#thinking of doing a birthday haul later <33< /div>
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its my birthday!! ꣑ৎ ⋆₊˚.˖ mine
#mine#credit me if repost#thinking of doing a birthday haul later <33#birthday#happy bithday to me#october 2024o#October 26th#girlblog#girlblogger#girlblogging#this is a girlblog#girlhood is a spectrum#this is girlhood#manic pixie dream girl#hell is a teenage girl#girl interupted syndrome#coquette#female manipulator#female insanity#femcel#lana del ray aka lizzy grant#cinnamon girl#the female experience#sophia coppola#slavic doll#this is what makes us girls#gaslight gatekeep girlblog
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Hello, it's me the anon who write about their thoughts, intepretation and message about your fic. I'm glad you like my thoughts and such. I deeply appreciated it. Say i have a few questions, i was browsing your blog see. And i saw that you or someone you possibly reblog linked two other fics that connected to 'The incandescene of a dying light' universe. And i wanna ask is this canon to the first fic? Because if so, that's cool that the others are being inspired to write and attempt to connect their fics to your universe fic. Also i know this is probably irrelevant but i got ask. How are Scar and Grian doing to the year 2020 on the fic? Is scar still working to shoshone national park to this year i mention or he retired a long time ago? Is there an age limit for the employees working for the national forest like at this age you be immediately or forcedly retired with small benefits package just for your safety? Also i wonder what Grian and Scar reactions to the invention of the internet and smartphones during the 1990-2010's because i just take a little research about international calls during the 1980-1990's and ugh... that's a hefty price to pay for such calls. No wonder people avoid staying too long on international calls. Because the phones bills man, it's gonna burn your wallet. Anyway that's all of my questions. I hope i didn't bother or anythin' about my questions. Have a good time, writer.
Hello, nice to see you again in my inbox!!
Yes, my story has inspired several recursive works (which is the term for a fanfic of a fanfic) and I'd like to give them a shout-out!
I Waved Goodbye to the End of Beginning by @crazypercheron is a fantastic multi-chaptered work set the year after the main fic took place. It's about Cub visiting Scar's lookout and trying to offer him comfort as he realizes Something happened last year. It has a slower pace than the main story and really expands on a lot of details about Scar's life as a lookout.
The Evergreens Enfold the Shrine by @darkaviarymc is an amazing little story that asks the question of how Mumbo's story will be perceived later, through some college students (Gem, Etho, Beef) in 1995 telling a ghost story about Mumbo.
From Embers by @honeylashofficial is a great oneshot set in the same universe (but not directly referencing the main fic) about what happens when Impulse and Skizz go hiking in the forest and get injured.
The Phosphorescence of a Glimmer in Extrimis by TotallyNotAPlant is a little crack AU in which Mumbo is just. A cryptid in the forest.
Of these, TotallyNotAPlant's story is definitely not canon since it's a crack story, but the other three are sort of....dubious canon? Half-canon? They're not fully canon because they were not written by me, and I might have made different choices. (This does not mean I dislike the choices anyone has made, it just simply means we all have our own unique styles as writers. I am thrilled that other people are finding their own meaning in my work and I don't want to dissuade them from doing so by demanding they fit my exact mental framework.) Since they are recursive works, I cannot guarantee I won't ever end up causing continuity errors if I upload something new because I do have a few other works in this AU that might get uploaded. However, I'm incredibly pleased with the work that all these lovely writers have done, and I am willing to work around what they're doing if I can!
Scar and Grian are doing great in present day! I think they'd benefit from being able to communicate more easily now. Scar may or may not be retired by now--without taking exact birthdays into account, he'd be about 64 in 2020 since he was 33 in the main fic (and 68 today.) Grian would be approx. 59 in 2020 and 63 in 2024 (but i am not incorporating exact birthdays into this.)
As far as I know there isn't an age requirement for fire lookouts, just the physical requirements like being able to hike/haul water/chop wood etc. I have seen videos/read about older lookouts. The only Forest Service age requirements I know of is that wildland firefighters must be under 37, and law enforcement officers must be under 37 when appointed. Otherwise there is not an age where you are forced out of typical federal service, just an age you're eligible to retire like all jobs.
Based on federal hiring, Scar would either be a temporary appointment (<6 months, can be rehired on a yearly basis but not guaranteed. Most common for fire lookouts) or seasonal permanent (must work minimum 6 months, guaranteed rehire with benefits and retirement.) I'd prefer him to be seasonal permanent just for his, like, quality of life but his fire lookout appointment is only 5 months so he doesn't immediately qualify. Maybe they keep him on at the office for an additional month after fire season ends. It might be most likely that he was hired as a recurring temporary employee for the first few years and then offered a seasonal permanent position. OPM has information about how this worked in the 80s but it's a bit too in the weeds for me to bother with LOL.
The real question isn't his retirement or age though--it's if the lookout is even still in service. I personally do not think it would be. There are VERY few lookouts left in the 2020s. I found an article from 2016 that said there were only 3 left in operation in Wyoming, and I don't even know if that's still true 8 years later. There's plenty of out-of-service ones remaining, and you can easily rent them for a night to sleep in on recreation.gov. But very few remain staffed. By the time the story is set, most lookouts are already out of service. I think it's likely his lookout would go out of service somewhere in the 90s. I think he'd work there til it went out of service, but I don't think this is a job he can keep the rest of his career. He might be offered a career transitional job in the Forest Service after that but I don't know if he'd take it or not. He could be an interpreter or some other seasonal job. To me the loss of a fire lookout job isn't a sad ending for him though--it's just how life and careers change :) I don't really have a clear idea of what he'd do instead. He has a lot of random skills picked up from the work he does in the off season and I think he'd pretty easily find something else to pick up.
Reactions to internet: well, Grian's going to have to learn computer stuff to do his job! Remember how Mumbo was learning computer aided design but Grian didn't know much about computers? Yeah, buddy, AutoCAD is about to become an industry staple for architects in the 90s so you need to keep up. Poor Grian with all his hand-drafting skills.
In @darkaviarymc's fic there's a bit about Scar being active on those mid-90s message boards that I LOVE. I think he totally would do that and have all this knowledge about the outdoors but also weirdly specific extra knowledge. And tons of misspellings of course.
Grian and Scar would keep in touch. The growing accessibility of the internet would only help. The phone bills...yeah there's no great way around that in the early years. I also like to think Scar goes to visit Grian in England since he's never been at the time of the main story :)
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Fred Weasley my biggest childhood crush <33
i love skimming through the content warnings and catching the little surprise tools for later
"Fred calls himself Daddy and the reader is way into it" so am I actually (congrats Fred Weasley for making it to the very select list of men I'd call daddy)
(i actually forgot this had smut in it KSKSKSK i was so focused on the ANGST and self made suffering)
"It seemed that just yesterday, you were a bright-eyed young girl" this entire first big paragraph goes so hard
"and it left you the laughing stalk of the courtyard" the prank rivals to lovers story we've been hoping for <3
"So - on with your revenge, it was" I love these two so much
"the quiet robotic hum of ‘Jingle Bells’, occasionally overlapped by ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" this is such a funny prank idea
"inside the teacher’s copy of the textbook on McGonagall’s desk" KSKKSKSKS OF COURSE HE FUCKING WOULD
"You had a crippling fear of heights" which is a surprise tool :3 that'll help us out in a minute ("help" us out i guess)
"because watching Fred doing something he loved was a good distraction from just how high up you were" he'd also look Delicious playing
"he wrapped a comforting arm around your shoulders and he told you that he was genuinely sorry" 🥺🥺🥺🥺
"planting his hand firmly on the railing at the other side of your waist" this gives me the same giddy feeling of someone holding me by the waist to get by behind me
"Finally. I thought the two of you were never gonna get on with it" nothing could make me belive all the Weasleys weren't making bets on how long it'd take them
"shortly after Fred’s birthday, when everything came crashing down around you" and so the horrors begin 😟
"I guess I was stupid enough to believe that I was part of that dream!” // "Would’ve been a waste of parchment writing to you, anyway"
"any thought of what potential career you might take on was tossed aside when the world went into upheaval at the hands of Death Eaters" YEAH !!! FUNNY LITTLE THING ABOUT WORLD ENDING WARS
"Fred smirked, proud that after all this time, he could still draw a laugh out of you" the unbreakable curse of liking the "Funny Guy", he's Still funny even after a fight/breakup (it's almost humbling in a way)
"Fred, an utter death grip around his waist, until you heard him let out a grunt of pain" KSKSKSKS you love me, suck it up <3
"In the back of his mind, he thought that Wood would be proud" oh 🥺
"He likely would have died with that tight grip still around your wrist in those moments if someone had hit him with the killing curse" hey Sunny it's me knocking, let me in I just wanna talk 🔪 oh this ? don't worry about that
"Freddie, please, I don’t wanna die!” 🔪 Sunny I'm coming in
"his *thick* arms coming to cradle your back" 👀 okay
"You wanted to sob, you wanted to laugh, you wanted to scream" YEAH !!!
" with a look of intense concern on his features. “Whatever you need.” my hands are shaking as I try not to think about the implications
"He couldn’t possibly be talking about…? No. No, he wasn’t" im hitting both of you on the head with one of those rubber squicky hammers
"You had never seen Fred Weasley so sad before" im screaming and crying and ripping the wallpaper off the walls
"I can’t lose you. You almost slipped out of my hands.” 🎵 waaaaaar is oooveeeeer 🎵 (kinda, maybe, yes ?)
"If one of us were to die tomorrow, I couldn’t live my last day knowing that I wasted it not being yours" I AM RIPPING MY OWN HEART OUT OUAT STYLE, MORE BLOODY MAYBE
"You grabbed both sides of the sport jacket and used it to haul him down toward you" YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH !!!!!! I looove a good intense kiss scene 🙂↕️
"his bedroom had some silencing wards around" 😈 we'll put it to good use 😈
"That part of him screaming that he should be the one on his knees serving you, that he needed to better apologise" 🤫 I agree actually but shhh
"Did you miss it, darling?” He asked... with a cocky smile stretched across his soft lips" 😳😳😳😳😳
"Fred Weasley’s cock was a marvel that you couldn’t have forgotten if you had tried" are they identical in every way i wonde- *a gunshot sounds off*
"his broad shoulders in those fine tailored suit jackets" damn those are CRIMINAL indeed
"give into your personal curiosity about what the heavy sac would feel like against your tongue" EEEEEVIIIIIL WOMAN !!!!! :3
"When I cum tonight, it’s gonna be deep inside your sweet cunt, yeah?” 🚨🚑🚨🚑🚨🚑🚨🚑
“Go on, good girl.” *holding the tmi jar very close to my chest* stop spilling all my secrets
"Shh, darling, Daddy’s got you" 👀
"perfect heat of your cunt began sucking him in for the first time in over a year" and you KNOW they have not gotten with ANYONE in that time (only the company of their own hand for a whole year)
"that you should have reached out to him sooner and told him that you wanted him back" there's nothing worst than a fragile, hurt ego
"All mine, all mine, darling, all mine" im soooooo normal about this 🫣🫣🫣🫣 dont look at me
"a small collection of your things were still in there" of course he kept all that shit :3
"Unfortunately I don’t have any panties for you, so…��� oh noooo what a nightmare (he's a fucking liar btw, the panties are under his matress)
"Fred quietly let out a ‘yes’ in celebration" *punching the wall* he's such a dork
"soft planes of his muscles that had come from hard work rather than a distinct workout routine and the beautiful bit of fat on his lower belly" i am foaming at the mouth
"his core was a Dragon Heart’s String, and that heart beat for you just as fondly as his own did" INSAAAAAAAANEEEEE
"Can you fill out a post-orgasm survey to clarify, please, and make sure to-” KSKSKKSKSKS
"but just as Fred’s lips brushed yours, George let out a loud, fake gagging sound" siblinghood is so real
I LOOOOOOOVE THIS SO MUCH !!!! Also ! Now they get to be each other's dates to the wedding !! hoorayyy !!!!
The Way You Miss Me
Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader
I’m not trying to say I don’t wanna stay, I just know how this story ends.
Use my body against me - and all of our history.
I hate the way you miss me.
Summary:
Fred broke up with you. He made it clear that he was going to have a new life when he opened his shop, and he didn't need you to be a part of it. You being stuck on him was just another joke in a long line of pranks that he pulled.
And life kept on laughing at you when your fear of crippling heights was triggered by a potentially life ending mission the Order put together that had you dangling hundreds of feet over London, held up only by Fred's strength and determination.
So what does it mean when the two of you land, and he's the only thing that can stop your shaking panic? What does it mean when he's looking at you with nothing but love in his eyes, holding you tight like a lover would?
Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader. Exes to Lovers. Emotional Angst and Smut. Set during Deathly Hallows.
Word Count: 18,500
Harry Potter Masterlist | AO3 Link
Full warnings list and author's notes below the cut.
Warnings: this is equal parts angst fic and smut fic; the reader is a cis woman - uses she/her pronouns and has a vagina; there is no mention of the reader's looks, race, hair colour, etc. in any way; this fic does use Y/N (and L/N as in Last Name); this takes place mostly during the beginning of Deathly Hallows, so there are mentions of dark topics, like death, and the cult-like following that Voldemort has developed; this is Exes to Lovers - Fred and the reader dated for a while during their time at Hogwarts and then broke up; (there is flashbacks in this fic to times during Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix); the reader is half-blood - she has one parent who is a muggle and lives in a muggle city and the other parent who is loyal to death eaters (and there is a later mention of the reader's mother being killed due to anti-muggle sentiment as Voldemort becomes more powerful); there is no mention of what Hogwarts house the reader is in; the reader has a crippling fear of heights (which is a large part of the plot for this fic); mentions of nausea and vomiting (as a fear response) (no one actually throws up during the course of the fic); the reader experiences actual life-threatening danger while on a broom - she nearly falls to her death, but Fred catches her; Fred does struggle to hold the reader's body weight, so it doesn't imply that he has super-human strength or that the reader is particularly petite (I wanted his reaction to be realistic for someone of any body weight); for part of the fic, Fred is disguised as Harry using Polyjuice Potion (but there's no confusion about his identity because the reader knows he took the potion); the reader experiences a panic attack due to the life threatening fall, and Fred helps her calm down; mentions of blood and semi-graphic descriptions of George's canon injury (his ear being blasted off); there is general emotional angst from the characters being in close proximity to danger, death, and life threatening situations; Fred calls the reader 'darling' and 'love' and 'sweets' and 'pretty girl' (in sexual and non-sexual contexts).
For the actual smut section: this is not their first time together as a couple and neither of the characters are meant to be virgins; there is undertones of sub/dom dynamics - Fred is a teasing soft dom and the reader is submissive to him (and there is mentions of the reader experiencing what could be considered subspace) (but there isn't any specifically laid out roles - it's more so one person enjoying taking care of the other, especially after experiencing the emotional turmoil of a near death experience together); there is Daddy kink in this (not until a bit later into the smut section, but it just came to me and I realized it suited Fred so well) Fred calls himself Daddy and the reader is way into it; praise kink - Fred calls the reader 'good girl' specifically because he knows she likes it; lots of dirty talk (Fred has a filthy mouth); oral sex - Fred receiving (she blows him as a thank you for saving her life) (also slight ball worship); mentions of the reader 'choking' on his cock (but there is no major breathplay or breath restriction); slight spit kink (it's a messy blowjob and he loves it); teasing and brief orgasm denial (toward both parties); hair pulling (toward both parties) - not with the intention of causing pain, but to direction someone's attention and to show appreciation and affection to the person; thigh riding - she humps herself on Fred's thigh while she is still wearing clothes; penis in vagina sex; creampie kink (I'm not gonna say breeding kink, because there's no mention of procreation or getting someone pregnant, even in theory, but they are both very turned on by the idea of him cumming inside of her); this could be protected sex OR unprotected sex - he cums inside of her raw but we can all pretend that they used a magical pregnancy prevention method if you want even though it's not mentioned in the fic; cockwarming (reader doesn't let Fred pull out for a while after he cums); I think that is finally it for this fic.
A/N: This fic is titled after a song by All Time Low, which I highly recommend listening to paired with this fic. This is actually part of an idea I had for a much longer multi-chaptered Fred x Reader fic, but I kept thinking about this one moment in the fic and how much I wanted to write it - so I did. And I decided that it would make a good oneshot. And I am actually insanely proud of myself for managing to capture the same emotions in under 20k that I originally thought would take me like 50k or 100k to properly communicate. I think this is fantastic, and it's one of the best things I have written in a while - and I really hope you guys enjoy it! Especially if you like angsty, emotional, exes to lovers fics.
...
Very often, you wondered when life had become so complicated.
It seemed that just yesterday, you were a bright-eyed young girl, dancing around a beautifully magical winter ball with the love of your life on your arm - and now, you were a confused woman who was terrified of how your life would end up because of a dark wizard and his cultist followers trying to overtake your world.
These days you didn’t even have that lover to comfort you through all of the confusion and dread that clouded the world around you.
You and Fred used to be perfect. That’s what a lot of people would have called the two of you - the ‘perfect’ couple.
Your story was something straight from a romance novel - the two of you were best friends when you were young, and that friendship quickly blossomed into affection. That affection naturally led into a sweet romance. When you were with him, your life was full of moments where you felt like a beautiful, flowery, desirable protagonist because of how he treated you. Your life used to be full of laughter, full of smiles, full of romantic gestures.
You and Fred were in the same year at Hogwarts, so naturally you knew each other. You weren’t really friends - at least not at first. You knew of each other, especially because you had some classes together.
But you didn’t truly meet Fred Weasley until more than halfway into your first year of classes together. You had the misfortune of accidentally running into a prank that was meant for a Slytherin Prefect - someone who had taken one too many house points off Gryffindor for the twins’ liking. And after being doused with red and gold paint and tripping over a toy rubber snake that had been charmed to hiss realistically when you got near it - you were reasonably frightened and crying, and it left you the laughing stalk of the courtyard - someone to be pointed at and mocked by everyone.
Fred hadn’t meant for it to be you. With the way he looked at you after the incident - full of guilt while everyone else pointed at you and laughed, imitating your frightening screams and attempts to jump away from the fake snake - it didn’t take you long to figure out the culprits behind it. And it didn’t take you much longer after that to plan your revenge. (Especially because, as much as Fred looked guilty, he didn’t simply come forward and apologise. Too afraid to look like a weak moron in the eyes of his brother and his other Gryffindor friends. So - on with your revenge, it was.)
You figured that all good pranksters should be due to be a victim sometimes, too. If the twins couldn’t laugh when they were on the receiving end, then they should stop playing pranks.
So you came up with something that you considered masterful. During your trip home for Christmas, back to Muggle London where your mother lived, you asked her to take you to a shop to buy a couple of greeting cards for your classmates. The ones that sing Christmas carols loudly when the hinge of the card is opened. Something clever, and not needing any magic at all.
