Happy Easter everyone! This is my first ever themed part. It's mostly accidental, it was a coincidence I was up to writing about the Easter Holidays of 1995 and it's presently the Easter Holidays of 2019 ('95 was really 24 years ago?!), but I did push this through to get it out in time for Easter (plus one day).


A little over three weeks later Vicki found herself on the Hogwarts express which was charging along back to King's Cross Station.

While there were a lot more students than there would normally be on the Easter train home, the train was still only partially full.

The prefect's carriage was absolutely deserted. Aside from Cedric and Vicki, only two other prefects were going home for Easter – the female fifth year Hufflepuff prefect and the male seventh year Slytherin prefect.

Kelly Winters the Slytherin Head Girl and Paul Greene the Ravenclaw Head Boy were far too pre occupied with their duties to take some time off – the third task and exams were now approaching. Vicki felt sorry for the seventh years who were taking their N.E.W.T. exams this year. It was one of the reasons she initially wanted to go home, to make the last of the end of "easy" sixth year.

It was all going to be uphill after the end of this school year. She had N.E.W.T. exams next year, and then she'd have to enter the real world and begin further studies into becoming a Healer. But for now she'd just focus on making the most of sixth year and only having to worry about the mediocre end of year exams. These exams were only a practice run for N.E. the following year.

One of the prefects missing from the carriage was Mildred Tate – the female sixth year Hufflepuff prefect and the one rumoured to be Vicki's biggest threat to Head Girl next year. Vicki had heard a rumour that Mildred had plans to spend the Easter holidays with her family but had instantly pulled out when she heard Vicki was headed home as well. Apparently Mildred thought she'd use the week without Vicki to her advantage to show the school that she would be a better Head Girl.

Vicki didn't care about Mildred, or any plans she may have been plotting in her absence. All she cared about was the fact Fred wasn't with her. It had only been a couple of hours since she said goodbye to him in the Entrance Hall but she was already missing him.

"I think she's missing Weasley already." Cedric whispered to Cho who was seated next to him. They weren't all over each other for Vicki's sake, but they did have their hands entwined as they sat opposite her.

Vicki shot them a small smile but was secretly regretting her decision to suggest to Cedric that they sneak Cho into the empty prefect's carriage.

"It's just a week. I'm going to write to him. I'm more upset he's going to miss my seventeenth birthday party," Vicki sighed but then put on a weak smile "I'm just really glad you're both going to be there at least."

Vicki had already made plans to spend time with Cedric during the Easter holidays. She did invite Cho to tag along but due to having fairly overprotective parents, Cho was only able to convince them to let her attend Vicki's (secret) birthday party and wasn't allowed to spend any further time away from home.

Cedric on the other hand had already made plans to stay over for two nights at Vicki's house – the night before her birthday and then he was going to spend her birthday with her before reuniting with Cho later that night at Vicki's party. Cedric's parents were a little sad they were losing two out of the seven short days he was home, but they understood it was important for Cedric to spend time with both his best friend Vicki, and his girlfriend Cho.

The train trudged along through the countryside and eventually the vast green hills turned into small towns, before large dwellings appeared before their eyes. They were pulling into Kings Cross Station.

The prefects were still on duty even though the entire student population were not travelling today. Vicki and Cedric still had to fulfil their duties and leave the train to open up the train doors for their fellow students.

Amongst the parents who were there to collect their children, Vicki noticed her father grinning madly at her actions. She rolled her eyes in a playful manner before eventually smiling and waving. Once all the students were off the train she was able to quickly grab her luggage (with the help of Cedric) and trotted over to her father, not before giving both Cedric and Cho a hug goodbye.

"Bye Vicki, have a great Easter weekend. I'll see you on the train back to school!" Stephanie Fawcett called out to Vicki as she quickly passed with her parents.

"Don't you have plans to see Stephanie over the Easter break? I remember during summer you two spent numerous nights sleeping in my lounge room, gossiping and giggling over Merlin knows what. You two are normally attached at the hip." Maxwell, Vicki's father asked in surprise.

"No." Vicki responded stiffly with no further elaboration.

Max said nothing in order to stop his daughter from throwing a tantrum, but knew he would be pressing on for information at dinner.

Max and Vicki had settled on a small Italian restaurant that was located near the station. Max did consider taking his daughter to Diagon Alley to have a pub meal at the Leaky Cauldron but he decided against it. She had no muggle culture exposure since August of the previous year so it was nice to take her to a muggle restaurant. He also didn't mind ordering one wine for her with dinner. He knew Tom at the Leaky Cauldron was very adamant on not serving alcohol to minors, but a small muggle restaurant wouldn't know Vicki and know she was underage.

