Scratches (Fred Weasley)

(170) Familiar Faces

Fred had to sit down upon reading the letter Florence had owled to him that afternoon, the feeling of dread settling at the pit of his stomach. He had been restocking their shelves when an owl he had never seen in his life dropped an envelope in to the shop. At first he didn't think much of it, bur began to feel uneasy at the sight of Florence's handwriting. George noticed his twin brother's odd demeanor, going over to him in concern. "Hey... What's wrong?"

Fred set the letter down on the register countertop before speaking.

"Florence won't be coming home for awhile." he said, before burying his face in the palm of his hands. George frowned at this, "Why? What happened? Is she okay?"

"I don't know. She said they've been deployed by the Minister to deal with some Death Eater activity up north. She can't say how long she'll be away for, so she said it will be a few days at most." he sighed in frustration, before getting up from his seat, feeling his chest tighten. "Merlin... its too soon. Jillian just died now this..."

"Hey, hey," George consoled, "Don't worry. We just have to trust that she'll come home to us in perfect condition."

"Its kind of hard to think that way when she got stabbed and nearly bled to death no more than six months ago...." he said exasperatedly, feeling restless and uneasy.

"If she had time to write to you, it means Sloan and Julien will be on that operation with her. You know they won't let anything happen to her." said George, trying to remain level-headed despite his own worry for Florence, "I know you're worried sick about her. We just have to hope she comes back safe. There's no point in imagining all the worst case scenarios."

Fred tried to keep himself busy at the shop that day, however he had been spacing out several times, and couldn't get his head to focus on the task at hand. Eventually, he retired to his room early that night. Seeing the empty spot on the bed next to him didn't help either. He wondered where she was sleeping and if she would be comfortable. All these thoughts made it even harder for him to get any rest at all.

He didn't know where she was. Or who she's with at the moment. Fred felt helpless.

He got up in the middle of the night, moving to curl up on the couch. Maybe, he thought, just maybe, if he stared at the door hard enough she would actually come back home. Safe. Away from harm's way.

He had remembered their conversations about her work. It was so easy for him to tell her during those moments to not be afraid, when in fact it was much harder to do when things actually happened. He kept replaying the images of her lying unconscious in a hospital bed for two weeks. Fred was going slightly insane.

                                       ———————

Strange activities were reported to Muggle authorities about a french-styled villa in the countryside up north. Upon catching wind of these incident reports, the Ministry was able to pull up records on said Villa. It was apparently a property of the Rosiers, one of the many infamous pureblood families that joined Voldemort's army of death eaters. These said incidents reports were various claims of muggles hearing agonized screams coming from the house. Of course, when muggle authorities went to check, they found nothing.

The Ministry, however, decided to act fast and send the Auror force up to investigate. This time they deployed each available person, not taking any chances like the last time. The more people, the more ground they will be able to cover.

The Aurors were told to expect to be on mission for at least three days, maybe more, which was why Florence had quickly written Fred a letter and asked Alexander to send it off by owl to him. She knew he was going to worry regardless. The only thing she could do now was make sure she'd make it home in one piece.