And when you returned to Hogwarts after the break, you found a moment where the twins were distracted, and you stole their book bags in order to pull off your epic, amazing prank. You taped those singing greeters into the back of their Potions textbooks - a class that you shared with them, of course, so that you could enjoy the show. And then you waited.
You had trouble containing your laughter when Professor Snape escalated from annoyed to downright scalding angry as his class was filled with the quiet robotic hum of ‘Jingle Bells’, occasionally overlapped by ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’. It was made even better by the fact that both of the twins clearly knew that the music was coming from somewhere in their surrounding area, but they had no clue what the exact source was or how to stop it. And with every snivelled demand of ‘just open your books and get to work’ - the music only started up again.
By the time they had been sentenced to detention for disturbing the class, you were nearly breathless and your ribs were aching from trying to hold back your laughter. Which, of course, meant that Fred easily spotted you out of everyone else - who looked equally confused or annoyed with the low hum of the music. And as soon as the class ended, he brought his textbook to you, thanked you for the worthy prank, and asked you how to stop it. He looked entirely amused and impressed when you pulled the tiny device out of the back, and proceeded to ask you a million questions about it.
You weren’t surprised when the next week, the annoying singing greeter ended up inside the teacher’s copy of the textbook on McGonagall’s desk.
From that moment on, his crush on you steeped inside of him like a fine tea, developing from an innocent adolescent attraction to full-blown, ‘drive you crazy’, ‘I would do anything for you’, love. It was lucky for him that you easily felt the same way.
Through the years of being by his side, becoming his best friend, pulling pranks together and trying desperately to get him to study - it was difficult not to fall for Fred Weasley.
You had been overjoyed when Fred invited you to the Quidditch World Cup. Even though you weren’t the biggest fan of Quidditch (and Fred knew that). The only reason you had started attending the games at Hogwarts was because he joined the team. And you only bothered to attend the games he played in, so your bias could be spotted from a mile away. But in his letter, with the ticket to the World Cup slotted into the envelope, he told you that it was ‘the game of the century’ and you ‘simply couldn’t miss it’.
You wouldn’t miss out on spending time with him, so you eagerly agreed to go.
This left you with only one glaring problem.
You had a crippling fear of heights.
It was one of the reasons that you never really gotten into Quidditch in the first place. You had absolutely no interest in playing, and even less interest in watching if Fred wasn’t involved. The idea of even flying on a broom being something that made you nauseated and shaky just from thinking about it.
The mandatory first year flying lesson was the only class at Hogwarts that you ever failed, but Madame Hooch took pity on you when she saw you crying and fisting the grass after only getting your broom about five inches off the ground. So she passed you anyway - just barely.
When you set out to watch Fred’s games at Hogwarts, you usually had to take some kind of anti-nausea tonic beforehand to make sure that you didn’t puke all over everyone else in the stands. And you usually couldn’t even make it up to your seat to watch unless one of your good friends held your hand. But you were alright once the actual game started, because watching Fred doing something he loved was a good distraction from just how high up you were.
Telling Fred about your intense fear had been one of the most honest, vulnerable moments that you ever had with him. Your friendship was usually all pranks and laughter, which you loved.
But one summer day, when you were hanging out with the Weasleys, they wouldn’t stop nagging you to join one of their family Quidditch matches because they needed an extra player to make the teams even. And after the twins’ endless teasing, saying that you were ‘afraid to lose’ or that you would be ‘too distracted by their daring good looks’ in order to play properly, you broke down crying and stormed off into the woods, because you were too anxious to admit the real reason that you couldn’t play.
Fred was the one who found you off in the trees behind the Burrow, tears still streaming down your face, and asked you what he had done to so greatly upset you. He had been terrified at the idea of making you upset, so hurt that he had been the one to make you cry. And after he found out about your fear, he didn’t laugh or mock you for it or play it off as something stupid like you thought would be so typical of him. No - instead, he wrapped a comforting arm around your shoulders and he told you that he was genuinely sorry. And he promised that he would never invite you to play Quidditch again.
When you had accepted the invitation to The World Cup, you had forgotten how much your fear of heights played into watching Quidditch as well. The giant, impossibly tall temporary Quidditch stadium that had been set up for the event had been looming over you all day, but you didn’t want to quit and go home because of some silly little fear.
You wanted to spend the time with your friends. You wanted to enjoy the event because the people you loved most were having fun there. So you pressed on, ignoring the inevitable, letting yourself get caught up in the pregame revelry. You walked around the seemingly endless campgrounds with Fred and George, in awe of all the decorations and the different wizards from all over the world, showing off things from their homes. You chatted and charmed along with them as they collected bets before the game. You let Fred paint your face with large, ugly shamrocks because even though you didn’t entirely care about the teams or fully know them, you were rooting for Ireland to win simply because he was.
But the unavoidable nature of your problem became very apparent as Arthur guided everyone to your seats, and you climbed up more stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs - and the higher up you got, the more you found yourself shaking, especially when you looked down to the ground and saw that the people down there looked like little more than bugs. You hated it when your mind, naturally, went to what would happen to you if you stumbled over the railing and fell down all that way. You would splat on the ground, squashed like a bug. You would die within seconds.
You held on tighter to Fred’s hand - he would have said that he had grabbed your hand in the first place so that he wouldn’t lose you among the bustling crowd, and not simply as an excuse to be closer to you. You didn’t even realise how badly you were trembling in his touch as you looked over the railing (still a few flights down from your final seats) with intense apprehension.
“You alright?” Fred asked you simply.
“‘m fine.” You mumbled out the lie, giving him a large, forced smile - hoping that he would believe it.
You knew that if you told him how you were feeling, he would insist on escorting you back to the tent. Perhaps he would even insist on staying with you so that you wouldn’t have to be alone. So he might miss out on a once in a lifetime Quidditch game all because you had a bit of petty anxiety from being so high up.
So you tried your best to push down all your feelings and ignore them, even if it was making you shake and making your stomach churn. When you got to the top, peering over the edge of the railing of the very, very high up seats that Arthur had gotten as a thanks for his work on helping to organise the whole thing (apparently, the higher up the better to actually see the game), you felt an incredible sense of dizziness, and began swaying on your feet.
This was so much higher up than the Quidditch stands at Hogwarts.
Naturally, Fred noticed. It wasn’t something he would easily admit, or even something he did consciously, but he always kept an eye on you. Partially due to a knack for admiring your beauty, that adolescent love-struck feeling always making him more prone to staring at you. But it was also partially due to the fact that he felt a need to watch over you. Whether it be as a friend or as something else, he always wanted you to be safe, and happy.
And right now, your sickly, terrified face stood out like a sore thumb among the crowd of excited, cheering fans.
“Y/N,”
He called out your name in a serious tone that was so uncharacteristic of Fred, something that snapped your attention from staring anxiously at the ground toward him immediately. He cemented your attention on him when he put a hand on top of your tight, tense knuckles on the railing. His touch was warm, as always, and oddly grounding, removing even just a slight bit of that dizzying anxiety that you were feeling.
“Do you wanna go back down? I can bring you back to the tent,”
Of course. Just as you had predicted.
“No.” You easily answered, shaking your head furiously, biting your lip. “I-”
You didn’t want him missing out on such an important event because of you, but more importantly:
“I - I don’t want to be afraid.” You heaved out, your chest tight with anxiety. “It’s stupid - people do stuff like this all the time, right? I shouldn’t be afraid-”
“It’s not stupid.” He said firmly, quickly squashing down any self-belittling that you might be tempted to do. “You can’t control how you feel.”
Coming from him, it sounded like the most firm truth ever.
“If you want to stay, I’ll be right here with you.” Fred added on, giving you a warm, reassuring grin. “But just let me know if you want to go back down, and I’ll walk with you, alright?”
You nodded, hating that even though his words gave you that nip of courage you needed, you were still pulsing with a dull panic. The undeniable reaction that fear caused in your body.
Fred hated seeing you shaking, hated the deep frown that cut through your beautiful features - so what he did next was instinctive. He took his hand off yours and reached that arm, the one closest to you, around your back, planting his hand firmly on the railing at the other side of your waist. This trapped you in a close-knit hold beside him, something that made you feel instantly more secure - even if it was just from the warmth of him at your side.
“I’m not gonna let you fall, yeah?” He said quietly, leaning closer into your ear to be heard - the warmth of the reassurance causing gentle tingles down your spine. “I would never let anything happen to you, darling.”
Between the intense loving safety that he words wrapped you in with the sweet nickname he added on, and the firm cradle of his arm around your back, you knew that you would have no problem sticking it out for the game. But your brain was still trying to cope, your anxiety so incredibly nagging, and you couldn’t help it when your eyes drifted back to focus on the ant-like people on the ground, becoming shaking and nauseous all too soon from staring downward.
“Down look down.” Fred scolded you gently, using his other hand to grab your chin, forcing your gaze back up - it ended with your eyes locked with his, admiring the way the breeze blew his too-long ginger hair into his eyes. “Just look at me, alright? It’s gonna be far worse if you keep starin’ down there. Just look at me, love.”
“Just look at you.” You repeated in a quiet mumble, already so utterly locked in the powerful orbit of his gaze, feeling like it was near impossible to look away from him.
You felt his forehead brush against yours before you realised just how close he had gotten. But you couldn’t bring yourself to mind.
And ultimately, feeling the stands shaking beneath your feet as a particularly hard gust of wind came through and having another swell of anxiety rush through you was what drove you to closing the gap, sealing your lips on his in your first kiss. Fred made you brave, almost stupidly so, and you hoped that you had finally used that bravery for something good in capturing his lips. (Rather than the stupid mischief that the two of you usually got up to.)
Fred smiled into the kiss and George cheered loudly behind him - you thought it was due to the game starting, and when you pulled back sharply to look around for the players, you were met with nearly all eyes in the group on you, clearly gawking at the fact that you and Fred had kissed.
This included Ginny smirking almost evilly before she said:
“Finally. I thought the two of you were never gonna get on with it.”
This left you squirming with a mild embarrassment, and definitely not thinking about how high up you were anymore.
Looking back, the memory was painful - not sweet or fond as it had once been to you.
But it wasn’t nearly as painful as the memory of the day you and Fred had broken up.
He had asked you to be his girlfriend officially only a few days after the World Cup. He wanted you to know what that kiss meant to him, and he wanted the privilege of more kisses from you, on top of the ‘honour’ (his exact wording) of going back to Hogwarts with you on his arm as his girlfriend, making all the other boys in your year ‘pathetically jealous’. Of course, it was everything you wanted, he was everything you wanted, so you said yes.
The two of you dated for nearly two full happy years - right through your sixth year and into your seventh, until in April of your seventh year, shortly after Fred’s birthday, when everything came crashing down around you.
It wasn’t unusual of Fred to pull you away after a class - his hand in yours, igniting fluttery giggles from your lungs as he pulled you down the corridors to whatever secret little spot he had picked out. Even with Umbridge at Hogwarts, implementing more rules and cracking down on ‘fraternisation’ between students, you and Fred still found ways to sneak off to have your private little moments together.
So when Fred took you off to one of those private corners on chilly spring afternoon, you assumed that this was no different. You fell into the natural rhythm of pinning him against a wall, sealing your lips firmly to his in a kiss and waiting for his hand to sneak up your skirt while his tongue ventured into your mouth. You were shocked when this time, he didn’t kiss you back. He was limp and unreceptive against you, and that was when you realised that you had read the tone of the interaction very wrong - even if him dragging you away by the hand always led to making out in a quiet corner, and more than a bit of groping.
You pulled back, looking at him with confusion and disappointment plainly across your face.
“What’s wrong, Freddie?” You asked, well in the habit of using the nickname for him.
Fred’s expression was filled with sullen dread, and it made your stomach twist. It truly made you fearful of whatever he was going to say next, and you took a step back from him, widening the gap between the two of you in the dusty, draughty old stairwell. You suddenly felt too cold, even with your uniform sweater and thick robes on, and wrapped your arms around yourself to compensate.
“There’s something I have to tell you.” He announced quietly, continuing to lean on the wall that you had pressed him up against, staring at the floor, his eyes unwilling to meet you.
What? Had he cheated on you? Did he want to break up?
What terrible thing could possibly make this bright, funny joker so damn sad and serious?
“What is it?” You asked, filling with dread, your throat tightening up more by the second.
“George and I have decided that it’s about time we take our leave.” Fred announced, his eyes only flickering to you for a moment, looking for some kind of reaction. You were only further confused, and waited for him to explain. “The lease for the shop in Diagon Alley finally came through, and-”
“Well that’s great news, Fred.” You said, trying to sound happy and upbeat beyond the tension that was still tight in your chest. You had no clue why he was so downtrodden - the joke shop was his dream, and now that they had secured a location for it, that dream was coming true.
He heaved a sigh, his eyes turning to gaze out a nearby window for a moment before he turned back to you.
“It means we have to leave, darling.” He said sharply.
Your insides became heavy.
You knew it was a very Fred and George thing - so intent on not doing their exams, desperate to escape any further academics. You wanted to ask why they wouldn’t stay until the end of the school year, but you knew that you would get answers about how they didn’t need marks from exams that they were likely going to fail anyway to run a shop that they now owned.
It was something founded on their own talents and ideas, and they didn’t need the approval of professors marking them wrong or right in order to do it.
It was the life they had always dreamed of. And you were intensely proud of them for it.
So why did you still have that overwhelming feeling of dread?
“So - when are we leaving?” You asked, trying to sound confident and firm in your words even though you knew what was likely coming next.
You felt intensely disappointed when the all too predictable outcome smashed you in the face.
“You’re not coming with us.” Fred said quietly.
“Why not?” You argued gently.
You would drop everything and go with them - you felt far more emotional attachment to being with Fred than you did to finishing your year at Hogwarts. You knew that you could be a useful hand around the shop. Any venture helping Fred would be a worthy one to you. But staring you down were the calculating eyes of someone who had been telling you over the past years how much he didn’t want to disrupt your studies with his antics, because he thought you had a ‘brilliant mind’, and you were ‘so much smarter’ than him and George.
He thought that you could actually pull some decent - no, brilliant grades on your NEWTs and truly make something of yourself. The shop was a big dream of his and George’s, but Fred knew that you were destined for something so much greater that truly challenged and fully utilised your brilliance. So he wasn’t going to let you be dragged down to mediocrity by him.
Realising this, part of you still ached. Why was he so intent on leaving if it meant leaving you behind?
“Please don’t be stupid-” Fred sighed, rolling his eyes.
“Oh, so I’m stupid now?” You scoffed.
He hadn’t meant to let the harsh word leave his lips - at least, he hadn’t meant it in such a harsh way.
“Y/N-” Fred used your actual name, something he rarely did, but you barreled right over whatever he was going to say with your next words.
You were hurting now, and you didn’t entirely care what he had to say.
“If I’m so stupid, then why should I even bother to stay here and take my NEWTs?” You hissed, twisting around his accidental slip into something he had never meant. “Or am I too stupid to even work at a silly little joke shop with you?”
Fred scowled deeply. It didn’t suit him.
“Y/N, this ‘silly little joke shop’ has been my dream since I was five years old!” He barked, now taking your heat of the moment words and running away with them. “You don’t-”
“I guess I was stupid enough to believe that I was part of that dream!” You cried out in return, cutting off his words once again.
‘You are.’ He choked down the words. ‘But I can’t bear to bring you down just because I want to be with you. I could never be so selfish.’
“I-” He choked on whatever he was going to say, swallowing it down. “I can’t do this right now.”
He moved to storm off completely, hoping to speak with you later when you both had calmed down, hoping to have a proper, happy goodbye with you before he and George actually left.
But your next words made him freeze on the spot, and wiped away all of those hopes within him.
“Fred Weasley, if you walk away, we’re done.” You said, now choking on tears.
You were utterly insulted that he wouldn’t even fight for you - that he wouldn’t even promise that his heart would be waiting for you after you graduated. To you, it was a sure sign that he was saying that his shop was more important to him than you were. That you were just some stupid schoolgirl fling to him; that along with the shop, he wanted to move on to other women, to find someone that he actually wanted to marry.
You had never been a part of the dream he had for his life - you had just been a passing fancy in his eye.
For Fred, it was all too painful. This was the conversation he had been utterly dreading since he and George had decided to take their leave, and it was going far worse than he had planned in his head. He couldn’t face the pain - he couldn’t face hurting you. He couldn’t face missing you, even during a few short months apart before you did graduate.
So he then did something so terribly stupid, looking to bomb the relationship wide open - hoping to end all of the pain before it even started.
“Good.” He said, barely turning his head to even look over his shoulder at you. “Would’ve been a waste of parchment writing to you, anyway.”
With those final, painful words, he stomped off down the stairs, leaving you to collapse against one of the nearby walls in a puddle of tears - for the first time in a long time, without Fred to muffle your sobs in a comforting hug.
You hadn’t been there to watch him and George ride off on their brooms when they finally gave Umbridge everything she deserved - you had been locked in your dorm, sobbing into your pillow because of that horrible, relationship ending fight. You had only heard from other people later that they had left Hogwarts in a blaze of glory, and you were the only person who knew for certain where they had gone and what their plans were now.
You hated to admit it - but you missed Fred Weasley.
You tried your hardest to get over him. You threw yourself into your studies, and you did pass your NEWTs with some of the highest marks in your class. But then, any thought of what potential career you might take on was tossed aside when the world went into upheaval at the hands of Death Eaters. And unintentionally, you were right back at Fred’s side again.
It was a dreadful thing - being forced to see your ex on such a frequent basis.
The last time being just a few short days ago when he had come into the Apothecary that you worked at in Diagon Alley, looking for some ingredients for a new WWW product that he wanted to make a test batch of. You had still spent last Christmas with his family, at the nagging insistence of Molly. After your mother had turned up dead and your father was missing, and you had to face the fact that he had likely defected to the Death Eaters out of fear (and the stupidity of his ingrained ‘old ways’), you didn’t really have any other family to turn to, aside from the Weasleys.
You saw Fred a lot more often than you should - more often than you wanted to, in fact. Because the more often you had to see him walk into your shop with a grin on his face and bear the small talk he would force you into before he finally put in his order, the more you ached. You wanted nothing more than to be able to get away - to go someplace far away that Fred would never find you, so that you could finally heal, could finally get over the way he had broken your heart.
But the country, and likely the state of all Wizardkind, was in upheaval. So many lives were at risk, and you had your part to play. You had signed on to become a member of the Order the minute you turned seventeen, and you weren’t prepared to shirk that commitment now, just because of a bit of girlish heartbreak.
It was the reason that you were standing in the now empty residence of Number Four, Privet Drive. You had been called upon last minute to replace Tonks on this particular mission, for reasons that everyone seemed tight lipped about. But you weren’t going to question it - you were just going to step up and do your duty so that Harry could be transported safely, and hopefully go on to defeat the Dark Lord once and for all.
