"What the fuck are you doing down there?" Summer stooped to a crouching position, next to her brother. His floppy hair had flecks of dirt in it, and he groaned as he rolled over onto his back, meaning Summer now got a whiff of his breath- which reeked of alcohol. "For fucks sake, Hayden," she reached out to grab his hands, and had to use all the strength she had, along with the mediocre effort he gave, to finally get him to stand.

"Please tell me you neither drove nor apparated," she said, as she hauled an arm of his over her shoulder, and they started back slowly to the house.

"Ended up all over the place before I finally got back here," he grumbled, wincing with every movement.

It had taken them ten minutes to make it into the living room, Summer had even considered apparating, but had no practice with taking others, and didn't want to risk it, especially with Hayden in this unpredictable state- who knows where they'd end up.

"What if mother had seen you? You're lucky she seems to have gone to bed early." Hayden shook his head.

"No, she's taking Kalen on a mother and son trip to some hotel in London for a couple of days," he said this so bitterly, that Summer almost shuddered as if he was directing this at her. "I mean, she has got another son, doesn't she? Not that I would've wanted to go anywhere with that woman." Now he laid his head back into the velvety armchair, breathing out a long sigh.

"Yeah, I heard you both this morning... Hayden, is it true? What you said about dad?" The boy opposite her laughed mirthlessly, and looked her dead in the eye.

"Yes."

"But, how could you possibly know that?" Summer had spent the whole day playing off his words as simply something Hayden would say when he was angry, but not wanting to believe there was any truth to them.

"Harry told me," he said very matter of factly, as he picked chunks of soil from his hair and brushed them off his clothes, causing Summer to cringe at the mess, feeling very sorry for their house elf- Blisley.

"After, that night," he swallowed uncomfortably, "Potter came up to me, told me that You-Know-Who really was back, and the reason he was telling me this was because apparently, when the death-eaters were being summoned back, he called one of them Blanchet." He folded his arms after relaying this piece of information, studying Summer's face for any kind of reaction. On the outside, Summer simply stared back, but how she was feeling on the inside was a completely different story. It was like all of her insides were screaming, and as much as she fought to believe it, she didn't think Harry was likely the type of person to spread rumours like that.

"What do we do, Hayds?" He was still staring up at the ceiling, looking half dazed and half concentrated on it as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

"What can we do? It's join him or die, especially if our father is all chummy with him now."

"Don't talk like that, please. How about I make us some tea," she offered.

"Don't bother, I'll ask Blisley, sit down." He snapped his fingers, and almost instantly a scrawny little house elf appeared by the armchair.

"What tea do you want, Sum?"

"Uh... peppermint?"

"Peppermint tea, please. Use the good china won't you."

"Yes, Master Hayden." The elf apparated away, and returned a few minutes later with a tray holding a bone china teapot, and two matching cups.

Hayden attempted to pour the tea out, but ended up spilling half on the tray, on account of his shaking hands.
"Fuck," he murmured, and reluctantly let his sister take the fragile teapot from his hands and successfully decant the remaining liquid out.

"Talk to me, what's going on?" Summer placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, as he stared dejectedly into his mug of tea.

"You know, just shit, like always." Summer motioned for him to carry on talking, and with a hesistant sigh, he did.

"Fleur wants space, she's already in bloody France, how much more space can she want? Mum just wants me to be a ministry robot, but they're the first to be corrupted by You-Know-Who if Harry's telling the truth. Kalen seems to be getting his life together." He took a sip of tea and leaned back into his chair, breaking eye contact with Summer to stare off at something on the wall. "It just feels like pieces of me keep getting lost and stuck in the past. Nothing feels the same, Sum. What's even the point of trying, when life just keeps taking stuff away from you."

Summer's eyes were already welled with tears, but they spilt over once he had finished speaking.

"Oh, no, I'm sorry Summie I didn't mean to make you cry," he stumbled over to her and pulled his shirt sleeve over his hand to wipe away her tears. Hearing her brother talk so vivaciously about his place in life had made it seem so much more real, that he was in deep trouble, and she had no idea how to help him.

"It's alright, let's just get you to bed," she spoke so softly that it was hard to tell if she was even speaking at all.

