Fandom: Harry Potter

Year: Around 2023. Rose is 17. Hugo is 15. "The Wart" is 11. (For reference's sake: James is 18, Albus is 17, and Lily is 15.)

Characters: The non-canon character of "The Wart" as well as Hermione, Ron, Rose and Hugo, and some references to other characters. Hugo and Ron are chosen in the FF listing. Let's just pretend that Rose and Hugo existed as we know them, but so did this small, less important, inferior feeling child who was in the shadows.

I'm referencing tons to T.S. White's The Once and Future Kinghere. It is one of my favorite books and while reading it I realized how the similarities could be referenced, not to mention that the stories of King Arthur are already referenced greatly in the Weasley family canon and Rowling has admitted that the book has been a huge influence in Harry's and Dumbledore's characters. I do believe the book is in the public domain, but I tried to quote it where used directly, italicizing to stay somewhat in style. 'scuse me. The title is a play on what Lancelot called himself, "The Ill-Made Knight."

I had two versions of this story originally. The second - yet the one I first published - was where Wart was just an extra child. Weasley born, but absolutely nothing like his older siblings or his parents. The second version - and the one I was hesitant to publish - is this one. The Wart isn't even a born Weasley. He was adopted - to a point - and assumed to be non-magical, and obviously left out of the mix.

So here is this version. A different Wart, yet the story is essentially the same. I posted the first version over a year ago, now. If you like the idea of Wart being born a Weasey, yet irreparably different feeling, go there. If you like the idea of Wart being a lost child who always felt lost, even after being found, you are in the right place here.

This is the less polished version. The more experimental. But I decided I wanted to let it be known. I like many aspects of the first version I wrote, things I could not include here. You can find it here: s/7133845/1/The_Ill_Made_Weasley

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The Ill-Made Weasley

"The boy thought that there was something wrong with him. All through his life— even when he was a great man with the world at his feet—he was to feel this gap: something at the bottom of his heart of which he was aware, and ashamed, but which he did not understand."

The Wart was not a Weasley.

He wasn't part of the proper family.

The family seemed perfect when he wasn't thrown into the mix.

Head Girl Rose and Prefect Hugo –with matching heads of red hair inherited from their father and curls from their mother – both with dashing good looks and brains too large for their skulls. Perfect Gryffindors with all the daring, nerve, and chivalry one family could take, both of their parents bringing in a terrible lot of Galleons from high ranking jobs in the ministry, friends of the family with more enticing stories about adventure than the children's stomachs could bear. An ancient ginger cat, a terrier that only barked and nipped at females, and an Otterhound gifted to Rose the year she was eleven by an almost-giant that the Wart was afraid of, just because of his sheer size, and a trio of owls – one for each of the two perfect children, and one for their parents to share.

He didn't fit in with anyone.

And especially so when he was with the children of the friends who had enticing adventures. He knew the truths behind Quidditch champion James, sweet and kind Albus, and clever Lily.

James's real desire was to work with his Uncle George in the joke shop, not to play Quidditch, he didn't have enough ambition for Quidditch. Albus was a Slytherin in the most vile sense of the word – he was anything but sweet or kind. Lily was a pathological liar, a gossiper, a cheater.

He knew these truths, and they hated him for it.

The Wart wasn't born a Weasley. He was nothing like any of them.

Actually, he's not sure what he was born as. No one was. They estimated him to be two years old when he was a toddler left on their doorstep, with a charm on his feet to keep him from wandering, and a spell placed on him that kept him from speaking (or rendered him unable to speak or that made him forget how to speak.) They were never quite sure, no one could place it. Perhaps he had never learned to speak at all. The only thing they were sure of is that the child didn't understand English, or have any language of his own. No amount of research and questioning and owls could figure out who the child was, who had left him, where he came from. The best his makeshift mother had deciphered was that he descended from eastern Africa, possibly Ethiopia or Somalia. But, even then, knowing his race was just a tiny blip on the surface of who the child was.

His parents could never figure out why it was them the Wart was left to, exactly. But Hermione figured it was either at random – they saw children's toys in the yard, and obviously Wizard children's toys at that, and thought it looked comforting. Or, the fact that Weasley family was one of the most respected in the Wizarding world. They might have done their research first.