According to Mad-Eye Moody, it was all very straight forward. Six of the fourteen members of the group would take Polyjuice Potion to turn themselves into decoy versions of Harry, making for seven Harrys in total, and the other half of the group would pair off with a Harry each to be their escort.
You weren’t a huge fan of the idea of Fred disguising himself as Harry, essentially putting a huge target on his back - but the plan had already been set in place. He had already agreed to it. There was no room for you to protest now.
“We’re not a big fan of the idea either, mate.” George spoke up when Harry protested against the idea of people risking their lives by being disguised as him.
“Yeah, imagine something went wrong, then we’d be stuck as a scrawny, specky git forever.” Fred added on with his usual humorous tone.
You held back a laugh at this comment, and everyone in the room eyed you harshly as you choked on your own breath. Fred smirked, proud that after all this time, he could still draw a laugh out of you.
Your sense of humour about the whole situation was soon stamped out when Mad-Eye mentioned brooms. The group would have to be flying because Harry couldn’t apparate or use any other common form of transport without the Ministry knowing.
“Brooms?” You questioned, knowing that your tone sounded far too panicked. “We - we’re flying?”
“Yes.” Mad-Eye snipped curtly in return. “What exactly about my explanation was unclear, Ms. L/N?”
His sharp tone and his glare in your direction, along with his use of your surname, instantly transported you back you Defense Against the Darks Arts classes in your sixth year, when you had been intimidated by the man - even if, strangely enough, you hadn’t been taught by the same man who now stood before you.
You swallowed tightly, a large lump forming in your throat already - an involuntary, wicked reaction overtaking your body because of your fear of heights. Fred looked at you with sad knowing in his eyes, and you didn’t notice when he clenched his fists tightly at his sides, resisting the urge to swaddle you in a comforting hold.
“Nothing was unclear, just-” You stuttered, breathing in deeply, trying to calm yourself. “I don’t have much experience with flying, and-”
“Weasley - er - Fred, has already informed me of that.” Mad-Eye said, correcting himself when he realised just how many ‘Weasleys’ were on this mission and how utterly confusing that would get. “He’s insisted on taking you due to your lack of experience. Is that all?”
Obviously, you didn’t want to publicly admit to your fear. You couldn’t reveal it as the terrible weakness that it was, especially not when there were so many other worries at play.
“Yes, it’s fine.” You said, nodding, trying to keep the conversation short and keep the attention off you.
“Good. Now if we’re all done dawdling, we need to get to work.”
It was downright strange seeing Fred transformed into Harry.
Even complete with the dorky clothes and the glasses, you still easily spotted him out of the crowd of ‘specky gits’. Maybe it was the years of practice that you had telling him apart from George that made it so easy for you, but he was still so irritably Fred. The fact that he slid his wand into his back pocket - something you had warned him dozens of times would likely result in the wand crunching in half and breaking when he sat down (and annoyed you to the point of you snatching it out of his back pocket to save it, especially before he sat down). The way he reached up to scratch his nose, the smirk on his face when he kept glancing over at the other Harry you were sure had to be George. Especially with the way they were steadily side-eyeing each other, speaking volumes with their looks and having a silent conversation that nobody else knew of.
The fact that his eyes kept flickering to you every few moments definitely helped you to pick him out of the crowd. Even though you were used to a gentle hazel gazing at you rather than that piercing blue, there was still a unique concern behind his eyes when he looked at you from beyond those spectacles - the same kind of gentle seriousness that you hadn’t really seen from him since he had held your shaking hand on the stairs of the stands on the day of The World Cup.
Stupidly, it only really occurred to you how close you would have to be with Fred, tightly riding behind him on the back of his broom, when you went outside and he ushered you to climb onto the back of his broom behind him. It had been a little over a year since you had broken up with Fred, and since then, you had not touched him.
Every greeting had been friendly, but from a distance. Even when he came into the Apothecary and laid his hand on the counter, you snaked out of the way in time to avoid his fingers so much as brushing by yours. You always laid his order on the counter for him to pick it up himself, so that his fingers wouldn’t accidentally brush against yours. You made sure never to have contact with him. And now, you were being forced to climb onto the back of his broom, to hold him tight.
But you couldn’t protest. You couldn’t demand to switch partners now because of some petty angst you were harbouring about a break-up that had happened so long ago. (Would you call it angst, or stupid, longing, painful heartbreak?) You couldn’t complain - not when this was about transporting Harry safely. This was about something so much bigger.
Sure, it wouldn’t be exactly the same as holding onto your Fred (not that he was yours anymore - you had to remember that). He was Harry-Fred right now, so he was much shorter and thinner, and you could easily pretend that he wasn’t Fred at all. Which is what you forced yourself to think about as you swung a shaking leg over the broom and climbed on, wrapping your arms around his waist, preparing for take-off.
It was a bit harder to pretend that this wasn’t Fred when you caught the faintest whiff of his expensive cologne (something he had only started wearing once the shop took off, something you noticed on him for the first time when he came to visit you at the Apothecary). It was definitely still lingering on his skin, something that was so painfully Fred even while you stared at the back of Harry’s wild black hair.
It pierced your heart a little bit more when he peered over his shoulder at you, striking you as so Fred with those somehow warm, caring blue eyes and gently asking:
“Good?”
To which you replied:
“m fine.”
The most terrible lie you had ever conjured - something that was soon covered up by Mad-Eye shouting some last minute instructions and waving everyone off.
When Fred kicked off the ground, you were immediately met with the most sickening wave of nausea that you had ever experienced in your life. You got way too high up for your liking within seconds, the houses on the ground growing far too small in your view, and you couldn’t fight the urge to shut your eyes.
Unfortunately, it only made you dizzier, but it calmed your nerves a slight bit. You didn’t even realise how tightly you were clutching onto Fred, an utter death grip around his waist, until you heard him let out a grunt of pain from his stomach muscles being strangled by your arms with your fingers digging into him like claws, holding on for dear life.
“S-sorry.” You stuttered out, shivering from the pure fear of it all, rather than the cool breeze that was whipping at your face. “Sorry, sorry!”
“I’m sorry!” Fred replied - it was still strange hearing him speak in Harry’s voice, and you were glad that it was temporary. “I should have told them you weren’t up to this mission, I-”
“I’m fine!” You barked back, hating the idea that your fear would make you unfit for a mission. But in a sense, you knew it was true. You would have spit in the face of any Death Eater, but your fear of heights was so utterly crippling. “Fred, don’t you dare for a moment suggest-”
“We’ve been breached!” You heard someone - Arthur’s voice, shouting from up ahead.
Your eyes whipped open and suddenly, you were filled with an entirely different kind of fear. Smoky black clouds of Death Eaters whipped through the sky around you - somehow, they had discovered the plan. And now, they were targeting all of the fake Harrys, firing off curses in every direction, looking for the real one.
They were targeting Fred.
That was the only thing at the forefront of your mind - they were going to hurt Fred.
“Y/N-?”
“Just get us out of here!” You told him. “I’ll cover you!”
You knew that you couldn’t close your eyes now. Of course you would step up to protect him. No matter if the two of you were lovers, friends, or something estranged - you still loved him in your heart, and you would protect him no matter what.
You grabbed your wand out of your jacket and gripped it stiffly, firing a stunning curse at the first silver mask you saw, still tightly gripping onto Fred’s jacket with your other hand. He used both his hands on the broom, gripping tighter with his legs to steer better, years of Quidditch honed skill coming in handy. His ability to be calm and fly mindfully while Bludgers were flying at his head made him a lot calmer with multiple Death Eaters firing potentially deadly curses all around him. In the back of his mind, he thought that Wood would be proud.
You were still shaking horribly, and a few of your spells didn’t land on the first try, but you kept trying. You centred yourself, remembering what you were doing, who you were here for. In your mind, it wasn’t about Harry, it was never about Harry - it was about Fred. It was because Fred had approached you about the last minute replacement, it was because Fred was the one on the broom in front of you, the one you would have died to protect.
You didn’t see when someone Apparated in a thick cloud of black smoke behind you, and raised their wand in your direction, hitting you squarely in the back with a heavy jinx. It was the force of a brick wall smacking you, something that sent you and Fred tumbling end over end through the sky and sent you flying cleanly off the broom because you didn’t have the instinct to grip the wood with your thighs like he did.
You let out a shrill scream as you felt yourself falling, your worst fear coming to life.
Thankfully, Fred was quicker than gravity - quicker than death.
He laser focused on you, and suddenly, everyone else was gone. All the supposed danger, all the Death Eaters - even other members of the Order who might have needed his help - they all vanished in his eyes.
It was only you.
He turned the broom into a deadly nose dive, racing down toward you, reaching with his hand out, and in seconds, while you were still hundreds of feet off the ground - he snatched you. He had your wrist gripped so tightly in his hand - slightly sweaty, already slipping. But he wouldn’t have let go of you if Lord Voldemort himself commanded it.
He likely would have died with that tight grip still around your wrist in those moments if someone had hit him with the killing curse.
He slowed the broom down, turning up out of the dive, intent to get you away from the fight, driving forward. Scarily, his arm muscles were already shaking from holding up all of your body weight.
You stared up at him with tears of pure terror dancing in your eyes, and though he was wearing the mask of The Chosen One - in those moments, the terrified, caring, loving eyes of your Fred were staring right back at you.
As much as you trusted him, you felt yourself slipping out of his grip, and more fear swelled inside of you.
“Freddie, help me!” You screamed, shaking, flailing under his grip, trying to reach your other arm up to help as he struggled to hold onto you. “Freddie, please, I don’t wanna die!”
“I’m not gonna let you die!” He replied, desperation gripping his throat. “Just - look at me. Don’t look down.”
Of course, you were distinctly reminded of that day at The World Cup. And somehow, you felt the same sense of safety with him now that you did then - even if you didn’t have the railing or even the gravity of something under your feet.
His muscles shook harder, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold onto you for much longer.
He had to pull you up.
“I’ve got you.” Fred huffed, straining with the effort. “I’ve got you-”
He tried pulling you up, but his muscles shook harder in protest, and he let out a harsh, murderous scream of frustration. And then he did the only thing that he could think to do. He gripped onto you tighter, and he used his legs and his other hand to do a sickeningly sharp barrel roll, twisting the broom completely around by leaning with his right shoulder. He flipped the entire broom with the hopes that you would get the chance to be flipped back onto it safely.
Luckily, even though you let out another terrified scream, you got the hint and hooked your leg around the wood mid-air, holstering your shaking body back behind him. You gripped onto Fred even tighter then, and one glance around told you that luckily, or unluckily, the fight had cleared off from around the two of you.
Perhaps they had heard you call this imposter Harry by the name ‘Fred’, perhaps you had given the real Harry away and ruined the whole plan. As you squeezed your eyes shut again and shoved your now tearful face into Fred’s back, selfishly, you couldn’t bring yourself to truly care.
The rest of the trip went on too long for your liking - you were still crawling with anxiety and eager to have your feet back on the ground.
Toward the end of it, you felt Harry-Fred’s body shift back into the tall, more muscular form that you were familiar with (somehow a bit more muscular than you remembered, but you tried not to get caught up on that detail). You were more than relieved when you felt your feet brushing against the ground with the landing. Distantly, you heard the familiar, comfortingly worried baulking of Molly’s voice, and you opened your eyes to see that Fred’s head was much higher up than it had been before, and his hair was thankfully returned back to its bright red state.
Molly rushed over to Fred, and there was some conversation, but you couldn’t make it out - blood was thumping in your ears, your body still overtaken by all the horrible symptoms of your fear. The moment that Fred dropped the broom in order to step away from it, you stumbled off into the grass on weak legs.
You hardly realised that you were hyperventilating - you simply felt dizzy, felt your chest aching from the lack of breath; you noticed that your vision was blurred with tears, and you knew that you weren’t getting enough oxygen. You pressed now muddy hands to your face in desperation, trying to usher more air past your lips, and it was then that a streak of orange fell into your view as Fred dropped to his knees in front of you. He had heard you gasping, and of course, rushed to you with nothing more than concern flooding his system once again.
“Hey, hey, look at me.” He murmured, trying his best not to panic himself at seeing you like this - he gently took a hold of your face, guiding your vision toward him. “Look at me. You’re alright now. You’re safe.”
Of course you knew that. You knew that you would always be safe with Fred.
But your body hadn’t even registered the fact that you had landed yet - the panic only now fully setting in, bringing with it the most cruel, shocking symptoms you had ever experienced. You did the only thing you could think of - the only thing that would truly make you feel safe. Something you knew would truly ground you after experiencing such chaos so high up in the air.
You launched yourself toward Fred, pressing your face into his chest, wrapping your arms tightly around his waist in a firm hug as you tried to stifle down sobs. He easily accepted this, his thick arms coming to cradle your back, selfishly thankful to have you back in his arms. He gently rocked you back and forth as he peppered more soothing words beside your ear.
“You’re alright now, darling.” He said, letting the pet name slip so easily that it frightened him. He rubbed a hand up and down your back, feeling your gasping panic all too quickly soothe away under the firm warmth of his touch. “You’re alright.”
Almost instinctively, he laid a kiss on your temple, not entirely realising that this wasn’t necessarily something an ex-boyfriend would do - he was so ripe with the urge to comfort you, the need to make your pain go away. He couldn’t help but take a little something selfish as the empathetic waves of your panic echoed over to him.
“I was never gonna let you fall.” He whispered, almost speaking these words to himself - a sacred promise.
He had regretted every day since the break-up, and even if he couldn’t be your lover, he was never going to let you get hurt.
You gripped him tighter, your breathing almost back to normal now, and you pushed your face tighter into his chest, relishing in the firm warmth of his body against you. This was something you hadn’t felt in far too long. Fred placed another kiss on the top of your head. He was about to say something entirely dangerous when another bit of chaos came tumbling through the garden, distracting him away from you and causing the words to die off in his throat.
Remus, hauling George across the grass - and George, slumped over, a massive amount of blood dripping down the side of his head.
“Georgie.” Fred gasped quietly.
Your head whipped around at this, and in sync, you and Fred scrambled to your feet, rushing to see what had happened to him. Fred lifted George’s other arm to help get him inside and safely rested him on the couch.
It was a horror show.
The flesh of George’s ear had been blown to bits, blood smearing down across his face and spilling down the side of his neck; he was sickly pale and barely conscious. His eyes only flickered, giving you some sense of life in him when Fred called out his name after making sure he was resting comfortably on the couch.
“Georgie?”
There was a rare quiver in Fred’s voice that made your stomach quake. Fear. You were not accustomed to hearing Fred fearful, not of anything. Even when he had abandoned Hogwarts and dove into a career as a shop owner without a single clue if he would find success, he did so without a single bit of fear in his heart.
But of course - seeing his dear brother like this, knowing that someone he loved had been so close to danger - it made him terrified.
“Hey, Fred.” George croaked back weakly.
At least he was conscious enough to speak. That gave you quite a bit of relief.
“How’re ya feeling?” Fred asked.
“Saint-like.” George replied, a tired smirk gracing his lips that told you he was forming a joke - something that was utterly hilarious in his mind that would only make sense to others when he delivered the punch line.
You wanted to sob, you wanted to laugh, you wanted to scream. Of course he would be making jokes only moments after nearly being killed.
“Come again?” Fred said quietly, tentatively.
Perhaps it sounded partially dangerous to him like it did to you. Perhaps George felt Saint-like because he was too close to death.
Both of you and Fred held your breath as you waited for the reply.
“Saint-like.” George grinned. And then he lifted a tired hand and gestured toward the bloody hole on the side of his head before he delivered his glowing punchline. “I’m holy. I’m holy, Fred. Get it?”
Fred grinned, and you let out a gasping chuckle that you knew was mostly tears. Behind you, Molly inhaled sharply through her teeth, running a hand over her forehead with the stress, and Ginny shook her head as she exhaled an exhausted sigh.
“The whole wide world of ear related humour, and you go for ‘I’m holy’?” Fred replied, unable to resist humouring George. “That’s pathetic.”
You knew that if either of them knew anything about the story of the Muggle painter Van Gogh, then they would have been making jokes in that lane.
“Reckon I’m still better looking than you.” George added on tiredly.
“You were always better looking than him.” You said, your voice throttled by tears, unable to resist.
When you turned around to retreat, you saw Ginny clutching onto Molly, clearly hiding tears in her mother’s shoulder, Molly’s face dancing with a kind of sadness you had never seen before. You knew you couldn’t run from your pain. You had known the Weasleys for so long, loved them too much. You had a distinct kind of duty here.
“Molly, do you have a cauldron around?” You asked, hating how choked with tears your voice was. “I can whip-up something for his pain. I do it at the shop all the time. And a Sleeping Draught, so he can get some rest.”
It was true - one of your many duties working at the Apothecary was making and bottling simple, common potions to sell (pregnancy test potions, simple multi-use pain potions, Dreamless Sleep Draughts, cures for warts and other common rashes) - many people liked the convenience of coming in and buying a potion for everyday uses rather than having to make it themselves.
“There’s no need-” George began to protest, but Fred easily cut him off.
“Come off it.” Fred hissed toward his brother, not taking kindly to ‘selfless’ idea of George not accepting something for the pain he was clearly in. Then, Fred rose up from his place beside George and turned to you with a look of intense concern on his features. “Whatever you need.”
…
You had barely begun to set up everything you needed for the brewing when the others finally came in, bringing more chaos with them. Remus accused Harry of being an imposter, which was quickly proven false. Apparently the Order had been betrayed, which explained the presence of Death Eaters on the mission so easily. They had used inside information to know when Harry was being transported - it was only luck that they had been thrown off by the Polyjuice Potion, having to chase down multiple Harrys and not knowing which one was real (even if George got gravely injured in the process).
Mad-Eye had been killed.
You weren’t sure if what you felt was mourning for the man. You hadn’t known him all that well. Not the true version of him, anyway. You continued to weep quietly as you worked on the potions, but you knew it wasn’t specifically for him. His death only served to remind you how truly dangerous the mission had been - how close you, Fred, and George, and the others had all come to death. How lucky it was that nobody else had been killed.
You tried not to let the suffocating gloom that had overtaken the Burrow due to the near failure of the entire mission disrupt the process of making the potions needed for George. When Molly didn’t have some of the ingredients that you needed, you gave Fred your spare key to the Apothecary and he popped over to get them for you. Mr. Michaelchuk, who ran the place, had always told you to ‘take what you needed’, and this was the one time you had actually taken him up on the offer.
When Fred returned, he fussed at George’s side, helping him change into pyjamas (when everyone else had cleared out) and tucking him in comfortably to a makeshift bed on the couch, with lots of pillows and extra cosy blankets, to the point where he got annoyed with Fred coddling him. You always knew that the two were good friends in addition to being brothers, as close as two people can be, but you had never seen so much abundant affection between them. It was sweet.
