tears in heaven // g.w

⤍ prologue

Valerie doesn't reckon she'll ever let go of his hand.

It's impractical and she'd sure she'd roll her eyes at her insistence in any other scenario but she can't stop. Can't possibly bring herself to unwind her fingers from Fred's where he's gripping her so tight, keeping her body as close to his as possible - it feels so familiar and she can't bear to feel the coolness of the Hogwarts corridors against her empty palms, to detach herself of the one reminder that he's still beside her. If she lets go -

No, she can't bear to think of it. Not as she stumbles backwards, wand raised high above her head, spell falling off her lips with the confidence of a well-practiced wizard who'd won many duels and fights and that's - no, that's not her, is it? It isn't any of them. She's not the trained soldier, prepared to fight against the darkest wizard of all time and his army - God, she's fucking 17, isn't she? And she'd been looking over curses every night before bed during her final year at Hogwarts, preparing for the inevitable time she would have to fight for her life and liberty, and it still feels like every spell she's learned in 7 years at Hogwarts has left her mind, and all she can shout is 'stupefy!' over and over like a mantra.

It gets the job done, though. When her stunning spell hits Dolohov he soars backwards in a flash of red light, slamming into the wall at the opposite end of the corridor, but she can already see him starting to get up - Fred, beside her, flicks his wand with only a tad more practice than she, battling a shaggy haired Death Eater whose name she can't possibly recall but, as his face is illuminated with a flash of white light as his opponent is sent spinning in the opposite direction, smashing into an empty portrait before collapsing to the ground, he shouts, "Nice one, Val!"

They don't wait for either of their assailants to regain consciousness. Already from the doorway at the far end of the hallway they can hear the stampeding sounds of approaching footsteps and it's a noise that makes her heart just about drop - whoever was in charge of keeping the Death Eaters out had failed. They're here.

"Let's go," Valerie tells Fred, voice raising in pitch with poorly-concealed fear, squeezing his hand just once and he nods, the pair of them not bothering to wait another second before turning and taking off down the hall, breathing heavy and footsteps pounding just as the first batch of nearly 10 Death Eaters flood the corridor behind them - they've barely turned through the closest doorway, multicolored lights flashing with shouted spells, when she runs smack into the hard body of a tall, ginger haired man, and if he wasn't just a few inches shorter than her boyfriend beside her, she'd suspect it to be his twin.

But it isn't George - wherever he is, she doesn't know - "Percy!" Fred nearly shouts and she cringes at his volume, the three of them turning to face the hoard of Death Eaters descending upon them as they stumble backwards through the hallway, wands slicing through the air to try and fight back but 3 against 10 Death Eaters feels like a losing battle in one way or another - it seems useless to try. "Perce - you're with us?"

"'Course I am!" Percy bellows as though it's obvious (and it isn't, for the record), wand coming down with a purple flash and sending a masked Death Eater collapsing to the ground with an unusual grace - he crumples to the ground, mask nearly slipping down his face until she can see slick dark black hair, but then another Death Eater's Stunning spell misses her forehead by an inch, surely singing one of her curls, and she waves her wand with a flourish, binding his body together until he collapses onto the ground with a grunt.

From behind her she can hear more footsteps and - shit, if there are more behind them, they're all done - but she can tell just from the tone of the 'expelliarmus!' that it's Harry, sending Rookwood's wand flying out of his hand, and that means Ron and Hermione are helping, too, and maybe their chances aren't as dismal as they'd seemed. Surely her friends had had more practice fighting while on the run than she had, holed up at Hogwarts, and, briefly, she feels saved.

For a moment, no one says anything - it's hard to find a time to speak, fighting for your life - and the air stayed in a cacophony of shouts and blasts until Percy's opponent's hood slipped off, revealing the high forehead and streaked hair of the Minister, Thicknesse, and the third-eldest Weasley son laughed in a way she'd never heard come from his mouth before.

"Hello, Minister!" Percy declared, wand slashing through the air a few more times until the Minister was nothing more than a coward on the ground, clawing at his robes in violent discomfort. "Did I mention I'm resigning?"

Three Stunning spells send the Death Eater Fred and Valerie had been dueling flying through the air, hitting two portraits on the wall and sending their frames flying to the floor until they were nothing more than cracked remnants scattered over the floor. "You're joking, Perce!" Fred shouted, tossing his head back with that characteristic laugh Valerie could listen to for the rest of her life, and as though he had a sixth sense for when she was in danger, he pulled her into his side just as a Killing curse soared past her waist, grazing her robes, and her heart nearly beats out of her chest - fuck, that was close.

Percy's wand waves over Thicknesse before stepping back, staring down with glee at his former boss, skin erupted with tiny spikes.

"You actually are joking, Perce -" Fred glances down at Valerie with a sort of mystified glint in his eyes, and if it were any other time she'd lean up to give him a kiss - he looks so happy, a look she hasn't seen on his features in so long. She could do it now and she's sure he wouldn't complain - just one moment, a second of the Battle dedicated to their love and who could blame her? No one knows when they'll be able to do it again - "I don't think I've heard you joke since you were -"

Whenever Fred had last heard Percy joke is lost as the air explodes around them - she can hear Hermione's scream and Ron's grunt as the six of them go soaring through the air, her hand finally leaving the warm embrace of Fred's, stomach dropping as she rises and falls, feeling the explosion of the wall that had been behind them nearly throwing her eardrums out. But - for a moment, she supposes - it's peaceful, hand clutched onto her wand as her eyes flash, body turning in the air before she slams into the ground, head smacking the flat surface of a brick as she lands, and her vision goes fuzzy with the violent pain.

"Fuck," Valerie mutters, only bothering to open her eyes when she can begin to hear her surroundings once more - someone is screaming - her legs are buried in wreckage and her head pounds so intently she worries she'll pass out - from above her she can see the wall that had exploded, the remnants that had remained standing beginning to crumble, and she doesn't want to be in the splash zone when they do. She pushes herself up, pushing through the rubble just as the last bits of the wall go down, and -

"No - no!" It's Percy's familiar voice, shouting as her friends huddle together, leaning over something she can not see, but her blood runs cold anyway as she pushes through the bricks to where they stand. "No! Fred! No!"

Fred.

One arm instinctively wraps around Harry's shoulders when her eyes land on the body, face scratched and bloody, ginger hair matted with dust. For a moment she fears she'll die with him - that she'll collapse to the ground, let the Battle claim her too, because whatever she's feeling isn't right. It isn't human - a hole in her chest being ripped open as she drops to her knees, pressing a hand to the underside of Fred's nose to feel the air blowing out - he'll wake up, he'll laugh at how worried they were, he'll tell them the last time Percy laughed and he'll grab Valerie's hand, pull her up, press a kiss to her forehead and tell her how much he loves her.

There's no air, and the world stops.

"What -" Another explosion sounds in her ears as her friends fall to the ground, an arm pulling her body down on top of Fred's as more Death Eaters penetrate the hole the exploded wall had created but she can't think about them. All she can think about is Fred, body soft beneath her, and when her fingertips trail down his arm, she grabs his hand - needs to feel his fingers intertwine with hers, just one more time, and she shouldn't have let go -

His palm is cold, the skin like ice to her touch, and she drops her head to his chest and screams.