Was he even magical, though? Was he an abandoned squib? An orphan? Hermione tried contacting the Abyssinian Ministry; however, she was unsuccessful in tracking down the child, as his parents were unknown.

Ron was baffled when he found the boy – with rather tattered clothes and tear tracks on his cheeks – and did not want him. He was perfectly willing to leave the boy's feet magically glued to their stoop. The boy always frightened him a little. Hugo and Rose were both easily excited and easily bored with him. Hermione loved him from the moment she set eyes on the boys, and sometimes, the Wart thought, she was the only one.

Once, when Wart was very small and the idea of him was still vaguely new, his mother had met up with a former classmate and began chatting about her three lovely children. Ron was not pleased.

"We have two children, Hermione, and one we happen to take care of. We aren't his parents, he is not our child."

Hermione sighed, but without any anger or hatred, said "Then whose is he, Ron?"

It wasn't that Ron really hated or even at all disliked the child – far from it. He loved the boy. He felt sorry for the him.

But he just did not like the change. He did not like the big difference in what he had gotten used to. He just wanted normalcy, and to have the Wart was to have anything but.

The Wart was called the Wart, because it more or less rhymed with Art, which was short for his real name. Rose and Hugo were not called anything but Rose and Hugo, as they were too dignified to have nicknames. It began as nothing but a mistake – little Lily had a speaking impediment as a small child and could not pronounce Art. Hugo found it hilarious, and started repeating it. As did the rest of the children. Eventually, even Ron caught on.

Ron was never thrilled with the idea that a child that was nowhere near biological got the name of his father, as his wife had insisted. Hermione always scoffed, and told him to stop acting so much like a pure blood.

So no, he was not a real Weasley. He was not brave. He was not smart. He did not like to read, or boss people around, or play Quidditch. He couldn't make friends like Rose, he couldn't make jokes like Hugo. He did not have red, bushy hair (or reddish fur, like the dogs and cat) and bright blue eyes and pale skin and freckles.

In fact, his skin was not close to pale at all – it was the color of a chocolate frog. His dark hair clung to his head the wool on a sheep.

Hugo and the Wart often took the dogs out running to hunting for small animals. Hugo was always in charge of giving the dogs commands and holding their leashes, even though the Wart was better with that. He had the right to, not only because Hugo was older than the Wart, but because he was a proper Weasley.

The Wart was not a proper son. The Wart never understood it, but it did not make him feel good because Hugo seemed to regard it as making him inferior in some way. Also it was different not having a real father and mother and different not to look like the family you live with, and Hugo taught him that being different was wrong. Nobody talked to him about it, but he thought about when he was alone, and was distressed. He did not like people to bring it up. Since the other boy always did bring it up when a question of precedence arose, he had got into the habit of giving in at once before it could be mentioned. Besides, he admired Hugo despite all of the bad things he did to the Wart and was a born follower. He was a hero-worshiper.

Once, Cully, the Jack Russell, ran off and got himself lost, and no amount of hollering and shouting and whistling lured him back. Hugo lost his temper.

"Let him go then," he said, "He is no use anyway."

"Oh, we could not leave him," cried the Wart, "What would father say?"

"But it is my dog, not dad's" exclaimed Hugo furiously.

"But Cully is special to him! We cannot lose him. It would be beastly."

"Serve him right then. He is a fool and a rotten stupid dog. Who wants a rotten stupid dog? You had better stay yourself if you are so keen on it. I am going home."

"I will stay," the Wart said sadly.

It was as if, although found on a doorstep so many years ago, the Wart had always been lost. Always been alone. Never truly been found at all.

The boy thought there was something wrong with him.

A night he would sleep, and it would often rain. He tried to make music out of the sounds of the drops hitting different materials of the house in different pitches to help him sleep, because it frightened him. He told this to Hugo once, wondering if the older boy did the same, and the Wart was laughed at.

His parents (Hermione was his mummy through and through, but Ron was just Father. To Rose and Hugo, he was Daddy) were never sure of what to think of the boy.

