15Hey guys, sorry this update took so long. I had a lot of trouble with it for some reason, which is also why it's a little short.
Thanks for bearing with me and thanks to all who joined us/reviewed! Special thanks to Riversong105 who pm'd me!
Enjoy some sexy lovin' and on with the story! (I also love the song that goes along, I'm kind of addicted; hope you enjoy it too!)
Fine By Me by Andy Grammer
You're not the type/Type of girl to remain/With the guy, with the guy too shy/Too afraid to say he'll give his heart to you forever/I'm not the boy who will fall to his knees/With his hands clasped tight/Begging, begging you please/To stay with him for worse or for better
But I'm staring at you now/There's no one else around/I'm thinking you're the girl for me
I'm just saying it's fine by me/If you never leave/And we can live like this forever/It's fine by me
In the past I would try/Try hard to commit to a girl/Wouldn't get too far/It always somehow seemed to fall apart
But with you, you, you/I can see what I need/I can dream realistically/I knew that this was different from the start
And it seems that every time/We're eye to eye/I can find another piece of you/That I don't wanna lose
And I'm staring at you now/There's no one else around/I'm thinking you're the girl I need
I'm just saying it's fine by me/If you never leave/And we can live like this forever/It's fine by me/I'm just saying it's fine by me/If you never leave/And we can live like this forever/It's fine by me
And it's never easy/Darling, believe me/I'm as skeptical as you/When I think of life without "us"/It seems like "What we're supposed to do? "/But I don't wanna come on too strong
I'm just saying it's fine by me/If you never leave/We can live like this forever/It's fine by me/It's fine by me/If you never leave/And we can live like this forever/It's fine by me/I'm just saying it's fine by me/If we never leave/And we can live like this forever/It's fine by me
It's not like the twins suddenly grew up overnight. Yes, they had a shop and a flat and girlfriends, but they still acted like five year olds a lot of the time. More often than not, it was actually their job to be immature. I spent multiple hours washing blue hair dye off of my body when they were 'experimenting' with body paint. I'd been on the receiving end of their new 'patented daydream charms' on more than one occasion, and yes, I had snapped out of it only to find that I was in an Order meeting with a wet spot between my thighs. Verity had accidentally used a nose-biting teacup, shrieked, and broken three plates. It got so bad that one time, Verity and I taken a much-needed break from our nosy boys and had locked them out of George's bedroom so that we could gossip and complain. We found an extendable ear under the doorway.
The shop was a magnificent success. Even Molly was impressed. But that didn't mean that Fred and George were going to simply bask in their glory and give up their aspirations. At least twice a week the two would shove themselves in the basement of the shop and experiment with new joke ideas. Verity and I had started to prebrew healing potions.
So it didn't really surprise me when they sat us both down one day and displayed their burgeoning wizard defense line. They had been working on improving an anti-burglar buzzer, which I already knew because they had attached one to my purse and George snuck up behind me on the street and tried to steal my bag. But they had more, and the stuff they showed us had me staring at the two in awe. There were decoy detonators that looked like an animated horn and that scurried away to make loud and annoying noises in order to create a diversion. They put a normal-looking black hat on Fred's ginger hair, and his head disappeared. They pulled out paperwork for something called instant darkness powder that would shroud a person in darkness just long enough for them to escape. Of course, the powder would have to be imported from Peru, for Merlin's sake.
"Blimey, boys, this is… this is bloody brilliant!" I muttered as I turned the hat over in my hands. Verity went with her own version of congratulations and threw herself at George with a smile. I kissed Fred happily, and we all decided that it was time to put them on the shelves.
A few weeks later, I joined them under the stairs to share an idea that had come to me while I was selling a dozen headless hats to one customer. We began work on hats to shield the wearer from jinxes soon after.
It didn't take long for the Ministry to order our defense products to protect their workers. With the new Ministry contracts, the shop started to rake in a ridiculous amount of cash. Our accountant told us that it would be wise to save most of it, though, as the war would bring unpredictable changes and costs.
Even so, I was starting to feel uncomfortably like a free loader. I didn't pay rent, I didn't pay for groceries, I didn't contribute anything to the flat. I was living off of the generosity of my mates and my boyfriend, and other than helping out at the shop some days, I was starting to feel a little bored, too.
I needed a job. But I hadn't gone back to Hogwarts, so I didn't have my N.E.W.T. credentials and I guessed that I never would. I didn't want to work for the Ministry anymore, not after what they had done to Harry and how they had been so bastardly ignorant of Voldemort's resurrection. Once upon a time, I had wanted to work developing charms, but I knew that now, I would hate it there. My options were limited, sure— especially because everyone was scared shitless.
