Bonded

Three

"Harry gave George and me his Triwizard winnings," Fred said later that same day when Calliope and he were sat alone in a small living room. They had checked the sofa that they were sat on for any jinxes before they sat down, as the whole house was riddled with jinxed objects and magical creatures as a result of it being empty for so many years.

"For your joke shop?" Calliope asked Fred had described his and George's plan for their joke shop in the many weeks that they had spent together the previous year.

"Yeah, we're looking to buy some premises in Diagon Alley," Fred explained.

"That would be good for business."

"Wouldn't it just."

They settled into a comfortable silence. 

But it didn't last long as they both started speaking at once.

"We still need to talk about the-" Fred started.

"I think we should-" Calliope said at the same time, "you go first."

"I just think we need to talk about the sparks," said Fred, "I mean, we haven't spoken about it since, and I think that it's something we should talk about."

"It was probably a fluke, I mean people get static shocks, it was just an extreme version of that," said Calliope.

"You know it wasn't," Fred rolled his eyes, he put his hand out, "if you're so sure then prove to me that it was a fluke."

"Fine!" Calliope reached out and placed her own hand in Fred's. As soon as her skin made contact with his a crackle of electricity was sent through both of their bodies.

"Tell me that is a fluke!" Fred said victoriously.

"Okay, maybe it's not!" Calliope sighed.

"What were you trying to say?"

"I was going to say that I think we should consider the possibility that neither of us was ill this summer, it was because we were apart," said Calliope, "isn't it weird that I started feeling better just as you arrived?"

"That is weird," Fred agreed, "what if this is all connected, some sort of strange bond that's formed between us?"

"Maybe that could explain why you were the only person who could see me last year," Calliope thought aloud, "it could explain practically everything."

********

Almost the second that they woke up the next morning, Mrs Weasley put them all to work.

The house was teeming with all sorts of creatures, jinxes and hexes-a result of it being empty for so long and Kreature (the house elf's) bad cleaning. They started on their own bedrooms. Ginny and Calliope cleansed their room from top to bottom, including burning the sheets from the third bed in the room, which had an infestation of magical mites in it.

Their room wasn't as bad as the twins' room. Their wardrobe was full of old battered robes that when disturbed sprung to life and attacked the closest living thing, which just so happened to be George. Fred had jumped in and immortalised the robes, but Mrs Weasley still ha to apply some murtlap essence to George's neck where the robes had dug into his skin.

They all quickly learned not to open closed doors or cabinets for fear of something jumping out and attacking them. They also learned pretty quickly to lock their bedroom doors at night, as Ron had a midnight encounter with Kreature, who wondered into Ron's room and climbed onto Ron's bed. Ron had woken with the elf's face very close to his own, which had caused him to swear very loudly, waking up the twins, who were in the room nearest to Ron. 

Kreature seemed to cause lots of issues, and Sirius had frequently been caught screaming at the elf. A week or so later when Hermione Granger arrived at Grimmauld place it was clear to see her disdain at Sirius' treatment of Kreature. George told Calliope and Fred all about S.P.E.W the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, an organisation which Hermione had founded the previous year. George said that Hermione had gone crazy over house elves after she had visited the Hogwarts kitchens and left under the impression that the elves weren't happy with their working conditions and all they wanted was to be free.

They had finished cleaning all the bedrooms and the kitchen and had swiftly moved on to some of the ground floor rooms, Mrs Weasley's plan is to start at the bottom of the house and work up.

At the end of that week, they encountered their first Order of the Pheonix meeting. Much to their disdain Fred, George, Calliope, Hermione, Ron and Ginny were all banned from the meeting. In fact, Molly banished all of them to their bedrooms, but it was almost hysterical that she expected any of them to obey this, especially with the likes of Fred, George and Ginny involved.

Ginny was swift to suggest the use of one of Fred and George's newest inventions-extendable ears. It was with the use of these that they were able to overhear the Order of the Pheonix discussing guard duty for something, which just ended up perplexing them all even more.