Before It’s Too Late (Final)
Pairing: Fred Weasley x fem!Hufflepuff Muggle-born reader
Series summary: For years, Fred tries and fails to confess his feelings to you, but something always seems to get in the way. When the war starts, the question becomes not whether he'll succeed, but rather whether you both will even survive.
Chapter summary: You fight to survive the Battle of Hogwarts and reunite with Fred. You need to tell him that you finally understand what he’s been trying to say… and that you feel the same.
Word count: 4.6k
Tags: slowburn, cursing, dumb teenagers, HEA (Fred lives obvi), canon-typical violence
I DEFENDED MY THESIS (pulled two all-nighters before it) THANK GOD I CAN START WRITING AGAIN… plz send requests 🙏 thanks for your patience yall
IX. Shell Cottage, May 2, 1998
“Eleven inches, driftwood with a thestral hair core.” Ollivander pursed his lips. “Not one of my favorite cores, but I felt that this was right.”
You were too afraid to reach out and take the wood in his hand. What if it didn’t work for you? Ollivander was your best (and possibly last) chance at a new wand. “Where did you get a thestral hair?”
“I always have one or two,” said Luna behind you. “Gifts from my friends, you see.” She waved her own new wand through the air, sparks trailing from its tip. Hers seemed well suited. Maybe yours…
Well, there was no point in putting it off. You took the wand with a trembling hand.
The wood warmed beneath your fingers. You gasped, skin tingling where you touched the wand, and your stomach swooped. Conjuring bubbles out of the tip was easy and you laughed, forgetting for a moment all your worries in favor of the simple, wondrous joy of doing magic again, good magic with a wand of your own.
Ollivander watched you and Luna with approval as you acquainted yourselves with your new wands.
After the thrill abated, you stored it in your pocket next to the rune pendant. If Luna wondered why you hadn’t put it on in the three days since she returned it to you, she didn’t ask. Truth be told, you weren’t sure you had an answer. What if Fred no longer wore his pendant? Would yours stay cool? Was there even a way to tell?
And what if he did? What would you do if you tapped the pendant three times and he felt it but didn’t respond?
What if he did?
What would you do if he came to find you?
What would you do if he didn’t?
The cottage’s door burst open. Bill tumbled out. “It’s time,” he said in a rush.
“Time for what?” you asked, though you already knew the answer.
“You-Know-Who is going to Hogwarts. We’re going to fight.”
Well, that settled it. If you knew him—and you knew you did—Fred would be there. One way or another, you would see him again. You might as well use the little comforts you had left.
You fished the pendant out of your pocket and fastened the chain around your neck. The stone settled between your collarbones as if it belonged there. Maybe it did; you hadn’t realized how naked you felt without it until it was back in place.
“The Foci Grumspots were right,” Luna said, pleased.
You took a deep breath. Hufflepuff you may be, you would march into this battle without hesitation. “I’m ready.”
Bill’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure?” He looked between you and Luna. “You’ve been through a lot—”
“I’m sure,” you said firmly.
“It will be nice to be back at Hogwarts again,” Luna said dreamily. You weren’t sure if that was the right word for it.
“You have everything you need?”
Your wand? Check. Your pendant? Check. A sensible outfit and shoes? Check.
“Well, Nargles stole my Spectrespecs, but I’m sure they’ll turn up soon.”
Bill held out his arm. The two of you clutched it, Fleur held his other, and he swept you away with Side-Along Apparition. The last you saw of Shell Cottage were the windchimes strung along the windows, swinging merrily in the sea breeze.
You landed in a dingy pub, of all places. The owner, a grumpy man with a long white beard, huffed and nearly gave you a heart attack. For a moment he looked just like—
“Aberforth,” said Bill.
“William.” He scrubbed the counter with a filthy-looking rag.
“The passage?”
“Back here.”
In the back of the pub a beautiful painting stood out incongruously against the grime of its surroundings. Its subject, a sweet-looking little girl, nodded when Aberforth jerked his head and the painting detached from the wall and swung out.