"So, how are things between you and Davies?" Max asked his daughter after they both took a small sip from their wines.

Vicki almost spat her wine out on the table at her father's question. The question was causing her to become increasingly nervous. She been writing to her father weekly. She was sure she had mentioned that she had broken up with Roger, and that she was now with Fred. But if her father was completely oblivious, she knew she was about to enter a very awkward conversation.

"What things between myself and Roger? Don't you read my letters?" Vicki scoffed towards her father.

"Yes, I do Victoria. I do happen to know that you and the Davies boy ended your relations. I also do happen to know that Fred Weasley is now your boyfriend. Not only because of your letters, but because Arthur Weasley stopped by my office a while ago and invited me to dinner to discuss the two of you." Max admitted to Vicki.

Vicki cocked her head to the side in confusion. This was news to her. She knew there was no animosity between her father and the Weasley family – they were certainly on friendly terms. But they ran in different social circles and thus never conversed with each other aside from a quick 'hello' and a polite head nod if they ever ran into each other.

Therefore it was quite odd that he had dinner with the Weasleys. It also made her anxious that they felt the need to 'discuss' her relationship with Fred. What was there to say?

"Did Mum go?" Vicki asked, trying to hide her nerves.

"Maureen couldn't make it. So it was just myself, Molly, Arthur and one of their sons. I forgot his name…Peter, maybe? He kept prattling on about how he was your Head Boy last school year." Max scoffed.

"That'd be Percy," Vicki chuckled and smiled to herself but quickly went back to her mission of finding information "Why did you need to discuss Fred and I? You never had a sit down with Roger Davies parents or anything when I went out with him."

"Well, at work Arthur stopped by one day to say Molly wanted me round for dinner. It turns out that woman is a big fan of yours. She spent the whole dinner thanking me for raising such a great daughter, and gushing about how you've changed both of her twin boys for the better as they have much better marks."

"So it wasn't just some lame dinner to talk about setting boundaries for Fred and I? You know, some forced awkward thing to discuss your fears about us getting together." Vicki asked her father skeptically.

"Is that what you wanted? Did you want me to charge in there wands blazing defending my innocent daughter from their no-good son?" Max sniggered sarcastically as he took another swig of wine.

Vicki only scrunched up her face as a response as she didn't want to dignify her father with a response.

"Besides, I haven't got anything to worry about. You're in different houses. It's not like he can sneak you into his dormitory or anything. I can sleep soundly at night knowing there's no chance you're up to no good." Max laughed at his daughter's discomfort.

"Dad!" Vicki shrieked loudly towards her father as she felt very awkward.

It was partially due to embarrassment of the risqué topic her father was mentioning. But it was also due to the fact that when she was with Roger that's exactly what he used to do – sneak Vicki into his dormitory. Is there any way her father knew about it?

Max stayed silent as he reveled in his daughter's discomfort. He hadn't previously known about her inappropriate sleepovers with Davies, but her face had given it all away. After a few moments he decided to speak up to put her out of her misery.

"The worst part about being a parent is the fact your kids assume you're this big, boring person. Let me tell you Victoria, I was both young and at Hogwarts once myself. There's nothing you can do at that school that I haven't done myself." Max exclaimed to Vicki with a large grin on his face.

"Ew! Can we change the subject?" Vicki responded as she scrunched up her face in disgust.

Max shifted in his seat as he was given the segue he had been working towards. He knew his daughter was a clever girl and would most likely dodge any probing questions he had about her strange interaction with her friend on the platform. Therefore he had to get Vicki's guard down before he brought it up. He had decided to do this by embarrassing his daughter, and what best way to embarrass a teenage girl by talking about boys?

"Let's. What on earth happened between you and Stephanie Fawcett?" Max asked his daughter curiously.

Vicki sighed but gave a soft smile. She saw no reason to hide the truth from her father, it would bring no value. She also knew she wouldn't be seeing him again until the summer holidays and thus decided to be truthful to her father and tell him about all of her current woes.


Easter Sunday at Hogwarts was always a fairly underwhelming experience compared to other holidays such as Halloween and Christmas Day.

Halloween always had lots of decorations, tricks and other things, with an impressive feast to match. Christmas had the same (substituting tricks with presents) and was even more exciting.

Easter didn't have any of these things, not even a feast. Hot cross buns were served with breakfast, and Easter eggs were on the dining tables to graze upon throughout the day. That was the extent of Easter festivities at Hogwarts.

Therefore Easter Sunday was a very plain affair for Fred Weasley.

He didn't even have any treats from home to look forward to. His parents were away and had already warned his siblings they wouldn't be expecting their Easter haul until they returned after the holidays.

"I'm onto you, Fred Weasley." Angelina Johnson teased Fred as she sat opposite him at the dinner table during a moment where George and Lee were distracted.