Molly came back downstairs wearing a plaid dressing gown, with a pair of tiny reading glasses balanced on her nose, her slippers scuffing along the floor. She mentioned that Arthur was already ‘snoring away’ - but of course, she had no intentions of going to bed herself. Because of course, if George was down here on the couch, it was so that she could watch over him while she busied herself with knitting - much like she had when Arthur had been on the ward at St. Mungo’s after he had been attacked by the snake. You had gotten a particularly nice jumper for Christmas that year, one that you still wore often when it got particularly cold outside.
Fred had settled to sit on the couch by George’s feet, and the two had fallen into a hushed conversation, though you didn’t hear most of it. And of course, it wasn’t long before Molly rushed Fred off to bed, just like she had done with everyone else, wanting to give George the space to rest without distractions from visitors.
“-just get her back, you idiot.” You hear George hiss in a whisper before Molly pushed Fred toward the stairs.
He couldn’t possibly be talking about…?
No.
No, he wasn’t.
You didn’t think about it. Instead, you let yourself get lost in the meditative process of brewing, making sure that the potions were perfect. You made sure that George was pain-free and lost to a deep, restful, healing sleep (with a few pre-brewed bottles of the potions to spare that would keep his pain at bay for the next few days) before you finally went upstairs, ready to collapse with exhaustion.
You passed by Fred and George’s room on your way to your final destination, Ginny’s room, where you would be staying with her and Hermione, from now up until Bill and Fleur’s wedding. After which, you would return to your apartment above the Apothecary and try to resume your best sense of ‘normal’ life. All of your things were already unpacked in Ginny’s room, and you had a sleeping bag set up on the floor there.
But of course, you naturally came to a stop at the mouth of Fred’s open bedroom doorway, letting an instinctive caring overtake you and participating in the need to check on him.
The sight you saw made your heart ache.
Fred was sitting on the edge of his twin bed, his posture slumped with pure exhaustion. He hadn’t even changed out of the now ill-fitting Harry clothes that he had to wear for the mission: jeans, a tee shirt, and a grey sport jacket that were now coated in dirt and traces of George’s blood, all oddly short in the limbs and emphasising his tallness, his hands still stained bright red in a way that couldn’t be washed off.
His face was marked with tear tracks, and his tired, dead gaze was fixated on George’s still neatly made matching twin bed. A space that was hauntingly empty across from his - a sign that his brother was missing. A sign of just how easily someone precious could have been taken from him that night.
“Freddie?”
You croaked out, the nickname slipping out in a way you couldn’t control once again, causing him to snap out of whatever distant, depressing thoughts he was caught in. His head jolted toward you, only now realising that you had been standing in the doorway for so long.
“Y/N,” He responded, his voice choked by tiredness, sadness.
It was so alarmingly strange to see someone who was usually the pinnacle of laughter reduced down to this. You had never seen Fred Weasley so sad before.
You had seen him angry, on occasion - like when someone insulted you, or when he had been banned from Quidditch for getting into a fistfight with Malfoy. You had seen him annoyed - like when he found out that the age to enter the TriWizard Tournament was seventeen, and he was only a few months away from being eligible. (You were thankful for that one, and secretly thankful when his Ageing Potion had failed).
You had seen Fred go through a lot - but you genuinely believed that was the first time you had seen him so deflated in the face of the world.
He rose to his feet, turned his back to you, almost as if trying to hide. He raised a hand to his face, and your heart ached more when you realised that he was trying to wipe away tears.
“Come on, let’s get you ready for bed.” You said, moving forward, gently putting a hand on his shoulder, moving up to peel the sport jacket off him.
You knew that the sadness, something he so rarely felt, had paralyzed him. You knew that sleep was what all of you needed right now - some rest to get your heads on straight. And you wanted to help him in any way that you could.
“I can’t-” Fred huffed, stepping away from you, putting some distance between the two of you in the small room. “I can’t do this right now.”
Your stomach curled into a horrible knot as he echoed the words he had spoken to you on that horrible day, when he had broken up with you and relinquished himself from your presence without a second thought.
It truly hit you then - he didn’t want your help. He didn’t want to be near you now. He had only held you close a few hours ago because it had been a matter of life and death. He had helped to calm you down because it was the friendly thing to do. He didn’t want you here now.
“Okay.” You choked out, nodding, taking a step toward the door. “O-okay.”
A hot tear rolled down your face, and you moved to make your way toward Ginny’s room. You were harshly whipped across the emotional spectrum again when Fred stopped you.
“Y/N, no.” He said, reaching out and grabbing onto your elbow. “Wait.”
“What, Fred?” You wheezed, your body breathless and exhausted from the horrible roller coaster that you had been on that night. You knew that you glared at him horribly, but you couldn’t help it. “What is it that you want from me?”
Fred took a step back, as though you had burned him, running stiff hands through his hair. You could have easily run off, turned your back on him and never spoken to him again. Just like he had done to you on that day so long ago. But you waited with your chest tight, waiting for him to finally give you an answer. Did he want to be friends? Did he want you to disappear from his life completely? Did he want-?
“I can’t-” He choked out, clearly struggling for breath. “I can’t…”
He swallowed around a fat tongue, and after a heavy moment, he finally got the words out.
“I can’t lose you.”
The words spooked you more than the sight of George’s bloodied, blown-apart ear.
You stared Fred down with a ghost in your eyes, somehow more terrified than you had been when you had been dangling hundreds of feet above London. He was frantic, rapidly searching for more words to explain himself.
“I - I almost…” He gasped, his throat tightly constricting again. “You almost slipped out of my hands.”
He spoke the words as though they were a horrible curse, raising his hands in front of him as if to demonstrate the point, as if to demonise his own limbs for not having enough strength to hold you up. His hands shook with undistilled anxiety, with anger towards himself.
His declaration gave you that sickly sense of nausea, as though you were back up in the air again. You realised that maybe he hadn’t been sitting on the edge of the bed, mourning about potentially losing George - but instead, he had been thinking about you.
“I didn’t. I didn’t slip.” You replied, the words choked off in your throat, rushing to assure him of the good he had done.
You were unable to resist the urge to reach out and take his hands in yours, steadying his grip with a firm anger of your own. You were unsure how he could be so cruel toward himself when he had saved your life only hours before.
“You held me up, Fred. You didn’t let me fall.”
He let out a huff, shaking his head negatively.
You knew there was something more troubling him - something deeper that he had yet to speak of, or perhaps wouldn’t tell you at all. He grinded his jaw tightly and slipped his hands away from yours. You stood there, looking at him tensely, wondering if he was going to clue you in, or if he would simply say goodnight and let himself stew with whatever horrible emotions he was feeling.
“I can’t live like this.” He declared harshly, his throat raw. “I can’t live with you at arm’s length.”
So what? Was he saying that… he was upset about the break-up?
Was he saying that he hadn’t actually wanted to be apart from you?
A look of pure confusion knit across your features, and in the murky silence, Fred moved on to explaining.
“I let you go once before.”
He whispered, the words so quiet on his lips, a crazed type of regret dancing in his eyes - in an instant, you knew he wasn’t talking about the mission or flying. He was talking about how easily he let you go from his life - the break-up.
“I let you slip away from me far too easily. And it was the stupidest thing I have ever done.”
“Freddie-?” You choked out, more chaotic emotions rocketing through your body now. Anticipation, anxiety - that love for him that you had bottled away slowly creeping back in. But you couldn’t bear to let it flow through you, not yet, not until you knew.
“If one of us were to die tomorrow, I couldn’t live my last day knowing that I wasted it not being yours.” He declared, the pure passion in his words causing every small hair on your body to stand up on end, making you dizzy. “I know that I’m the biggest git on earth for what I did to you, and for not apologising sooner, but please, please, please, darling-”
You couldn’t take it anymore.
You grabbed both sides of the sport jacket and used it to haul him down toward you, planting your mouth firmly onto his, moaning into a kiss that you had longed for, having so sorely missed the touch of his lips on yours.
You had missed him so damn much.
Fred was quick to keep up, letting out a delighted sigh of his own, his stomach doing flips in delight, almost in disbelief of just how lucky he was that you hadn’t slapped him across the face and stormed out.
When your hands ventured down, smoothing across his body - he became even more delighted that you seemed to want more than a kiss out of him. And he was quick to prepare.
He reached to his back pocket for his wand and pointed it at the still open bedroom door, performing a quick spell that slammed it shut and locked it. In the back of his mind, he was thankful that his bedroom had some silencing wards around it from the days when Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes had been in its infancy, operating their prototype experiments out of this room in the darkest hours of the morning. (Percy got sick of being woken up by the twins’ excited voices and the sound of sputtering cauldrons, and put the silencing wards around their room for his own sake, not knowing how much more it let the twins get away with.)
Fred was surprised when you took another fitful grip on the front of his shirt, using it to direct him back toward his bed and shoving him down onto it with a strength that he barely knew you had. He fell sideways across the small twin bed, his knees crumbling along the side of the mattress, leaving him sitting with his feet on the floor and his body half collapsed against the tightly tucked-in covers that his mother had prepared before everyone’s arrival.
He was utterly weak to your whims, anyway, and would have gone wherever you put him.
He was expecting you to climb on top of him, something needy inside of him yearning for the feeling of your body on top of his after missing it for so long. And he found himself further surprised when you dropped to your knees in front of him, settling your shoulders between his spread thighs, forcing him to spread his legs wider apart to accommodate you. The action spiking a sharp breath out of his lips when you shoved up the hem of the shirt that technically wasn’t his and reached for the button on the jeans that fit him even worse as his cock grew to life underneath them.
“Y/N, darling-” He choked out, breathy and sharp through his teeth, an intense wave of lust hitting him all at once.
All night, both of you had been through the emotional ringer - calm determination, fear, possessiveness, mild relief, grief. All while trying to hold back your emotions for each other, balancing right on the edge. Trying desperately to hold each other at arm’s length.
And now he had you right where he wanted you, where he had been dreaming of you being for months since the break-up; and for some stupid reason, some part of him still felt that it was wrong. That part of him screaming that he should be the one on his knees serving you, that he needed to better apologise-
He reached for your shoulder, clearly trying to coax you back up onto the bed with him, and you swatted the touch away.
“Don’t-” You choked in return, continuing on your determined path, ripping his zipper down and tugging at the waistband of his jeans. “Freddie, please. Let me do this.”
You looked up at him with a glassy heat in your eyes that he had never seen before. All the times he had pinned you against walls in quiet corners at Hogwarts, with his hand up your skirt - he had never seen you so wild, so desperate.
Something utterly possessive rippled through you - something that screamed that you needed to have him weak and moaning for you, that you needed to worship him, to thank him for doing the impossible and saving your life. He was a strong, wonderful man and you needed to taste that strength. You needed to know that you were the only thing that could have him weak, quivering, begging.
“Fuck-” Fred hissed out when you reached past the band of his underwear and grabbed his cock - your warm touch wrapped around his shaft felt like a deadly awakening, especially when it had been so long since anything but his own had had touched his cock.
All too soon, he surrendered to you entirely and lifted his hips, slipping the fabric of his jeans and his underwear down completely past his thighs, letting you have whatever you wanted from him. He supposed that’s how it always went with the two of you - he would let you have whatever you wanted, even before you asked. (That’s why the break-up had gone down the way it had - it had been the one time he had been stubborn on something, not simply letting you have your own way.)
You took him in your hand, slowly pumping his length as you admired him, gently re-familiarising yourself with his body, feeling like it had been far too long.
“Did you miss it, darling?” He asked, looking down the length of his body at you with a cocky smile stretched across his soft lips.
You rolled your eyes, hating the possibility of making his ego any larger.
“Oh yes, your wonderful big cock was the thing I missed most about you,” You griped in return, hoping that your sarcastic tone was more than apparent.
“I knew you only wanted me for my body.” Fred chuckled.
As much as you wanted to deny it - Fred Weasley’s cock was a marvel that you couldn’t have forgotten if you had tried.
During your time apart, it haunted your heated dreams, turning them into nightmares of pure want, your mind dangling something in front of you that you couldn’t have. It made things even worse when he would come into the Apothecary, flirting with you and flashing you a smile, showing off his broad shoulders in those fine tailored suit jackets and making your eyes flicker to his zipper in an utterly whorish way.
Now, you felt spoiled to have it in front of you again - the perfect beastly eight inches, lean and tall just like he was, curved off slightly to the side, sticking off from a sparse patch of ginger hair.
Your pussy clenched as you thought about having him inside of you again for the first time in so long, giving you that perfectly full feeling that your fingers never could - but you craved his taste first. You wanted him under your control - you knew part of it was driven by all the fear you had experienced that night, all the chaos that had made you feel so powerless. You needed to feel alive, needed to wield power over someone, something.
You got your mouth on his cock with a downright feral hunger.
Fred let out a deep moan and threw his head back, collapsing onto his elbows as the heat and wetness of your mouth enveloped the heat of his cock - it sent another wave of lust zipping through him, reminding him just how throbbing hard he was, just how much he needed you. This was made even worse when you moaned around him - you couldn’t help but to enjoy the feeling of his cock in your mouth, perfectly full, making you choke in such a beautiful way when you dropped down to take more of him.
“Fuck, darling, shite-”
You quickly became drunk on the feeling.
Your eyes fell closed and you simply let yourself enjoy it, loving the fullness of his big, beautiful cock filling up your mouth. With a hand loosely wrapped around the base of his cock, your jaw wide as you began bobbing your head. Your tongue flat against the base, tasting as much of him as you could while you enjoyed the feeling of him so fat and thick in your mouth, gagging you slightly whenever the round tip hit against the back of your throat. It was a perfect, slow rhythm that agonised him and delighted you, and soon had spit pooling around your knuckles.
The wetness drove him even more insane, especially when it allowed for your soft lips to move slicker against his shaft.
“Goddammit, please, please, oh-”
You could feel his thighs begin to quake and quiver beside you, and you wondered if he was close already.
You couldn’t resist the urge to pull off - wanting to tease him a little. Part of you wanted that bit of revenge, wanting to get him back for the pain he had caused you when he had turned his back on you that day. Though you weren’t entirely cruel, and you didn’t leave him hanging out to dry completely.
You kept your hand pumping on his now spit-slicked cock (it was that slow, agonising rhythm that caused him to pant like a needy dog), and you moved your mouth downward, giving in to the personal urge to lick and suck on his heavy balls. You did want to drive him a bit more insane, and give into your personal curiosity about what the heavy sac would feel like against your tongue.
“Fucking - oh - darling, what are you doing to me-? That fucking mouth-”
Fred wasn’t sure if this was heaven or hell.
It left him stuck in some sick purgatory where the woman he loved had turned into a sex-crazed vixen, but wouldn’t let him touch you everywhere he wanted to most. Instead, he was sentenced to stare at you as your gorgeous mouth teased his aching cock, making him harder, driving him madder with every stroke of your little devilish tongue. He couldn’t take it anymore - not when your pretty fingers gripped around the base of his cock just right and your lips suctioned so perfectly around one of his bullocks.
He wouldn’t waste the night cumming over your fist without getting his hands on you properly first.
He weaved his fingers into your hair and yanked you back, caused you to let out a small yelp - not one of pain, but a bitter sound of complaint as you were pulled off his cock too early for your liking. The sharp tingle of him pulling on your hair caused your tongue to lull out, trailing a filthy bit of spit back to his balls that had him growling.
Before any words could form, he leaned down and used this grip on your hair to guide you to his lips, shoving his tongue into your open, waiting mouth - something that had you moaning once again, and easily following his lead as he guided you up to sit on his thigh.
“Don’t expect that I’m gonna waste it all over your hand, darling.” He murmured against your lips between heated kisses. “When I cum tonight, it’s gonna be deep inside your sweet cunt, yeah?”
You moaned loudly at this.
You had devolved past the point of words now - having his cock so thick and heavy in your mouth only making you fuzzy-headed and more needy for him. You unconsciously canted your hips against his thigh, grinding your pussy against him through the fabric of your jeans, needing more. You panted against his cheek as he moved deft fingers to undo the button and zipper of your pants while he continued to speak.
“I need you, pretty girl.”
He growled lowly in your ear, the pure passion of the declaration causing such intense waves of lust through you that you would have collapsed - if not for the brick wall of his muscled body holding you up. (Hold you up for the dozenth time that night, only for a drastically different reason this time).
“I need to see you cum on my cock. Missed this pretty cunt so much, can’t wait-”
He trailed off in his crazed lustful ramblings when he shoved his fingers past the now open fly of your jeans and into your underwear, quickly finding a distinct wetness and landing on your clit with a firm touch like a magnet.
“Freddie!” You wept into his neck, bucking into the touch as you tumbled into a madness of your own.
He began circling quickly on your clit, enjoying your gasps and other sounds, enjoying the feeling of you bucking so wildly on his thigh. All too soon, he was overtaken by a little pinch of mischief that always crept up on him. The urge to get you back for your earlier teasing. He quickly removed his hand and felt a smirk spread across his lips at the deflated little whimper you made, your eyes snapping open just in time to catch him licking your wetness off his fingers.
“Fred-” You began to protest, sharp demanding in your tone.
“Come on, get these clothes off,” He said, giving you a firm pat on the ass that made you far too weak to his whims.
“Freddie-” You whined this time - and rather than giving into you, he brought up a fantastic point.
“The faster you get your clothes off, the faster I can get my cock in you.” He whispered hotly against your ear, making you shiver.
You hated that he was right.
You stood up, moving to strip your shirt off over your head, glaring at him the whole time while he also began to strip himself.
“Go on, good girl.”
You hated how those words made you even wetter. You hated how easily he manipulated you based on weaknesses he knew so well.
“I hate you.” You mumbled quietly, absolutely no heat in the words as you reached to unclip your bra.
“Oh darling, if only that were true.”
He said pointedly, mourning peeking through that bit of mischief in his eyes. Something you didn’t have too much time to decode as stood to his full height to untangle his jeans from his legs, knowing that you would quake in his shadow and become even more turned on from this.
Once you were both naked, he ushered you down onto the bed, making sure that you were comfortable with your head on the pillow as he captured your mouth in another needy kiss. You moaned against his lips, easily sucking his tongue in as you tangled your fingers into that fiery red hair and gave an appreciative tug. You then tucked your knee up over his hip, opening yourself up to him - this caused his heavy cock to brush against your wetness, making you gasp into his mouth as the two of you made contact for the first time in far too long.
“Freddie-” You gasped, unconsciously bucking your hips up, causing your pussy to wetly slide against his cock in a way that forced a deep groan out of him. “Oh, fuck, oh-”
“Shh, darling, Daddy’s got you,” Fred replied, palming across your forehead and your hair in an almost gentle way while he further parted your thighs with a firm knee.
His words caused you to choke on another moan.