“I never knew about this secret passage,” you said suspiciously. And you were friends with Fred and George—you knew all of them.
“Help can always be found at Hogwarts, all one needs to do is ask… or whatever drivel my brother always prattled on about.”
Your jaw dropped, but the realization that Aberforth was Dumbledore’s brother seemed old news to your companions. They clambered into the tunnel, but Aberforth had to snap, “Well? Are you fighting or not?” to jerk you out of your surprise.
The passage’s ceiling sloped down until you had to bend in half to keep going. Normally claustrophobia didn’t bother you, but the tunnel went on and on, no light except that which came from Bill’s wand, until you began to think that it would never end and the three of you would forever travel this tunnel, and then immediately the glowing outline of a door appeared.
You spilled out into a packed Room of Requirement, absolutely teeming with people you recognized and people you didn’t. Bill and Fleur disappeared into the crowd, but Luna stuck to your side and asked, “I suppose we should gather up our creatures, shouldn’t we?”
“I wonder if there are any Skrewts left,” you mused. They would certainly be a nasty surprise for any Death Eaters.
Someone screamed your name. You whirled around and were nearly bowled over by someone crashing into you. Arms squeezed your ribs hard enough to crack them.
“Alicia!” you cried, hugging her back just as hard.
“I thought you were dead!” she wailed. “We all thought—where have you been?”
Someone else crashed into the pair of you, and then another pair of arms circled around your back.
“Never do that again,” said Angelina’s thick voice.
“What happened?” Katie demanded. She was the one hugging you from behind. “Angie told us after you were Snatched that you were hiding before. But…”
“We thought they killed you,” said Angelina. “You know their stance on Muggle-borns. We all thought… and Fred said your communication stone went cold…” Her eyes dipped to where it rested on your chest once again.
“It’s a long story,” you said, wiping your eyes, which burned suspiciously. It had been so long since you saw your friends and only now did it hit you just how awfully you’d missed them.
“Try us,” said Katie.
You took a deep breath. “The short version is that Luna and I were held captive in the basement of Malfoy Manor. Harry Potter and his friends were caught and broke us out. We’ve been staying with Bill and Fleur in their cottage ever since.”
Angie hissed through her teeth. “That snake.”
“They were actually surprisingly hospitable,” said Luna. “For abductors, at least.”
The girls finally let you go. Angelina scanned the crowd. “I think Fred’s already left. He and George are supposed to guard the secret passages into the school.”
You blushed. “Luna and I have to round up whatever creatures we can.” You cringed at the thought of any of them losing their lives in the battle, but it would be worse for any of your friends to.
“Do you want me to tell him—”
“No!” you interrupted loudly.
Katie frowned.
You blushed even harder. You’d put the pendant back on, but now you balked at the thought of facing Fred. He wasn’t frightening, but for some reason your heart thudded against your ribs at the thought of seeing him again like it longed to escape your very chest. “I just mean… we both have our places in this battle. I don’t want to distract him or drag him away from his post.”
“But—” Alicia started but Angelina elbowed her in the side.
She studied you with serious eyes. Finally, she nodded and swept you up in another hug. “I just got you back. Don’t make me lose you again.”
You nodded but said nothing. It wasn’t something you could promise.
You and Luna hustled out of the Room of Requirement and through the castle that had been your home for seven years. Portraits called out to you, asking for news or cheering you on, but you couldn’t break stride.
You burst out of the castle and skidded to a halt with shock, watching the professors cast their protective wards around the castle. It was beautiful. The glowing dome settled, shimmered, and faded to invisibility.
Luna kept trotting down the hill and you shook away your reverie. She headed into the Forbidden Forest to find her thestrals and the centaurs. You went in the opposite direction to the Care of Magical Creatures pens.
There were, in fact, some Skrewts left. The adults didn’t blast you and the babies couldn’t muster more than a couple sparks more an annoyance than anything else. Their shell patterns were familiar. The adults were the generation that you and Rolf raised. Was he here? Would he fight, too?
