It is as I stroll leasurely down a corridor, basking in the admiring glances of my fellow classmates after playing a particularly fine prank on Professor McGonnogal of all people, that I see my father.
I stop suddenly, staring.
Oh crap, I think.
Did McGonnogal call him in because of what I did?
I honestly don't think that me charming her quill to fly away from her each time she went to grab it was a reason to call my parents.
In fact, in my opinion, it was a stroke of genius.
And if you're me (or anyone with any sense for that matter) my fine opinion counts for a lot.
I am unsure what to do.
Do I hide?
Do I face him?
Usually, if I go one step too far with my practical jokes, I just recieve a Howler from Mum and a hastily scribbled celebratory note from Dad.
The Howler isn't that bad; in fact, if you laugh it up yourself, people are more likely laughing with you than at you.
So what does it mater if McGonnogal called him in?
It doesn't mean he'll be angry at me, does it?
No, it would be Mum standing there that I'd be concerned about.
With that thought, I approach him.
"Dad!" I grin innocently "What brings you to my humble abode?"
As soon as I say it, I regret it, because it is then I see the tears in his eyes.
He doesn't answer me, just stares at a tapestry hanging on the wall that covers a secret passage I've dodged down half a dozen times to avoid Filch, the crusty old caretaker.
"Dad?" I ask, a bit softer.
Again, no answer; he reaches out slowly and brushes the tapestry with his fingers.
"Here." he murmurs "It was here."
People are beginning to stare at him, the grown man with the flaming red hair and the garish green coat, openly weeping at the wall.
Heck, I'd be staring if he wasn't my Dad.
But suddenly I can't stand it.
Whatever he's crying for, it doesn't matter.
Just because he's doing it in public doesn't give people the right to gawp.
"Shove off!" I push a boy from the year above me aggressively as he stands looking almost disgustedly at my father "And that goes for the lot of you! Stop staring you ignorant gits!"
The people around immediately shuffle off, gaze averted as I glare challengingly.
When the place has cleared a little, I turn back to my father.
"Dad?" I whisper, and poke him lightly.
He jumps as though I crept up on him and turns his now startled gaze on me.
"Oh Freddie." his tears begin to fall "This is it. This is where he died." even though he doesn't mention his name, I immediately know he is talking about my Uncle Fred.
Even though people have begun to walk past again, even though this could ruin my wonderfully tarnished reputation, I wrap my arms around my father as he sobs.
"I'm losing them. One by one, I'm losing them." he says quietly through his tears.
"Dad. Why are you here?" I say against his shoulder, and he pulls away to look at me.
I hate the pity in his eyes as he looks at me, and I know he is about to tell me something terrible.
"Grandad Arthur died." this time, it is his turn to hug me.
I feel as though my world has come crashing down.
Grandad Arthur and I used to get along so well, he always seemed to... not favour me, but get along the best with me of all his grandchildren.
There used to be times where I'd catch him looking at me, with this sadness in his eyes and I knew it was because I reminded him of my Uncle Fred.
It was the same look he gave Dad and even though it was awful, I kind of liked the connection we all shared because of it.
"Dad? Fred?" I turn to see my little sister Roxanne stood behind us.
She may be a year younger than me, and a girl, but we get along so well you'd never notice.
She is always up for pranking people, and I'm pretty sure we're the best trouble-makers at Hogwarts since our Dad and Uncle Fred came here.
Somehow, when she looks at us, she knows.
I don't know how she does it, but she knows.
"It's Grandad, isn't it?" tears well in her eyes and I cross the short distance between us and hug her.
We are both crying, hugging each other so tightly that you can't tell where my firey red hair stops and hers begins.
We are one person, and I realise then how it would feel to be separated from her, how my Dad must have felt when Uncle Fred died.
It would be like half of you being ripped away, part of your soul just being torn from you in a single moment, a single moment that would change everything.
I remember my Dad telling me that, for the first month of my life, he wouldn't leave me alone.
He fed me, changed my nappy, bathed me, slept in a chair beside my cot; Mum barely got a look in.
He told me how it was because, for that first month, he was terrified I'd die.
He was terrified he'd lose another Fred.
Then, one night when my Dad was grabbing a quick shower, my Mum started feeding me.
When he came downstairs, he went balistic, screaming about how I might choke on the bottle or get ill from it not being sterilised properly.
Mum waved him off, but then he began to get hysterical.
He couldn't help it; he just began to sob uncontrollably.
When she put me down and asked him about it, he told her he couldn't lose another person so important to him.
She told him she understood, but that he needed help, if not for her then for their kids.
We couldn't grow up with a Dad who would never let us go out on our own in case we got kidnapped or move into the Hogwarts grounds when we started going to school so he knew we weren't getting up to anything dangerous.
A year or so later, he still wasn't quite fixed, but then Roxanne was born.
As he held his little girl in his arms, so solid and warm, he realised that she wasn't going anywhere - and neither was I.
When I first heard that story, I thought that it was my fault my father was like that; that just by being born, I had made him so scared that he couldn't live his own life.
It was only when I was older that I realised that my Dad had been broken since the Battle of Hogwarts, since his brother died and he had half of him ripped away.
Roxanne and I didn't break him, we fixed him - some of him, at least.
We didn't fill the hole that Fred left, but we gave him so many happy times and memories to keep him occupied that he didn't notice it as much any more.
It was like his missing ear - when you focused on it, it was awful, raw and painful to think of how a little part of him would be missing the rest of his life.
But when you accepted it, realised that it wasn't coming back, you still missed it, it still hurt that you'd lost it - but you'd learned to handle the pain, learned that there's no use crying over spilt milk.
Or, in my Dad's case, a lopped off ear.
I look at my Dad.
He's staring at that tapestry again, the same haunted look in his eyes.
Then again, I could be wrong.
Maybe Roxanne and I were just momentary distractions, and now he'll be back to the way he went when I was 4 and it was Uncle Fred's anniversary.
I was only young but I still remember how for weeks after, he just sat on the couch staring at the wall.
Who knows why he'd been fine at Fred's other anniversaries, cried a bit but hadn't gone completely off the rails.
Who knows why it was then that he cracked.
No one could snap him out of it, though not for lack of trying - every member of our family came round trying to bring him back, but all left in tearful defeat.
Then, one day I climbed up on his knee and lay my head on his chest.
"I miss you Daddy." I said, not expecting a response, but then he looked at me.
He smiled faintly and said: "I've missed you too."
I grinned, happy I had my father back.
"Why are you sad? Do you miss Uncle Freddie?" I asked.
"Every day." he responded, wiping the tears from his puffy eyes.
"When will you stop being sad?" I ask, catching a tear from his face and examining it.
"Maybe never." he says, mostly to himself.
"What are tears made of?" I ask, watching as it slides down my finger.
"I don't know." he responds watching me.
"Whenever you cry, it's because you're thinking about Uncle Freddie dying, isn't it?" I wonder and he nods.
"Then I think tears are the sad memories leaking out. And maybe, one day, all of your sad memories will have leaked out and you'll only have happy ones and then you'll smile instead of crying." I say, moving my hand so the tear wobbles along it.
My Dad smiles at me, amazed at how philosophical a four year old can be.
"You know what, Freddie? You're just like your Uncle." he tickles me and now, years later, I realise that back then, my Dad wasn't mourning, because it was only when he was snapped out of his trance that he cried.
During the time he was spaced out, he wasn't mourning.
He was with Fred, reliving their mischief and pranks, cooking up another joke to play on their family and friends.
So back then, when I was just four years old, somehow, though it was impossible, I brought my father back from the dead.