Between the Cracks // 𝓕𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓦𝓮𝓪𝓼𝓵𝓮𝔂

29. Fred and the Explosion

This is quite long and was quite emotional to write. TW for depiction of death/grave bodily harm.

Chapter 29: Fred and the Explosion

The introductions went better than expected. Nova was easy and talkative, and chatter naturally appeared wherever she decided to go next. She had visited the shop before, but visiting after hours always created that special feeling, and she was practically walking around with heart eyes as she spoke to the twins.

When it came to actually helping in doing the work – well, that was a different story. Most of the time she spent leaning on shelves and chatting with one of the twins, but Leigh liked to imagine that even that sort of company lightened up the room a bit. Especially after the recent...incident.

The twins had annoyingly prohibited Leigh from physically carrying any more of the boxes, claiming she should take it easy. This, together with Nova not volunteering to carry anything whatsoever, meant the task was placed with the twins, much to Nova's delight. More times than one Leigh caught her taking an extra peek at a flexed bicep, or the traces of back muscles underneath a shirt. Although she had to admit that she understood her friend...to some extent.

Instead of carrying the labelled boxes, Leigh had opted to use magic to transport the other unlabelled boxes from the shop floor to the storage room, all meanwhile the twins walked up and down the stairs.

The atmosphere wasn't too bad, despite what had happened earlier. She attributed much of the lack of tension to Nova, who immediately started speaking of anything near and far, much to Leigh's appreciation.

Still, Leigh couldn't help but remember Fred's words from earlier.

I care about you.

Strange.

She flicked her wand and the next box started hovering from its place on the shop floor to the storage space. It plopped down upon another one of the boxes.

Leigh glanced over at Fred. He stood over by the other boxes, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. No dress shirt today, just a regular long-sleeve. The casual look suited him well. The strands of hair caressing his neck had grown damp with sweat from carrying boxes up and down the stairs.

Perhaps she looked at him for too long, because Fred soon looked up to meet her gaze, and Leigh immediately coughed to herself, getting started on moving yet another box. She saw him trying to suppress a smile.

Minutes later most of the boxes had been moved away from the floor, both the labelled and unlabelled ones. Fred and George had disappeared up the stairs to get them something cold to drink, while Nova and Leigh stood around the shop counter, talking absentmindedly.

"It's a shame George is seeing someone," Nova spoke, and Leigh immediately raised her eyebrows.

"He what?"

"You didn't know?" Nova looked at her friend expectantly.

Leigh shook her head. "I've been telling you, Nova, I don't know them that well. Even when I'm here we don't really speak too much."

Her friend shrugged. "If you say so. Yeah he's seeing some quidditch girl." Then quietly, further words followed, "The other one seems to only have eyes for you. Fred practically looks at you like you could fall apart any second."

Leigh shuffled on her feet, turning towards some items hanging to the side of the till, and fiddling with a keyring of the famous 'WWW' logo. "Alright, no need to over-do it," Leigh replied quietly. "I told you, he's just bored. He's lived in London for years - imagine how many girls have come by to talk to them there."