I had an epiphany on a dreary Sunday afternoon, one of those typical English days where the sky was bleak and the pitter-patter of the rain against the windows tried to lull you to sleep. I was spending my day in the shop, meandering through the small crowds and restocking the shelves. It was a quiet day. The children were back in school, so only a few parents with young children were running around. It was one of those toddlers that changed my five-year plan completely.
He was teetering around in those little baby trainers, squealing and touching the sparkly adverts on the wall while his mother perused our new line of self-defense items. She seemed stressed and nervous as she shifted her weight back and forth. She bit her lip in indecision, picked up several different decoy detonators.
"May I help you?" I asked politely, coming up beside the two. She looked at me with wide eyes. She was pretty and young, probably only a few years older than I was, and obviously spooked about the war. Her baby giggled at a whirling toy to the left and I had no control over the smile that grew on my face. He was just the cutest thing in the world.
But he started to whinge and fuss just a few moments later. His chubby little hands pulled at her skirt insistently, his whimpers getting louder as he tried to pull her attention away from where she was asking me about the benefits of instant darkness powder. Getting an idea, I called George over to where he was flirting with Verity and had him talk to the mother. Then I pulled the toddler away, bringing him over to the toys more appropriate for his age.
"Aren't you just the cutest, huh baby?" I babbled my way through it, showing the infant our trick wands and miniature brooms. He squealed at the rubber chicken that grew out of the wand and clumsily clapped his hands as I showed him, from a safe distance of course, our Wildfire Whiz-Bangs.
I ended up giving him a free wand and an edible dark mark and his mum left with an armful of shielding hats and decoy detonators. That night, after extensive thought, I mentioned my day's excitement to Fred while we laid in bed.
"I had the most amazing afternoon."
Fred's soothing finger swirls stopped for a half-second before starting again, his finger ghosting over my bare arm and down to my finger. "Oh?" he mumbled into my hair.
I smiled, remembering the baby that had made my day. I told Fred about him, about how happy he had made me, about his miniature jumper and his button nose. And of course, Fred thought I was talking about something completely different.
The gentle touch was gone, replaced by the brisk fall breeze. Fred sat up beside me, his back rim-rod straight. The sudden tension between us had me mimicking his movements in alarm. Fred's eyebrows met his hairline, his mouth was pinched in confusion, and his hands were speaking for him in flustered gestures. "You want a baby? Now?" he cried.
I nearly fell off the bed. How on earth had he gotten that from my adorable baby talk? Okay, so maybe I could see it when it was put like that, but really. What was he thinking? I wasn't that selfish. Raising a child in a warzone had to be the worst idea ever. I told him as much with my eyes as I stood up and started picking up the laundry, a nervous habit. "What? No! Of course not. I think I want to be a childminder, not a… a mum!"
I could practically feel Fred's sigh of relief. That's probably what set me off, probably the reason Fred ended up sleeping on the couch that night.
In hindsight, Fred was being realistic and honest. It would be a terrible idea to have a baby at seventeen, unmarried, with our relationship being what it was—"slow", not effortless nor perfect. Even if we were on steady ground, even if he hadn't cheated and I hadn't been a basket case, raising a child with Death Eaters on every street corner would be ridiculous.
But it still hurt when he stared at me like I was crazy. He thought I wanted a baby, which okay, so it was stupid, but I wanted to have kids someday. Was it that horrifying for him to imagine having a baby with me?
It was one of the first big fights we had had since we got together again. We shouted, I pushed, he nearly punched a wall when I refused to listen. He didn't leave the house, thank god, but he did take a blanket and a pillow and stomp to the couch. In the morning, he woke me up with breakfast in bed to apologize.
"I-" kiss, "love-" kiss, "you." He lowered his body against mine, coming back from putting my breakfast away. His hands were everywhere, running over my chest and down my sides, over my arse, pulling the small of my back flush with his body. His fingers were hot and demanding, the sleepy edge of morning sex overpowered by the needy nature of makeup sex. Insistent and biting, his teeth nipped at my lips and his tongue licking the sting away. I made a noise in the back of my throat as my hand came up to the back of his neck, pulling him down and into the kiss.
I had slept in just an oversized t-shirt and a pair of panties, and he easily shucked those and his own sleep trousers so that he could press himself against me. This was one of my favourite parts of sex—the high of his naked body against mine, the feel of velvety skin sliding together and over, the press of his hard planes into my soft curves. Everything was hot skin and soft, dragging fingers, his grip tight in my hair to bare my neck to his wandering tongue, my legs taut around his waist so that I could grind my clit into his hipbone. He huffed out a noisy breath, his nose dragging against my breast as he pushed back against me, our bodies creating an easy dance. I pulled his mouth back to mine, whining as our teeth clanked. The kiss was wet and messy, all tongue and lips, but I couldn't bring myself to care.
