Harry Potter But AU??? - Chapter 159
FRED’S POV
Two months has passed since the second task of the Triwizards tournament and a lot has changed.
In the time since the last card dueling tournament the twins have had come to two conclusions of their own, and decided to change their and their family’s life based on them.
The first thing understood was about their two older brothers, Bill and Charlie.
It was after the third howler their mother sent to them demanding they stop selling the ‘silly game’ and focus on their studies as they need good grades to get into the ministry.
After each of the first two letters, the twins, with Luna’s advice, sent their mother a letter of their own, explaining they don’t want to become ministry workers and that they make good living with their game, they also sent 1% of their share of the profits to her each time, to show her that they have it now.
Yet, after getting the third howler they finally understood it will never matter to her what they do, if it isn’t what she wants, it isn’t good enough.
Until now they always thought their older brothers left the country to be close to their work, yet, a week after the second task their friends talked to them about expanding card dueling to other countries, and when asked how they are supposed to send products to a different country, Harry mentioned 4 different instantaneous magical traveling methods.
If their brothers wanted to live close to home, they could.
They could stay at home like Percy and go each day to their job.
Or if not that, they could have at least live in England so they will have the chance of seeing them more then once a year on a good year.
No, their brothers escaped their mother.
Moving to far away places to not have to deal with the constant feeling of disappointment their mother is sending to anyone who isn’t Percy.
But they won’t have it.
They won’t leave the country as an escape from their mother.
They would make sure they succeed right in front of their mother, if only to shield their two little siblings and let them do what they want in life.
Because no one scares away Timon and Iago.
The second thing they realized was actually about their father.
It was a few days after their mother sent the third howler that their father sent them a letter of his own.
In the letter he told them about how proud he was of them for following their dream, and how he used to be like them, an inventor, till he learned the harsh reality that inventor who had no old money had to face, the only people who make less money then ministry workers are unsuccessful inventors.
And when their mother got pregnant with Bill, their father went to work in the only ministry department he could that still left him with enough time to invent things.
The twins always knew their inventing talent and spirit they got from him.
After all, when they used to be little kids whenever they had the chance they used to sit and watch him tinkering with muggle objects and add magic to them.
Their father might be a ministry worker, but he is an inventor at heart.
What they realized was that now that they were making money and a lot of it, they can convince their father to quit his job and focus on inventing.
It wasn’t easy, in fact, it took almost a month of constant letters, one meeting in Hogsmead, and telling their father about them having two silent partners for their father to be willing to concede and be willing to work for them, after meeting the extra partners.
They wanted him to spend time on inventing and just send products he wanted to sell to them, but the Weasley father wasn’t willing to concede for their request as it meant stomping on his pride as a man, what he was willing is to become a worker in their company, working under them as he improved until he reached the level of a partner on his own, but no matter what, before agreeing with even that, he wanted to meat their partners.
Convincing Harry was a task all on its own.
While they loved the boy like their little brother (in fact, sometimes more then their little brother.) they would be the first to admit he had a deep paranoia.
No matter if it was using the Fidelius charm to prevent anyone from knowing him as anything but average wand wielding wizard, or acting like a monkey in front of the class to make people unaware he has Occlumency shields, the boy has deep trust issues.
And while it is sometimes sweet, knowing Harry trust you enough to know his secrets, this time wasn’t.
“No, I don’t trust him.” Fred could see from the look on his face that Harry regretted saying it the moment he did, not because he didn’t mean it, but because he knew how it sounds.
Which was another thing that endeared Harry to him most of the time, once you break through the wall he put around himself most of the time, the boy had trouble control what he say and his expressions around you.
Once again, this wasn’t one of those times.
“What do you mean you don’t trust him? He is our father!” George took the words out of Fred’s mouth, though the screeching he took from their mother.
“Look I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, you did, you just didn’t mean to upset us.” Fred said coldly.
“No, I meant…” Harry tried to explain himself but George didn’t let him.
“We know what you meant. You meant that you don’t trust our father with your secrets, but guess what, it is all of ours company, and we get a say as much as you do!”
“I never said you didn’t!” Harry proclaimed, and Fred scoffed at it, Harry may never have said it, but they always knew he thought himself as the boss.