You had heard Fred refer to himself as ‘Daddy’ before - but much like everything else in his life, it was always a joke. He would be buying his favourite sweets and mumble ‘come to Daddy’ before tearing open the package and devouring them. He would say that his codename was ‘Big Daddy’ when setting up a particularly epic prank. (George was ‘Big Red’ and you were usually ‘Darling’ or ‘Garden Flower’. They were not the most useful or top secret codenames.) You had heard him jokingly shout ‘Daddy’s home’ when returning to the Gryffindor common room, only to have the expected laughs and jokes in return.
You had never expected that the name would turn you on so much. But you had never, ever expected to hear it in this context. You had also never expected that it would sound so natural in this context. But it suited him so well. It seemed to only compliment the gentle kind of caring he gave you - how protective he was over you, how safe he made you feel.
“Daddy,” You moaned in return - Fred gripped your hip with a deadly, bruising grip and looked at you with a fierce heat in his eyes.
Hearing that word from your lips turned him on in a way he couldn’t explain. And in that moment, it took every bit of his personal will not to slam his cock into you and hammer his hips forward until you said it again, and again, and again. Until you screamed it.
He took a hold of his cock with the other hand, and you expected him to slide into you, finally giving you both what you truly needed - but instead, he began rubbing the round head of his cock against your clit, further teasing you. You let out a gasp and looked at him with pleading in your eyes.
“Freddie,” You whined, attempting to angle your hips up, fruitlessly trying to trick him to slip his cock inside of you. You knew him too well, knowing that once he got the tip in, he wouldn’t be able to resist fucking you senseless. But he held you down with the hand on your hip, making you barely able to move at all against his muscular hold and the awkward angle he had you pinned with.
“Come on, sweets,” He purred, laying a kiss on your forehead, and then your cheek, trailing kisses down your neck as he murmured against your skin. “Tell Daddy what you need. Say the word and I’ll give you anything you want.”
He began roughly smacking his cockhead against your clit, making you jolt and gasp sharper, making your pussy leak furiously against the bed. You cried out and gripped his hair tightly, almost meanly, desperate for the teasing to end. You didn’t see the way he was staring at your cunt, mesmerised by the sight of your swollen pearl kissing against his cock, glistening, wet and needy. Something that he would burn into his brain forever and most definitely revisit on lonely nights.
“Please, Daddy!” You moaned, hoping the name alone would goad him into giving in. But you knew what he truly wanted, and you couldn’t wait any longer. “Please - fuck - I need your cock. I need you to fuck me, I need-”
Perhaps he was truly satisfied by this, or perhaps he couldn’t take the teasing anymore himself - either way, he finally guided his cock down to your pulsing entrance and pushed in, swearing hotly under his breath when the tight, wet, perfect heat of your cunt began sucking him in for the first time in over a year.
“Oh, oh fuck, Freddie,” You moaned, tugging on his hair. “Oh-”
“Fucking perfect,” He swore into your ear. “Dammit, I’ve missed this pussy so much.” He choked on a groan as he continued slowly inching his hips forward, splitting you open with his massive length, making your pussy ache and burn in the most perfect way. “Good girl. So good for me. So good for Daddy,”
You both moaned loudly once he was fully seated inside of you - you, feeling that deep satisfaction of feeling so perfectly full once again, and Fred so deeply enjoying the wet warmth of your pussy around him that was so irreplaceable because it was you.
Sensing your need, especially after all his teasing, and after spending so long without him - he didn’t make you wait any longer.
Fred began rocking his hips into yours at a gentle, even pace, not wanting to hurt you. From the sound of your gentle whines and the feeling of you squirming beneath him, he could tell that you needed more. He could tell that now wasn’t the time for holding back.
He let out a gentle grunt and you became even more heated and curious as he began shifting around, some clear intent on his mind. You let out a sharp gasp when he raised himself up on his knees, poising himself in the perfect position to fuck you hard, deep, and powerful. Then, he made it even more deadly when he grabbed you by the backs of your thighs, making more air hiss out through your lips when he pressed your body practically in half, pressing your knees up toward your chest before he hooked his arms under your legs to keep them there and planted his hands firmly on either side of your chest.
The two of you were even closer, even more intimate, and you felt him so much deeper inside of you.
“Freddie,”
You croaked out darkly, already feeling him so much deeper as he settled in above you. Your pussy was leaking furiously around him now, clenching tightly and waiting for him to move as a ghost of dark mischief danced through his eyes that promised you were in for the sweetest kind of hell.
“Good?” He asked, smirking at you.
“Yes, but what about-?”
You wanted to warn him not to make too much noise, not to break the bed, which was already creaking in protest underneath the two of you - but he didn’t entirely care. Fred never truly cared about the consequences of his actions once he got an idea in his head - to him, the thrill was more than worth whatever pain may befall him.
The only time that hadn’t been true was when he had made the foolish, heat-of-the-moment mistake of breaking up with you. And now, he had to make up for it.
He put all the power into his muscled thighs (the same muscled thighs that had saved you just a few hours ago by gripping onto his broom and steadying the flight) - and ploughed forward with intense power. This began an unforgiving, hard rhythm of pounding into your cunt in hard, deep, fast strokes.
In seconds, you were putty beneath him - he had you perfectly pinned in place so that you couldn’t have moved an inch if you wanted to, all you could do was lay there and take it. You were weak against the savage movements of his long cock fucking into your swollen pussy over and over again, filling you up in the best way you could have imagined, becoming everything you needed in the world.
As the room filled with the harsh, wet slaps of his skin against yours and your weak moans, followed by his increasingly animalistic grunts - all there was in the world was you and Fred, the space where the two of you met, the place where he had your thighs pinned open so that his cock could absolutely ruin your pussy.
“Good girl, such a good girl for me,” He growled against your lips - you moaned pathetically in return, flooding even more wetness around his cock, making the sound of him fucking into you embarrassingly slicker. “Never should have let you go. Should have kept you right here, right where you belong,”
You wanted to tell him that perhaps the fight was both of your faults, that you should have reached out to him sooner and told him that you wanted him back. That the time apart had been so dreadfully tender for you too.
But your brain was soup, only further stirred up by the tip of his cock poking around in your guts. So any words you could have said chased out of your lungs with every passionate thrust of his hips up into your wet pussy, and all you managed in return was:
“Daddy! Fuck, oh-!”
“Shh, darling, I know.” Fred mumbled into your neck, taking a sloppy, greedy lick of your skin. “I know, sweets. Daddy’s gonna give you what you need. Gonna keep you fucked n’ full. Never gonna let you go again. Never gonna let anyone else touch you-”
Fred’s hips stuttered and you tightly squeezed around his cock at the words.
Perhaps it was a wink of his personal insecurity peeking through. The horrifying idea that because he had broken up with you, you might find somebody else. When in fact, you had been so caught up on him, only thinking about him, waiting for him. (The whole time, thinking that he had broken up with you because he no longer had any favour in his heart for you.)
“Just you, Freddie.” You breathed out, desperately trying to get air past your now very chapped lips. “Always yours-”
“Yes, mine.” He replied, that crazed desperation returning to his voice. “Mine, my girl.”
He sealed his lips against yours, grinding his hips tightly against your pelvis rather than fucking you with any kind of rhythm now - showing you just how deep he was inside of you, just how much he owned you, truly, from the inside out. It was something that made your stomach clench, made your body buzz with electricity, and made you whine around his tongue.
You were close.
Fred knew this - he knew you too well. He moved a hand down to your clit, letting one of your legs drop slightly, and had two determined fingers on your throbbing clit while he picked up the pace again, pulling his lips back from yours.
“You gonna cum for me? Gonna cum for Daddy like a good girl?”
His words, his velvet voice speaking to you so commanding yet so sweet, were what truly brought your orgasm to life in your belly. His voice made the fullness of his cock and the sharpness of his fingers on your clit all the more electric. You likely could have cum just from his words alone if he kept speaking to you that way.
“Yes, Daddy.” You moaned in response.
“Good girl. Come on,”
He breathed hotly against your chin, his eyes now eagerly dancing from your face to the space where your cunt hugged his dick, leaking around him in such a wonderfully filthy way. Clearly, he wasn’t sure where he wanted to look, what part of the show he was more eager to witness after missing out on you for too long.
“Come on, cum on my cock. Cum for me, love, good girl-”
His heated words trailed off as your head snapped back and your eyes squeezed shut, your fingers digging sharply into his bicep as your orgasm rocked your body. Fred grunted as he continued to fuck you through it, his eyes glued to you, taking in every single inch of the sexy beauty that was you, the love of his life, as you thrashed and moaned and came on his cock. It was the most perfect sight he could have imagined, and he easily ingrained into his mind forever, praying that he would never have to miss out on it - to miss out on you - ever again.
“Yes, yes darling, so good for me, so good-” He practically choked on his own words, his voice so thick with lust that it barbed the insides of his throat.
As he felt the last weak spasms of your pussy around his cock, he stopped rubbing your sore clit and became possessed with a new need, becoming slightly selfish now. He fucked his hips forward even harder, determined to find his own pleasure inside the sweet, soft walls of your cunt.
“Fucking hell-” He choked out a groan, dropping his head into your neck again as you petted through his hair, encouraging him through it while he unintentionally sent sharp zaps of overstimulation through your pussy with every needy, sharp push of his hips.
“Freddie,” You breathed out. “Come on, Daddy, cum for me. You’ve been so good to me, come on-”
He let you another loud growl and pounded into you harder, dropping his hold on your other knee and letting your legs rest to cradle around his waist as he blindly chased his own end inside your soft, wet cunt.
“Gonna fill you up, gonna fill you up so good,” He whispered into your neck, chanting like a man possessed, sending another unexpected wave of heat through you that made you moan weakly. “All mine, all mine, darling, all mine, gonna give you what you need, fuck-”
He tried to silence his moans into your neck as he stiffened his back and finally came - his own orgasm hitting him like a firework. He shoved his hips forward stiffly one last time, seating his cock deeply inside of you, stuffing you full, just like he had promised. He gentled grinded his hips against yours in mindless, stuttering strokes while he pumped spurts of hot cum deep inside of you - something that made your body buzz with even more heat and made you moan in return, clutching onto him tightly with your legs around his waist and your arms around his shoulders.
“Oh darling, oh-” He muttered quietly against your neck as the last waves of his orgasm washed over him.
It was so perfect, and made you feel so utterly connected to him. It was a distinct reminder of everything you had missed - his warmth, his caring, the thrill he gave you while at the same time making you feel so damn safe.
When Fred moved to pull away from you, moving to break that connection, every instinct in your body screamed that it was wrong. You clenched your legs around him, digging a heel into his lower back to keep him close, and he let out a grunt - still dizzy from his orgasm and unsure what you were doing. But he settled back into place, creating a filthy ‘squish’ between the two of you.
“Just hold me.” You said, having no clue when the tears had returned to your eyes, making your voice so clearly wet. “I missed you. I can’t lose you.”
“Hey, hey shh.” He said, leaning up to kiss along your cheek, rushing to kiss away those tears. “I’m right here with you, darling. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going to lose me.”
He wrapped his arms around you, wiggling his grip between your back and the mattress to do so. This created the most stunning cocoon, forcing your two bodies even closer together - it wasn’t long before he became soft inside of you, but he stayed there for as long as he reasonably could, kissing along your forehead, your cheeks, your neck, uttering quiet reassurances that you weren’t going to lose him, that you wouldn’t have to miss him any longer.
It made you incredibly content and warm. At least while it lasted.
When Fred finally pulled out of you, you felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction and loneliness, which you tried to ignore. Especially because you weren’t sure if he would want you to sleep in his bed - which was something that you wanted very much, especially after the long day you had. But you weren’t sure if he wanted to be left alone to contemplate all of it, to be sure of his decision to take you back.
You jumped to get out of the bed as though it were on fire, and when you looked to your rumpled clothes on the floor - your jeans still stained with dirt from when you had collapsed in the garden, your shirt likely reeking of sweat from the nerves of everything that had happened - the idea of putting those clothes back on wasn’t exactly appealing.
Then, something else came to mind.
“My things are in Ginny’s room…”
You sighed, realising that if you wanted a pair of pyjamas for the night, or even a fresh pair of underwear, then you would have to waltz in and wake her up - and likely be interrogated about where you had been. She was all too knowing anyway, and any excuses you gave about spending the time caring for George or simply having a ‘talk’ with Fred would be seen right through by her.
Fred hummed, and stood, and you were surprised when he comfortably went over to the chest of drawers against the wall at the end of his bed, going right to the top drawer. The drawer where you used to keep some of your things when you stayed with the Weasleys on holidays - and surely enough, a small collection of your things were still in there.
Things that he had never returned to you after the break-up that you had never thought to ask for. You had no idea that he often came to this drawer, sneaking mournful whiffs of your scent - even used your shirts as a pillow case if he was feeling particularly lonely.
He pulled out a pair of your comfortable sleep shorts and a large, soft, worn green tee shirt with a large shamrock on the front and a ‘94 on the back that he had bought for you as a souvenir from The World Cup. It had been your all time favourite sleep shirt, and you had wondered where it had disappeared to when you moved into your apartment above the Apothecary once you started the job.
“I hope these still fit.” He said, handing you the clothes.
“They should.” You said - quiet, careful not to acknowledge the elephant in the room. The fact that he had kept your things all this time.
“Unfortunately I don’t have any panties for you, so…” He trailed off, a filthy grin plucking up over his cheeks once again when the implication hit the air - the fact that you would be commando underneath your clothing.
“Yeah, very unfortunate in your eyes, I’m sure, Fred.” You huffed, turning toward the door. “I should go get cleaned up.”
You let out a small squeak when two strong arms encircled your waist, pulling you sharply back, causing you to collide with the wonderful, bare, muscled, now slightly sweaty body. You couldn’t help but to melt into the touch, and you let out a quiet moan as he began kissing your neck - not in a particularly lustful way, but in a way that was purely loving and affectionate.
“Don’t think you’re getting away from me that easy, darling.” He whispered in your ear. “Please, do come back afterwards. You know I like to cuddle,”
You didn’t think that you had ever heard Fred Weasley say ‘please’ for anything so plainly in his life. But, as usual when it came to him, you wanted exactly what he wanted.
“Only if you insist.” You joked lightly, smoothing a hand over his arm that was still tightly encircled around your middle. “I suppose I can clear some time in my very busy schedule for cuddling,”
Fred quietly let out a ‘yes’ in celebration, and hesitantly let you go. He then collapsed back onto the bed, relaxing spread eagle, still confidently naked against the covers with his hands behind his head against the pillow. You couldn’t help it when your eyes did a once-over of his body, admiring the soft planes of his muscles that had come from hard work rather than a distinct workout routine and the beautiful bit of fat on his lower belly that made him so warm and nice to cuddle. Of course, when your eyes met his, he was smirking at you.
“I’ll be waiting, love.” He told you with a wink.
You rolled your eyes at this, biting your lip to suppress a smile at his somewhat deserved cockiness.
You moved to leave the room with your newly acquired clothes, wanting to freshen up in the bathroom a bit before going to sleep (the bathroom was right across the hall, so you would have to sneak across the way naked and hope that nobody would catch you, but it should be fine at this time of night). But when your hand twisted the knob and it didn’t budge, you remembered that Fred had locked it earlier.
He moved to grab his wand from the pocket of his pants, splayed out in the middle of the floor, but you reached for the jeans first. Your wand was still downstairs beside the cauldron that had brewed the potions for George, but often, you found that Fred’s wand worked fine for you.
Ollivander and other wand experts said that a wizard couldn’t find the same kind of success using a wand that wasn’t their own, but you found using Fred’s to be just as natural, like an extension of your own arm. Perhaps it was because his core was a Dragon Heart’s String, and that heart beat for you just as fondly as his own did. Either way, it was a fine substitution. You unlocked the door easily and tossed the wand back to him where he was sitting on the bed, and then you snuck across the hall to clean up and get dressed.
When you came back, Fred had crawled under the covers and was starting to fall asleep. When you crawled in alongside him, you found that he hadn’t bothered to get dressed, so you locked the door again, just in case. It was a basic charm that anybody could get through, but it would give the two of you a few minutes of warning to make yourselves decent if somebody did come knocking.
It felt like the most wonderfully natural thing in the world to settle beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist while he slept on his back, putting your head on his chest and feeling his sleepy fingers brush across your head from behind.
“Goodnight, love.” He whispered, so quiet as though he was afraid to break apart a beautiful daydream.
“Goodnight, Freddie.”
…
You wondered if all of it had been a dream.
Fred apologising to you, begging for your forgiveness, the two of you having amazing sex - it was something you had dreamt about many times before. It was something you had wished would come true, only to find yourself waking up alone in a cold bed. So waking up next to Fred, with his large, warm body coiled up against your back like a koala was one of the best ways you could have come into a new day.
It wasn’t long before the smell of Molly’s cooking reached your nose - the wonderful fatty sizzle of sausages and the bready warmth of toast that told you she was frying up a full English (likely because she had been having trouble sleeping after the events of the night before). Your stomach gave a painful pang, making you want to get out of bed to eat just as much as you wanted to stay cuddled up with Fred.
You gently petted a touch along Fred’s heavy arm that was wrapped possessively around your waist, and soon, he sucked in a sharp breath as he too began to stir.
“Merlin, I missed this.” He said, leaning in to smother you with more of his perfect warmth as he somehow crowded tighter against your back, kissing along your clothed shoulder and up your neck once again.
Your heart fluttered with the sweetness, the fondness of it all, and you wondered how such a hellish night had made way to such a perfect morning.
“I wish we could stay in bed forever, Freddie, but I think your Mum is making breakfast.” You remarked, finding yourself more aware of your hunger as you woke up more, and more drawn to the delicious smells.
“We can stay here for a bit longer.” He hummed into your neck.
Just then - his stomach let out a loud groan of protest, and you giggled.
“Come on, Big Daddy needs to eat too.” You said, using the nickname in a more playful, joking manner as you patted his thigh, untangling yourself from his arms as you got out of bed.
You were surprised, and slightly victorious when you saw a slight blush tinging his pale cheeks because of the teasing, the way you had used the nickname. It was amazing to see someone like Fred go from so powerful and confident to fluttering with shyness.
“I have to find some trousers,” He remarked, suddenly remembering that he was naked.
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” You grinned, walking across to the bathroom, lucky to beat anybody else there before the others started waking up.
When you hit the bottom stair, Fred was standing at the back of the couch with his back to you, now fully dressed in a pair of comfortable plaid sleep pants and an old Chudley Cannons shirt that must have belonged to Ron. (It was only because of many winding discussions about Quidditch among the boys that you hadn’t even wanted to hear that you knew the Cannons were Ron’s team and the twins hated them.)
Fred was leaning over, clearly talking to George, who was still laying where the two of you had left him the night before. You hated that your instinct was to stand back where neither of them had seen you and listen in on their conversation - but you had only learned such matters from Mr. and Mr. Extentenable Ear themselves.
“...well, yes, I would say that it did go well, but I would still have to classify the nature of the relationship as dubious. Or friendly at best.” Fred said in a rushed whisper.