"Don't say that to me," Fred whined loudly "You know I've got my finger in so many prank-related pies. There's quite a few things you could be onto me about!"

At this point Fred genuinely did not know what Angelina was referring to, and thus didn't want to give anything away. But he would soon realise it should have been glaringly obvious.

"You're holding yourself together and being your normal jovial self on the outside. But on the inside I know you're deeply missing Vicki." Angelina sympathetically stated.

Fred contemplated denying Angelina's statement. It was completely true of course, but he hadn't let on to anyone how much he was pining for Vicki. It had only been just under four days since she had boarded the train for the week away but he had been unable to get her out of his head.

He had anticipated he would deeply miss her, but he didn't think it would be anything like this. He missed every aspect of their relationship and he especially missed spending time with her. It had now gotten so bad that she was all he could think about from the moment he woke up, until the moment he fell asleep each night.

He knew that Vicki was constantly on his mind even when she was at Hogwarts. On any normal day he thought about her a lot, especially the times they weren't together. But the time apart made him realise just how love-sick the girl made him.

However he hadn't mentioned his feelings to anyone. He mentioned Vicki every now and again in passing conversation with George and Lee, but they were boys. Boys didn't have in depth conversations about the opposite sex the same way that girls did with one another. Therefore it hadn't come up in conversation at all. He didn't bother bringing it up himself as he knew they would poke fun at him for it.

"Well, yeah. She's my girlfriend so it feels weird to not be spending time with her. But she'll be back in five days." Fred mumbled in an attempt to sound nonchalant to downplay his true feelings to hide them from Angelina.

"See. That's how I can tell you're longing for her. You're counting down the days until she returns," Angelina grinned but then added on "That, and this is how you used to act before you both got together. You look like a little lovesick puppy."

Fred contemplated staying in denial to keep up appearances. He didn't want it to become public knowledge that he was pitiful enough to be spending his time secretly moping he couldn't see his girlfriend for a week.

But then he decided against it. Angelina was a female friend. He finally had someone he could open up to and be honest about his weakness with. She wouldn't mock him the same way his male friends would.

"It's pathetic isn't it? It's only a week without her. I don't even know why I'm feeling this way. I know I'll be seeing her soon. Yet she's still all I can think about." Fred sighed with a half-smile, feeling small joy that he could now openly talk about this.

Angelina studied him for a moment. She knew she was his support person and thus had a big role to play. She had to do and say all the right things. She had a big think about what should come next. Fred had already opened up to her about his feelings and she decided it was unlikely he would divulge deeper.

"Have you written to her?" Angelina asked Fred.

"Yes. I still have yet to hear back though." Fred sadly stated, which caused Angelina to snigger.

"You do realise Scotland to England is very far for a little school owl to travel, right? The letter probably has yet to even reach her." Angelina stated matter-of-factly.

"I know. But I didn't use just a regular school owl. Filch has a whole drawer full of prepaid express mail envelopes for sending letters to student's parents when they misbehave-" Fred began to explain, but he was cut off by Angelina swiftly.

"-bet he's used more than a couple to send letters to your parents about your behaviour." Angelina smirked.

"Please. George and I would have had a drawer each of letters sent to mum and dad. But anyway, I nicked a stack at the start of the year to use if I ever needed them. So on Friday I sent a next-day guarantee arrival to her, and included one in the envelope for her to send back to me." Fred explained.

"So those express envelopes that Filch has are promised to get from Scotland to England in one day? That's absolutely amazing. How does that even work?" Angelina asked in amazement.

Fred narrowed his eyes at Angelina. He knew she wasn't insensitive and was only feigning to be more interested in the post than in what he had to say about Vicki. But he decided to play along in faux annoyance.

"It's organised by the Hogsmeade Post Office and goes through them apparently. I'm not sure if they use super-owls or somehow use some kind of cool muggle technology. But so far I've heard nothing back from Vicki." Fred sighed.

"Fred Weasley, you impatient git. If you sent it Friday, she would have only received it yesterday. The girl is at home for the holidays with her family. You can't expect her to have instantly used your express envelope to write you back." Angelina huffed, but kept a smile on her face to try and keep her teasing light.

"I know. But I really want to hear from her. I miss her. I didn't think it would be this hard, and it's only day three without seeing her." Fred pouted as he quietly confessed his emotions to Angelina.

Angelina sent a weak smile towards Fred. She had been good friends with him since their second year at Hogwarts when both of them joined the Gryffindor Quidditch team. In that entire time she had never seen him let his guard down and act like this. He was always nothing less than his jovial and prankful self. In fact, those who knew the Weasley twins knew that Fred was always just a touch darker than George.

