The Potion Princess

The Absence of the Weasley's

Okay, so the italicized print here is going to be Audra and Fred writing back and forth on that magical parchment

The castle is filled with the Weasley twins.

Audra's not sure if it had always been that way, or if it was just something that happened after they gave a good bye that no one would ever forget.  Now, she can't go anywhere without being reminded of them.  She spends the next week (and the week after that, really) lost in the haze of excitement that their departure had brought, dodging interrogations from Umbridge and ignoring the worried looks from her friends.  It was harder than she thought it would be, not have the twins to joke around with, and even harder now that she can't see Fred in person every day.

The swamp and the few, slowly dying fireworks that the twins had left behind are still much alive in the castle.  Audra avoids the swamp corridor as much as she can, unable to look at it without remembering the last kiss they had shared before Fred went away.  She can't afford the fireworks though, not when they pinwheel across the grounds and race over their heads in the hallways, and sometimes crash through windows during a particular boring lesson.  when this happens Audra always stares after them, lost in thought and the feeling of missing something important until Emmeline or Clary comes to drag her away.  More and more products have begun to pop up, the twins newfound fame giving their business a jump start.

That same fame has bled onto her, because now when people see her, she is known as the Weasley's best friend, Fred's girlfriend, one of the master minds behind all those brilliant products (as Fred has described her during a tell-all interview with the Daily Prophet).  People whisper when she walks down the halls and she can feel them staring even when Emmeline and Clary are flanking her on either side.  She gets cornered by girls in the bathroom, all of them hounding her with questions and wanting to know something different- how long have you and Fred been together, did you know when they were leaving, are they rich now, do you miss them, is Fred a good kisser, is it true their single older brother is really hot and works with dragons...

She doesn't tell them anything. 

She doesn't tell anyone much of anything regarding the twins, not about the aching happiness that forms in her chest when she sees their products being delivered in the morning or spots their faces flashing in the daily prophet.  Not the worry that ties her stomach into knots.  Not the anxiety about them that makes her skin itch and has her flexing her hands into fists over and over, wanting to punch something but knowing she shouldn't.  And definitely not the pang she feels somewhere in her ribs whenever she realizes just how much she misses them.

Audra won't be telling anyone about that awful kind of feeling, not Clary or Emmeline or Hermione or Ginny, no matter how often they ask.  Not even Fred.

Did they get rid of the swamp yet?  Lee said they were having some trouble.

No.  Umbridge can't figure it out.  Filch has had to take students across by boat.

Excellent.

The Fred and George fiasco, as Audra has begun to refer to it, has become a great interest to Umbridge.  It's made Audra even more of a target, even when she's finally given in and decided to smile, to play nice and to drop the name's of her parents friends like bargaining chips. Anything to distract her from the twins. 

But it doesn't work, so just like every day, Umbridge stops her on the way out of her classroom, that twisted and ugly smile marring her toad like face. Emmeline pauses at the doorway, her eyes darting from audra to the professor in a silent question, but Audra just shakes her head.  Sometimes, you have to deal with things on your own.