Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Round 8
Team: Holyhead Harpies
Position: Beater 1
Task: Write about Fred Weasley II
Prompts Used:
(quote) 'Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever' - Keri Russell
(word) diary
(song) 'Wildest Dreams' by Taylor Swift
Word Count: 1,400
()()()
He said let's get out of this town
Drive out of the city
Away from the crowds
I thought heaven can't help me now
Nothing lasts forever
But this is gonna take me down
()()()
"Daddy, where are we going?" Fred II had his hands wrapped tightly around his father's waist and was desperately trying not to cry as the broomstick hurtled high through the clouds.
As had become increasingly often recently, George's only reply was a grunt, and Fred tightened his grip.
The wind buffeted Fred's face and his eyes stung. The glittering lights of a city – London, maybe? – lay spread out below them, and Fred would have been worried about Muggles had they not been quite as sickeningly high up as they were, and had it not been nighttime.
It had hardly surprised him when George shook him awake in the dead of night, placing a hand over Fred's mouth and a finger to his lips, with that wild, deranged look in his eye that had become such a normal addition to his face in recent weeks.
George had bundled Fred onto his broomstick with him, ignoring his cries of protest and not even looking back to check his son was on properly before taking off into the night sky.
The change in George had been gradual. For the first few years of Fred's life, George was mostly happy, smiling down at his boy with nothing but joy in his eyes.
But then Fred had got older, and his hair had darkened to match the shade of George's hair. He had grown taller and his freckles had darkened and suddenly George burst into tears when Fred came downstairs in the morning, and the little boy had no idea why.
After that, George took to avoiding his son, and Angelina as well. He would shut himself in his room, crying over an old picture that Fred wasn't allowed to see but had glimpsed one time; it was a photograph of George, young and cheerful, standing next to what looked like a mirror. It confused Fred, though, because when George waved in the photo, the mirror George waved at a slightly different time and in a slightly different way, and he knew mirrors weren't supposed to do that.
He had asked his mother, but Angelina hadn't wanted to talk about it.
Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever. George had known it was a ridiculous idea to call his son Fred II. Angelina had told him so, along with the rest of his family and friends. But he hadn't thought it was a very big or important decision. He hadn't thought it would change his life this much. Everyone else seemed to have known, though.
But they hadn't stopped him. Everybody had been treading carefully around him ever since the battle of Hogwarts. It was as if he was made of glass, and the slightest knock from them would break him. That's what they thought, anyway. They definitely weren't going to confront him properly about it.
And when George had named his son Fred II, he hadn't been doing it to get a part of his twin back. No, he knew and accepted that Fred was gone. He wanted to use that name not to recreate his partner in crime, but to commemorate him. To give him a legacy, since Fred would never get to have children of his own.
He'd been okay with it; he really had been. George would look at Fred II, and see his son. Not his dead twin. His son.
Then, of course, Fred II's hair had started to look like the old Fred's, and he had begun to develop that carefree, reckless attitude that Fred and George had both used to have.
Eventually, the resemblance had become too much for George, and just looking at his son opened the wound again. A wound that he didn't think would ever heal. Half of him was missing, for Merlin's sake. He was no longer whole.
Not even Angelina, or his children, could fill that space.
He hadn't been thinking at all when he had bundled his son onto his broomstick and flown away, without a word to the still sleeping Angelina.
Now that they were miles above anything, he had begun to think.
"Fred?" George called shakily back to his son, who could do no more than nod against the back of his father's shirt, clinging with all his strength to the broom and to George.
There was silence for a while. "Fred, I'm sorry," George eventually said. "I'm sorry for everything. For being distant, for seeming like I don't care. I'm sorry, too, that I didn't even tell you why it made me upset."
Fred's eyebrows shot up. Was he finally going to get some answers? "Then tell me," he whispered hoarsely, his words swept away on the wind as soon as they came out of his mouth.
"When I was younger," George said, launching straight into his story, "There were seven Weasley children. There was Bill, Charlie, Percy, Ron, Ginny, myself and… And Fred."
The young boy's jaw dropped. "You named me after your dead brother?" he asked. George couldn't tell if he was disgusted, proud, understanding, or what. He expected the former.
"Not just my brother," he said quietly. "Fred… Fred was my twin."
Neither of them spoke for a long while after that. Fred II stared at the glittering lights below as he tried to take it all in. George had lost his twin brother… Then he had named his son after him. Fred II tried to think of it as sweet, but it just seemed twisted. "So now, when you look at me…" he said hesitantly.
"When I look at you, I see the old Fred. My Fred. It's just too painful." George hung his head in shame.
Then George felt arms wrap around his middle and Fred squeezed him gently. "That was a really stupid thing to do, Dad," Fred said quietly. George could only nod. "But I understand. And... I'm your Fred, too. I always will be."
The pair soared high over the city below, awkwardly embracing on the narrow broomstick.
Finally, as the sun started to come up, George flew the broomstick down to a small back alley. They walked, hand in hand, father and son, through the Leaky Cauldron and to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.
George collapsed behind the till, while Fred II lay on an old blanket in the store room.
"So that's where you are!" Angelina came storming down the central aisle of the shop, expression livid. George looked up at her sheepishly. "I was looking everywhere, trying to find out where you had gone! It wasn't on the calendar, you hadn't written it in your diary, you didn't even leave a note, for Merlin's sake! Honestly, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
George shrugged helplessly. "It was a spur-of-the-moment decision," he said.
Narrowing her eyes, Angelina said, "You've been making some very terrible spur-of-the-moment decisions lately, George, and don't think I don't know why."
Fred II, hearing the commotion, walked out of the store room, rubbing his eyes. "Hey Mum," he said blearily. "Can we get lunch? I'm starving," George chuckled, which earned a glare from Angelina.
Angelina looked genuinely surprised to see her son there. "I take it you've made your peace with him, then?" she asked George quietly, her expression softening slightly.
George ruffled Fred's hair and grinned. "Nothing lasts forever," he said cheerily. "It was just a strange phase I had. He's my little boy, now. No one else."
Fred looked on as unspoken words seemed to pass between his parents. Finally, Angelina took Fred's hand in her own and smiled – the first proper smile since she'd entered the shop. "Good," she said happily. "Come on, Fred, let's go and get some lunch."
At that moment, the bell on the door rang and Ron entered the shop. He smiled at the few customers in there, then walked over to the family. "Hey," he said in greeting. Ron looked back and forth between the family, then nodded knowingly. "George, I can manage the shop on my own for a bit," he said. "Go out with them."
Ron took his place behind the counter, and George smiled gratefully at him. "Thanks," he said, then turned to his wife. "Shall we all get lunch together, then?"
Fred reached out and took his father's hand, and together they strolled out of the shop and down the street. Finally, a family again.