Well I don't think anyone requested this, but I just decided to give it a shot, and it was easier than I thought. Let me know if you liked it...

53. Lee

1. When he was little, he was fascinated by the stories of Voldemort, and Death Eaters, and all the murders and violence that he'd actually been alive for, but was unable to remember.

His parents were, understandably, reluctant to tell him the stories, but he managed to talk them into it often enough. And while, obviously, he didn't like Voldemort, he was fascinated. Had he, though, known that the Dark Wizard was not, in fact, dead, he'd have been a lot less fascinated, and a lot more terrified.

2. He used to, as a result of this fascination, play at Death Eaters and Good Guys. On his own, with action figures, and occasionally with the muggle kids nearby, although of course pretending that magic was all a figment of his imagination. Sometimes he was one of the Good Guys, sometimes one of the Death Eaters. During one, maybe two, games, he actually played the role of Lord Voldemort himself.

This, of course, is something he's never, ever admitted, and probably never will.

3. His sorting was something he worried about for a long while. Because where would he go? He wasn't smart enough for Ravenclaw...he didn't want Slytherin...he hadn't done anything brave...so that left Hufflepuff, but was he loyal enough? Really?

The hat took a whole of four seconds to sort him.

4. Fred and George were his best friends, from the moment he met them. And they were the best friends he'd ever had, really. Loyal and funny and there when you needed them.

But they were so obviously a twosome, so obviously shared the same thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams, that sometimes, being with them while they finished each other's sentences and understood each other without saying a word, he felt a little left out, a little like an outsider.

5. He was a little jealous of Harry for getting into the Triwizard Tournament. He and the twins had brainstormed for hours, and still hadn't managed it, and this kid had somehow done so. And he wouldn't even tell them how, pretending he hadn't done it. Well of course he had – even Ron didn't believe him, and that just proved it, despite Fred and George half believing him.

His slight jealousy lasted right up until he saw the dragons. His belief that Harry had snuck his name in the cup lasted right up until he exited the maze, clutching Cedric Diggory's dead body.

Then, it was somehow so much easier to believe someone else had set the kid up.

6. The first thing he felt, when George told him Voldemort was back, was excitement. Because this meant he got a chance to see, first hand, what war was like. It meant he got to live out all his childhood games, play the hero.

Although he did, obviously, realise that things were a lot more serious than that, the excitement only faded the first time Fred, in a undertone, murmured that the unsucpisious death in the Prophet was actually due to Voldemort.

Somehow, he seemed to have forgotten that people died at war.

7. The DA was fun, though. Never serious. Just fun. Exciting. Never something he thought he'd have to use.

So why on earth did Ron and Harry and their friends – and little Ginny Weasley – go running off to the ministry, thinking they could fight Death Eaters? He didn't understand it.

He asked Ginny, once, and she looked at him, extremly unimpressed, and said only, "Did you just call me a little kid, Lee?" And then he realised how he'd phrased the question, and got away from her sharpish, because little Ginny Weasley - who wasn't so little than she used to be - looked very close to hexing him.

8. And suddenly things were getting more and more serious, and more and more people were dying, and things were a lot scarier than his childhood games had ever been. And then suddenly Voldemort was out in the open, and Harry and Ron and Hermione were on the run, and he was in hiding and trying his hardest to keep up everyone's spirits with his radio program. And then...and then Voldemort was heading to Hogwarts, and this wasn't even nearly a game anymore.

9. He was fighting for all he was worth. Sending curses, jinxes, and blocking them, too. Trying to help others, and being helped himself. The students were pulling together in a way they'd never done before, and he thought it was quite nice, actually, to know all these people you went to school with – some that you didn't even know – were willing to watch your back. And then they had a break – a much needed break – and, more relaxed, he headed down to the Great Hall, half worried about what would wait him, but not overly tense.

And then he saw George. And he felt his stomach drop, because for George to look like that, then something was wrong. Something was very, very...And his gaze travelled down and...

He choked out Fred's name, horse and raspy. Fred...couldn't be...It just wasn't possible...

But he was. So Lee somehow managed to stumble out of the hall, because he couldn't stay there and look at that. It was Alicia who found him, sat against a wall, his knees to his chest and his head resting on them, silent tears running down his face. It was Alicia who hugged him, without speaking, and cried with him. And when Voldemort spoke again – Harry wasn't dead, too, he wouldn't believe it – and when he whispered that he didn't think he could fight anymore, it was she who took his hand and told him they had to fight, for Fred.

10. He'd never seen Alicia as more than a friend. She and George went to the Yule Ball, but they were never anything more than friends afterwards. He never even considered...

But she was the one who helped him through those next few days, weeks, months. The one who'd hold him while he tried to hide his tears. And she chose him to break on, her tears soaking the front of his robes more than once. She held his hand through Fred's funeral. They became close, closer than they'd ever been. And then, somehow, he was in love with her.

Even better, she loved him back. And on their wedding day, he told the guests that while George was his best man, his best friend, if not for Fred he and Alicia wouldn't be together. And George smiled proudly, and Lee was certain Fred would have done the same.