Chapter One.
I remember well the day I met Fred Weasley. Mostly because in my opinion he was such a total weirdo. I told him that once, and he laughed. I always loved Fred's laugh, even when I considered him a weirdo. It rivalled the sun in warmth, and even in the darkest of the ties we spent together, it brought light and joy.
It was the summer holidays, and I had gotten myself a job as assistant librarian at the local library in Ottery St. Catchpole.
I had been flipping through a book on Shakespeare as I sat at the help-desk, when a shadow blocked my light. I looked up, squinting at him as I tucked my long hair behind my ear.
I'd seen him before. Out and about in town. Everyone knew about the Weasley's, there were a friendly couple with seven children, all with bright red hair. They kept mostly to themselves, and lived on the other side of Witches hill, away from the actual village of Ottery St. Catchpole.
They were something of an enigma, though it was rumored that their father worked for the Russian Mafia, and all their children attended boarding school on Antarctica where they were trained as future Russian spies. I didn't know at the time, but the truth was even more unbelievable then that.
I didn't actually know their first names, and I had never before seen any of them set foot inside the library before today.
"How my I help you?" I asked sweetly, as I placed my bookmark in my book. Customers always came first, even before Shakespeare.
"I'd like to see your books on wizards."
I pursed my lips, and getting up, led him to the teenage fiction section. Books on wizards. Couldn't he have been a little more specific?
"There should be a couple in here. There's J.R.R. Tolkien, there's a couple of books on Merlin, there's..."
"I don't mean fiction books." He said, stopping me in the middle of my sentence.
I looked at him, confused. Was he a member of some kind of weird cult thing?
"What do you mean then? Wizards are fiction. We don't stock fact books on wizards. We have books on magic tricks if that's what you want..."
"You do? Can you show me them?" He asked, his face lighting up with excitement.
I led him over to the children's section where we had books on magic tricks, and took a couple off the shelf to show him. He flipped through them, seemingly amused. He took another book off the shelf, a book on practical jokes, and flipped through it eagerly. Seeing him thus occupied, I began to make my exit.
"If you want anything else, you can use the computers over there to look for it." I said before slipping away.
I settled back in my chair at the help-desk to read more of my Shakespeare. I only got a total of five pages further into act three of Hamlet when I was disturbed once more. His shadow blocked my light, and I looked up at him, trying to disguise my annoyance.
"How may I help you?" I asked civilly.
"How do I use the computer?"
I stared at him, but he seemed genuine. As if he wasn't joking at all. But then again he might just have a good poker face. But whatever the case, it was my job to help. I got up again, and led him over to the computers, gesturing to the chair which he sat down in, looking at the computer with a mixture of awe, eagerness, and fear. Utter weirdo.
"Okay. You write the search-word you want in this box. Like, 'wizards'," I said, my fingers dancing over the keyboard as I wrote the word. "Then you press the search button, and it comes up with a list of books. Each book has a number printed on the spine, which matches the number here beside the title." I explained.
"There aren't a lot." He stated, sounding disappointed as he leaned forward, looking at the approximately four results on the screen.
I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. This guy was unbelievable.
"If you roll down the scroll bar, there are more results. If you click the numbers at the bottom there are three more pages with more titles." I stated sharply, beginning to lose my patience.
Honestly, had the boy never used a computer before?
"And I use this to move the arrow on the screen, right?" He asked, poking the mouse warily, as if it would bite him if provoked to violence.
I narrowed my eyes and glared at him, but he was looking up at me with such innocent curiosity, that my irritation melted away into confusion.
"Yeah." I said, nodding as I tried my best to not stare at him as if he was a complete mental case.
"Thanks." He said, a wide easy smile stretching across his freckled face.
I returned to my help-desk, but didn't pick up my Shakespeare again. Instead I watched the Weasley boy with interest. Honestly, a teenage boy who didn't know how to use a computer? That in itself was fascinating.
Later he came up to my desk with a stack of about five books.
"Just fill out this form to get a library card." I said as I passed him the forms.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't watching him like a hawk as he did so. That's how I found out that he was roughly the same age as me. He was born on the 1st of April, my birthday was the 1st July. And that's how I discovered his full name was Frederick Peregrine Weasley.
I smiled at him as I checked out his books for him, and presented him with his brand new library card.
If only I had known what would follow. Then perhaps I might have been able to avoid Frederick Weasley.