"Did I hear that right, get me to bed? I'm older than you," he slurred the last sentence, and Summer took that as a sign to place her tea down and stand up.

"Yes, you should sleep," she insisted calmly and helped him to stand too, although it took longer than anticipated as he had to spend a moment leant on her to stop his dizziness.

"Alright, we're gonna try to apparate, just close your eyes and think only of your room, okay?" She felt his head move a bit from where it was rested on top of hers, and crack, they were in his bedroom. It was surprisingly clean, and Summer assumed the house-elves tried to see to it when Hayden wasn't there. The only untidiness was his bed, with the twisted up sheets strewn half on the floor, and the desk, which was unrecognisable under the piles of photographs and newspaper cuttings. Summer soon realised that they were mainly articles about Cedric's 'accident' and all the pictures, were taken of him and Cedric through the years, them smiling cheesy grins at the camera, or snaps of them getting up to mischief. The rest on the walls were almost all of Hayden, Summer, Felicity and Kalen all with their arms around each other, from when they were quite young, up to the previous summer.

She watched her smiling face, with her brother's arms around her, and Felicity on her lap, and wondered when she'd last smiled like that, when she last had so few worries as she did in this picture. That's when her mind flashed to Fred. For the last few months, he had always been there to make her laugh, he brought joy into every situation they were in, and something about his presence and warmth made her feel like nothing was ever really as bad as it seemed- even when she nearly became dinner for the Giant Squid- as her and her friends liked to joke about now that it had been a good few months after.

As she helped her brother roll into bed, she took one last glance at him, wishing him a good night-to which she received a groan in response, and turned out the light.

The next day felt like it had taken an eternity to arrive, as she eagerly waited for the twins' arrival. It had only been a few days, but she was still so excited to see them. Finally, after she had admittedly been watching out of the upstairs windows for them, they came into view.

Summer ran down the stairs to answer the door. The two comforting faces of the twins looked down on her happily.

"That took a while, I'm surprised you don't just apparate to the door," Fred stepped in and wrapped his arms around Summer to greet her.

"Yeah, your house is big enough," George followed behind and did the same.

"Alright I get it, when are you two gonna stop commenting on my house?"

"Never." Summer chuckled.

"Well I don't know about you, but I'm not going to make myself unnecessarily dizzy just so you two can get in thirty seconds quicker."

"Where's your family, then?" George changed the subject, as soon as he saw how empty it was.

"Mother, father and Kalen are away for a few days, Hayden... Hopefully he's in his room, he came home in a bad way last night so he should be taking it easy." Summer made a gesture to the smashed bottles outside the garden door, to which they both gave her a sympathetic look, as they took a seat on an armchair each, and Summer made a mental note to clean that up before everyone came home.

A while later, Summer began to wonder what they had in store for her, after making a big thing about 'celebrating her birthday properly'. In hindsight, the twins' constant glances out the front windows, and secretive looks should've tipped her off that there was something planned. However, it wasn't until she heard a knock at the grand doors and several voices outside, that she caught on to what this 'surprise' was.

"Ah, that'll be the rest."

"The rest? No Fred what do you mean." He said nothing, only grinned mischievously and got up to get the door. Summer heard voices, and less than a minute later, her hallway was bustling with at least forty people. Her friend group from Hogwarts were there, along with a few others that she was friendly with, and to her surprise, Ron, Hermione and Charlie were also there. They all rushed over to greet her.

"Happy belated birthday Summer!"

"You're finally of age!"

"Well, just over a month ago,"

"Yeah, but just pretend!" Alicia beamed at her and she side glanced at Fred, who was watching her from the corner of his eye. "Uh, okay sure, thanks for coming, I didn't know Fred had planned this," she said through gritted teeth. This was the last thing in the world that she wanted right now, but knew she couldn't really send home all these people who had come to see her. She could hardly tell all these people that sorry, she didn't sleep much last night on account of having to take care of her brother, then lying awake worrying about him- it would most definitely have been a massive mood kill. So instead she only said "I just need to get changed quickly and I'll be right down," and excused herself.

She dashed upstairs to her closet, and started flicking through all of her options, eventually deciding on a silky black dress, that almost reached the floor. As much as she wanted to stay in her slippers, she settled for a pair of strappy white sandals, with a slight heel. It took only a moment to run a brush through her hair, and fluffed it a little, as she entered the hallway.

