The common room of Gryffindor Tower was unusually quiet for a Friday night.

A few first–years whispered over homework by the fire, parchment scattered like fallen leaves. The flames crackled low and golden, painting everything in warm light — the scarlet hangings, the worn armchairs, the identical heads of flaming red bent close together in the corner.

Fred paced.

That alone should have alarmed the castle.

George lounged upside down in an armchair, legs hooked over the backrest, watching his twin with mild fascination. “You’re wearing a groove in the carpet, Freddie.”

Fred huffed, dragging a hand through his hair. “She fell asleep again.”

George blinked. “Scandalous.”

“Not like that, you absolute menace.” Fred shot him a look. “We were studying by the window. I was telling her about the Canary Cream prototypes — the improved ones, mind you — and she just…” He gestured dramatically, letting his head loll to one side. “Out cold.”

George righted himself slowly. “You’re offended that your girlfriend fell asleep.”

“She looked bored,” Fred insisted, though there was something uncertain in his voice. “I mean — I’m me, George. I am objectively delightful. And she’s just there, eyes drooping like I’m Professor Binns.”

George snorted. “No one’s that dull.”

Fred ignored him, dropping into the armchair opposite. “It’s not just tonight. Happens all the time. Library. By the lake. Once during one of my best monologues in the corridor outside Charms.”

“Tragic,” George murmured solemnly.

Fred frowned, fingers tapping restlessly against the armrest. “What if she’s losing interest? What if she’s just too polite to say she’s tired of me?”

George studied him now, the teasing fading just a touch. “Fred.”

“What?”

“When she falls asleep… where is she?”

Fred blinked. “What?”

“Physically.”

“Usually leaning on me,” he admitted. “Or — well — holding my hand. Sometimes she curls into my side. Like I’m a particularly comfortable pillow.”

George’s mouth twitched. “And does she look tense?”

Fred hesitated. The memory shifted — her shoulders slack against him, fingers loose where they’d tangled in his jumper, breathing slow and even. Not the rigid alertness she carried around most days. Not the tight smile she wore when someone raised their voice too suddenly.

“No,” he muttered.

George leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Freddie Boy. A sleepy woman in your presence isn’t bored.”

Fred’s gaze lifted.

“She feels safe around you,” George said simply. “You regulate her entire nervous system.”

Fred made a face. “I do not.”

“You do,” George insisted. “You know how her home life is. She’s always on edge. Always bracing for something. Around you? She doesn’t have to brace. So her body finally goes, ‘Oh, brilliant, we’re not in danger,’ and shuts down for a bit.”

Fred stared at the fire.

“She’s not bored,” George added gently. “She’s resting.”

The words seemed to settle somewhere deep in Fred’s chest.

He thought about the way she’d instinctively found him in crowded rooms. How her hand sought his sleeve without looking. How she melted against him like she’d been holding herself together all day and finally didn’t have to.

Fred’s lips curved slowly, softly — not the usual mischievous grin, but something warmer. Fiercer.

“So,” George continued, grinning now, “congratulations. You’re emotionally stabilizing.”

“Shut up,” Fred said automatically — but there was no bite in it.

Up in the girls’ staircase, a floorboard creaked faintly.

Fred stood at once.

George rolled his eyes. “There he goes. Off to be a therapeutic mattress.”

Fred paused at the bottom of the stairs, glancing back with a spark returning to his eyes. “If she falls asleep mid–sentence tonight, I’m taking it as a compliment.”

“Good man.”

And as Fred climbed the stairs, heart unexpectedly steady, he carried with him the quiet realization that maybe — just maybe — being someone’s safe place was the greatest trick he’d ever pulled.