But here he was on Easter miserable to be separated from the girl he was in love with.

Angelina thought it was refreshing to see the great Fred Weasley feeling this way due to his girlfriend. He had grown a lot as a person since he had gotten together with Vicki. She was happy for him. Even if he was sad right now.

"Well, we could sit here all night discussing your moodiness over your girlfriend not being here. Or I could terminate the conversation now you've gotten this off your chest. Your call." Angelina stated nonchalantly.

Fred smiled towards Angelina. He was really grateful that he had her as a friend. She was willing to listen to the problems that George or Lee would tease him over. But she was also very empathetic. She didn't make a big deal out of what he was telling her and she knew exactly what to say.

Fred now understood a little on why Vicki had Diggory as a best friend. He didn't like Diggory, but he could understand why he was friends with Vicki. Had Vicki been Diggory's listener when he pined for the Chang girl? Fred was going to ask Vicki next time he saw her.

"I'm done having a whinge. I'm bored. Wanna think of a way we can team up against George and Lee and pull off something impressive?" Fred quickly piped up in an attempt to change the subject.

"You what?" Lee asked loudly across the table as he heard his name being mentioned. Fred knew the topic was well and truly off Victoria Hartwell and he could try and enjoy his night without thinking about her. But he knew he wouldn't be able to get her off his mind anyway.

…and he was correct. The evening post was always delayed on Easter as it took the owls a lot longer than usual to compile the large volume of mail and parcels that were sent to students from their families. But a short while later a letter addressed to Fred in an express mail envelope was dropped in front of Fred by a large and powerful looking brown barnyard owl.

He knew it was from Vicki and didn't waste a second before tearing it open. The only thing that caught his eye before he began reading was seeing that the letter was dated the previous day.

Hey Studmuffin,

Ha, totally kidding. Pet names definitely are not our thing. And if they were – I definitely wouldn't use something as cheesy or pathetic as 'studmuffin'. But it's a bit nicer than 'babe' or 'darling' don't you think?

Your letter was a really nice surprise to receive. It made my Good Friday a lot more good. The stuff you wrote was so sweet. I feel the same way. I miss you so much – I can't even express how much in words. It's really tearing me apart that I won't be seeing you until the end of next week – after our birthdays! (Happy birthday for Wednesday as I doubt any subsequent letters will reach you before then. I'll give you a proper birthday greeting when I see you next though).

I had dinner with Dad on Thursday night, as he's left for Australia yesterday to make it in time for Easter to see my Great Uncle William. Apparently our parents had dinner or something, did you know? 'Cause I didn't. I had to tell him about the stuff that went down with my friends abandoning me which was a little embarrassing.

But the big goss of the night was that apparently Bagman is giving him a hard time at work! Even though the World Cup was almost eight months ago and all the damage has been cleaned up – Bagman keeps piling all this 'forgotten' tasks onto him. I mean Dad does work for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes as you already know, but he finished all his overtime for the World Cup fiasco months ago. There's no other explanation for this bullying other than the fact Bagman is taking out his anger at me through my Dad. I haven't heard from Bagman since prior to the second task where he saw us together. We'll have to do more scheming when I get back from Easter holidays.

Cedric is coming on Monday evening and is staying through til Wednesday. Mum is leaving for a cruise with her partner Alfred on my birthday, so some of my muggle friends are coming around for a party. But Mum doesn't know about it so shh. She thinks it's just a small sleepover. I wish you were coming so bad. Have I mentioned that I miss you?

Anyway I've written an essay instead of a letter so I guess I'll sign off. I love you and I miss you, and I can't wait until I get to see you again. I never thought I'd be looking forward to term resuming and holidays being over, but that's what happens when you're separated from the one you love.

I'll see you soon.

Love,

Vicki xoxo

Fred read Vicki's letter five times before he let himself be brought back to reality. He didn't even mind that George and Lee read the letter over his shoulder and started teasing him for it. He had finally had a form of interaction with Vicki and it had improved his mood greatly.

However once he left the dinner table and returned to the Gryffindor common room with his friends the gravity of the situation once again hit him. He would write his return to her letter tomorrow and would use one of the last of his express envelopes. But she wouldn't receive it for another day, and if he was lucky she would write back instantly and he'd receive her response on Wednesday. It would be another three days minimum until he received another form of correspondence from her.

He once again went back to the moping mood he was in before. He knew he was being unrealistic. The logical thing to do was to learn how to deal with his longings for Vicki as there would be times in their future they would have to spend time apart once more.

But for now he was focused on his feelings of missing her. Nothing else seemed to matter. He was a complete mess without his girlfriend and he all he cared about was concentrating on when the two could once again be together.

Then a bright idea suddenly hit him.