You waded through the herd, murmuring greetings. Some magical creatures were intelligent enough to understand language. You and Rolf never determined whether the Skrewts could.
The hippogriff pen was next to theirs and you hopped the fence then bowed low to Buckbeak. He stared and pawed anxiously at the ground until sweat beaded at the small of your back.
Finally, he bowed, and so did the rest of the herd.
You scratched his neck. He trilled and leaned into your hand. “I’m sorry,” you murmured. “It’s not fair to ask you all to fight. But bad people are coming, so if you won’t, you should leave.”
A dark hippogriff screeched and reared, flapping its wings, but Buckbeak whirled around and snapped at its neck.
Unperturbed, you raised one eyebrow and pointed out, “I didn’t say you had to.”
The dark hippogriff snorted. It didn’t fly away, though. None of them did. You took a deep breath. “Okay. Here’s the plan…”
The Hogwarts wards shuddered. One of the Skrewts skittered sideways and you tried to soothe it but it blasted away, chittering angrily.
”Just hold,” you muttered. “Hold…”
For nearly an hour, Death Eaters continued to push back Hogwarts’s wards. They gained centimeters, then meters, and then the first ward splintered.
Hidden in the forest, you watched as more and more cracks appeared. Luna had reappeared with the thestrals, which she left in your care, and without the centaurs, then disappeared back into the castle, but you had to coordinate the creatures’ assault.
Just beyond the wards, a clan of lumbering giants roared. Nearly eight meters tall, they loomed above the human army and didn’t pay them much mind as they beat on the wards and each other.
It was your job to prevent them from reaching the castle.
The wards fell, but Voldemort’s forces were too wary to storm the grounds until the first screams emanated from the castle. Then they took the first cautious steps.
The Dementors went first, sweeping over the hill. Ice shot through your veins. Four swarmed a witch at once, and she screamed until the sound cut off abruptly. You squeezed your eyes shut. Two Patronuses drove the Dementors away from the witch, but she was a body at that point, soul devoured.
The Patronus Charm was one you never mastered, no matter how many hours you spent practicing during D.A. meetings. Disregarding that you couldn’t reveal your position to the invading army, there wasn’t anything you could have done to save the witch that wouldn’t have ended with you losing your soul, too.
You knew that, and you told yourself that, but it was still hard to make yourself believe it.
The trolls went next and you whispered two words beneath your breath.
The grounds shuddered, soil beneath the grass roiling. The trolls bellowed.
The animation was too complicated to continue for long—sweat already beaded at your brow—but all you needed was for the landscape to turn from a flat, grassy area to one filled with thin column-like bumps: difficult for trolls and humans to traverse, but easy for the Skrewts to, with their sideways movements and irregular blasts.
“Go,” you released them, and the creatures clacked with excitement. They swarmed the grounds, shell-like carapaces glinting in the moonlight. Those same carapaces were the reason for several shouts of dismay when the Death Eaters realized the Skrewts’ outer layer deflected magic.
“Steady,” you murmured to the hippogriff and thestral herds which milled behind you. Their use would come later. You did, however, direct the pixie, doxy, and glumbumble swarms to attack, mostly by opening their pens and covering your own head. They found the easier targets immediately.
While the Death Eaters shouted and stumbled, alternating between guarding their heads and feet, you smiled. They fell, paralyzed and poisoned by too much doxy venom coursing through their veins, or confused by the pixies and set upon by a Skrewt. Half of the glumbumble swarm swarmed one wizard, who looked around melancholically, unable to lift his wand, until a Skrewt broke his ankles; then as one the swarm lifted off and settled on another silver-masked invader. Maybe—
Another chorus of screams tore through the night air. Hogwarts rumbled.
An entire tower crumpled.
Your stomach sank to your toes. Too busy staring openmouthed at the desecration of your beloved school, you missed the cue to release the imps.
