Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter universe, though Jimmy and Mireet O'Bannon, and their son Robert, are my own creation.
Writer's block sucks.
Jimmy O'Bannon groaned and stared at the blank computer screen. He hadn't had this much trouble with any other chapter up to this point. Everything flowed easily when he told of his reaction to learning he was a wizard. He had no problem talking about his three best friends from the Salem Witches Institute – Rosa Infante, Jared Diaz and Artimus Rand. He thought he would have this sort of trouble with his chapter on Mireet. How could he properly express how much she meant to him?
But every ounce of love he had for his wife poured out of his heart and on to the computer screen.
Now he'd come to a grinding halt. He had so much to say. But where to start? What should he put in? What should he leave out? How could he truly capture the essence of one the best friends he ever had?
O'Bannon snorted and leaned back in his chair. A frown creased his lips as he stared at the two words that made up the chapter heading.
FRED WEASLEY
He eyed the computer screen for five minutes . . . ten minutes . . . fifteen minutes.
"Dammit." He pounded his desk. A framed moving photo of him and Mireet in their Triad hockey uniforms wobbled. He folded his arms and scowled. Today was the perfect opportunity to work on his autobiography, A Foot In Two Worlds: The Jimmy O'Bannon Story. Mireet and Rosa were out shopping and O'Bannon's parents had taken little Robert to the movies. And what had he done over the last half-hour?
Not a damn thing.
He pushed back his chair and bolted to his feet.
Just walk away. Do something else for a while. Wasn't that one of the tips his editor gave him to overcome writer's block?
O'Bannon jogged around his upscale suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of Boston. He returned to his house twenty minutes later, showered and sat back down at his desk.
The computer screen remained blank.
He went down to his gym in the basement and did several crunches and curls. Again he returned to his computer.
Again he wrote nothing.
This is friggin' ridiculous.
O'Bannon had no idea how much time passed when he heard a sharp crack from the living room, the telltale sign of someone disapparating. Seconds later a tall woman with a smooth, clear face and long blond hair strode into the room.
"Hello, my love," Mireet O'Bannon said in a silky French accent.
"Hey, babe." He smiled as Mireet bent down to kiss him. "Good day shopping?"
"Oui. I picked up some very lovely Muggle clothes. I also have my eye on this very nice bedspread. We do need a new one, you know."
O'Bannon nodded. As a guy, what the hell did he know about bedspreads?
"So . . ." Mireet sat on his lap. "What have you gotten done while I was gone?"
The corners of her mouth twisted as she gazed at the blank screen.
"You certainly have been busy."
O'Bannon grunted. "I don't know what it is. I got to this point and . . . I just don't know what to do."
"But there's so much to say about Fred."
"I know. That's the problem." He slid an arm around Mireet's waist. "How do you describe someone like Fred Weasley in just one chapter? You could do a whole trilogy on that guy's life."
All nineteen years of it. O'Bannon lowered his eyes. Even fourteen years after the fact, he still couldn't stop the pain from engulfing his insides whenever he thought about Fred, or any of the other friends he lost during the war.
Mireet rested her head on O'Bannon's. He tightened his grip around her waist.
With a deep breath, he finally raised his head. "I want to give him a fitting tribute. Let people know what he was really like, why we became such good friends."
Mireet stared at the computer screen, chewing on her lower lip.
"Did you ever wonder what would have happened if you never met Fred and George?"
"Yeah. My year at Hogwarts would have sucked."
"No," Mireet grinned. "I mean . . ."
A knock at the door interrupted her. Probably Mom and Dad dropping off Robert.
With one final glare at the computer, O'Bannon reached out and turned the damn thing off.
He was rather quiet through dinner, especially with Robert going on about the movie his grandparents took him to, and the ice cream he had beforehand.
"Do they really put moose in moose tracks?"
"No," O'Bannon grinned at his son. "All it is is ice cream mixed with lots of chocolate pieces."
"But why do they call it moose tracks?"
"Uhhh . . . because someone just thought it would be a cool name."
O'Bannon softly sighed as he studied the pork roast and baked potato on his plate. He should have come up with a better answer. But the Fred Weasley chapter floated through his mind . . . along with Mireet's words.
"What would have happened if you had never met Fred and George?"
The question kept at him as they cleaned up after dinner. It permeated his brain as he sat with Robert watching a Boston Red Sox/Cleveland Indians game on TV. As always, Robert had one question after another on the baseball game. Tonight, O'Bannon usually had to get his son to repeat himself. Memories good and bad overloaded his mind. He pictured himself a teenager again, sneaking into the Hogwarts kitchens with Fred, George and Lee Jordan, assisting them in their numerous pranks, sharing detention with them when they got caught, beating Slytherin in that memorable hockey game . . .
. . . and crying with Mireet the night Ginny's owl came with word Fred had died in the Battle of Hogwarts.