Your stomach gave a twist. This time you had to assume that the twins were talking about you. Talking about what had happened between the two of you the night before.
“Dubious?” George’s voice baulked, clearly trying to stay hushed himself, but having a hard time restraining his volume due to frustration - frustration at not being able to get a better answer out of his brother. “The two of you had sex and you’re classifying the nature of the relationship as dubious? Are you an idiot or was the sex that horrible?”
You choked down a laugh at this, not wanting to be caught just yet, and resisting the urge to speak up and clarify that the sex was, in fact, great.
“No, she seemed perfectly satisfied, thank you very much.” Fred hissed back, full of sass. You would have said more than ‘satisfied’ - for once, Fred was actually being humble. “But I just didn’t think to stop and ask: oh, by the way, does this mean that we’re back together and you still love me? Or were just scared and lonely after almost dying and wanted a decent lay? Can you fill out a post-orgasm survey to clarify, please, and make sure to-”
An arm came up from the couch with a pillow, smacking Fred clear in the chest - hard enough to force a small grunt out of him. George was certainly feeling better. You were glad to know that your potions had done him some good.
“You should have just asked, you numpty!” George scolded him. “You’ve been mooning over losing her for-”
“Y/N,” Fred cut off his twin’s words by saying your name, announcing your presence as that smack with the pillow had caused him to finally turn his head and spot you there.
“Fred.” You grinned, not at all ashamed that you had been caught.
You walked over to the couch, leaning over to find George grinning at you in a way that said he was holding back a barrage of stomach shaking laughter because of the conversation you had caught the two of them in.
“For the record, I would call the sex more than satisfactory.” You said, a mischievous grin coming over your lips. “And I do still love you.” You announced, turning toward Fred. “I was lonely and scared last night, but that’s why I came to you. You’re the only person I want to go to when I feel that way. I missed you. And I want you back if you’ll have me.”
“Merlin, of course I’ll have you.” Fred breathed out a sigh of relief, now grinning as well. “I love you more than anything, darling. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”
“I have some idea, and it was bloody annoying.” George muttered out, only to be ignored.
You leaned in for a kiss, naturally, but just as Fred’s lips brushed yours, George let out a loud, fake gagging sound - one that had Molly running into the room, clearly fretting and worried that George was actually ill.
“I’m fine, Mum.” George groaned as Molly began patting down his head with a wet cloth - clearly, his night had been filled by the annoying, but loving fuss of his mother watching over him.
“Yes, yes of course.” Molly nodded, hesitantly putting the cloth down. “It’s time for breakfast anyway - do you feel up for sitting at the table, dear?”
“I would love to get off this bloody couch.” George groaned.
Fred rushed around to help him up, and after a moment of struggle to his feet, you grabbed his other arm to help him along into the kitchen.
“I suppose it all worked out for the better.” George said, smiling at you. “Even if you did end up with the less attractive twin.”
You rolled your eyes, biting back a smile at this.
...
A/N: This fic is a oneshot, and there will not be a continuation or a 'Part 2'. This is a capsule story meant to be read independently, and in terms of the narrative, there will not be a continuation. If you are going to leave a comment, please comment about the body of work that has been written here, do not comment asking for more. If you would like to read more of my fics, please take a look at my Harry Potter Masterlist, more specifically, my other Fred Weasley fic - Kisses Like Fire Whiskey. Thank you if you have gotten this far, and happy reading!
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mmmmmguh thinking about ocs again. have some trivia
spice tolerance: as a fire mage marcus has a high tolerance to heat in general, but also a high tolerance for spicy foods :) he loves all kinds of spice and prefers flavors with at least some kind of kick to it i.e. his favorite tea is chai and his favorite fruits are citruses. you can give that boy a bottle of hot sauce and he will literally just chug it like a glass of beer and be fine lol. but please don't do that. on the other hand his sister nina and their friend chester have perfectly average and respectable spice tolerances. however miss katie "loses spicy food eating contests to a white boy" marrows has the world's worst spice tolerance it is so embarrassing <3 she can't put any spice on anything or she will be completely red in the face and the others love to rib on her about it (affectionately)
diets in general: marcus also has the biggest appetite among the group! he will be on his fourth sandwich and nina will be like "dude slow down" but he never does. what can he say the man loves food and needs lots of energy! ...to sit still in a dusty library all day and read books without moving ? well. katie is probably second though lol. you can find her in the kitchen in the middle of the night trying to covertly sneak a huge plate piled with pizza rolls and cheeses and meats back up to her room (and failing). the fact that she does not sleep is not healthy but she is incorrigible. in contrast chester bizarrely only eats a few times a day despite the fact that he should definitely need more fuel as an athlete. nina has to watch him hauling heavy equipment around everywhere like "why tf are you this strong all u eat is leaves."
actually most of these are binge eating because katie just plays video games for hours straight and then forgets to eat until it's stupid late/early in the morning + marcus gets really obsessive about his work and then crams in enough meals for three people all at once + chester overworks his body and then just Forgets. like he just Forgor. nina will also later develop her own overworking habits later on in the story and ironically her friends will be there to remind her to eat the same way she used to do for them :) other than that nina is the only one who's normal about it lol. except during holidays! she really goes all out because she LOVES the vibes she LOVES the carefree unity of everyone celebrating together it is so so addicting to her. if it's a special occasion you can always depend on nina to show up HARD and start feasting <33
favorite foods: nina lovessss sweets so so much! she also loves seafood :) nina also really dislikes vegetables and also oddly does not otherwise eat that much meat? and obviously as previously mentioned marcus is mr SPICE SPICE SPICE 100% >>>> but he will also eat his veggies. and unlike his sister he despises sweets lol marcus is the type of person that will fake a bite of cake at a birthday party and then sneak it to the dog under the table. he's also a soup fan, and will not eat fish, again unless the fish is in a soup. idk what it is with this boy and soup. katie's favorites are savory meats! she also has a bit of a sweet tooth herself, although for her she tends to prefer the richer sweets such as chocolates over anything too sugary. her fave flavor combo is chocolate and cheese! so obviously she's a fan of fondue. she's also known to eat a lot of junk food, sometimes she can be the "gamer girl" stereotype of "locked up in her room eating only potato chips and mountain dew"
gynawis: ok sorry I'm done talking about food lol. dlagynnawis is my (lazy, extremely barebones) conlang :) it's a foundational language that many other languages developed out of, was originally the language of dragons, can be found in many older documents and historical sites, and can functionally be considered this world's equivalent of latin* (in terms of how it is used and some of the areas in which it is studied.) gynawis is notable for it's lack of subject pronouns and emphasis on possessive pronouns, meaning that it has a different grammatical structure that doesn't make any sense if translated directly into english i.e. the common way to say "I walked through the park" would translate like "the walk through the park was mine" or sometimes just "my walk through the park" even though the latter reads as incomplete to us.
*however I do not think it can be considered a dead language
because dragons are highly respected and are still alive, although in extremely isolated communities, and because the language is still highly utilized (in science, law, religion, etc.) gynawis is a common second language taught in schools. katie is the most fluent of the group and often acts as a translator when they come across usage of it in the wild. marcus is decently fluid in it, at least enough to be comprehensible. chester is as well, but he has a heavy accent. nina's gynawis is complete dogshit lol my girl can only say like ten words <3 she was not passing that class
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John Torrington: Made in Manchester
(Intro post here)
(FYI, I already wrote about a lot of the info in this post previously over here, but I want all my Torrington research grouped together in this series, so apologies for repeating myself. Anyway...)
When researching someone from history it’s a good idea to start at the beginning. When and where was John Torrington born? Who were his parents? What sort of family did he have?
But in order to find all that out, we need to work backwards. The John Torrington who signed up for the Franklin Expedition gave some important information about his life in the Muster and Allotments books. Also, and this might seem a bit morbid (of course, I’m studying a frozen corpse as a hobby, so what isn’t morbid about all this), we need to take into consideration the information on his tombstone. In tracking down his birth records, we have to match those records to what we know about him from his time with the expedition.
So what do we know about him? What things should we be looking for when tracking down his birth info?
There are three main pieces of information that we need to match with the Franklin Torrington to be sure that we’ve found the right guy:
He was born in Manchester
He was nineteen when he signed up in May of 1845 and twenty when he died on January 1, 1846, so he was most likely born during the latter half of 1825
His mother was named Mary.
It’s important to have as many pieces of additional information besides a name to match up the right person when combing through archives. There’s almost never just one person of a certain name born around the same time. Some names in particular are very common, and it can be hard to narrow down who’s who. For instance, John is an incredibly common name. In fact, it was the most common name on the Franklin Expedition, with 23 out of the original 134 crewmembers being named John. That is 17% of the crew, or more than one-sixth. If I were looking for someone named John Smith, I would probably have given up once the first page of results on Ancestry.com showed me millions of hits for that same name.
Luckily, Torrington is not that common of a last name. Searching on Ancestry gives me baptism registries for two likely candidates:
I’ll call this one JT1:
And this is JT2:
Looking at these two fine fellows we can see each one has some points in their favor, but each one also has some against. Let’s start with JT1.
JT1 was baptized in Norfolk on January 11, 1824. He lived in Walsoken, which is in the county of Norfolk. His parents were William (a laborer) and Mary. Now right off the bat we can see that JT1 gets a point in his favor by having a mother named Mary, but also two points against—he was not born in Manchester and he was baptized in early 1824, which means he most likely was born late 1823. That would make him about two years too old to be the Torrington on the Franklin Expedition.
Now, is it possible that the information in the Muster book is wrong? Yeah, sure, of course it’s possible. People didn’t have photo IDs and birth certificates they had to bring in to sign up for things back then. It’s possible that when they asked where Torrington was born, he said Manchester because he was living there at the time he joined up (I don’t know if he was living there or not, I’m just spitballing here). He could have gotten confused, or perhaps he just blatantly lied. The same is true of his age. He could have given the wrong age by accident, or on purpose. I’ve seen the wrong ages in records while hunting down Torrington’s relatives, and there are even known examples of the ages being wrong on records for the Franklin Expedition.
According to Ralph Lloyd-Jones, Thomas Evans, one of the ship’s Boys on Terror, was technically 17 when he signed up, but he was put down as 18 to meet the minimum qualifications for polar service. And then there’s William Braine, one of Torrington’s grave-mates on Beechey Island. He was born March 1814, which would have made him 32 when he passed away in April of 1846. His tombstone accurately records his age as such, but the plaque on his coffin says he was 33. It’s weird that the tombstone says one thing and the coffin plaque another, but clearly mixing up ages and dates can happen, so maybe JT1 put down the wrong age and place of birth and he’s the right guy. But that’s depending on a lot of ifs and buts to make it work.
Let’s take a look at the other option.
JT2 was baptized December 10, 1826 in Manchester. His full name was John Shaw Torrington and his parents were William (a coachman) and Sarah. Now, this Torrington was born in the right place, but he’s got the wrong mom and, yet again, the wrong birth year. Interestingly, his father has the same name as JT1’s, but he has a different profession. Is this the same William?
Looking further into it, William Torrington married Sarah Shaw on May 18, 1823. He was listed as a coachman on his marriage certificate, too, so this has to be a completely different William Torrington from JT1’s father (also, an intriguing fact to note, William signed his name with an X while Sarah was able to give her full signature). But how could JT2 possibly be the right Torrington when his mother isn’t named Mary? Wouldn’t that make JT1 a better fit?
Not exactly.
While yes, JT2’s birth mother was Sarah, she sadly passed away in 1833. Three years later, in 1836, William remarried (weirdly enough, he was able to sign his name now). Who was his second wife? A widow by the name of Mary Hoyle.
So JT2 did have a mother named Mary by the time he entered the Navy to join the expedition, and he was born in Manchester, which gives him two points in his favor. I've noticed when researching Torrington that it seems John Shaw has been unofficially recognized as the Torrington who sailed with Franklin. Even on Torrington's Wikipedia page, his name is listed as John Shaw, even though the reference listed for his name doesn't actually say that. After comparing his record to the only other known John Torrington who would be around the right age, I agree that he's the one.
But what about his birthdate? Wouldn’t being born in 1826 make him too young to be our guy?
Well, all the arguments I mentioned before about how dates and ages could be wrong still stand in this situation, so it’s possible he just aged himself up a bit, on purpose or not. But we also need to keep in mind that this is his baptism registry and not his birth certificate, so it could be days, weeks, or even months later than his actual birth. In fact, I’ve heard that some families would wait years before baptizing a child. Sometimes, they would wait until they had another kid or two in tow before hauling them all in to get a holy dunking. Did something like that happen here?
Maybe—because he wasn’t the only Shaw Torrington baptized on this day.
On a different page of the registry we find a record for one Esther Shaw Torrington. She was baptized the same day—December 10, 1826—and her parents were William and Sarah. William was a coachman, and while this time their surname was listed as Shaw Torrington rather than just Torrington, this is clearly the same family. That means John had a sister, but was she a twin? Or were they different ages, and one of them was hauled in when the other was born for a two-for-one baptism deal?
While I can’t find Esther’s precise birthday, her death record shows that she had to have been born after September 19, 1826 (she died September 19, 1878, age 51—she should have turned 52 that year if she was born in 1826, which means her birthday is later in the year). That means Esther was probably born sometime within a couple months before her baptism. If John were her twin, then he would have been 18 when he joined the Franklin Expedition and 19 when he died. While the age he gave to the Navy could be wrong—and subsequently, would be wrong on his tombstone—I’m inclined to think he was born a year before his sister and that the ages given in the Muster book and on his tombstone are correct.
Of course, that means we’re not anywhere close to narrowing down his exact birthdate. He was listed as 19 on May 12, when he signed up for the Franklin Expedition. For all we know, he turned 20 just days later, (although I like to think if he were that close to his birthday, they may have rounded his age up or indicated it somewhere). So the earliest his birthday could be is mid to late May, but what’s the latest date it could be? Technically, there could be as little as 10 months between John’s and Esther’s birth, which means that John could have been born in January 1826 (maybe February, if Esther were born in late November, but that’s kind of pushing it). This gives us a wide berth for his actual birthday, making it difficult to pin down.
Personally, I like to think he was born in autumn 1825, but that’s just speculation and wishful thinking (October would be the perfect month for the man whose frozen face would launch a thousand childhood nightmares of mine).
But if he were born in 1825, why wasn’t he baptized until December 1826? Were his parents saving up all their kids to get them baptized all at once? There was apparently such a thing as a baptism party, although those seem to occur when there are more than two children. Maybe Sarah and William liked the idea of baptizing all their children together. Maybe Sarah became pregnant with Esther only a couple months after having John, and they decided to wait when they realized they would need to do another baptism in several months’ time. Maybe they were just too busy when John was born to take the time to bring him to Manchester Cathedral.
Or maybe it was because William was being indicted.
The Lancashire Archives has a Recognizance of Indictment for one William Torrington of Manchester, coach driver, from June 15, 1825. I ordered a scan from the archives and transcribed it the best I could (adding in some punctuation for clarity). [UPDATE: There was a phrase I couldn't transcribe at first ("the said," spelled with a long s), but I've figured it out since and have updated the post.]:
“Lancashire to wit.
Be it remembered, That on the 15th day of June in the sixth Year of our Sovereign Lord George the Fourth [1825] of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc. William Torrington of Manchester Coach Driver[,] George Calvert same place Farrier and Esther Shane same place Widow [off to the side is written Mr. Norris/Morris, perhaps the name of the Judge] severally personally came before me one of the Justices of our said Lord the King, assigned to keep the Peace within the said County, and acknowledged severally to owe to our said Lord the King the said William Torrington the price of Forty pounds[,] George Calvert and Esther Shane twenty pounds each of good and lawful Money of Great Britain, to be made and levied of their Goods and Chattels, Lands and Tenements, respectively for the Use of our said Lord the King, his Heirs and Successors, if the said William Torrington shall make default in the Condition hereunder-written.
The Condition of this Recognizance is such, that if the above bounden William Torrington personally appear at the next General Quarter Sessions of the Peace, to be holden by adjournment at the Parish of Manchester, in and for the said County of Lancaster, and then and there to answer such Bill or Bills of Indictment as shall be preferred against him [crossed out from the typed form “for an assault upon”] and in the mean Time do keep the Peace and be of good Behaviour to our said Lord the King, and all his liege Subjects, [crossed out “especially towards the said”] then the Recognizance to be void, or else remain in full force.
Acknowledged before me William Torrington To answer [crossed out “for an Assault, etc.]”
Basically, in mid-June of 1825, William Torrington was arrested but released from jail, to return to court at a later date under penalty of a fine. A couple people he knew, George Calvert and Esther Shane, backed him up, promising to cover his expenses if he failed to reappear in court.
I have not been able to find information on why he was indicted—that information would most likely be in the Indictment Roll, which I would have to go through at the Archive itself, something made difficult with an ocean between me and Lancashire. It’s also possible that there is no further information available about William’s indictment, or at least none that has survived. I skimmed through the Lancashire order book for 1825 but didn’t find any mention of William or his indictment (with a closer reading, maybe I’ll stumble upon something). However, it’s possible that the case never went to trial, and that’s why it does not appear in the order book. And considering that he had a daughter the next year, whatever outcome happened clearly didn’t keep him out of commission for long
Whether or not his case went to trial, facing legal peril has a tendency to push everything else in life to the wayside, even the birth of a first child. Any fees that he may have incurred from the indictment and any related issues may have caused a temporary financial burden on William and Sarah, making it difficult for them to have John baptized. This is of course just one of many possible explanations for why John Shaw Torrington was baptized in 1826 and not in 1825, the year it’s assumed he was actually born, but we’ll probably never know the real reason.
And now, since I have written over 2400 words analyzing just Torrington’s baptism registry, I think I’ll bring this post to a close. Next up: what little we can piece together of his life growing up, before he joined the Franklin Expedition.
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Torrington Series Masterlist
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Are you still taking prompts? My current obsession is Ben topping Gwil (but I'm happy for any pairing) and I'm thinking 17 (my birthday) I don't have time for this, and 33 Is that a promise (because it sounds flirtly). They could be wonderful together
17 – “I don’t have time for this.” 33 – “Is that a promise?” – Ben Hardy x Gwilym Lee (18 + CONTENT BELOW THE CUT)
Tag ‘list’: @fake-blue-flowers – if anyone else wants to be tagged let me know xx
This was interesting to write, as I certainly see Gwil as a more dominant personality, and if I wrote this by myself I would’ve switched the roles! But thank you for being so patient, I know this has taken a million years! I also couldn’t possibly respond to this iconic request with something short, so I went OFF. I am sorry for the lack of smutty goodness, I got carried away with the first part lol. Enjoy! xx
Gwilym felt like the universe was testing him. Or maybe Ben knowingly was. He certainly wouldn’t be surprised. Every time Ben simply reached up to retrieve something and his shirt lifted up, Gwilym swore his soul left his body and his cheeks felt like a furnace. Every time Ben sat next to him, not even that close, he just wanted to grab him and kiss his gorgeously plump lips.
