A/N: Quidditch League Season Four – Seeker (Wasps) – Prompt: Write about someone showing skill or interest in the subject (Astronomy) before starting their magical education.
Fred Weasley opened his eyes to a soft cooing sound by the window. After several seconds, the cooing was replaced by a somewhat louder: cuckoo! Cuckoo!
He screwed up his face in irritation, pushed back the bed-covers and walked over into the soft puddle of moonlight that shone through onto the carpet. The sound had stopped, but he could still hear something incessant, if marginally less unusual than the bird calls.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
There was nothing there. He lifted up the window, careful not to wake George, and there he found it: a small, orange clock ticking on the window sill. He huffed a small laugh, his face twisting into a reluctantly proud smile. Ickle Ronny was playing his first prank. Pity it was such a lame one.
He threw the clock onto the pile of clothing at the foot of his bed and climbed back under the covers. Five long minutes later, he threw them off again and got up to bury the clock.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Slightly muffled, but still just as annoying. He rolled his eyes and took the clock downstairs. The moonlight shone through the double windows in the living room, lighting his way without the need for any candles. He couldn't wait until he started Hogwarts – or, more importantly, finished Hogwarts – and was able to cast simple spells on his own around the house.
As he set the clock down on the coffee table, he knew with irritating certainty that he wasn't going to fall back asleep anytime soon. He grabbed a rug off the back of the couch – the thin, fluffy one that was so much easier to cuddle up in than his own doona – and climbed back up the stairs. Prising the window open once more, he hoisted himself up and settled down on the sill, gazing up at the stars. He could wake George, but George had been having trouble sleeping lately, so he needed as much rest as he could get.
In lieu of anything better to do, and hoping it would send him off to sleep again, Fred began to count the stars.
One, two, three, four.
"This is bloody stupid," he muttered, resting his head back against the wooden frame. In his mind, he could still hear the ticking of the absent clock.
He made a small circle with his hands and gazed back out again, pretending it was a telescope. Merlin, it would be wonderful to be able to afford a telescope.
"Cynthia, darling, hand me that mug of coffee, would you," he whispered. "I've been staring at this window for five hours now, and I must say I think I'm going blind. That or it's pitch black out here. Who can tell with space?"
A bright, orange circle suddenly caught his attention. He made a twisting motion with his hand, pretending to zoom in.
"Cynthia, I do believe we've found it." He spoke slowly now, distracted. Despite his initial boredom, he was feeling vaguely interested now. "What do you think it is?"
He altered his voice, pitching it higher than before. "Mr. Weasley, you are an absolute genius, but I do believe that in this particular instance, you might have, possibly, discovered Mars."
He lowered his hand and stared wryly at the sky outside. He didn't have a clue what any of it was, and he was fairly sure that this was the first time he'd bothered to look for longer than a moment.
He cast a glance back at George, before turning back to the view in front of him. He was one hundred percent certain that this was the first time he had looked at the sky alone.
He pulled the blanket tighter around him and looked – really looked – at the night sky. Some of the stars were arranged in patterns. They weren't just scattered around evenly; he knew these were constellations.
As much as they teased Percy for his disgusting attitude towards studying, Fred and George would occasionally steal his text books and look through them, practicing the spells with long sticks they found in the garden. Nothing ever worked, of course, but it was fun to convince Ron that they were so much more advanced than he was.
Fred had never told George, but he had begun to read a little of what he found in the text books. Just a few things, here and there. He couldn't say he was looking forward to homework and assignments, and he definitely wasn't looking forward to the teachers ranting at him.
But learning... trying something new. He was itching to learn magic. And something about the careful diagrams in Percy's books fascinated him. He had never looked closely at Percy's Astronomy books before, but he wondered if he would find anything interesting if he did so.
A bright light moving across the sky caught his attention, and he smiled involuntarily as he realised what he was seeing: a shooting star.
"Hey, George," he hissed, turning back to his twin.
George snored softly and rolled over.
Fred turned back to the star. Shooting stars were meant to grant you wishes, weren't they? How did their magic work? Could it be harnessed at all? His mind started to race at the thought of what they could create with such magic. Could they trap it into small objects and give it away?
He frowned at the thought. Was there something wrong in that? Could a star feel pain?
He shook his head; no, of course not. But what could you do with Astronomy? Surely something so serene and endless – so incomprehensible – would make fascinating magic. Maybe one day, when he had graduated from Hogwarts, he could learn to do something with it.
The shooting star was nearly out of view. Fred closed his eyes and made a wish.
Please, make my Hogwarts lessons fun, and not boring.
Feeling himself strangely tired, he slid down onto the floor and back over to his bed. He lay down, still wrapped in the rug from downstairs, and wondered if his wish would come true.