Stumble - A Fred Weasley Fanfiction

Chapter 19: 273 Days Before

It was nearly an hour before Fred returned. By that point, Addie's mind was a mess of thoughts and images, convoluted after repeating the nights events over and over. She kept remembering those eyes hidden behind that mask, the way the man's head had snapped up when she had said his name. Thomas.

She was so focused on her thoughts that she didn't hear the crack of apparition as Fred arrived back at the Joke Shop. She wasn't sure how many times he said her name before she turned to look up at him from her place on the floor, staring at him with glazed over eyes.

Fred was beside her in an instant. "What's wrong?" he asked, taking her hands and raising her up from where she was sitting on the floor. He held her arms to the side, his eyes scanning her head to toe, searching for any sign of injury. "Did you get hit?"

Addie shook her head mutely.

"What happened?" Fred's eyes flicked over her body again, as if the problem would be something visible, and not the horrors of what Addie had seen that night.

"Thomas," she muttered quietly, his name painful on her lips.

"Thomas?" Fred asked. "Like your friend from school? Addie, are you sure you didn't get hit? You're not making any sense."

"It was Thomas," she repeated.

"We need to get you to a healer," Fred muttered quietly, taking Addie's arm as if preparing to disapparate with her.

"No!" Addie said, ripping her arm away, and began to explain. Her words were fast and desperate in her attempts to make Fred understand. "The Death Eater who attacked me, I seen his eyes! They were Thomas's, Fred! It was Thomas! He tried to kill me!" Addie hadn't let herself think about that part yet, and now it was out in the open, and the horror she felt at that statement was only topped by her disbelief. "He tried to kill me," she repeated, quieter this time, tasting the words on her mouth. They felt wrong on her lips.

Fred shook his head, still seeming confused. "The Death Eaters were wearing masks. There's no way you could tell."

"He got close enough for me to see his eyes through the mask," she told him, trying to calm her voice down so she didn't sound quite as crazy. "I'd know them anywhere. I yelled his name, and he responded. He froze up when I said it."

"Thomas is a pretty common name. I'm sure there's more than one Death Eater with the name Thomas."

"You don't understand. I know him. I'd know him anywhere."

Fred's brow furrowed, and Addie found her breath returning to normal as she realized he was finally taking her seriously. "But why Thomas? How would he even get to be a Death Eater?"

"I don't know! I haven't seen him since the summer after we left Hogwarts. He got a job at the Department of Mysteries in the fall. He told me training was extensive and he wouldn't be allowed to communicate for the first year. After that, I tried to write, but I never got a response. I just assumed he was either still in training or too busy with work." She shrugged her shoulders. "When Thomas gets caught up in some idea, or a job, its impossible to draw his attention away. He gets focused on one thing, and that's all he thinks about. I didn't think much about it when he didn't write back."

"But how did he go from the Department of Mysteries to a Death Eater?"

"He must be under the Imperius Curse. Thomas hated the Dark Arts. He would never join You-Know-Who."

"You-Know-Who has used the Imperius Curse on a lot of witches and wizards," Fred agreed. "But I've never heard of him using the Imperius Curse to turn someone into a Death Eater."