Another needy whimper escaped me. I felt the curve of his smile against the underside of my breast quickly phase into an openmouthed grunt as I gripped his cock hard in my hand, lining him up and slotting us together. With half a breath, his mouth was suddenly on mine. The ensuing kiss was little more than our lips pressed against each other as we groaned into each other's mouths when he slipped in with one hard push.
"Fuuck," I groaned, letting my head fall back into the pillows with a thump. Fred huffed in agreement, hands gripping my thighs and pulling out only to push me back onto him. He set a deep, steady pace, his thumbs digging into the skin above my hipbones. "Shit, Fred, right there. Ugnnn," I whined, my back sliding along the sheets. I bit into the skin of his left pectoral, satisfied with the pink, raw mark that winked back at me. Fred hissed from above me, tilting my hips so that my ass was nearly sitting on his knees. Our movements rocked the bed with such force that the steady thump thump of the headboard hitting the wall became an easy beat to follow.
His nose nuzzled my neck and I just wanted to lay there forever, Fred surrounding me completely with his scent and his body. It was easy like this, perfect and steady. I wouldn't need anything else if I could just have this, ceaselessly. I dragged my hand down his back, grunting when he moved his hips a little and caused his hand to slip and his thumb to catch against my clit. "Shit," he chanted over and over, pressing the words into my shoulder. I gripped his ass hard in both hands, pulling him to me harder, tighter, faster, and his words were no longer coherent but instead a string of messy grunts and curses.
Fred moved abruptly, gripping the backs of my knees and pulling my legs from around his waist so that he could fold them up and press my thighs into my stomach. The change in angle had him farer above me, so we couldn't kiss, and forced my knees into my breasts, but it also shifted his cock so that he hit me just right, battering into that perfect spot on every pass. I pressed my hands in his shoulders to have something to hold onto, digging my nails in hard enough to leave marks. I secretly liked that I could mark him, make him mine, remind everyone who he belonged to. It gave some animalistic and primal part of me prideful peace. Fred seemed to like it too, arching into my grip as his hips stuttered.
It only took a few more thrusts and then I was flying apart underneath him, pieces of me flying out windows and doors and God-knows where else. Fred kept stroking me through it, pushing and pulling to find his own release while prolonging mine. I pulled my legs farther apart and clutched my knees to my chest with one hand while holding onto his waist with the other. "Come on Fred, come on baby. Come for me. P-please. I want you to. I—shit—I need it," I muttered, arching my back as he sent a stinging aftershock through me.
He groaned out a long "fuuuck" as he came, slumping over me and pushing me into the mattress. I let my legs fall down, sliding my ankle around the back of his foot, and he hummed contently. We stayed there, still locked together, for another ten or fifteen minutes until we regrettably had to get up to open the shop.
It didn't take long for me to find an open daycare post. The service was in a quaint part of Muggle London, though it was a magical nursery. The idea was to be as inconspicuous and as careful as possible. Because Little Charmers was specifically for children of Ministry workers, it was especially important to make sure they were safe from harm. Or at least that was the idea. The nursery could only do so much, and who knew if the children were safe at home with Ministry personnel who were becoming increasingly shady.
I immediately loved it. The babies were adorable, and though I came home at night exhausted and covered in spit up, I couldn't have been happier. The parents continued to drop their kids off with haggard faces and increasingly paranoid eyes, but the kids showed no signs of fright. They giggled, turned each other into animals, and on occasion blew things up. Sometimes, a child would stop showing up for daycare, and we didn't ask any questions. People were slowly starting to go into hiding and I secretly was glad they were putting their child's safety first.
I finally became an asset to the Order. I was around Ministry workers in a more informal situation, they trusted me, and more often than not they were too tired to keep up their defenses while they picked up their children. It became increasingly easier to wean information from the parents and from the toddlers who, as innocent information sponges, heard and saw everything and were not shy about babbling about it.
It felt good to be useful. I had information to give at meetings and I could finally be an active part of the Order. The adults listened to me, Dumbledore asked my opinion, and they all finally stopped treating me like I was a child who wanted to be included.
Somewhere along the way, I had grown up, and I still wasn't sure when that was or why that was. Six months ago I was still a child, going to school and living with my parents. Today, I was an adult—I had a job, a flat, a second family of hodgepodge individuals who I loved to death. It made me wonder, albeit a little fearfully, about what the next six months would bring.