And now, it was getting even worse, he wasn’t even sure how he was going to refrain from letting Ben know how attracted he was to him. Because the two of them were on a trip with a group of friends, and, as they were so close, were assigned to sharing a hotel room.
Now, as they were making their way up to the room hauling their luggage up the stairs, Ben’s ass was literally in front of Gwil’s face, and he was trying his very best to look down and avoid staring too much.
He couldn’t believe the effect Ben was having on him. He usually prided himself in being quite constantly composed and put together, but around him, he found himself constantly flustered; blushing and stumbling over his words.
When they opened the door, they were both surprised to find one king-size bed as opposed to two singles. Gwilym’s heart immediately began racing, and he turned to Ben with furrowed brows.
“This isn’t ideal,” Ben sighed, dumping his bags down. “I’ll go talk to them-“
“Ben,” Gwilym cut him off. “Reception closed…” he checked his watch, “5 minutes ago.”
“Fuck,” Ben groaned, collapsing back on the bed. It was currently 3:05am, and they had been travelling for hours. “I don’t have time for this.”
Whether or not he was talking about being unable to fix the room situation or the situation itself, Gwilym was unsure. Either way, he was too tired to ask.
“Whatever, it doesn’t really matter, I guess. Let’s just share the bloody bed,” Ben said with a chuckle, and Gwilym nodded and forced a small smile, gathering his things to take a shower.
When he emerged in a t-shirt and plaid pyjama pants, Ben was already curled up in the bed, eyes closed as he breathed softly. Gwilym gulped, climbing in on the other side and settled down, desperately trying to ignore how aware he was of the heat of Ben’s body radiating from beside him. How aware of his presence he was. That’s how it always was. Gwilym found it impossible not to be constantly wondering how he was coming across to Ben; if he stared too long, if he hugged too tightly, if he spoke too highly of him.
“Hey, Gwil?” He was startled at first, rolling over to face Ben who was staring back at him, a thoughtful look on his face.
“Yeah?”
Ben opened his mouth as if he totally intended to speak, then closed it again. Like he couldn’t possible find the right words to convey what he was thinking.
“Never mind.” With that, he rolled over, grumbled and shifted around, pulling the covers further over onto his side. “Jesus, this bed is uncomfortable. And these blankets, let me have some at least. Fuck you,” he groaned, his tone teasing, as he finally stopped moving around.
Gwilym had no idea what came over him in the next few seconds. It was like he was back to who he was before he realised how much he wanted Ben. When he was just a cast-mate. How he was around everyone else in his life. Before he could process his words, he uttered with a smirk, “is that a promise?”
Gwilym had no time to regret his words, to utter an explanation, to laugh off his joke, before Ben rolled over and pulled Gwilym to him by the hips, crashing their lips together in a desperate, messy kiss.
It all happened so quickly. Before he knew it, Gwilym was desperately bucking his hips up against Ben’s, whines coming from the back of his throat, as he pawed at his shirt in a poor attempt to pull it off him. In one fluid motion, Ben pulled his own shirt off and tossed it on the floor, smirking as he reattached their lips, their tongues massaging each other’s. It should’ve been gross the way they were making out like horny teenagers, but the way Ben was making him feel, Gwilym swore he’d never been so turned on. He was so lightheaded, practically dizzy with arousal.
“B-Be-en,” Gwilym mewled, involuntarily making the one-syllable word three, his breath catching in his throat as Ben ground his hips down on Gwilym’s, kissing his neck rather slowly, but just as passionately. It was definitely a contradiction to how fast and desperate they were kissing only seconds before.
“Hm?” Ben just managed to murmur, continuing his actions as he ran his hands absentmindedly up and down Gwilym’s sides and making him squirm underneath him.
“What- christ, that feels good- what are we d-doing?”
“Whatever you want, baby.”
The nickname sounded so good coming from his lips, especially with his raspy voice as a result of the previous events.
“I want you to fulfill your promise, p-please…” Gwil attempted to keep a joking tone to his voice, but Ben’s ministrations that were moving down his chest were making it increasingly difficult. Ben ceased his actions, his gaze meeting Gwil’s and a smirk forming on his lips.
“Yeah? Do you want me to fuck you?”
Gwilym was absolutely done for.
-
Some time later, all thoughts of hotel mishaps, insecurities and exhaustion were completely gone. Gwilym was splayed out on the bed, gasping and trying his best not to writhe around as Ben thrust into him slowly and deeply, grunting with each movement. Neither man knew how long it lasted, nor cared. All they knew was that the sun was beginning to rise as they drifted in and out of peaceful sleep and held each other, sweaty limbs and sheets tangled together.
Gwilym dreamt of the man laying with him, his voice echoing in his ears;
“You look incredible taking me like this.”
“Doing so well for me, baby.”
“You’re so fucking sexy.”
“Why haven’t we been doing this the entire time?”
#ask#blurb#gwilym lee x ben hardy#gwilym lee smut#ben hardy smut#praying this doesn’t flop cause i quite like it
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How the World’s Biggest Financial Scandal Ensnared the Art World
Leonardo DiCaprio with Jho Low at The Wolf of Wall Street premiere in Paris, 2013. Photo by Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images.
In late 2018, the actor and collector Leonardo DiCaprio made a visit to Washington, D.C., where he was ushered into a federal courthouse to secretly testify before a grand jury in a case that’s electrified the financial world: the multi-billion 1MDB scandal that started in Malaysia and has led to dozens of investigations and indictments globally, including the first criminal charges ever filed against Goldman Sachs.
DiCaprio, to be clear, isn’t a culprit in the scheme. Rather, the Titanic superstar has unique insight into how the funds ended up in a variety of bank accounts in the Cayman and British Virgin Islands, because it’s through DiCaprio and his friendship with Jho Low, the flamboyant financier at the center of 1MBD, that the scandal ensnared the free-spending arena of the contemporary art world.
(DiCaprio has offered no comment to the press, apart from a sentence from his spokesperson, saying that the actor, and his environmental foundation, will “continue to be entirely supportive of all efforts to assure that justice is done in this matter.”)
Low snapped up jets, yachts, jewelry, and penthouses around the world with his embezzled billions, before investigative reporting in 2015 revealed the scheme and brought down the complicit Malaysian prime minister who personally reaped hundreds of millions and now faces criminal charges. Low also went on an art-buying spree in 2013 and 2014 that quickly tallied up to more than $200 million. And that spree largely began when his high-stakes gambling partner and Hollywood co-producer, DiCaprio, staged a charity sale at Christie’s.
Needless to say, DiCaprio and Low have since gone their separate ways. Low was formally indicted with three counts of criminal conspiracy to launder billions of dollars by the Eastern District of New York in November 2018. He is reportedly currently evading arrest by hiding out in China, where the government announced Monday that it would assist Malaysia in looking for the fugitive.
Producers Riza Aziz, Joey McFarland, and Jho Low attend The Wolf of Wall Street premiere in New York City, 2013. Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images.
But bold-faced art-world names litter the documents and criminal complaints that have amassed as investigations have ramped up in Washington, D.C. Aside from DiCaprio, art-world figures who did business deals with Low include the Sotheby’s financial services department, the Nahmad family, the private dealership SNS Fine Art, French mega-collector François Pinault, and former Christie’s post-war and contemporary chairman Loïc Gouzer.
Mystery club kid
Low first entered New York’s society pages in November 2009 when the New York Post ran an item about a Malaysian kid who came seemingly out of nowhere and allegedly began racking up $160,000 bar tabs during evenings on the town at Chelsea hotspots such as Avenue. Gawker was quick to assume that a twentysomething Wharton grad might be a front for some overseas billionaire, or up to something else shady. As one would have it, it was just before Low’s arrival in the Gotham gossip rags that the 1MDB fund was established by Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, whose stepson Riza Aziz was an old schoolmate of Low’s in London.
1MDB was supposed to be a tranche of cash that could fund domestic cultural projects. Instead, the prime minister’s family and cronies moved the funds into Swiss and offshore accounts and found ways to invest them in high-priced luxury items. And according to the complaint filed by the U.S. Justice Department in 2017, it was in September 2009 that the first chunk of the misappropriated 1MDB funds were diverted into a Swiss bank account owned by Low, who then laundered $400 million of it into the United States.
His flashy ways got Low in good with celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, and after meeting DiCaprio, he started inviting the actor on lavish trips, including flying him to the 2010 World Cup final in Johannesburg on a private jet. In May 2011, Low agreed to back a new production company, founded with Aziz and the talent scout Joey McFarland, that would fully fund the $100 million budget of a movie DiCaprio was dying to make with Martin Scorsese. Major studios had backed out of funding the R-rated raunch-fest that they thought might fail to find an audience. That raunch-fest was The Wolf of Wall Street.
Bigger price tags
Low’s habit of paying for nebuchadnezzars of champagne at the club was a nice perk, but funding DiCaprio’s passion project truly endeared him to the actor; he thanked Jho Low and Riza Aziz both by name when accepting the Best Actor Golden Globe for The Wolf of Wall Street in 2014. Low was ready to support him on one other front. By May 2013, with filming on The Wolf of Wall Street wrapped, the actor returned to two of his other interests—art-collecting and environmentalism—by staging “The 11th Hour,” an auction of 33 works at Christie’s that would fund the many environmental causes supported by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. The sale established 13 artist records and raised $38.8 million, thanks in part to Low—he registered an account with Christie’s just days before the sale through his business associate Eric Tan, and the holding company Tan maintained for Low, Tanore Finance Corporation. Prior to that, it’s only clear that he had made a handful of private art purchases, one being the $9.2 million Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, Redman One (1982), that he purchased from art dealer Helly Nahmad in March 2013.
At “The 11th Hour”—which DiCaprio organized alongside Gouzer, then a rising star at Christie’s—Low successfully acquired Mark Ryden’s Queen Bee (2013) for $714,000 and Ed Ruscha’s Bliss Bucket (2010) for $367,500. The charity auction appeared to be a gateway drug into art collecting. Two days later, at the post-war and contemporary art auction at Christie’s, Low was on the phone with Gouzer, instructing him to edge out Brett Gorvy to snag Basquiat’s Dustheads (1982) for $48.8 million with fees—then a record for the artist. After adding two works by Alexander Calder, the total for the five-work haul acquired over three days was $58.3 million.
The price tags kept getting higher. In June 2013, Christie’s arranged for Low to purchase Mark Rothko’s Untitled (Blue and Yellow) (1954) for $71.5 million—directly from the collection of François Pinault, the owner of the auction house and one of the world’s biggest art collectors.
Opulent auction boxes
By the next set of sales, in November 2013, Low requested that Christie’s put him in one of its tricked-out skyboxes, where he and McFarland could bid in privacy while indulging in the trappings of the high life.
“It better look like Ceasar Palace [sic] in there,” one Christie’s employee emailed to another, according to the complaint. “The box is almost more important for the client than the art.”
Low bought La maison de Vincent à Arles (1888) by Vincent van Gogh for $5.5 million at Christie’s impressionist and modern art evening sale and Pablo Picasso’s Tête de Femme (1935) for $39.9 million at the equivalent sale at Sotheby’s one day later. He ended the year with a two-work private sale at Christie’s on December 20th, where he purchased Basquiat’s Head of a Madman (1982) for $12 million and Concetto Spaziale, Attese (1967) by Lucio Fontana for $36 million.
And then there were the works purchased from SNS Fine Art, a company associated with the auction vets–turned–private dealers Thomas Seydoux and Stephane Connery: among them, Claude Monet’s Saint-Georges Majeur (1908), which Low bought for $35 million in December 2013 and had promptly shipped to the Geneva Free Port. He also snapped up five works by Calder, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Yves Klein from an unnamed Monegasque art dealing outfit for more than $18 million.
Low continued his buying spree into 2014, capping it with the purchase of Monet’s Nymphéas (1906), a small oil painting bought at Sotheby’s in London during the June sales; it set him back $57.5 million. And while many of the works were going to freeports, some had other destinations. Low had decided to gift a few works—the $9.2 million Basquiat bought from Nahmad, and the $3.2 million Picasso from the Monaco art dealer, along with a Diane Arbus photo purchased for $750,000—all to one person.
“Dear Leonardo DiCaprio,” read the handwritten note from Low’s associate, Eric Tan, that came with the Picasso. “Happy belated Birthday! This gift is for you.”
Project Cheetah
In 2014, Low also started sniffing around for a way to get a loan—quickly.
“Do you know of any banks, financiers who take art as security for raise bank loans for investments/acquisitions of more artwork?” he emailed an unnamed employee of SNS Fine Art on March 13, 2014. Low explained that he had around $330 million in art that he could potentially put up as collateral, and was looking to get a 50 percent line on whatever he put up.
“I think those sort of numbers would scare off Sotheby’s,” the SNS employee responded.
Protesters hold portraits of Jho Low and Paris Hilton during a protest in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2018. Photo by Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
And yet, it appears that, with Low’s track record of spending and that much being put up as collateral, Sotheby’s Financial Services, Inc., was not at all scared off by the request. The Malaysian, who at that point was gaining a reputation in art-selling circles as a guy to unload big works onto, had acute demands for speed and utter secrecy. As a Sotheby’s Financial Services employee emailed to colleagues on March 20, 2014:
“Just wanted to bring you up to speed on the big loan opportunity.…[The borrower] doesn’t want us to use his name in our communications, he wants to be referred to as ‘the client’ and we will refer to this transaction as project Cheetah (referring to the speed at which we are trying to move).”
Four days later, Low emailed the same executive, emphasizing the confidentiality in one email—“Most imp is that client name or if bvi borrower (then guarantor name) does not show up in any public searchable document or public accesible [sic] doc,” Low wrote. In another email, he emphasized the speed with which he needed the $107 million, saying the the funds should be dispersed by April 7th—just two weeks.
They were a few days late. Low secured a deal with Sotheby’s on April 10th, through which he would leverage 17 works held in the Geneva Free Port, valued at somewhere between $191.6 million and $258.3 million, for a $107 million loan. The loan was to be deposited in an account at the Caledonian Bank in the Cayman Islands listed as Triple Eight, Ltd.—an entity fully owned by Low.
The sum helped fund the art Low purchased in 2014 and 2015, including the $57.5 million Monet. According to Tom Wright and Bradley Hope’s 2018 book Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World, the loan also almost funded the purchase of Picasso’s Les femmes d’Alger (Version “O”) (1955), which at the time was the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction. Low was purportedly the underbidder.
According to Wright and Hope, Low bragged to friends about his near-miss, saying that his final bid on the Picasso was for $170 million. If that’s true, he would have been on the phone with his previous auction world go-between—and DiCaprio’s longtime pal—Loïc Gouzer, who was the only specialist battling against Brett Gorvy on the lot as it nosed toward its final price. Gouzer did indeed offer a bid of $159.5 million—more than $170 million with fees, but in the ballpark—but Gorvy took it up to $160 million on behalf of his client, reportedly the former Qatari prime minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, and the work hammered there, for a total of $179.3 million.
Selling big, going dark
After failing to win the ultimate trophy, Low began to unload. A May 2016 story in the Wall Street Journal described how, starting in February 2015, Low sold dozens of artworks for more than $200 million—even though most of the lots sold for well under what Low paid for them. The record-breaking Basquiat Dustheads painting he bought for $48.8 million? In April 2016, it went to hedge funder Daniel Sundheim for $35 million. The Rothko he bought from Monsieur Pinault for $70 million? It sold at Sotheby’s in New York in May 2015 for $46.5 million. The Monet he bought at Sotheby’s in London in June 2014 for £33.8 million ($57.5 million)? It was sold privately to a dealer in Hong Kong for €25.2 million—well below the €42.3 million equivalent he had paid.
The investigation into 1MDB was closing in on Low. Clare Rewcastle Brown, a London-based investigative reporter who focuses on Malaysian corruption, teamed with the Sunday Times to publish the first exposé on what it called the “heist of the century” in February 2015. In July, that was followed by a report in the Wall Street Journal that the current prime minister, Najib Razak—Riza Aziz’s stepfather—had taken $700 million from the 1MDB fund. He denied the allegations, and in January 2016, an ally who had quickly become attorney general—replacing the former AG due to vague “health reasons”—cleared Razak of wrongdoing. But Swiss and Singaporean prosecutors began to investigate, leading to June 2016, when U.S. attorney general Loretta Lynch announced the civil forfeiture demand, seizing more than $1 billion in assets in the form of luxury items purchased with 1MDB funds. That request lead to a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department in June 2017.
By that time, Low had disappeared—not just from the art world, but from the entire world at large. He’s wanted by the authorities in the United States, Singapore, and Malaysia, and there were reports that he was hiding out in a hotel in Shanghai evading capture through plastic surgery and a global network of tipsters. Despite the announcement this week that China would help Malaysia find the fugitive who masterminded the largest embezzlement scandal in decades, there’s been little luck thus far. Inspector-General Mohamad Fuzi Harun from the Royal Malaysian Police said that “the police are also communicating with Interpol and the status is the same.”
As for Leo’s art? In 2017, prior to offering his testimony, DiCaprio handed over to the government the paintings that the shamed financier, and former friend, had given him over the years. He even gave up the Basquiat that was gifted as a belated birthday present.
from Artsy News
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George Edward Burgess
The Biography of George Edward Burgess
By Marilee Burgess Cook
In 1862, George Martin Burgess, along with his brothers and grandfather William Burgess Sr., was called by Brigham Young to settle in St. George. A year later, they were called to move to Pine Valley, Utah Territory, to start a lumber mill. This mill provided “lumber for the construction of the St. George Temple and also furnished lumber to be used in building homes for the early settlers of Pine Valley and surrounding areas.”1
Upon arrival in Pine Valley, George immediately started purchasing property. In 1864 he married Rhoda Ann Dykes. “ He built a large home for Rhoda on a ranch in Grass Valley, five miles west of the town of Pine Valley.”2 George and Rhoda remained in the area for over three decades. “Their first son, George Edward, was born May 7, 1865 in Pine Valley and was the ‘apple of his mother’s eye.’ Rhoda dearly loved children, not only her firstborn, but each of the 10 children who later came into the family.”3
Being the oldest child, much of George’s childhood was spent welcoming new siblings into his home. The first of these siblings was Lillie, who was born when George was eighteen months old. The following summer, George and Rhoda traveled to Salt Lake City and were sealed to each other in the Endowment House on June 20, 1867. Sealings to parents did not commence in Utah until 1877 in the St. George temple.4 Thus, George and Lillie were not sealed to them at this time. Sadly, Lillie passed away on January 29, 1869 and was laid to rest in the Pine Valley Cemetery.5
George’s parents saw to it that George was baptized and confirmed only 4 days after his eighth birthday, on May 11, 1865.