On her way back down the stairs, she heard footsteps approach her and looked to her left to see Hayden in the doorway of his bedroom.

"Summer?"

"Yeah?"

"What's all that noise downstairs?"

"Oh..." She looked down at her feet, "Fred and George invited some people round for a belated birthday party for me, sorry, I'll tell them to keep the noise down."

He batted his hand away from him dismissively. "It's fine, I'll put a charm around my door, just ask Blisley to bring me up another bottle, thanks." And before Summer could even reply, he had already shut the door. She decided she would tell Blisley the exact opposite, as she popped into the kitchen, before facing everyone in the other room.

"Summer?" She flinched a little at the sound of her name, again, and turned to see Fred standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

"Shit, Fred, you scared me," she held a hand to her forehead as he pushed off to walk toward her.

"Aren't you gonna join in Sum?" He placed his arm around her shoulder as Summer tried to shake off her worries about Hayden and responded.

"Of course, yeah. Sorry, I'm coming, just give me a minute with Blisley." Fred nodded and dropped his arm, before leaving her alone with the house elf.

"You look amazing by the way," he winked on his way out.

It was almost two hours later, and everyone was back to standing around the large table of refreshments, talking with one another, some about Summer's house, the suspicions about You-Know-Who, Hogwarts, and everything in between. They had taken a break to play some butterbeer pong, which the twins had set up.

Although Fred had managed to spend a good deal of his time being with Summer, he was also dashing around, making sure everything was 'perfect' as he kept reminding her, every time she was cut off mid-conversation, it was by him racing away to fix something, or refill the drinks. Summer was glad her mother was not present, as she definitely wouldn't have been happy about all the teenagers drinking alcohol near her expensive furniture.

"So how're things going with Fred?" Summer was taken aback by Hermione, who had seemingly come out of nowhere, with Ron by her side, and her face instantly grew to be rouged.

"What, what do you mean?" She tried to look confused, but felt like she had ended up looking more embarrassed instead.

"Come on Summer, don't act so naive, you guys might as well already be together, the way he talks about you," Ron joined in.

"He talks about me?" This information wasn't helping the colour of her face.

"Not only that, I see the way he looks at you, Summer," said Hermione, knowingly.

"Are we talking about Sum-Sum and Freddie?" George came and put his arms around Ron and herself, and she would have been thankful for his interruption, if it weren't for the elaboration of the subject.

"What is this, an ambush? I'm not in the mood," she glared playfully at the three, until George finally cracked.

"Okay, okay! You two clear off, we'll save this conversation for another day," he patted Ron and Hermione on the back as they went over to talk to some other friends. George stayed to talk to her for a while longer, then got distracted by Blisley bringing out another tray of snacks.

"Have you seen Angelina? I've never seen her like this before, she's usually so serious," Katie came up behind Summer, making her jump, but also scanning the room for her friend. She had been right, Angelina was standing next to Fred at the other side of the room, swaying in her heels.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Summer asked her friend, who merely shrugged.

"I don't know, let's get closer, maybe we can hear what they're saying," Katie suggested, and they pretended to be refilling their drinks, all whilst listening in.

"I thought you were going to ask me to the dance, I declined Kneaves for you!"

"Angelina, this was months ago, why are you bringing this up now?"

"Because I know you still like me, we can still be together, Fred, don't you see?" She was inching closer to him, and to her discomfort, Fred wasn't moving away.

"No way..." Katie muttered under her breath as Angelina leaned in, and kissed Fred. That was all Summer needed to see, a dull pain was spreading from her chest throughout her entire body, and before she knew it, her feet had taken her all the way upstairs and into her bed. It was only a few seconds until she was wrapped up in her favourite fluffy blanket, and fighting the tears that wanted to cascade down her face, and never stop. At first, she wanted to ask herself why she was upset, but she already knew, and what Hermione had said began to ring true in her mind.