The first Death Eaters passed the imps’ mark; now an entire legion of Voldemort’s Army swarmed the hill. You ground your teeth. There were far more Death Eaters than imps, who hunted in packs, swarming their individual prey until it was brought down. Now, though, you would be releasing them into a horde.
But you couldn’t let more Death Eaters reach Hogwarts.
The Disillusioned cage flicked open and the Disillusionment failed. Imps swarmed out, latching onto the first Death Eaters they saw. But thrown into the midst of the invading army, one or two imps latched onto every Death Eater, who cursed them indiscriminately and without hesitation. Even with the Skrewts and the swarms, green light flashed. Grey-skinned bodies fell to the ground.
You told the herd to stay put, then mirrored the army’s movement. You threw curses too, from the tree line. They shot easily from your new wand, perhaps more easily than they would have from your old one. Or maybe it was just the difference between using Fleur’s wand and one of your own. As nasty as any you’d learned, ones that would maim and disfigure and incapacitate any they touched, and you watched a dozen Death Eaters fall under the spells you cast, but that didn’t stop the rest of the imps from dying. An entire pod, exterminated in less than ten minutes.
And then the Death Eaters started to shoot back.
Blazing jets of light shot through the trees, singeing leaves and scouring gashes in trees. The air lit up and you sweated now from the heat of the curses more than your own nerves. A bush combusted behind you. A long branch was blasted off a maple tree and nearly crushed you.
You ducked behind a thick-trunked oak and clutched your new driftwood wand to your chest. It still smelled like the salty air by Shell Cottage.
Most of the army continued to the castle, judging by the sound of their marching, but at least four Death Eaters broke away. They continued to curse, decimating a twenty-foot line of trees, but the curses weren’t centered around you. A couple came close, but most were aimed to your left.
Then the first giant roared. The ground quaked.
The castle rumbled ominously.
“Now, Buckbeak!” you screamed, giving away your position.
Hippogriffs and thestrals bellowed.
The tree you crouched behind splintered. You threw up a hand to protect your eyes from the wood shards, and when you lowered your arm looked directly into the eyes of a silver mask.
You’d been wrong.
So, so wrong.
It wasn’t worth delaying heartbreak by not seeing him; waiting until the battle ended and victor declared didn’t change that you loved Fred Weasley. It just changed when you saw him.
If you saw him.
You and Luna weren’t the only ones who had the idea to use creatures from the forest in the battle. Death Eaters had agitated the Acromantulas into fighting, but they lashed out indiscriminately. It had been one of those that killed the Death Eater that found you. The spider ripped him in two and was too preoccupied with its meal to kill you immediately, too.
The Death Eaters seemed not to care much for the fate of the giants; as the thestrals and hippogriffs soared, slashing and pecking at their eyes, not one raised their wand to curse the winged beasts. You looked away before you could see any giants swipe them out of the air. You hoped none would. You feared that, at the end of the battle, the populations of Hogwarts’ magical beasts would all be as destroyed as the imps.
You entered a decimated castle. Every alcove was empty, the suits of armor they’d once held now engaged in the fight or in pieces on the ground. You watched one whose left arm hung limply at the shoulder swing its blunt sword into a Death Eater’s side, cracking ribs and sending him sprawling. You Stunned and Body-Binded him before he could lift his wand, but another Death Eater blasted the animated armor to bits. Shrapnel nearly impaled you, but you deflected the metal, dodged a jet of green light, and threw a nasty Bat-Bogey Hex to distract the Dark wizard.
What had you been thinking?
For nearly a month you’d hidden. Today, you’d run away. Now you stepped over bodies, some groaning weakly, some unconscious, and some…
Well, that was Lavender Brown. Had been, at least. Pieces of crystal balls littered the ground around her, glinting in the dark puddle of blood that pooled from a gash in her neck deep enough to expose bone.
You tapped the stone hanging from your neck three times. After Disarming an old witch with gnarled fingers and a bent back, you still hadn’t received a response.
