Chapter Text
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Chapter One
✩₊˚.⋆☾ FRED ☽⋆.˚₊✩
Sounds were the worst.
They were either too loud, too annoying, too…well, frankly, they were too fucking much.
In the seven years he’d been living with enhanced hearing, Fred had not come to terms with how much he could truly hear. No matter how much Remus and Bill tried to tell him he would get used to it in time, he hadn’t. Scents didn’t bother him, he was even thankful to the fact that his enhanced sense of smell made some aspects of his career easy. He was thankful to the fact that getting truly cold was no longer an issue. But, Merlin, the sounds.
He’d spent the last 2,600 days of his life—that’s 62,409 hours or 3,744,549 minutes. Not that he was counting, really—withstanding the near constant assault of the world on his sensitive ears.
It was the entire reason he was currently locked in the back of their shop, strong silencing wards in place, with only the quiet hum from under his breath and the soft scrape of the stirring rod on the bottom of the cauldron to disturb him. He’d long ago given up the idea of being out on the floor with his twin, selling their products with the identical smiles and even more stunning charm. Instead, he was sequestered away into the back room, forever destined to invent and perfect while George was the face that got people in the door.
It wasn’t that he resented the place he had in their business. In fact, he much preferred it that way. A quiet room where no one but George or Lee ever really bothered him and the company of his Muggle radio, that he only very occasionally turned on to listen to whatever they were playing that day, and his copious ideas.
But he would be lying if he told himself it didn’t get a tad lonely. And he would only tell himself. That little tid bit of admission was one he kept close to his chest these days, one he even kept hidden from George as well as he could keep anything from his twin.
On the outside, Fred flaunted his singledom in a post Marriage Act world. While everyone around them had been paired off years ago, the Marriage Act of 2003 forcing some together out of nowhere and others to tie the knot sooner than they had planned, he had been spared. It was a silver lining, something he had seen as a good thing—even great for the first couple of months.
Then, he’d felt slighted. He’d listened to Percy droll on and on about the Arithmancy and Astrology used within the equations and rituals done to formulate who belonged with whom and he’d been left to question if there was someone out there for him at all.
Because that was the point of the whole thing, right? To match those eligible up with the person who complimented them magically to ensure the continuation of their society. He rolled his eyes at the memory of Percy reciting the words even he hadn’t truly believed in. It was a bloody breeding program and they had just slapped a name on it to calm the masses into subjugation.
So, it was only natural that he would get a little worried when two years later, he had no match. There was no witch out there who was eligible for the program that he was compatible with. That thought alone was a whole other level of nauseating because what if there was a witch out there but she was older than the maximum age of seventy? He shivered at the thought and dropped some of the root into the cauldron. Or, perhaps the worst thought of all, what if she were currently younger than the minimum age of seventeen?
He shook his head, banishing the thought not for the first time since the problem had begun to plague him. There was no sense in worrying about something he couldn’t control. Before he could settle on a new plan of action—a new train of thought, really—he startled at the rush of sounds as they all crashed in around him and his stir stick dropped, the potion he’d been working on for the past four hours quickly turning a putrid green and spoiling before his very eyes.
His chest heaved as he stood there, eyes hard as he stared at the state of his work before he vanished the contents and turned slowly to face a worried looking Harry Potter and an apologetic Ron Weasley.
“What do you want?” He snapped, perhaps a tag harsher than he should have been but the new waves of screaming children and popping fireworks, and chiding parents, laughing teens, the magical jack in the box that they never seemed to be capable of turning off—
“Sorry about that, Fred,” Ron muttered before his wand lifted and the sound dampened significantly.
It wasn’t completely gone as his brother had never been that proficient at charms but it made his nerves grate less so he took a breath and let it out slowly. “It’s fine. What brings you here? Did you pass George out there?”
“He was dealing with some customers while Lee cleaned up some mess a kid made out there next to the Pygmy Puff cage.” Ron leaned back against one of the counters with his hands in his pockets as Fred picked up the cauldron and took it to the cleaning station where he switched it out for a clean one, telling himself he would clean that one later. “Pansy stopped at the register to help with the line.”
“Merlin, bless that witch. Potter, if you ever let her go, you’re disowned,” he called before he turned and met the wizard with a grin. “Where’s Daph?”
“She’s at the Burrow. Mum wanted to check on how the baby was doing,” Ron said with a contagious smile and Fred found himself both happy for him and jealous as fuck. Not only did Fred want a big family one day but his wolf, Merlin, did his wolf want the exact same thing and that bastard was even more needy than he was. “Anyway, we came through on our way to pick her up to make sure you all are still coming to dinner tonight?”
Fred’s brows furrowed as he looked up from where he set the flame. “Dinner? Where?”
