September 14th 1989
Dearest Mumsy,
Hope all is well at home; me and Georgie are doing smashing here at Hogwarts. The teacher's say they've never seen anything like us before. All the other kids love us (but you knew we would-we've inherited your innate charm). You might here some gossip or receive some letters about us getting up to what might not be the most savory sort of business, but just relax and brew yourself a cuppa when you see the owls coming in(deep breathing exercises help I've heard), keep in mind that it's not the end of the world, and do try to have a laugh when you read them mum.
Give my regards to dad.
Love,
Fred.
Ps. Call off Percy, Mum, me and George can't take a piss without him breathing
down our necks.
Molly Weasley clutched the letter to her chest and breathed quickly though her nose. She remembered the day she received the letter she now held tightly to her breast, she remembered how angry-how furious she had been. How ashamed she had been of Fred's impudence, his goofiness, his messy, sloppy, slip-shot work. How she had hated it! How she treasured it now.
Even this letter, nearly ten years old now, yellow and worn, the edges fraying, Fred's messy scrawl fading upon the single page was precious to her. She had traced the loopy crooked letters of his handwriting countless times since she had discovered it that morning, stuffed in the bottom drawer of her writing desk. They were his words, her baby boy's, written long ago in an age where the world was light and good, when life was un-shadowed by the gruesome nightmares that seemed to haunt Molly now, wherever she went. She could not shake the image of Fred, laying spread eagle on his back, arms open, like he was ready to embrace her. But he never would again. A great chasm had opened up in her chest then, and it would not heal. Every time she moved, it seemed, the pain of Fred's loss would lick through her, beginning her grieving a new. And she knew that nothing and no one could heal it. Not her husband, not her other children, only Fred could. And Fred was gone.
Gone. Her son, her baby-gone. She missed him so. She missed his laugh, she missed his smile, she missed his sweetness, for he was a sweet boy, a good boy, a smart boy. She was so proud of him. Proud of him and George, of all they had achieved-and she had never told him.
Molly sighed, her hand going to her head as if so soothe away some great pain, and began her solitary journey to his bedroom, a room that had not been touched since the wedding. A room that George refused point blank to enter. A room that still reeked of their left over experiments. A room her baby would never enter again.
She pushed open the door with her left hand, his letter still clutched in her right, and nearly had to stop, for merely the sight of his bed, the bed that was never made, no matter how many times she asked him to do it, was enough to make her heart break all over again. Leaning on the door hinge for support, she glanced around the room, trying to commit it to memory-when something caught her eye.
She crossed to the desk that Fred and George had somehow managed to squeeze into the corner of their bedroom. Lying right on top was a rather long piece of parchment with the words Mrs. Weasley's Herbal Relaxant and written just below it; Kids Stressing you out? Need a time out? Well we at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes have the answer-just pop one of or herbal packets into your tea and feel all your worries slip away!
Molly laughed out loud-one solitary real bark of laughter-because it was so like Fred to do something like this-and then covered her mouth in shock. She had laughed, really laughed- and it had been so long since she had done so that she quite thought she would never laugh again.
But now she laughed and laughed and laughed, until she collapsed on the rickety old desk chair, giggles still shaking her much diminished frame. She laughed until she could laugh no more, until her breath was short, until her sides ached. And then she cried. She wailed, she screamed. She called for the son that she'd lost, for the baby she would not hold again in this life, for the future he had had snatched away from him, for the future that had been snatched away from them both.
It was near on an hour later when her sobs finally subsided, her tremors finally ceased. And as Molly sat alone in her sons' now shadowy room, her brown eyes illuminated in the setting sun, she felt herself begin to heal. The chasm seemed to close a bit, the pain was far less now, and, though she doubted she would ever be completely whole again, she could see the light at the other side of this great darkness. She was Molly Weasley-she was strong, she could get through this.
She stood, and glanced down at the letter that now rested on the desk, side by side with the order form. How fitting, she mused, that the child to break me was the child to make me whole again.
She reached out to trace his words, her fingers lingering on the page.
Dearest Mumsy,
I always hated when he called me that. She thought, smiling.
The teacher's say they've never seen anything like us before…
No, angel, She thought, they had never seen anyone quite as brilliant as you.
…just relax and brew yourself a cuppa… keep in mind that it's not the end of the world…
Molly Weasley couldn't help one more watery chuckle before she turned away, walking towards the door. Pausing in the doorway, she turned around and whispered, "I love you Fred."
…do try to have a laugh…mum
The door shut quietly behind her as the sun set on the crooked little house in the hills. If one listened closely, one might have heard the sound of Molly Weasley bustling around the kitchen, something she had not done in months, her eyes wet, but bright. When Arthur Weasley arrived home that evening he was greeted with food and a hug rather then the empty table and cold, teary silence he had come to expect.
As the years went on, the Weasley house became one of light and color once more. The pitter patter of little feet punctured by the occasional sound of breaking china was not uncommon, but those sounds were always accompanied by boisterous laughter.
And so the Weasley's were a family of love and light and laughter again. The children grew, and they had children of their own, and then those children had children, and they Weasley family grew and changed and added and divided and were happy. But there was one thing that remained unchanged.
In the little bedroom on the third floor, the site of many a sleepover, pillow fight, card game and tag war, a little yellow piece of parchment still lay on the desk. The paper was so old it was see though and all the ink had faded away-except for two words.
Love, Fred.