By the time George turned 12, he had five living siblings; Mary Alice, Howard, Ella May, Willard, and Horace Martin. Horace Martin only lived a year, passing away on April 14, 1879. Seven months later, another sister, Lucy Jane Burgess was born.
In 1879, George’s parents “acquired a large home in the town (Pine Valley) close to the Chapel-schoolhouse. Thereafter the family lived on the ranch in summers and in town during the winter months.”6 During those summer months George “learned farm work as well as helping out with logging at the sawmill in the nearby mountains.”7
Two more siblings, Ruth Fowler and Ernest Hungate were born during George’s teenage years. Ernest was almost two years old, when twenty-year-old George entered the St. George temple for the first time. He took out his endowments and married his sweetheart, Emily Ann Jeffery on December 3, 1885. Emily, the daughter of Thomas Alfred Jeffery and Elizabeth Cowper, had previously taken out her endowments as a young teenager on April 18, 1879.
George’s youngest sibling, Clarence, was born two months after his wedding. When George was 21, he traveled with his parents to St. George. He and Lillie (deceased) were finally sealed to their parents in the St. George temple on January 20, 1887.
Twenty-two-year-old George became a father on December 18, 1887. He named his daughter Lillie Jeffery – Lillie, most likely after his deceased sister, and Jeffery, after his wife Emily’s maiden name. Shortly after Lillie’s birth, George received a mission call to the Southern States.
“Six weeks after her birth, George E. left for a two-year mission to the Southern states, arriving in Chattanooga, Tennessee 20 February 1888. He was assigned to labor in South Carolina… He gained a knowledge of the gospel which he implemented into his everyday living. He had a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and was an avid student of the Scriptures.”8
George was received warmly by many of the South Carolina inhabitants. However, he was mobbed twice, once in Lawrence County and once in Chesterfield County. He and his companion received threatening letters stating that if the elders appeared there again their bodies would be “riddled with bullets.”9 Despite the threats, he was watched over by the Lord and no harm came to him.
“He received an honorable mission release and after two years, arrived back in Salt Lake City on 22 March 1890. He went by train to Juab where his wife and daughter met him, then on to Milford Station. Here he was met by his brother Howard with a team of horse and wagon. They loaded up and proceeded through the snowcapped mountains back to Pine Valley. After returning from his mission, he continued to earn a living by farming, raising livestock and doing some freighting in the fall months. He was a very religious, industrious man and set a good example for his family to follow.”10
Over the next eight years, George and Emily had 4 more children: Edward W (1891), Herbert Alfred (1893), Aggie(1894) and Dora (1898.) “George E. held many church positions during this time including Sunday School superintendent. He was a Ward Teacher most of his life after returning from his mission.”11
George Edward Burgess moved up to a new colony in White Pine County, Nevada, called Lund. Perhaps he was drawn to this land because the church owned it and was selling it at a very low price. George’s daughter, Dora, explained that the move was “because of the drought in Utah and because they wanted more room for grazing and farming. The move took about three weeks time with their two wagons and furniture and meeting needs of their cattle. They arrived on 5 November 1899.”12. George’s married sister, Mary Alice Gardner, had arrived 5 months earlier, in June 1899. His parents and several other siblings followed in 1900.
George was set apart as a counselor to Bishop Thomas Judd of the White Pine Ward on 8 July 1900. His brother-in-law, Orrin Snow, served as the ward clerk. In 1901, the ward was divided into three wards, and George later served as first counselor in the MIA in the newly-formed Lund Ward.
Moving from Pine Valley to Nevada was a sacrifice. Pine Valley was green with large shade trees and orchards. Lund was dry and virtually treeless. The move was a big transition for the family. Daughter Lillie, who was 11 at the time of the move, wrote of the experience.
“We lived in Pine Valley until the fall of 1899 when my father bought a small farm in Lund, Nevada and moved his family there. We were about 20 days traveling from Pine Valley to Lund, arriving there
Nov. 5, 1899. I cannot describe the shock I received when we arrived at our destination. Pine Valley was a beautiful little town in the mountains with large shade trees on every street and in most yards, apple orchards and other fruit trees were growing. I just didn't understand that people lived in those big open valleys where the wind blew dirt and sand most of the time. There were no trees except a dozen at the south end of town where a spring came up out of a hole in the ground. I had the idea that water always came out of the side of a mountain, cool and fresh instead of so warm that in the winter one could see where the ditch was by the steam arising from the water.
The homes were built from any material available. There were only about two dozen at the time we arrived. Some were built of old lumber that was purchased at Hamilton and others were made of logs and there was one sod home.
The first winter we rented three rooms of a four room frame home from Moses Harrison. The other room was the school. The first year there, we had six weeks of school, the next year we had three months and after that we had six months each year.
In the spring of 1900, my father, who wanted a brick home hired Horsley to make some brick, but there was too much lime in the soil to make a good grade of brick. However, he had a small building 18 ft. by 20 ft. made of these brick and we lived in this for one year. We had curtains to draw at night to make two small bedrooms where my parents, my two sisters Aggie and Dora, and myself had our beds. My two brothers Edward and Herbert slept in a wagon box set on the ground by the side of the house. It had a heavy wagon cover over the bows and the inside was lined with heavy wool blankets. The mattress, made of fresh straw, covered with a heavy quilt and blankets made a warm bed. In the winter they would heat bricks in the oven and take to bed with them. (A good substitute for an electric blanket). “13
George’s family lived in the large brick room for over a year. Lillie wrote, “This home was sold and Father bought a two room rock home from B. H. Ashby. It had a dirt roof. My father immediately built two log rooms on the back of this. We lived in this home until I was married. I think our experiences and living conditions were very much like the Pioneers had when they first came to Utah.”14
Granddaughter Ula wrote about George’s life in Lund. “Many of the hardships of pioneer life were experienced again. In Lund, the nearest store, such as it was, was 40 miles away. Money was very scarce in those days and the doctor was something they knew nothing about. But the Lord blessed these good people. At one time they went seven years without a death in their community of over 300 people”15
George kept busy with farming, hauling logs and delivering the mail. Daughter Aggie wrote, “George E. assisted in getting logs to build the school house and church. Rock and logs were the only building materials available. It was a long way to a railroad, and for many years freight was hauled from Modena, Utah with team and wagon which took more than a week for the roundtrip.
George E. got the contract of taking the mail twice a week from Lund to the ranches 33 miles south to Sunnyside. Some winters the snow was drifted so deep he had to make the trip on horseback carrying the mail sack on his horse. To keep warm he would get off the horse often and trot along beside it. He never missed a trip.
One election year a White Pine County candidate sent some liquor to George E. to treat the Lund men to try and win their votes. When the election was over George E. returned the liquor unopened telling him he didn't drink and didn't believe in giving it to others.”16
“Aggie also recalled her father taking the family up Sawmill Canyon for several years in the fall and camping for a day or two. They always enjoyed their outings as a family. They would gather sacks of pine nuts in burrs and lots of pine gum. She doesn't remember ever having “store gum” in those days. There would always be several families camping out together. They had such fun and were so sticky from the pine gum! Afterwards they would spend several days and evenings roasting the burrs after bringing home the pine nuts.
If George E.'s water turn came on a Sunday at his farm, he always arranged it so he didn't have to miss either church meeting. In the summer after their 2 p.m. Sacrament meeting, the family would come home and change clothes, their mother, Emily Ann, would prepare an evening meal and then she and the children would get in the wagon with the food and go to the field to their father. He would change the water while Emily Ann spread a quilt on the ground, on a grassy bank under some willows. How wonderful those plain suppers tasted out there in the fields.17
George and Emily had three sons born to them while living in Lund. Orion J (1903), Rulon L (1904), and Malin H (1907). Sadly, Rulon passed away shortly after his first birthday.
The year 1907 was a happy one for the Burgess family. George’s last and eighth child, Malin, was born on 25 August 1907. Lillie, George’s oldest child, married Heber Arthur Smith (Arthur). Arthur had been hired to run the farm for George. They were sealed in the St. George temple on 27 November 1907. Lillie and Arthur returned to Lund and made their home there.
The next year was full of challenges and changes. Baby Malin passed away on 29 January 1908. George’s sister, Ella, became seriously ill and passed away just 4 months later. Ella left her husband, Orrin, and 7 children. Her youngest, Anne, was just 5 weeks old. George and Ella’s parents and relatives lived close by, and one can only imagine the help that was extended to both grieving families that year.
“George E.'s strong testimony of the Gospel kept him active in the church, honest in his dealings with others, and he always observed the Sabbath Day. After attending a General Conference, he decided they needed a better area to raise their children. In September 1908, once again George E. and Emily Ann loaded all their belongings into two wagons and with their five children (Lillie having married remained in Lund) moved to Alpine, Utah.”18
George and Emily made their home in Alpine. “George E felt this was a wonderful place to raise his children. They purchased the Robert Jones' home and farm located at 677 South Alpine Hwy and lived there are a number of years. They moved to the old Joe Beck home down by Dry Creek, to Bishop Fullmer's home that what is now West Center and Main. George E purchased his father's home, one that George Martin had built in 1915 when he left Lund to move to Alpine, located at 17 North Main, across from the Alpine City Hall today. Here they remained until their deaths. While living in Alpine, George E. was active not only in church but in the Alpine City community. He served two terms on the City Council, from 1914-1915 and from 1928-1929. He also served two years as Alpine's Justice of the Peace.”19
Other Burgess relatives moved down to Alpine, including George’s parents in 1915. Two years later, a series of tragedies struck George’s son, Herbert Alfred, and his family. Their daughter, Laura Emily, who was born prematurely, died of cholera infantum in September of 1917 at 15 months of age. A son, Myron Herbert Burgess, was born three months later in December of 1917. Less than a year later, due to a flu epidemic, both Herbert and his wife Della Whitby passed away. They died a day apart; Herbert on 28 November 1918 and Della on 29 November 1918. Herbert’s son, eleven-month old Myron, was the sole survivor of his family.
Myron later wrote of his predicament. “Aunt Clara Stevens (mother’s sister) offered to take me and raise me, but it was decided by my grandparents, George Edward and Emily Jeffery Burgess, to raise me themselves. As this was the result, I moved to Alpine, Utah Co., Utah.”20
One of Myron’s earliest memories was visiting his grandmother, Emily, in the American Fork Hospital. She had been diagnosed with stomach cancer and passed away on May 21, 1924. Thus, George became a widower at the age of 59. His youngest son, Orion, was 21 and unmarried at the time. Grandson Myron was only 6 years old. Myron was passed along from one relative to another, but remembered that most of the time he lived with his “Grandfather Burgess.”21
Granddaughter, Ula Burgess Hemingway fondly described George. “Grandpa George E., as I always called him, was an average sized man with light complexion and large full blue eyes that twinkled. He loved to tell stories and the bigger the tale, the better. He learned the blacksmith trade from his father. I can remember as a small child going next door north to his blacksmith shop, located in Alpine, Utah, where West Center Street is now, and pumping the billows to make our goals for him to fix or horse shoes and repair machine equipment. George E. was a good farmer and cattle horse raiser and very outstanding at horse breaking.”22
After his wife's death in 1924, George E. went on another mission to Watsonville, California. His testimony and knowledge of the gospel grew even more.
Granddaughter Ula recalled, “He was well versed in the Scriptures. How I loved to go over to his home and help him hold up maps on his big south window as he would trace where the Nephites and Lamanites traveled and discussed the Gospel. Afterwards we would have hot homemade biscuits and dark karo syrup or molasses. Sometimes I had corn on the cob he had toasted in his coal stove oven. It was so good and chewy.”23
George chose not to remarry, but remained a widower for the next 15 years. As his health declined, his son Orion moved his family into George’s home so that they could care for him. After George’s death, Orion and his family remained in the home until 1947.24
“George Edward Burgess was valiant in the faith all his days and passed this great heritage on to his descendents. He departed from this life in his home in Alpine on 29 June 1939.”25 George died at age 74 of broncho pneumonia with chronic fibrosis as an attributing factor.26 He was buried on July 2, 1939 “next to his eternal partner in the Alpine City Cemetery.”27
Although he was the oldest child in his family, he was survived by only 3 of his 10 siblings; Mary Alice (Gardner), Willard Burgess, and Ruth Fowler (Gardner). He was survived by 5 of his 8 children; Lillie Jeffery (Smith) Edward W Burgess, Aggie (Gubler), Dora (Shepherd) and Orion J Burgess, and by many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Endnotes
1George Edward Burgess (Typed Biography, 9 March 2014), Family Tree Orion J Burgess, Written copy privately held by Ula Burgess Hemingway, (Granddaughter).
https://familysearch.org/photos/stories/5754602?returnLabel=Orion%20J%20Burgess%20(KWC4-GJG)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Ffamilysearch.org%2Ftree%2F%23view%3Dancestor%26person%3DKWC4-GJG%26section%3Dmemories
2Roach, Delbert E. and Barbara B, The Heritage of Faith in Courage: William and Violate Burgess and Their Family George Martin Burgess ( Family Heritage Publishers, Copyright 2006), [Page].462, 463, 465, 471
3Roach, Delbert E. and Barbara B. The Heritage of Faith in Courage: William and Violate Burgess and Their Family. Rhoda Ann Dykes Burgess Family Heritage Publishers, Copyright 2006 p 471-473
4Family Search Temple Records http://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/LDS_Temple_Records
5 Utah State Historical Society, "Find A Grave," database, Lillie Burgess Find A Grave (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=102532 : Viewed 9 March 2014), Name, Birth and Death Date, Cemetery.
6Roach, Delbert E. and Barbara B, George Martin Burgess
7George Edward Burgess (Typed Biography)
8Ibid
9"Returned Elders," Notice, Deseret News, 5 April 1890, George E Burgess Returned from Mission; Digital Image of Paper Newspaper, BYU Harold B. Lee Library Digital Collections (http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/desnews4/id/12440/rec/3 : Viewed 9 March 2014), Deseret News Collection 4; BYU.
10George Edward Burgess (Typed Biography)
11Ibid
12 Rondo N. Jeffery Janet F. Jeffery, Pearl Jeffery, Thomas Alfred and Elizabeth Cowper Jeffery Family History, Herbert Alfred Burgess, (Bountiful, Utah: Carr Printing Company, 1995), [Pages 262-263.]
13Committee, White River Valley Historical, Lillie Burgess Smith and Belva Smith Bateman. White River Valley then and now, 1898-1980: Chapter 116 -- Lillie Jeffery Burgess Smith. Provo, Utah: Melayne Printing, maybe 1980. Digital Copy. White River Historical Committee. White River Nevada. http://whiterivervalley.org/index.php/white-river-valley-then-and-now-1898-1980/chapters-100-to-119/121-chapter-116-lillie-jeffery-burgess-smith : Viewed 20 February 2014.
14Ibid
15George Edward Burgess (Typed Biography)
16White River Valley Historical Committee, Aggie B Gubler and Emily G Beck, White River Valley, Nevada – then AND Now 1898-1980: Chapter 97 -- George Edward and Emily Ann Burgess (Provo, Utah: Melayne Printing, maybe 1980), ; digital page, White River Valley Historical Committee, White River Valley, Nevada (http://whiterivervalley.org/index.php/white-river-valley-then-and-now-1898-1980/chapters-80-to-99/102-chapter-97-george-edward-and-emily-ann-burgess : Viewed 20 February 2014.
17George Edward Burgess (Typed Biography)
18 Rondo N. Jeffery, Janet Franson Jeffery, Pearl Jeffery, Thomas Alfred and Elizabeth Cowper Jeffery Family History, call number 929.273 j36 (Roy, Utah: Thomas Alfred Jeffery Book Committee, 1995), EMILY ANN (JEFFERY) BURGESS FAMILY INTRODUCTION, pp. 177-180
19George Edward Burgess (Typed Biography)
20Autobiography of Myron Herbert Burgess, November 1976
21Ibid
22George Edward Burgess (Typed Biography)
23Ibid
24Roach, Delbert E. and Barbara B, The Heritage of Faith in Courage: William and Violate Burgess and Their Family Orion “J” Burgess (Family Heritage Publishers, Copyright 2006), [Page 304.]
25George Edward Burgess (Typed Biography)
26George Edward Burgess, death certificate 268 (29 June 1939), Utah State Board of Health
27George Edward Burgess (Typed Biography)
Other Contributing Sources
1. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Family Tree," database, George Edward Burgess Family Tree (https://familysearch.org/tree/#view=ancestor&person=KWC6-14W§ion=ordinances : Viewed 20 February 2014), Temple Ordinances; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
2. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Family Tree," database, George Martin Burgess Family Tree (https://familysearch.org/tree/#view=ancestor&person=KWNV-FTR§ion=ordinances : Viewed 9 March 2014), Temple Ordinances; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
3. Drew, Lee. "Find A Grave." Database. Emily Ann Jeffery Burgess. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=19307865 : 2014.
4. Emily Ann Burgess, death certificate 231 (21 May 1924), State Board of Health, Utah.
5. Roach, Delbert E. and Barbara B., The Heritage of Faith in Courage: William and Violate Burgess and Their Family George Edward and Emily Ann Burgess (Family Heritage Publishers, Copyright 2006), By Aggie B. Gubler; Source Lois Shepherd Beck, pp 475-476.
6. Rondo N. Jeffery, Janet Franson Jeffery, Pearl Jeffery, Thomas Alfred and Elizabeth Cowper Jeffery Family History, Ula Burgess Hemingway, call number 929.273 j36 (Roy, Utah: Thomas Alfred Jeffery Book Committee, 1995), George Edward Burgess, pp. 184-187.
7. White River Valley Historical Committee, Margaret Reid Oxborrow, White River Valley then and now, 1898-1980: Chapter 2 More Settlers -- The First Decade (Provo, Utah: Melayne Printing, maybe 1980), ; digital copy, White River Historical Committee, White River Nevada (http://whiterivervalley.org/index.php/white-river-valley-then-and-now-1898-1980/chapters-1-19/10-chapter-2-more-settlers-the-first-decade) Viewed 24 September 2014
8. White River Valley Historical Committee, Margaret Reid Oxborrow, White River Valley then and now, 1898-1980: Chapter 8 Growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Provo, Utah: Melayne Printing, maybe 1980), ; digital copy, White River Historical Committee, White River Nevada (http://whiterivervalley.org/index.php/white-river-valley-then-and-now-1898-1980/chapters-1-19/16-chapter-8-growth-of-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints) Viewed 9 March 2014.
9. White River Valley Historical Committee, Dixie Judd Burgess (Granddaughter)and Margaret Reid Oxborrow, White River Valley then and now, 1898-1980: Chapter 48 Thomas and Mary Ashworth Judd (Provo, Utah: Melayne Printing, maybe 1980), ; digital copy, White River Historical Committee, White River Nevada (http://whiterivervalley.org/index.php/white-river-valley-then-and-now-1898-1980/chapters-40-to-59/50-chapter-48-thomas-and-mary-ashworth-judd) Viewed 9 March 2014.
0 notes