A.N. I don't own Harry Potter, which is fairly obvious, but I'm putting it here just to confirm it!
Please review this chapter; this story is all about how different it would be if one event had happened, namely Fred's survival.
I hope you enjoy the chapter, and tell me whether I should continue or not in reviews, as I'm not 100% confident of my writing skill, but I want to try.
The Gift of Fate
Chapter 1
The Battle
Fred was fighting like he had never fought before, slinging curses and hexes everywhere, but he felt safe. For he was with his brother, his twin, his partner in crime, George, and nothing could ever go wrong.
As he sent a Death Eater to the floor, clutching his face as angry boils leapt up all over it, he saw Percy run in and blast the new Minister to the ground with a spectacular stunner.
As the Minister fell, he heard Percy exclaim "Did I tell you I was resigning Minister?" with a small laugh.
As Fred blasted another Death Eater to the ground, he looked disbelievingly at Percy, then burst out laughing, and through his laughter managed to splutter a nearly incomprehensible sentence.
"Perce! You're actually laughing!"
Then a huge explosion rocked the building, and Fred barely dived out of the way of an explosion of castle wall, sighing with relief as he saw Percy and George lunge out of the way, and the chunks of rock explode against the opposite wall, doing minimal damage.
From there the battle went downhill, with small victories being scored.
Fred, George and Percy burst through a set of doors, and saw Tonks and Remus locked in furious battle with two Death Eaters. They quickly realised that the married couple were losing, and threw themselves into the fray.
Fred quickly shot a blistering stunner at Tonks' enemy, who barely blocked it in time, leaving Tonks free to shoot a powerful reductor curse at a chandelier, which crashed down on the Death Eater, and possibly killing it.
Meanwhile George and Percy had the other Death Eater under control. Percy managed to bind him, and before he had a chance to sever the bindings, George ran and spectacularly kicked him in the balls.
When Voldemort withdrew for a small time, to allow them to bury the dead and try to stir them up into surrendering Harry, it was pure bliss.
He immediately scurried with Percy and George down to the Main Hall, to see which poor sods had died.
He felt a pang of remorse, as he saw the dead laying around the hall. He saw Remus and Tonks lying together, alive but sleepy, but they raised their heads and smiled at the three Weasleys, who had saved their lives only fifteen minutes prior.
He felt an explosion of anger in his stomach as he stared down at Lavender Browns badly mauled body, which was barely breathing, with Madam Pomfrey desperately trying to keep her from dying to the scratches inflicted by a werewolf, who was not transformed at the time.
None of this would've happened if not for the slimy, arrogant idiot Voldemort, who he knew Harry had nearly defeated.
Voldemort had told Harry he could hand himself in, and this worried Fred, as Harry was easily fooled into thinking things were his fault, and would probably hand himself in.
Suddenly he heard a scream of anguish, and he knew only one person could emit that scream.
Ginny.
Together with George and the rest of the Weasleys minus Ginny, he hurtled outside, and was greeted by a triumphant Voldemort, a band of crowing Death Eater's, and a sobbing Hagrid with-
NO!
That couldn't be Harry, there was no way. Harry survived. Harry always survived. If Harry died, so did the resistance. Voldemort was meanwhile crowing over his victory, and called for anyone who wished to be rewarded to join him.
When Neville stepped forward, with the Sorting Hat, Fred was nearly bowled over with shock, for Neville had proved himself to boast nearly as much bravery as Harry had himself.
This thought was echoed by the crowd, who murmured unhappily.
What happened next was utterly unbelievable.
Neville began a massive speech about how he never believed Voldemort caught Harry as he ran away, instead he believed that Harry followed his nature and took Voldemort's offer. Then, as Voldemort cruelly set the Sorting Hat atop Neville's head and began to burn it, another shock occurred.
Suddenly, as Voldemort's evil snake Nagini lunged forward, Neville ripped the Sorting Hat from his head and produced the sword of Godric Gryffindor, and sliced the foul snake in half, which severed something within Voldemort.
After spending so much time around Harry and the Order of the Phoenix, Fred had learnt all about the Horcruxes, and how Voldemort's immortality was based around them.
He had also learnt that Nagini was Voldemort's last tie to immortality.
This sent the school of Hogwarts back into turmoil, and the second part to the epic battle commenced. Fred remembered Harry's body, and while he could never doubt Hagrid, he was worried about Harry's body being hit by a curse.
As he finally caught sight of Hagrid, Harry rolled out of Hagrid's arms, and leapt to his feet.
Fred blinked several times, but it was definitely real, Harry had come back, almost as though from the dead.
The sight of Harry, alive and fighting gave the fighters strength. Bellatrix shot a killing curse at Ginny, which missed by inches. Unfortunately for Bellatrix Lestrange, Fred's mother, Molly Weasley, had seen this, and was very angry.
Well Molly angry was never pretty, but when she's defending one of her offspring from death?
It was bloody scary.
Though Fred was too busy fighting a Death Eater named Avery to really concentrate, he was fairly sure he heard the word 'bitch' slung, and not by Bellatrix.
This made him snigger, and he finished Avery with a strong stunner, which lifted him off his feet and sent him flying backwards, saving George from a Death Eater who had just disarmed him.
George gave Fred a quick high five, and then they heard Harry's voice booming out. "Tom Riddle! Face me"
"Who are you going to use as a shield this time Harry Potter?" sneered Voldemort.
"No-one"
"He doesn't mean that!" Voldemort cried angrily "So who will fight for the famous Harry Potter"?
"Me." Harry was adamant, and he drew his wand "Now Tom, as you might remember, Draco Malfoy disarmed Dumbledore in the tower."
"I can deal with him later" with a sneer, Voldemort produced his wand too.
