Author's Note- This story takes place 24 years after the end of the second war and Fred survived. The only other thing I changed is George's son's name. In the books when Fred died, George named his son after him, but since Fred is alive here and it would be weird to have two Fred Weasley's running around, I changed his name to Finn. Sorry if that's confusing. Also every chapter will be in a different person's point of view. This chapter is in George's point of view.
Disclaimer- Anything you recognize I do not own.
Chapter 1
(George Weasley)
"Oi! Angelina! We're gonna be late!" said George Weasley irritably.
"I'm coming, I'm coming. Hold your hippogriffs George," replied his wife, Angelina, as she walked down the stairs. George looked at his wife walk down the stairs still trying to put in an earring and smiled. She had never been very good at being on time. "How do I look?" she asked.
"Wonderful," said George, sweeping Angelina up and kissing her softly.
"Ugh, can you not do that in front of me? Please?" asked their daughter, watching her parents from the corner of the room.
Angelina ignored Roxanne and looked at her husband. "Now who's gonna make us late?" she asked with a little laugh.
This brought George to his senses, "You're right. If we're late one more time, my mother is really going to kill us," Angelina agreed profusely.
After the war, the Order of the Phoenix started drifting apart. And that was technically ok; after all there was no need for the Order anymore. Kids grew up, got married, and moved away. But Mrs. Weasley, being the family-oriented woman that she was, didn't like seeing her family and friends grow distant. So, she started a new tradition. Every Saturday night, any man, woman, or child who Mrs. Weasley even remotely cared about was invited to dinner at the Burrow. And if they didn't attend, they were practically shunned for the next month. George and Angelina had been late last week and were currently on rocky waters.
"Finn! We're gonna be late!" Angelina shouted upstairs to her son. "He gets that from you you know," Angelina said looking pointedly at an amused George.
Finn galloped down the stairs, "Ok! I'm here!"
"Well then let's get going," said Angelina as she strode towards the fireplace. She picked up a handful of Floo powder, said clearly "The Burrow!" walked into the fireplace, and disappeared in a jet of green flame. The children went next. Then George.
He appeared in his childhood home like he had so many times before. He turned and walked into the kitchen. "Hi mum," George said giving his mother a kiss on the cheek. "Where is everyone?" he asked, looking around at the empty house.
"Oh they're outside. I was thinking, since this is the last dinner we'll have with the kids being home for the spring holidays, we should eat outside,"
"Ok," George said walking into the yard. Harry, Ginny, their kids and many others were already sitting at the long table set in the middle of the yard. Hermione, Ron and their kids were up and walking around, talking to Arthur, Bill, Fleur, and Teddy Lupin. Charlie, as usual, was missing, seeing as he was still working in Romania.
"Hello George!" said a happy voice from behind him.
"Hey Percy, how's work at the ministry?" George asked, giving his brother a hug.
"Good, good. There was a small disturbance with some Puking Pastilles the other day," he said giving his younger brother a pointed look.
George laughed, "Sorry Percy, but I just sell them, it's not up to me how they're used,"
Mrs. Weasley came out from the house levitating a big pot of soup, a roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and buttered rolls behind her. This was the usual cue for the group of family/friends to take their seats. With a flourish of her wand Mrs. Weasley set the food down, cut the chicken, and had served the group dinner. "Dig in," she said happily.
The dinner began as usual with many compliments to Mrs. Wesley's cooking, and then the conversation turned to the kids' school year thus far. Teddy, Victoire, Molly, Dominique, and Louis had all graduated. Finn and James were in their final year. Rose and Albus in their sixth. Roxanne and Lucy in their fifth. And Hugo and Lily brought up the rear in their fourth year at Hogwarts.
Albus and Rose gave long descriptions, mainly for the younger kids benefit, about learning to Apparate. Suddenly, a disheveled looking man, with shortish ginger hair and spattered freckles all over his face appeared with a loud CRACK!
"Speaking of Apparition," said James while the rest of the table gasped.
"FRED!" George nearly screamed. He stood up and his chair fell over with a loud clang, before rushing to his twin.
Fred looked up in surprise, "George?" he asked as his brother pulled him into a bone crushing hug. "Whoa Georgie, what was that for?"
George couldn't believe his brother "YOU'VE BEEN GONE FOR OVER A MONTH!"
"Really?" Fred asked. George stared at his brother and Fred quickly said "Well I mean it just hasn't felt like that long is all..." he trailed off awkwardly.