Robert had fallen asleep in O'Bannon's lap by the 8th inning. He carried him up to bed and returned to watch the rest of the game, though he concentrated more on his past than whether or not the Bosox were winning.
He didn't say much as he got ready for bed, lost in the past. Through all those memories, Mireet's words flashed through his mind.
"What would have happened if you had never met Fred and George?"
O'Bannon faded in and out of sleep. He only picked up snippets of his dreams. In one he stood at center ice watching the Triad and Slytherin hockey teams skate around. In another he gazed at his friends and family in the stands, cheering him in his Boston Bruins debut.
Then came another memory. He sat in the twins' room, joined by Lee and Angelina Johnson. Fred was saying something, but O'Bannon couldn't make it out.
His eyes snapped open. He stared intently at the darkened ceiling of the bedroom. His heartbeat picked up as the jumbled thoughts that had swirled within him all day coalesced.
He looked over to Mireet. She was sound asleep. O'Bannon quietly slid out of bed and tiptoed down the hall, hoping with each step he wouldn't wake his wife or son.
He turned on the light of his office, sat at his desk, switched on the computer and opened the file containing his autobiography. When he scrolled down to the chapter on Fred Weasley, his fingers tapped away on the keyboard.
I didn't like Fred Weasley.
Stay with me here, folks. Yes, I said I didn't like Fred Weasley . . . at least during my first few weeks at Hogwarts. Of course, at the time I didn't like being there period. I was an ocean away from my friends and family, everything I did only seemed to cost Gryffindor House points, no one would talk to me . . .
And then Fred, and his twin brother George (they were a package deal back then) decided it would be funny to give "the Yank" a Sit-and-Scratch chair in our History of Magic Class. What's does that feel like? Picture someone dropping an entire colony of fireants in your drawers.
It's ten times worse than that.
So yeah, that didn't put Fred and George on my list of most favorite people in the world.
But one day while I was shooting pucks at this little pond near the castle, up walked the Weasley twins. Naturally I'm thinking, "What are these jackasses up to now?" Would they jinx me and give me a baboon's butt? Or maybe I'd have pine needles sprout from my ears.
Instead they offered me their hand in friendship.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I didn't take it.
To the outsider, the name Fred Weasley conjures thoughts of pranks and jokes and the famed Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes shop (now with five locations in the U.K., France and the U.S.). To the uninitiated, the life of Fred Weasley appeared like one long-running joke. To many, the sole purpose of Fred Weasley's all-too-brief time on this planet was to make people laugh.
As someone who was around him for a year, I can safely say that is all true.
But there was more to Fred than a never-ending parade of pranks and jokes.
First of all, he was just a damn nice guy.
In all the time I knew Fred, he never acted out of malice, never bullied anyone, never tried to humiliate anyone. All he wanted was for people to laugh . . . at him, at each other, at themselves. It didn't matter. Wherever he went, he wanted to have laughter around him.
No matter how popular he was, or how successful he became, Fred treated everyone the same. Whether fellow students, teachers, customers, he treated them all as though they were an old friend (the Slytherins being the exception, but given the way most of them acted back then, what do you expect?). That is the reason he and his twin brother went out of their way to make a miserable Muggle-born kid from Boston feel welcome at Hogwarts. Thanks to them, my year there was one of the most memorable times of my life. Because of them, I formed a hockey team at Hogwarts and created bonds that last to this day, and hopefully will continue on with our children and their children as well. And through that team, I met the woman who would become the love of my life, Mireet Miradeaux. The woman who would become my wife and give me a wonderful son named Robert.
For that, I am eternally grateful.
And believe it or not, Fred also had his serious side.
I know. It came as a shock to me. But I found that out in a hurry on one of the most horrible nights of my life.
The night Cedric Diggory died.
In my entire time at Hogwarts, I never said a single word to Cedric. He was Harry Potter's opponent in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and as a loyal Gryffindor I was solidly in Harry's corner. Plus, at the time, he stole away the girl Harry really, really liked (Sorry, Harry. I know you tried to keep those feelings to yourself, but trust me, we all knew you had the hots for Cho Chang). So why the hell should I talk to that git?
Then came that night. I went numb when I saw Harry suddenly appear, kneeling over Cedric Diggory's lifeless body. Screams and cries erupted around me. I was in denial. He couldn't be dead. The Ministry of Magic had safeguards to make sure no one would die in the Tournament.
But there was Cedric. Dead. Hadn't he been alive and well when he entered the maze an hour before? How the hell could he be dead?
I remember sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room, quietly staring at the fireplace. Others around me cried or sat contemplating their own thoughts. Me, I didn't know what to think. Cedric was dead. Rumors started flying around. Voldemort was back. Voldemort killed Cedric.
I didn't even notice Fred until he tapped me on the shoulder and told me to follow him. We went up to his room, along with George, Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson. What the hell was this about?
"All right, gang. We've all had quite a shock tonight. But right now Gryffindor House needs us."