You tapped it again. And again. Perhaps it was selfish to tear through the castle as you did, only fighting those who engaged you and ignoring those who did not, but you had to find him. You had to know.
“Fred!” you screamed, sprinting up a staircase three steps at a time. “Frederick Gideon Weasley! Fred!”
You passed Tonks and Lupin, locked in a duel with three Death Eaters. At the sight of you, Tonks faltered and said your name wonderingly. A jet of black light nearly hit her in the chest and would have if Lupin didn’t deflect it. She shouted something, but you were too far away and your breath was too loud to hear, and when you spared a look back she was absorbed in her battle once more.
The castle rumbled and splintered to pieces, taking your childhood with it. You ran. Witches and wizards fell, in school uniforms or Death Eater robes or everyday clothes, and your hair stood on end from all the magic in the air.
The stone heated thrice.
Your toe snagged on a piece of rubble and you went flying. The ground surged up to meet you and your head snapped forward so hard you bit your tongue and tasted blood; the skin on your palms burned and bled, and you skidded the last meter on your side, hitting the wall so hard your teeth clacked together.
Then you heard it. A familiar voice shouted your name above the clamor and chaos of battle. You knew that voice better than your own. You would always know that voice. The sound of it was stored in your soul. Alit with fervor and a bit woozy, you clawed your way up the wall and yelled, “Fred!”
The response must have torn his throat; the bellow so loud, and so broken, like it started deep in his chest and erupted out like lava from a volcano. He called for you again, but you didn’t see the telltale Weasley red hair anywhere, and with so many bangs and pops and screams, it was too hard to tell where he was yelling from. Maybe up this staircase…?
“Fred!”
You dodged a chunk of stone sent to flatten you, retaliated with a flick of your wand that shot a streamlined arrow of shrapnel into the chest of a dark-robed wizard who stumbled back, clutching the wound, inspected the red that coated his hand when he pulled it away, and fell to one knee.
Your throat was raw. You tasted blood from your bitten tongue. You raced up the staircase, heart pounding harder and faster than it ever had before, the stone on your chest flaring with so much heat it nearly burned your skin.
You reached the top of the stairs in time to see Percy Weasley incapacitate a Death Eater by Transfiguring him into what looked to be some kind of sea urchin. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood next to him, as well as—
Your breath caught. For a moment the two of you stood frozen, transfixed only on each other, and that was why he didn’t see the spell coming.
The castle wall exploded.
“FRED!”
Percy wailed as you stumbled blindly through the billowing cloud of dust. A frigid wind gusted through the corridor, raising goosebumps on your arms, and your eyes burned.
Hermione’s shrill scream tore through the air. Acromantula chittering reached your ears; they had finally reached the castle. You ignored all instincts that said not to approach, let alone barrel toward them at full speed; he was ahead, so you kept moving forward.
A huge Acromantula leg landed less than a meter away and nearly crushed you, but you dodged the pincers and ran straight into Hermione. She shouted a spell that cleared the dust.
“This way!”
Your heart stopped. Percy, tears making tracks through the grime on his face, had one arm of an unconscious body slung over his shoulders. Harry held the other. A head who wore a shock of red hair lolled, but Ron bellowed curses at the Acromantulas, which meant the body that Percy and Harry carried had to be—
“Fred!” you screamed. Hermione held you back from collapsing or clutching him and you six retreated down the corridor away from the Acromantulas, who went off in search of easier prey.
No. No. After so long, you couldn’t… you couldn’t… He’d been right there, you’d seen him for all of a heartbeat. He couldn’t… You couldn’t have lost him without even holding him one last time, hearing his gleeful laugh, feeling your stomach flip when he leaned too close to murmur something to make you laugh. You couldn’t have wasted your last chance—that couldn’t be your last chance—
Harry and Percy ducked into an empty plinth and heaved the body down. Blood coated half of his face, pouring from a wound at his temple that clumped his fringe. From the blood loss, or from the dust, a deathly pallor had overtaken his face.