At this point all the rest of the relatives had gotten up to give Fred their hugs. Once everyone was settled back at the table, Fred had conjured a plate for himself and took heaping portions of all the food, Mrs. Weasley looked at Fred with an obvious glare and said "Well?"
"Well, what?" Fred said looking confused.
"Where have you been! No visits, no post, no contact for over a month!"
Fred looked unscathed "Mum, I am 43 years old. I don't think it is really vital for me to check with my mother before I travel,"
Mrs. Weasley looked slightly hurt, "Well it would have been nice for you to at least say you were leaving,"
"Yes it would have. And I apologize for not telling anyone, but I left on a very short notice," Fred saw his still slightly hurt looking mother and added, "I really am sorry mum,"
Mrs. Weasley looked better and said "It's ok Fred,"
George watched this whole encounter and heartily disagreed with his mother. It was most certainly NOT ok. George knew he was thinking like a four year old, but Fred's absence was hard. George had to run their business alone for a month, he had to play with a different beater on the recreational Quidditch team he and Fred were on, and most importantly the only thing to console him was Fred's stupid note. Gone traveling, be back soon. –Fred. What did that mean?
"Where did you go Uncle Fred?" Rose asked.
"Oh you know, around," Fred said mysteriously.
"What did you do?" this time the question was from Dominique.
Fred was now looking uncomfortable, "Well the usual, things…" he trailed off awkwardly.
Rose and Albus took this as an opportunity to continue the earlier conversation about Apparition lessons. George tuned the talking out and looked at Fred. He didn't get it, where did Fred go? What did he do? And most importantly, why wasn't Fred telling him?
George sighed inwardly. It had taken a while, but a few years ago he had realized the war had changed Fred, and not like the way the war changed others. The first few years had been rough on everyone, people everywhere had died and the survivors were faced with horrible guilt. But when that initial period of mourning was over, people moved on. They realized if they didn't make the most out of the new, free lives those others had died fighting for, then they would've died in vain. People were happy again, and for a while, life was good.
Even George was happy. He started dating Angelina and they eventually got married and had kids. The same thing happened to Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Percy. Even Draco Malfoy had a son now. But not Fred. It was hard for George because he couldn't figure out what exactly was wrong. Fred never seemed sad. But he didn't have kids, didn't have a wife, didn't even have a single steady girlfriend since Hogwarts. And it didn't even seem to bother Fred. George, Mrs. Weasley, and nearly everyone Fred knew was trying to set him up on dates with someone but Fred always declined. For a long time George had been worried that Fred was jealous he had married Angelina but whenever George asked him about it Fred made it very clear he was happy for his brother. It wasn't just Fred's absent love life. There were also other things. Incidents. Mind you, nothing as big as Fred practically disappearing off the face of the earth for a month but still important.
About ten years ago the family was at one of their Saturday night dinners when Fred's chest started to ring. Ring! Ring! Ring! George started to laugh, "What are you doing?" he asked his brother.
Fred looked slightly nervous as he reached in his shirt's breast pocket and pulled out a small box. The ringing seemed to be coming from this box.
"You got a cellphone?" Hermione asked incredulously.
Fred took one look at the 'cellphone' and said "Excuse me but I really have to take this." He turned his back to the group, flipped up the top half of the box, and raised the mysterious object to his ear. "Hello?" he asked quietly.
The group could hear some muttering issue from the 'cellphone' now. "I apologize for the inconvenience but I can't talk just now," he said.
The muttering voice sounded angry. Fred cast nervous looks to his family and said "Again I apologize for the trouble it caused you to call me but I cannot talk at the moment,"
Mutter, mutter, mutter. "Look," Fred said sounded agitated, "I'll call you back later," and he shut the lid on the object.
"Well that was rude Fred. It's not nice to hang up on people," Hermione said.
"What exactly just happened?" asked a confused looking Percy Weasley.
"You wizards really should take a Muggle Studies class. Well, that thing Fred has is called a cell phone." Hermione explained. Still looking at a table full of baffled faces she tried again, "It's like a portable telephone,"
That seemed to do the trick for most of the wizard-raised people in attendance. They may not know all that much about Muggles and their technology, but they knew enough to know what a telephone was.
"Who were you talking to Fred?" Hermione asked.
"No one. Wrong number," Fred replied a bit too quickly.
Hermione looked as if she was going to question this statement but someone beat her to the point.
"Why do you have a phone anyway?" asked the ever curious Teddy Lupin.
"I-I just find it useful to have," Fred stammered.
George grabbed the phone from his brother's hand, "Are you fond of Muggle toys like Dad?" he teased. He examined the phone quickly.
