Mischief | Fred Weasley

Four

*Mature Content Warning*

When Elaine arrived for work two days later, Fred was nowhere to be found in the shop. The door was locked when she got there, as always, and George was the one to let her in. She found both Lee and Eleanor to be working that day, with Lee looking like he was setting up the registers for the day and Eleanor replacing missing items on shelves. They seemed nearly ready to open for the day before she arrived, aside from the several pages of parchment that sat on the counter that George returned to after unlocking the door. 

"New idea?" Elaine asked, glancing over the parchment that contained complex diagrams and ingredients lists that she was only beginning to understand. 

"Fireworks," George grinned, the usual mischievous glint in his eye. "We're working on some new shapes that are sure to be a hit." 

George spent the time that they had left between her arrival and the official shop opening explaining to her how they would work, the ideas that they had to create the shapes and improve their old formulas, and the use of the ingredients- and how difficult they could be to obtain, which would take up a lot of time in the upcoming weeks. 

"Is that where Fred went?" Elaine asked when he was finished. 

George gave her a knowing look that made her face burn. "He took some of the morning off, but he should be back soon." 

George had been right. Fred returned to the shop a little over an hour after the shop opened, but he wasn't alone. He was followed in by two others, a man and a woman, with tall, athletic builds. The woman had a kind face and her hair was in long braids that were pulled together into a ponytail, her bright athletic clothes complimenting her dark complexion. The man next to her also wore athletic clothes, with short curly hair and pale skin, and he spoke with a thick Scottish accent. Elaine recognized them from Hogwarts as Angelina Johnson and Oliver Wood, two of the Quidditch players from Gryffindor that were a few years her senior. 

She was surprised to see Fred matching their attire rather than in his usual bright colored suit that he wore during work hours. He gripped a broomstick in one hand and a bat in another, and she could see the muscles in his arm flexing thanks to the t-shirt. His hair, which was growing long compared to the short cut that his twin sported, and it was in a complete mess from wind and sweat. Elaine didn't realize that she was staring until he made eye contact with her, and she quickly turned, finding something that needed to be rearranged on a shelf beside her. 

"I can't believe the three of you went to play Quidditch without me," George said as the door closed behind them, a hot wave of air following them in from the sunny day. 

"If you would close the shop for a day, maybe you could have," Angelina playfully snapped back at him in response. 

George laughed at her retort. "Maybe some day." 

"Yeah right," Lee and Eleanor both said at the same time. 

They chatted for a few minutes about their Quidditch practice that they had apparently just returned from that started early in the morning until Oliver spoke up. 

"Are you going to introduce us to your new friend, Freddie?" Oliver asked, a bit teasingly. 

Elaine looked up just in time to see Fred look over at where she was still trying to busy herself to avoid being included in any awkward conversation between the friends. There was a faint smile on his lips, those lips that she still remembered the feeling of against hers, and he waved her over to join them. 

"This is Elaine. She was in my year, Ravenclaw. We hired her about a month ago," Fred said. 

"Sorry, Fred has always been rude like that," Angelina apologized. "I'm Angelina."