“No I didn’t! I truly couldn’t care less about the company, nor do I care about the band. The only reason I helped you create the two was because you are my friends.”
“So you are telling us,” Fred said “that if we wanted to s give you back your starters money and 1/4 of the money you would leave the company?”
Fred instantly regretted saying that, because he for the first time since meeting Harry had seen two expressions he has never seen in his face, a hurt look and an angry look.
Now, Fred has seen many looks in Harry’s face.
There was the usual fake smile he had around the castle, the true smile he had in the ROR, the scheming look he had when he wanted something, and the annoyed look he had when something didn’t work out to him.
But he has never seen Harry feeling hurt, nor truly angry.
Worse, as the seconds moved by, he saw the angry look changes into the cold fake smile he gives everyone as he said “fine, I will wait for my money.” As he moved toward the exit.
Fred should have moved, yet, he felt as if he was frozen, luckily, he has a twin brother.
GEORGE’S POV
Hearing Fred say those words, George knew it wouldn’t end well.
While Fred thought Harry trusted them with his secrets, and it was somewhat true.
George knew it wasn’t 100% the case.
He could see it whenever they complained about their mother and talked about their father.
Whenever they mentioned the headmaster, Marcus or the Potters.
He could especially see it at the end of second year, when he saw the kid leaving the train station, taking a look back and walking alone.
While Harry might not know it, George saw three emotions in his eyes that day, and non of them were positive.
The first one was easy to identify.
It was the sadness he saw in his father’s eyes whenever he told them about his parents, the longing in the sadness was obvious enough for him to notice.
The second emotion was harder to figure out. In fact he only figured it out in the middle of the summer, the day of his mother’s brothers death, when their mother got slightly tipsy as usual and told them once more about them and about their death.
It was when she talked about their killers and he saw the look in her eyes that he figure it out. It was desire for justice, or revenge.
The third emotion was one he saw every once in a while when Harry was looking at the air in semi daze.
It wasn’t one he identified, not until he saw it today.
It was a hurt look, but deeper then that, it was a betrayed blaming look.
George didn’t know why he had this look whenever he dazed off, but he did know he wasn’t willing to let the boy they consider their little brother, the one who believed in them and their dream to ever look at them like that.
“No!” George said as he moved to block the exit of the room, standing right in front of Harry.
Now, while they consider Harry their younger brother, he is taller then them, and more masculine, making him look extremely scary when he wanted.
“No?” Harry repeated with a cold smile. “I just do what you wanted.”
“No, if you did what we wanted you would meet our dad.” George said back
“You want your dad to work for you and to feel independent no? Me moving out of the company is the logical conclusion.” He hated how Harry could sometimes say what they want in a twisted way.
“No, we want our dad to meet you and work for all four of us, Luna agreed, why can’t you?” He remembered the talk they had with Luna, when she suggested only bringing her, or at least have her convince Harry, he now regretted not taking her up her offer.
“Because I don’t trust him!” The cold smile left his face, having the angry look come back. “Because he is Dumbledore’s man!” Both Fred and he knew this was the core issue in the argument, one that Harry wouldn’t have come close to if not for his anger.
“Why does it matter if he is Dumbledore’s man?” Fred asked, somehow making Harry even angrier.
Harry, now seething is anger, for the first time since they know him, has, not yelled, but screamed.
“Because someone of his little group killed my parents.” Harry said before freezing in shock, as if he didn’t believe he actually said it out loud, something that was most likely correct.
Neither Fred nor George know much about Harry’s situation outside of Hogwarts except him being kicked out of the Potter family for being in Slytherin.
They knew he lives alone, and he sometimes let things slip, about him running from the family the Potters left him at by the age of five, or living at the orphanage.
But mostly, even when he talked about anything related to his life before Hogwarts he would only tell about the schools he went to, and whenever they asked anything extra he would change the subject, and they would let him, if only because they didn’t want the depressive feeling he had around him to stay, not this time.
“What does it mean?” His brother said “Lily and James Potter are alive.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Harry said “forget I ever said anything.”
“Like hell we do!” And this was the first time he ever heard Luna curse, and hopefully the last, because it scared the hell out of him.