A/N: For Race to the Top of Mount Potter (2/55, genre: angst).
Fred.
He's supposed to be proud of the name. It's meant to be an honor to carry the name of his hero uncle who he's never met.
But he quickly discovers that wearing a dead man's name is more of burden that weighs on him, threatening to crush him where he stands.
When his mother speaks his name, he sees a distance in her eyes, and he knows she's remembering things about Fred, about the first Fred. He doesn't know what it is, but there's always a flicker of pain beneath her maternal warmth.
His father looks at him like he's meant to be something. He is Fred Weasley, and he's meant to live up to the name, to fill some aching void within his father. He'll never say it out loud, but Fred can see the desperate hope that always lingers unspoken between them.
His grandmother never says Fred. Always Freddie, like the extra syllable can somehow ease the loss. Like calling her grandson by her fallen son's name is some sort of betrayal.
Fred.
It's meant to mean something so much more than just a name. He's supposed to be himself, yet he's supposed to be someone he's never met.
Fred the second. Always the second.
He will never be the Fred they want him to be.
