Untouchable: a Fred Weasley fanfiction

1 in 1,000

The walk back to Hogwarts is an uneasy one. 

George keeps mumbling,  "so weird... just so bizarre..."

"It was probably just dumb luck," I tell him once we reach the courtyard. "Maybe I just give off a... calming aura. You know?"

"That thing was coming at us full-force." He looks at me seriously. "You held up one hand and it skidded to a stop so fast it was like it saw a ghost." 

I scratch my neck, my skin feeling hot. I feel energized- tense, but thrilled, unsettled, but excited. It's a whole storm of emotions and confusion, and I have to figure out what just happened. I know George is right- it couldn't have just been dumb luck. I just don't know what the alternative is. 

I can't get the look on that rotten-tailed hyena's face out of my head when our eyes locked- obedience. Utter calmness? And why did I suddenly feel just as calm?

We're at the doors of Hogwarts when I stop George and look up at him seriously. "George?"

He looks at me. 

"Can you... not mention this to anyone yet?" I ask. "It's just- I need to figure this out. I don't know if it's a big deal or not, but just... keep it under wraps."

He nods, swallowing. The look in his eyes makes my stomach churn- like something big is happening, and he knows it somehow.

After he heads off to Gryffindor tower in a dazed confusion, I'm racking my brain on how to go about this.

I decide to go to the first person I can think of who seems to know everything.

"Hey!" Dad sits up from his desk, putting down his quill. "What're you doing here? I figured you'd be catching up with Angelina, or Fred by now..."

"Something mad just happened," I blurt, pulling out the chair opposite of his desk.

As I press my fists to my forehead on the table, he blinks at me. "Oh?"

I take a second, then look up at him. 

"I encountered a Rotten-Tailed hyena in the woods," I start, "quite closely." 

His eyebrows raise. 

"But if you notice, I don't have a scratch on me," I continue. "Despite Rotten-Tailed hyenas being famously aggressive. Because it seemed that when I stepped in front of it, it didn't feel the need to do a thing. Nothing. It just... stood there."

I watch his eyes flick between mine. 

He rolls his quill between his fingertips. "What exactly do you mean?"

"I mean that it was clearly about to take its shot at us," I say, motioning out the words with my flustered hands, "'us' being George and I, because I ran into him, but that's not important- what's important is that it lunged, then I held up my hand, and it stopped so fast that it was almost as if it had been taken over by something. And it didn't take another step, and it stared at me. And it lied down. When I moved my hand, it followed."

I meet his eyes again, still shaken. 

"So what the hell does that mean?"

He takes a breath, thinks for a moment, then asks in a steady voice: "Jo, did anything else happen?"

"Uh..." I try to remember every detail, "...well, George tried to fend it off at first... he threw a spell at it, then I got a weird pain in my gut, then I stepped in front-"

"Wait," he stops me- "go back."

My brows knit. 

"What pain?"