Summer did like Fred. But not just as a friend. It had taken watching him kissing someone else to realise it, it seemed. And up until minutes ago, she thought that he had felt the same way, or at least hoped there was a reason George kept alluding to it, other than for his own fun. Maybe she had waited too long. Maybe now that she wasn't new anymore, he wasn't interested. She came up with many possible answers, that swam around her mind, and all came down to the same thought. That she wasn't good enough, and that's when the tears started to soak into her pillow.

George watched in disgust as Angelina leaned in to kiss Fred, and his disgust turned to anger, as he saw Summer leave Katie's side to escape upstairs, her friend looked as though she wanted to stop her, but by the time she had seemingly made up her mind, Summer was already gone. He glanced back to his brother, who pushed Angelina off of him, and was walking towards George, looking outraged.

"Fuck, did Summer see that?" he asked him, as he got near enough.

"You better go after her, mate," George gestured to the stairs, and Fred raced over to them. It took mere seconds for him to reach her room, and he hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath before speaking.

"Summer?" He gently knocked on her door, and after the only response was muffled sniffles, he pushed it open and went in anyway, slowly approaching the bed, in which he spotted a small bundle of blankets.

"Please talk to me," he sat down next to the blankets, and pulled them away to reveal her head. Fred placed one hand on her shoulder, and the other to pull the hair away from her face, and tuck it behind her ear.

"It's not how it seems," She was trying to bury her face again, but stopped when he said this, and her eyes met his.

"How."

"I pushed her off me, ask Katie or George, they saw."

"So you and her aren't, you know..."

"No."

"For real?"

"Yes for real Sum, I don't like Angelina like that, you're smart enough to know that surely."

"But... She thought you were going to ask her to the ball."

"And who did I actually ask?" he raised his eyebrows at her, eager to see her figure out what he was trying to tell her.

"Me."

"Yes, you. It's always been you Sum..." She said nothing, only stared at him, unaware of how close her face was getting to his. They were millimetres apart, and she could feel his hot breath lingering on her mouth, which was suddenly replaced by his lips on hers instead.

Summer hesistated for a second, her body had frozen up, and at first she wasn't sure what to do. However at Fred's touch- his hand reached out to cup her face to gently stroke her cheek- she melted into his arms, and kissed him back.

Meanwhile, downstairs, George turned back to a stunned Angelina.

"I think you better leave, Angie, I can call you a muggle taxi, or try to apparate with you home," he tried to keep his voice as level as possible.

"I don't think so, I have every right to be here as everyone else," she folded her arms and stayed put.

"I know, Angelina, but come on, I don't want to escalate the scene you've already made," George sounded firm, yet his eyes were pleading with her. By now, Summer and Fred had returned to the throng of people crowding around Angelina, and watched in shock at her and the several people trying to diffuse the situation. As soon as she caught sight of Summer however, her eyes narrowed and she started screaming at her.

"You ruined everything Summer, you bitch!"

"Right, that's enough," said Charlie Weasley, as many things happened at once. Fred moved protectively in front of Summer, holding her hand tight, Charlie and George held Angelina back from trying to lunge at said girl, and several of their other friends covered their mouths with their hands in shock, or with laughter- but probably both.

"Get off me, this isnt even your house, you can't make me go," she fought against the two broad shouldered brothers-which ended up proving useless. Summer was just thinking of a plan, when thankfully that very moment, Hayden appeared, sauntering from the kitchen to the centre of the room. He stared at Angelina trustingly, as he swirled his drink around in its glass.

"No, but I can. Get out of my house, I won't ask twice." Hayden stood over her, twirling his wand around in his hand as he did.

"I'll take her home. God, she's gonna regret this in the morning," Lee sighed and took a defeated looking Angelina by the arm and led her away, apologising profusely to anyone within close vicinity. Once they were finally out the door, everyone breathed out a huge sigh of relief, and began chattering amongst themselves, presumably about the 'show' they had just watched.

Fred spun around to face Summer, taking her other hand into his now too.

"Are you alright? I'm sorry Summer, this isn't how I wanted this day to go."

"Don't be ridiculous, it's fine," she rubbed a few circles into his palms reassuringly.

Meanwhile, Charlie was becoming acquainted with Hayden, who was trying his best to smile back at the high spirited man.

"I should go and help him," Summer muttered to Fred, and slipped out of his grasp, over to where her brother stood- rubbing his forehead.