I was taken aback. Not once in the past year had I heard Fred sound so serious.
"A lot of people in this House look up to us. We're leaders. We're the people they depend on when things get rough, and things are about as rough as they can get. We need to head back down to the Common Room and help everyone as much as possible. I don't care whether it's a supportive word, a hug, or a shoulder to cry on, we need to be there for every single student in our House. And we can't shed a single tear while we're doing it, no matter how much we want. If we fall apart, everyone will fall apart."
I couldn't believe Fred was including me in this. I was a hockey player, for God's sake, not a grief counselor.
"Fred," I said. "Look, you guys have been here a hell of a lot longer than me. You think the kids down there are gonna want an outsider around them after what happened?"
"After what you did with the Triad, people here look up to you. And some of those people downstairs were on your team. So yeah, Jimmy. We all need you right now."
I looked every single one of them in the face. Was I cut out for this? Could I keep it together when all I really wanted to do was run back to America and forget all about a dead student and a resurrected dark wizard?
But these four had accepted me, befriended me. We depended on one another, on and off the ice. After everything they'd done for me, could I turn my back on them when they needed me the most?
We returned to the Common Room and made the rounds among the students. I listened, I hugged those who needed it, I provided whatever feeble words of comfort I could.
That night, I discovered an inner strength I never realized I had . . . an inner strength that would have remained dormant had I not met Fred Weasley.
Another thing you need to know about Fred Weasley . . . he was one of the bravest people I ever had the fortune of knowing.
When Voldemort returned, he did not run off and hide, or stick his head in the sand and deny reality like then Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, a.k.a. "That Dumbass." He joined the Order of the Phoenix. He and George and Lee risked their lives to put on Potterwatch, just to inspire hope in those who resisted the rule of Voldemort. He was one of the first to go to Hogwarts for the final battle with the Dark Lord and his followers.
And he was one of many who died.
I know Fred did all that with a smile on his face and joke at the ready. While on the inside he knew how deadly serious the situation was, on the outside he'd never show it. He couldn't show it. Even in the darkest of times, people looked to Fred to make some kind of quip or smart-ass remark that would make them laugh, if only for a few seconds.
If a prankster could do all that, then certainly so could a hockey player. Maybe my contribution to the war effort wasn't as renowned as what Fred and the others did at the Battle of Hogwarts. Me and my best friends from Salem spent months hiding in the Appalachian Mountains safeguarding a bunch of kids hunted by Death Eaters because, somehow, my teaching them to play hockey and baseball contaminated their wizarding blood. So many nights we were cold and hungry, and more than once we had to avoid Death Eaters or stand up and fight them. At times I wonder, would I have done all that had I not met Fred Weasley?
I honestly don't know the answer to that. What I do know is, through him, I learned what it meant to be a true Gryffindor. I learned there are things in this world that are worth risking your life. Family, friends, freedom.
For that, Fred, I am forever in your debt.
I had intended to end my chapter here, but I suddenly have this feeling that Fred's spirit is looking over my shoulder, reading this, and saying, "Oi, what's all this sentimental talk? What are you, a girl? End with something funny or else I'll haunt you worse than Peeves ever could."
Okay, then. Something funny. Damn there were so many things. Well, there was the day of the second task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Harry and the other champions had gone into the water to retrieve their friends from the merpeople, and rest of us were just left to hang around the platform at the lake for the next hour. Within about five minutes, Fred declared he was bored. I smiled, knowing when the twins were bored, fun would follow shortly.
So what does Fred pull out of his robes? A whoopee cushion. One of the greatest pranksters in the world, and he gets something as ordinary as a whoopee cushion?
"A gift from our dad," he told me. "You know how he is with Muggle stuff. But I did a little something special with it."
Fred tapped the whoopee cushion with his wand. The thing vanished. An invisibility charm. He then let his hand fall away and told me it would float around the platform and randomly go off next to people.
Five minutes later an explosive fart erupted next to Draco Malfoy. The jagoff looked mortified. Laughter spread throughout the platform.
Katie Bell was the next victim. She screamed it wasn't her, though no one believed her. Every few minutes more loud farts went off. Ernie MacMillon, Seamus Finnigan, Pansy Parkinson, Terry Boot, Blaise Zabini, all fell victim to the magical whoopee cushion. But the final victim was the funniest of all. None other than the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge himself. The man's face turned beet red from embarrassment. Actually, the dumbass looked like he was about to cry. Then, if that wasn't priceless enough, Headmaster Dumbledore turned to him and said, "Beans for breakfast again, Minister?"
We lost it. Me, Fred, George and Lee fell on the floor rolling with laughter.
All four of us got detention for that one, but it was so worth it.
Some of you may wonder, after talking so seriously about Fred, should I have ended this chapter on a humorous note? The answer is hell yes! Why? Because no matter how serious things get, no matter how bad things get, he would want us to have something to laugh about.
That, my friends, is the essence of Fred Weasley.
- THE END -