Feeling wild, feeling shredded, feeling out of control and oddly calm at the same time, like you felt every emotion from a great distance, that you only half-existed in your body at the moment, you demanded, “Is he alive?”
Ron fell to his knees at his brother’s side. Harry backed away. As Ron roughly shook the body’s shoulder, Percy pulled out his wand and said, “Rennervate. Rennervate!”
You clutched the stone he’d given you.
”RENNERVATE!” Percy bellowed, and Fred’s eyes snapped open.
Hermione burst into tears. Your knees buckled. You collapsed.
Again, you and Fred could do nothing but stare at each other as Percy ran through diagnostic spells. It was Ron that fumbled with the beaded bag hanging from Hermione’s wrist, pulled out a vial, and poured the contents over the wound on Fred’s head. The liquid smoked and hissed and Fred yelped, but when he shook his head, the cut had scabbed and his eyes looked somewhat sharper.
A dry sob tore its way out of your throat. You had a vague sense of the others murmuring, Harry tugging Percy out of the way and Hermione doing the same with Ron, and you could bear it no longer. You scrambled on hands and knees to where Fred lay prone, and he struggled to push himself upright to meet you, but it didn’t matter; you crashed into him with enough force you would have bowled him over even at full strength. His head knocked against the ground and he winced, but his hands went to your waist to keep you balanced on him, straddling his waist. You babbled an apology, hands flitting over his head, his cheeks, verifying for yourself that yes, he was warm and alive, and then one broad hand ran up your back and he said wonderingly, “You’re here.”
Your eyes burned and your vision swam. You squeezed them shut and felt two tears escape. They landed on his face.
Strong, calloused fingers cupped your cheeks and his thumbs swiped gently over your eyes, wiping away further tears that threatened to fall. “Am I dreaming?” he whispered. “Am I dead?”
Pale, dirty, and covered in blood, he was the most beautiful he’d ever looked because he was alive, and you could bear it no longer. You blurted out, “I love you.”
The hands on your face jerked. His eyes shuttered.
“I’ve been in love with you for years,” you continued. “As long as I can remember. I—mmph!”
For the second time in your life, Fred’s lips pressed against your own. They trembled like they had in seventh year, but this time you squeezed your eyes shut, tangled your hands in his collar, and yanked him up, as close as he could be and even after that closer still. He tasted of blood and dust and tears. The kiss didn’t last long, but after you broke free to gasp for air, you didn’t go far. Propped up on one elbow, he nosed into your cheek, then brushed his lips over the skin butterfly-soft and you shivered. You shared the same air for a moment, then he surged up again, this time propped up on his hand instead of his elbow with the other cupped around your neck. The new angle allowed him to press further into you. His teeth clacked against yours and your lips would surely be swollen and bruised later, but you didn’t falter. There was no space between your bodies, but that still felt like too much, and you clawed at his hair, half-feral with fear and the need to be closer, closer, closer—
This time Fred broke away. He demanded, “Where have you been? How are you here? Why didn’t you come back?” His voice broke on the last word.
“I’m sorry,” you breathed, “I’m sorry, I wanted to, but I was a coward.”
“Don’t blame her,” Harry cut in. “I wouldn’t let Bill tell anyone.”
“Never,” Fred snarled fiercely, “do that again. I thought you were dead.” Now he was crying, too. “I thought you were dead and I couldn’t stand it.”
“I’m so sorry,” you whispered. “I love you.”
His laugh was wet and weak. Fred’s dark eyes searched yours. “You say it so easily. I’ve been trying to for years.”
“I love you,” you repeated. Now that you’d said it, it came easier every time. “Even if you don’t, you should know.”
His face spasmed. “Even if I—” Fred sat up fully. “I can’t lose you ever again.” He held your shoulders and shook you slightly. “No matter what—no matter what happens, no matter what you think, you have to come back. I need you. Can’t you tell that I love you, too?”
Tagged: @lilians17, @me0w-miix