"Give it back!"
George rolled his eyes, "Well if it's that important to you," he tossed the phone to Ron who caught it with a light laugh.
"Guys I mean it!" Fred said, standing up.
Ron tossed it to Harry who passed it to Bill. Bill tried to toss the phone to Ginny but he misjudged the distance and it landed in the pitcher of lemonade with a soft plop.
"NO!" Fred cried. He rushed towards the drink and stuck his whole arm in, pulling out the phone a moment later. "No, no, no!" Fred said frantically pressing buttons on his phone.
The phone was clearly broken. "Look I'm sorry mate. I'll buy you a new one," George said, unsure as to why this was such a big deal.
Fred was angry, "You don't understand! You can't just buy me a new one George! This phone was… different," Fred stared sadly at the phone in his hands, looking up at George with an anger in his eyes George had never seen before.
"Merlin Fred, what's the big deal?! It's just a stupid phone!" George snapped back.
"It doesn't matter that it was 'just' a phone! It was important to me and you just couldn't leave well enough alone could you?!" Fred said angrily. He stormed away from the table and Disapparated with a loud CRACK.
"What was that all about?" Harry asked in a quiet voice.
"It doesn't matter, he'll get over it," George replied.
It took two weeks of cooling off and many, many apologies from George for Fred to start talking to him again.
But that wasn't all that had been odd. Five years after the phone fiasco the family happened to be sitting at yet another family dinner. Everyone was on time that night and they sat down at the table waiting for to serve them. She cut and served the food with a wave of her wand. The guests began to eat when Mrs. Weasley looked up and for the first time that night seemed to notice Fred still wearing his hat. "Fred dear take that silly thing off,"
"Take what silly thing off?" Fred asked.
"Your hat dear,"
"I don't think my hat is silly!" Fred said indignantly.
"Silly or not you shouldn't be wearing that at the dinner table," said Mrs. Weasley irritably, "Now take it off,"
"No," said Fred. "I am an adult mother and I can decide what to wear when I want to,"
Mrs. Weasley looked angry at first but then said coolly, "Ah but you forgot something Freddie. I'm a witch," She flicked her wand and Fred's hat vanished.
Every at the table gasped. Fred's signature ginger hair was jet black.
"Fred… I thought you liked your hair," Mrs. Weasley said, clearly hurt by this revelation. Every one at the table understood what a big deal this was. The Weasley's were known by two things in the wizarding world; they all had the same ginger hair and the same freckles. Dying your hair was like rejecting your family without ever having to say it aloud.
"I do mum! I do like my hair!" Fred said trying to help the situation.
"Then why did you change it?" Ron, who was proud of the way he looked, demanded to know.
Fred was clearly at a loss for words. "I-I just wanted to do something… different," he added lamely. An awkward silence fell over the normally talkative table. The rest of the night went by in near silence.
Fred missed dinner for two weeks before he dared show his face at dinner again and when he did it was with his original hair. No one brought up the subject that night and it was dropped. But George hadn't forgotten. George never forgot.
"Hello! Earth to George!" someone practically shouted next to him.
George shook his head to clear it and looked his wife, "Yah? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention,"
"Well that was kind of obvious George," Angelina replied with a slight smirk on her face, "Bill wanted to know how the shop is going,"
"Oh, great," he said, lost in his thoughts.
Mr. Weasley seemed to remember something, "George I was supposed to ask you about selling the Ministry some of the antidotes to your candies. You know the Fever Fudge, Puking Pastilles, and all those. People keep sneaking them into the building and our nurse can't do anything about the people who show up at work retching all over the floor. It has gotten so bad that the Minister of Magic himself asked me to talk to you,"
George nodded, "If it's that bad I think it could be a good idea. It's weird; adults don't usually buy our products,"
"The only adults who use them are the lazy ones who want to get out of work!" Percy said huffily.
"Thanks George. You can expect an owl with an appointment date soon," said Mr. Weasley.
The conversation veered towards the kids again and George found himself drifting out of the conversation. For the second time that night George stared at his twin intently. And for the second time that night Fred didn't seem to notice.
Every time George was with Fred now he couldn't help but get the feeling that they were drifting apart. George always told him everything and Fred nodded along, interjecting when necessary, but never talking about his own life. Maybe that was the problem he thought suddenly. Was that it? Is it really that simple? The more he considered it the more George was convinced it was the truth. Fred Weasley had a secret, and George was prepared to walk to the ends of the Earth to find out what it was.
7