"Alright Hayds?" She said as she joined his side, to which he gave a weak smile and squeezed her arm in thanks.

"I was just saying it's so good to be in touch with you guys again. Hey, Hayden, what are you doing now that you've finished school?" Hayden did not look pleased about this question, and appeared as though he didn't know how truthful to be.

"To be honest mate, I haven't really thought about it, my N.E.W.T.S weren't exactly satisfactory, let alone impressive enough for most jobs," he gulped down more of his drink.

"Well I'm pretty sure they don't care so much about that stuff where I work, if you're intreested in dragons I mean," Charlie swept a lock of hair from out of his face as he waited for Hayden's response. It wasn't until a few moments later, that he did.

"Are you kidding me," a flame of the fiery glint that normally resided within his eyes seemed to have returned, and Summer saw it an okay time to leave them to it.

By the end of the night, it seemed the Angelina incident had been long forgotten, and most people were leaving now, after dancing until their feet hurt. Fred, George, Charlie and Hayden- who had ended up joining in- much to his dismay, and Summer's delight, were the last left now, and they all sat around on the sofas, yawning. He had pulled out a cigarette, and continued nursing his seemingly never ending drink as he lit it- taking a long inhale.

Although melancholic looking on the outside, Summer was having an inner conflict, she so desperately wanted to ask them to stay, but at the same time still felt like she needed to take time to think through all that had happened. After all, she had gone from being best friends with Fred for a year, to suddenly kissing him, and didn't know if more time with him was what she needed right now, even if that's what she desperately wanted.

Luckily, Charlie solved this for her, after checking his watch. "Shit, guys, I forgot we're supposed to be at Grimmauld place tomorrow morning, and I don't think any of us have packed." The twins moaned in a weak protest as they agreed with their brother.

"What's Grimmauld place, and why do you need to go?" Summer inquired, surprised by this new information.

"Oh, I don't know yet, mum hasn't said much about it."

"Reckon we'll find out tomorrow," the twins answered.

It was a few days until Summer next heard from the twins, but it wasn't a letter from the twin she had expected. George's message was only brief, and left her feeling quite confused, except for one thing, that she should meet them at Grimmauld Place. He had explained that they were there as a safety measure because of YKW, and that there was some sort of group of witches and wizards forming to fight back. Summer had to reread this part several times to make sure she wasn't going crazy.

Deep down, she knew that he had returned, but since there was no confirmation from the ministry, she had put it out of her mind for the time being, hoping that the subject would just pass over. But what Hayden had said the other night was true. Dumbledore was right, it would have been an insult to Cedric's memory to think he died by his own hand, or because of some accident. Although she felt the overwhelming urge to meet them there, and George even telling her she can go over whenever she wanted, she still felt a little hesitant. She had no word from Fred, and had no idea what to say or how to act around him now.

Summer was still mulling things over in her head, the way Fred and she had left things, Grimmauld place, 'The Dark Lord's' return.  Currently, she was sitting at the elongated dining table, with a bowl of porridge and the Daily Prophet, when the sound of slamming doors and the start of a car engine broke her out from her thoughts. She picked up her bowl, and took it to the kitchen to put away, when Hayden walked in.

"Hey, who left, was it dad?" She asked casually, but he didn't reply. When she looked back up at him, she saw his eyes were red and blotchy, and he had a busted lip. His cap was almost falling off his head and there were a couple of tears in his clothes.

"What the hell happened?" Summer rushed over to him with a wet cloth, dabbing at the blood on his face, to which he tried to squirm away, getting past her to sit on a barstool.

"I'm fine Summie, stop that." The girl sighed in defeat, and began rinsing the cloth out, wincing at how red the sink had now become.

"But Hayden, you haven't left the house, who could have done that? It wasn't Kalen was it?"

"No."

"Mum? Dad? " When he flinched at the latter, Summer felt a sick feeling spread through her. Her hands shook so much that the cloth splattered onto the surface with a wet squelch. "Why... Why would he do that? You haven't done anything wrong?"

Hayden stared intensely down at her, with such emptiness, that it felt like she was transparent, and that there was something horrifying on the other side of her body.

"You don't get it, do you?" A tear slipped down his face.