"But I disarmed Draco at Malfoy manor, so if the wand remembers its master…"
"LIES!"
Harry and Voldemort both slung their spells.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
"EXPELLIARMUS!"
For a few tense seconds, nothing happened. And then, Voldemorts wand flew up into the air, and Harry caught the wand calmly, as though it was a snitch that practically flew into him.
Then Voldemort slumped to the floor, broken and, unless Fred's eyes deceived him, dead.
Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named, the Dark Lord.
Dead.
For a few seconds, everyone stood in disbelieving silence, barely daring to believe their eyes, for their tormenter of so many years was on the floor, and looked dead.
Then everyone surged forward, finally believing it was true. Harry was engulfed in the embraces and congratulations of friends, acquaintances and strangers, all desperate to touch the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter.
As he and George high fived Harry, they already had a joke in mind.
"250 points to Gryffindor, eh Harry?"
"And minus 250 to Slytherin!"
Harry sniggered, and he and George again high fived him, then walked off to see how they could help with the rebuilding or any other aspect of Hogwarts.
He and George were put on rubble clearing duty, and with the help of Remus and Tonks, they started clearing the passageways, with the rebuilding crew behind them trying to turn the rubble back into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The good thing was that they knew all the secret passages and shortcuts so if any rubble was too hard to clear from one side, they could easily get around it and clear from the other side.
A few surviving Death Eaters made weak attempts to resist, one of which resulted in the Death Eater hanging, trouser-less on a chandelier, and another with a rather large lump protruding from his head, as Fred was clearing some rubble when he was jumped.
But mostly, they came quietly, having heard of their master's death. These Death Eaters were 'escorted' by Peeves, who would chase them down the halls singing and throwing dungbombs at them if they were too slow.
After hours of tiring work, between Fred, George and the castle fixing team (Ginny, Neville and Luna), the castle was looking a lot better, and if there were any Death Eaters around still, they were very well hidden, because they had been everywhere fixing the castle.
Angelina Johnson had come back to fight, with her friend Alicia Spinnet. As he and Angelina embraced, happy to see each other alive, George and Alicia began to embrace too.
As he and Angelina pulled away, they saw George and Alicia. This surprised Fred, but also made him happy, because he knew his twin had been struggling to find that perfect girl, and that he and Alicia had always got on very well.
As Alicia and George pulled away, Fred and George began to head back to McGonagall, with Alicia, Angelina, Ginny, Luna and Neville on their tails.
McGonagall, it turned out, had no work left, and suggested they all went home to celebrate. Just then Molly came bustling up, and invited Harry, Hermione, the repair crew, Alicia, Angelina and a few other people (including McGonagall) to dinner at the Weasley's.
They all accepted, and McGonagall set up a two portkeys, one for Molly and everyone that was helping her to prepare (Harry, Hermione, Alicia and McGonagall), and another for the guests, scheduled to leave fifteen minutes after.
Harry quickly went out into the garden and started setting up tables, chairs and balloons, while Molly and Alicia started on the cooking. Hermione came out once Harry had got the basics ready, and put in some more slightly obscure things that only Hermione would think of, and then made everything look as nice as she could.
It was a truly breath-taking sight. There were huge, never-melting ice sculptures, beautifully placed lengths of ribbons adorning everything spectacularly, and the room was and red to cheer them up, and when they feel happy, it goes colours like purple and blue to keep charmed to change colours according to the mood (when people feel down, it goes colours like yellow to get the happiness flowing.
They then went in to the kitchen, and picked up all the delectable delights Molly and Alicia had cooked. McGonagall then did what she did best. Made everything perfect where it was great.
She multiplied the food, she made the ribbons flash different colours, and she made everything perfect. She then conjured some statues, and brought them alive, to serve the guests.
They had just put on the finishing touches when the first guest arrived. Ron sat at the table, as one by one, the guests appeared.
They were soon tucking into Molly's delicious food, with a beautifully cooked roast dinner alongside a multitude of other favoured food, like treacle tart. There was also butterbeer and firewhiskey,
Ginny wasn't really allowed firewhiskey, but Fred and George had figured as it was the day of the defeat of Voldemort to cut her some slack. They had some firewhiskey hidden in butterbeer bottles which they were passing to Ginny under the table.
Soon, everyone was merry, and revelling in their victory. They were drunk as lords, and the teachers were too. It was weird, seeing McGonagall with her hair down celebrating and dancing, especially as she'd never celebrate like that whilst she was sober, and she wouldn't get drunk for much else.
As Fred and George collapsed into their beds, they sat talking excitedly about Voldemorts downfall and what it meant for the wizarding world (especially their joke shop).
They slowly allowed tiredness to overtake them, and slowly drifted off to sleep.
That night, Fred had a dream.
He saw himself, standing near Percy, hearing him joke, watching George fight.
When the wall collapsed, he looked at himself, eager to see how close he was to being hit by the wall.
Except for the fact he didn't move.
He was smashed by the wall, and lay there.
He didn't get up.
As he turned away, unable to bear seeing the scene of the grieving Weasleys and Potters, he saw a hooded figure fast approaching.
He felt the figure smash into him, and as it sped away, he felt something float gently down onto his chest.
Fred woke with a start, and sighed with relief as he realised it was just a dream. But if it was a dream, what was this strange piece of paper of his chest?
He tentatively looked at the writing on the paper.
Dear Fred,
You survived your ordeal with the collapsing wall. However, this was not what fate had laid out for you.
If it had been someone else, without your laughter, heart and cheer you bring, we would have left their fate to consume and kill them.
But you didn't deserve to die, we all agreed on that. So we decided to save you. Please accept our gift, and understand that you have been gifted with your future, which is yours to write.
As Fred puzzled over the last two lines, realization sunk in.
His fate was his to decide.
He was truly free.
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