Through his siblings' veins coursed the blood of a pure family mixed with the blood of one of the most powerful muggle-borns in history, yet it was of no use to Wart. He didn't have that blood. He didn't know whose blood he had.

Four years old is the general age children start showing their magic. Rose had been three. Hugo five. If they had been as late as to not show magic by age eight – it was almost guaranteed the child would be a Squib.

For the Wart, three, four, and five passed. As did six, seven, and eight. And so on.

When the Wart was nearly eleven, and had never done magic, Hermione assumed the small boy was an abandoned Squib, as she thought so long ago. Or maybe just a Muggle caught up with magical people.

They didn't talk about it much, or ever bring him anywhere to be examined, because it made Ron too upset.

Year after year he was brought to Diagon Alley to shop for Hugo and Rose's books and wands and robes, his mother always bought him little toys and treats while her other children and husband were off gaping at new Broomsticks and discussing who would win the World Cup that year. George would always give the boy his favorite new Weasley Wheezes to use, he told him with a wink and a whisper, on Hugo or Fred or James.

He was five years old when Rose went off to Hogwarts, and did not go to the train station with them. Ron did not want him to be seen.

Hermione planned on sending him to a Muggle school.

On that day he was guessed to turn eleven, he slept in his parents' bedroom because he had had a nightmare and could not fall back asleep, his mother's arms wrapped around him tightly as she whispered into his ear, "I love you no matter what you can or can't do, Arty. You're my baby boy."

The sun finished the last rays of its lingering good-bye, and the moon rose in its awful majesty over the silver tree-tops. All was moonlit, all silver, too beautiful to describe. But the Wart was afraid of the dark, and instead of looking out the window into the starry dark sky, he looked for constellations in the freckled shoulder of the father who had always been embarrassed by him.

The Hogwarts letters came a few weeks into July, on a day the Potters visited and had plans to go to Muggle London – something the children had been excited about for weeks. A grey coloured owl that reminded Ron of Errol (in looks, not in coordination) swooped in their kitchen window and dropped both families' envelopes - addressed to "the Children of Ron and Hermione Weasley" and "Albus and Lily Potter" onto their table.

A letter proclaiming Rose Weasley as Head Girl, and both Lily and Hugo Weasley fifth year prefects, four lists of spellbooks. An uproar arose, congratulating the three. James snickered and patted his smaller brother on the back in a sarcastic sorry for not earning a position like his sister and cousins.

But there was an extra letter. Ron picked it up and read it to himself.

"Merlin's pants," he murmured, his face pale and his voice much too high. "Not possible. Absolutely not possible."

Hugo ceased it and read it aloud.

"Dear Mr. Arthur Weasley,

"We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment."

His voiced faded slowly towards the end, and the group all had their eyes laid on the Wart.

Hermione looked as if she were about to cry.

James was the first one to act, pulling his wand out of his pocket and giving it to the Wart.

"No, please don't," the Wart said quietly.

"Just give it a wave, please."

He did. A plate on the table shattered.

Hermione really did start to cry, then. "How did they know? How didn't we? How… Sweetheart, have you ever done anything magical before?"

Rose looked frightened.

Ron knelt down in front of the Wart. "Arthur," he whispered, taking the boy's shoulders in his hands, "My boy."

"No," the Wart said, "Please stand up, you are making me unhappy."

"I knew there was something special about you the first time I laid my eyes on you."

"Don't!" he cried feebly. He did not want the attention, he was not used to it, he did not deserve it.

"We'll have to go into Diagon Alley straight away; you know what? We'll get you a nice owl, any owl you want. And I believe the Scamander boys will be first years this year! They're quite odd, really, if they're anything like their mother, but you guys, I'm sure you could be great friends."

Hugo stood behind his father and looked straight at his brother, and it was more than the Wart could bear.

"Oh do stop," he cried, "Of course I can make friends with them, if I have got to go to Hogwarts, and oh, Father please do not kneel down like that because it breaks my heart. Please get up, and don't make everything so horrible. Oh, dear, oh, dear, I wish I had never been magical at all."

And the Wart also burst into tears.