“Potter Cottage. Pansy insisted on hosting because she wants to make a good impression. As if her letters haven’t made the witch fall in love with her already.” Potter rolled his eyes with a grin and shook his head. “I swear, I’m going to have to keep them separated or I’ll lose her.”
“Daph too,” Ron remarked and Fred finally fully turned away from what he was doing with an arched brow and curious, expectant eyes.
“I feel like I’m missing something here. What are you two talking about?”
They both stared, blank expressions on their faces before Ron shouted for their brother, causing Fred to flinch and a soft growl to escape as he covered his ears. Ron glanced at him with an apologetic shrug and before Fred could say anything more, George came jogging into the room with a smile on his face. One that faded quickly when he took in the state of Fred and the way Potter avoided eye contact.
“Please tell me you didn’t forget to tell Fred about the dinner at Harry’s tonight,” Ron said with a sigh.
George’s cheeks flushed as he chuckled awkwardly and Fred scoffed, rolling his eyes. There was no real malice in it, he understood that ever since he married Theo Nott, his attentions had been elsewhere, exactly where they should have been but he was still going to give his brother shit.
“It may have slipped my mind,” George said softly, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Bloody he—We’re having dinner at Potter Cottage tonight to welcome Mione back home. Everyone is showing up at five. You better be there, Fred. I mean it.” He narrowed his eyes, as if assessing his brother. “She’s been gone for a long time and we want her to feel at home.”
He wanted to refuse, to tell them they didn’t need him there when they would have at least three couples there to keep her company and show her how happy they were to have her back but he didn’t. He knew the look in Ron’s eyes and that wasn’t the look of her best friend, that was the look of the man who considered that witch his sister and would accept no one slighting her, not even his own family.
Fred sighed and nodded as he leaned back against the bench, already steeling himself against the long night of overstimulation ahead of him. “Alright. Yeah, I’ll be there.”
Ron’s glare morphed into the boyish grin everyone knew him for and he nodded, seemingly proud of himself. “Good. Remember. Five o’clock.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get out of here, you bloody git.”
He waved them away and turned, running a hand down his face before he leaned against the counter top. When he looked up and over at the clock, he had just over six hours until he would need to leave for the dinner. Just enough time to get that potion rebrewed correctly this time. He got to work after throwing up another silencing ward and lost himself in his work.
The meticulous chopping.
The monotonous stirring.
He hated potion brewing. It was his absolute least favorite part of the job but George was shit when it came to the art and he had to admit, for as horrid as he found the task, it was extremely good at keeping his mind busy.
Only when he was done, and the potion was cooling as it would need to do for the next few days, he wiped his hands on his trousers and decided it was time he went home and shower. He cleared everything and braced himself at the door for the sounds he knew would greet him, the loud cacophony of the shop closing for the day. With a deep breath, he paused with one hand on the doorframe and the other on the knob. He counted to four, then eight, then four once more and then he pulled it open.
It was dark in the shop and for once, he hadn’t been ambushed by everything happening. It was a nice change but he didn’t linger before heading up the stairs to use the Floo within the offices that used to be their flat. He pushed open the door and found Theo sitting at his desk, reading over some paperwork before his eyes glanced up and met his own.
“George thought you’d left a while ago,” he said as he set the parchment down and leaned back in his chair. “He went home to wash up. This came for you though, since you’re here.”
“Who’s it from?” Fred asked as he scratched the top of his head, half hoping if it weren’t important he could just ignore it until Monday.
The corner of Theo’s mouth twitched before he motioned to the envelope. “Minister Shacklebolt, I’m afraid.”
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath before making his way over to grab the proffered letter from the wizard’s outstretched hand. “What could he possibly want?”
Theo shrugged casually, his green eyes focused on Fred with the stare of the brother the Nott heir had become to him in the years since the end of the war. “Perhaps it’s finally your Ministry Mandated Match.”
They both smirked, the running joke of Fred never receiving that particular letter unspoken between them.
“Hmm. Perhaps,” Fred replied absentmindedly as he tore it open and looked down at the words. He read them over, his blood running cold as he took them all in. Just as soon as he finished, he read them again, none of them changing as he sank into a seat and muttered obscenities under his breath. “What the fuck?”
“What?” Theo asked, sitting up straight.
“It’s my match.”
“Sod off, Weasley—”
“No,” he said before looking up at the wizard with what he was sure was frantic eyes. “They gave me my match.”
The silence was maybe the loudest thing Fred had heard all day, perhaps ever, and he swallowed down the fears that came hurtling at him as this new reality set in. He didn’t even give attention to the way his wolf panted, pacing back and forth in his mind with what he could only describe as a sense of satisfaction emanating from each step.
“Who is it?” Theo finally spoke up.
Fred looked down at the parchment, a last ditch effort to make sure he was in fact reading the name correctly. Then, laughter bubbled out of him at the turn of events as he pressed his fist to his mouth. “Hermione Granger.”