief. "Anyways, it's getting kinda late, I think I'll be off to bed for the night."
Milena stood from her seat and brought her plate to the kitchen. She pulled out her wand and gave it a flick and her dishes scrubbed themselves in the sink before floating over to the drying rack and placing themselves down. She walked back into the living room, giving Fred a kiss as she passed by the two, waving them both goodnight.
"I'll be in soon, love," Fred said to her as she walked away which she gave a little nod to.
She entered into their shared bedroom, shutting the door behind her and changing to her pajamas before crawling into bed on the right side she had quickly claimed. Her mind started to wander as she tried to get to sleep and she thought hard again about what she had heard and apparently had spoken.
A face seen before will be seen again...
Darkness looms near his hand...
A face seen before? She had seen plenty of faces... who could she possibly be seeing again? The thought of the words circled around her mind as she began to drift off to sleep. She felt herself drifting back and forth between almost asleep and almost awake, trying to just fall asleep. Soon, she heard the door creak open and a few minutes later, Fred was climbing into bed next to her, draping his arm around her torso and giving her a little kiss on the side of her forehead as he laid down, holding her close to him. Sure enough, she felt more comfortable now and began to finally fall asleep with ease.