Keeping Up With Mr Weasley

This is a rewrite of a previous idea I had here, however this version is a little bit more grown up.

Chapter One - Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Beans

The words rang in her ears, her surroundings blurred and all that she could see was the face of Lee Jordan hovering in the fire in front of her. Hot tears started to well up in her eyes but she somehow couldn't find it within her to cry. She swallowed hard and ran her hands through her hair, "it can't be true," she croaked, "Fred can't be dead."

Lee nodded slowly, "it happened so fast… no one saw it coming…he died laughing," he added the last part as if it would help. But it didn't help, it only angered her more. He didn't deserve to die, he shouldn't have died. She should have been there, fighting by his side. Maybe then he wouldn't have died, or at the very least she would have been there with him in his last few moments.

But she hadn't been there, instead she'd been in India 'discovering' herself, however in these last few moments she had learnt more about herself than her whole year long trip around the world.

She wanted to scream, shout, flip the table she was sat at over and pull her hair out. All she kept thinking over and over was 'I should have been there with him'.

Lee, who knew her almost as well as the Weasley twins, looked up at her and said, "Don't beat yourself up, there was nothing you could have done, no one could have done anything to stop it."

She jumped up, unable to contain her anger, "I could have done something," she said, tears beginning to roll down her face.

"Gilly you really think you could have saved him from the killing curse? Those Death Eaters were brutal; there was nothing anyone could do to save him."

She collapsed back into her chair; she went to speak but the words disappeared in her throat.

Lee spoke again, "there's a memorial next week, I thought you might like to come home for it," Gilly nodded slowly as Lee said, "I'll owl you the details, it really would be good to see you again."

xxxxx

Coming through the arrival gates at Heathrow Gilly was met with the faces of her extremely middle class, very muggle parents. The same parents who had packed her off to India on a tour of self-discovery the moment they had heard of the slightest kind of trouble going on in their daughter's magical world.

"It'll be good for you to get out the country and see the world," they had told her, quite literally forcing her on to the plane. Of course Gilly hadn't wanted to go, some of her closest friends were right in the centre of the struggle against the Dark Lord and she had wanted to stay and help. But her parents wouldn't take no for an answer, and while they claimed they wanted her to have new experiences and see the world it was quite clear they wanted to get her out of the country and away from any kind of danger.

"Catherine," her mother cooed using Gilly's first name, a name no one other than her muggle family referred to herby , waving frantically at her daughter. As Gilly approached her mother held her arms outstretched and Gilly fell into them exhausted. As soon as her mum's arms were around her she crumpled and broke down into tears. "Darling, what's wrong?" asked her mother stroking her hair.

"It's Fred," Gilly sobbed, "he's dead."

xxxxx

Getting through the barrier by herself had been daunting enough for eleven year old Catherine Gilligan, but that was by no means as scary as trying to find a seat on the train. Every compartment was full and Catherine was far too timid to ask to join anyone. Eventually however she had made her way to the back of the train and with nowhere else to go she conceded defeat and was forced to join to red headed boys in the last compartment.

"Um, excuse me?" she asked, poking her head round the sliding compartment door, "um, is it okay if I join you? There aren't any free compartments and I've gotten all the way to the end of the train and…" Catherine had a habit of rambling when she was nervous and had quickly trailed off when she realised what she was doing and turned bright red.

"No problem," said one of the boys, Catherine had quickly realised that they were twins, and he moved some stuff from the seat next to him, "take a pew."

Catherine shuffled in and perched herself on the edge of the seat awkwardly.

"Want a Bertie Bott?" said the boy sat opposite to her, offering her a box of what looked like jelly beans.

"Pardon, what?"

"You never had a Bertie Bott?"

"She must be muggleborn Fred."

"You muggleborn? Is that why you've never had a Bertie Bott?" the one with the jelly beans asked.

"Pardon? What does muggleborn mean?" she asked, feeling herself going redder than she was before.

"You've got non-magical parents," said the boy next to her.

"Oh, yes, that's right," she replied, awkwardly playing with the ends of her plaits.

"Well these are just sweets, try one," the other said, shoving the box under her nose.

"Thank you," Catherine said, timidly taking a yellow bean from the box. The boys stared at her intently as she put the sweet in her mouth and took a bite. Suddenly the foul taste of vomit filled her mouth and she gagged, almost spitting it out until she remembered her manners and forced herself to swallow the disgusting sweet. "Ugh, what was that? It tasted like vomit!"

"Vomit flavour, unlucky," the one with the sweets chuckled, "these are Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans, and they mean every flavour."

"Bad luck you got vomit for your first one, there are nice flavours though, promise," his brother added, then with a smile said, "I'm Fred, this is my brother George."

"We're twins if you hadn't noticed already."

"I'm Catherine Gilligan," she replied with a small smile, "and I don't think I'll ever have one of those ever again, even if there are some nice flavours."

xxxxx

"Bertie Bott?" offered Lee as they sat on the train from Paddington to Ottery St Catchpole.

"No thank you," Gilly answered as she stared out the window.

"Don't see why we had to take the train," Lee grumbled.

"Floo makes me sick and I haven't passed my apparition test yet have I?"

Lee chuckled, "how many times you failed now?"

"Six, and don't laugh. Anyway I like trains, they remind me of the Hogwarts Express," she was still looking out the window at the rushing countryside as she spoke.

"Well this is nothing like the Hogwarts Express," grumbled Lee, "there's not even a trolley…" he started flicking through the muggle newspaper, "these things are so dull, why don't the pictures move? How do muggles find this interesting? Dog rescues owner from falling tree… is this really news?"

Gilly drew her attention away from the scenery to laugh at her friend who was turning the pages of the newspaper with a look of utter confusion on his face, it was the first time she'd laughed since she had come home, "you are such a pureblood," she said, shaking her head.

"Hey!" said Lee, chucking a couple of beans in his mouth at once, quickly chewing before gagging, "ugh, bogies, strawberry and liquorice do not go well together!" and he spat them out in his hand.

This made Gilly laugh even harder, "I remember when I first met Fred…" she began to say, then quickly realising what she had said she stopped laughing and trailed off, turning back to the window.

Lee grimaced and turned his attention back to the newspaper. After half an hour of silence Lee suddenly called out, "oi Gilly there's a topless girl in this paper!"

Reviews are much appreciated!