He'd heard enough, he decided. His breath shook more than his legs and the walk up the stairs and down the hall and up the ladder to the room he shared with George seemed longer than usual.
George was chuckling over a parchment that, given the owl that delivered it, Fred could only assume was another note about the Gryffindor Quidditch team from Oliver Wood. "Fred!" he said. "You've got to read this! He's gone mad, I tell you. Going on about--what's wrong?"
"Mum and Dad were talking again." Fred said.
"Oh?" George asked. "What about this time? Another Anti-Wizard rally? Maybe an influx of recently freed house elves? Troll loose on city streets?"
"Harry Potter."
"Oh." George fell silent.
"He's coming to Hogwarts this year," Fred explained. "Dad says Dumbledore sent him the note. Says those Muggles he's with aren't cooperating, so he's sending Hagrid."
"Hagrid the groundskeeper? What can he do?"
"Dad told Mum it was Hagrid who picked Harry up that night after...You-Know-Who did...you know."
"Yeah, I know." George was quick to leave the topic. "So, The Boy Who Lived! Coming to Hogwarts! Why does this make you look like someone just called off Hogsmeade weekends?"
"Because," Fred sat down on his bed before he continued. "The Ministry thinks that once word gets out that Potter is at Hogwarts, You-Know-Who will try something on him."
"But You-Know-Who lost his power, remember?" George said.
"That's what they say, George! No one really knows what happened that night except the Death Eaters who were with him, and they can't even give a straight story past Imperio! And we all know what the bastard's capable of at full power! Imagine if he has even half his power back after ten years, George! Just think about it! You remember when we were little, after he was gone, the way people continued to fear the shadows and didn't go anywhere alone? It can be like that again!"
"OK, OK, Fred, settle down! You're turning red." George sat next to his brother on the bed and leaned into him. The contact alone seemed to calm Fred slightly.
George tried to sleep, but he very well couldn't with Fred in the next bed, turning one way and sighing, then another way and sighing again. He didn't think he'd be able to sleep anyway, though, because what Fred had told him was a lot to think about.
The moonlight through the window was dim, but George saw well enough the outline of Fred in the next bed, turned in on himself in an effort to warm something that had never been cold until tonight. George knew; he felt it, too.
"Fred?" George called softly.
"Hmmm."
"Do you really think it'll be like before?" he asked.
Fred turned over to face George and lay silent for a moment. He threw back the blanket and crossed the small gap between the beds. George already had his blanket pulled back and scooted over to make room for him.
"I remember laying like this when we were little, when Mum and Dad didn't have two beds for us." Fred said. "I remember it took us months to get used to sleeping in separate beds."
George smiled to himself in memory and realised he was already resting against Fred out of habit. "I remember how it was. I remember feeling more scared than this."
Fred sighed, and George felt the rise and fall of Fred's chest before he felt the warm air on his skin. "People change. We're older now. Maybe because the world is bigger for us now, we aren't quite as intimidated by it."
"I remember laying like this used to make me feel better," George said. "Did that change, too?" He shifted a little to find Fred's eyes.
"Maybe because we're older, it takes more to make us feel better," Fred whispered.
George didn't know where the impulse came from, didn't stop to question it. He only knew that it had to be the next logical step. He closed the distance between them, letting his lips settle over Fred's.
Fred didn't stop him and George decided it felt right, somehow, that this would be what it took to make them feel better. Instantly, he felt the icy spot inside him dissipate, replaced by the familiar warmth that he remembered from his childhood, when he and Fred held each other in their sleep.
George broke the kiss, smiling shyly and moving to rest his head beneath Fred's chin. His mind went over things to say, but he found it hard to stay awake with hearing Fred's already even breathing surrounding him.