Yay!! My first fanfic. What do you think?!?!!
Prologue
Girls need their privacy, right? We all like our alone time. Particularly when we're going through puberty. But in a family with a mum, dad, and six brothers and a small house, how is a girl to get that privacy?
It was always chaos in our house, from the day Fred and George were born – or so I'm told. I'm the youngest in the family. Fred and George, apparently, got up to all sorts of mischief – without even getting out of the crib. They loosened the wooden bars (Mum and Dad had to buy the crib from a second-hand Muggle store); they somehow undid the stitchings of their blankets (Mum had lost her wand), and pulled the sheets of their mattress. They were always full of energy (and still are) and up to some mischief or another. Even when they were asleep they tended to chew on anything within reach – normally their night clothes or the blanket. I'm sure they also dreamt up hundreds of pranks in their sleep, but could not remember them when they woke up.
However in one instance, George the little rascal managed to break one of the wooden bars one night, while everyone – even Fred – was asleep. He tumbled gently out of the low crib, landing soundlessly on the thick carpet, and went adventuring through the house. Fortunately the crib was located downstairs, or poor George would have taken a tumble down the stairs out of pure curiosity. While he did venture near the stairs, he seemed to have enough sense not to go up them. Or maybe he was just interested in doing as much damage downstairs as he could before braving upstairs – and Mum's wrath.
Mum knew all this had happened because when she got up in the morning and went downstairs to prepare breakfast for the family, she found as much chaos as a baby in all his curiosity can cause. George had pulled the tablecloth off the coffee table, naturally taking everything with it, knocked over the umbrella stand (which was rarely used, actually – have a guess why!), which in turn bumped into a family heirloom – a beautiful vase from ancient China – and knocked it to the ground. It broke...boy did Mum go bonkers! I'm glad I hadn't been around yet to witness it...I would have gone cowering behind Dad for a change. I used to be rather shy.
Anyway, that was the worst of the damage George caused. Not knowing, of course, that broken glass is sharp, he crawled over these interesting new fragments of life, and cut himself on his hands. That made him stop, and sit up. That was the first time he ever sat up, and when Mum told him this much later, he just grinned and stated that we DID learn from our mistakes. So why did he keep making mistakes? Mum demanded.
'Oh, they're not mistakes Mum – just honest pranks that wouldn't hurt much more than a fly.'
'Ah. Now I know where my flytraps went. Give them back, George.'
And George would put on such a sad face and say, dramatically, 'I'm sorry, dear old Mum – I sold them to the Frog'. Frog was George's endearing nickname for Fred.
'FRED! COME DOWN HERE!'
Fred and George were my idols...they were full of life and fun and between them, never a dull moment existed. And later when I thought about this conversation, it all made a lot of sense...what better reason to sell flytraps to a frog so he can save himself the trouble of working for his food?
All in all, life for me was good. While sometimes I did crave extra alone time, being a girl called upon me to help Mum with the cooking. Well actually Mum called upon me. But learning to cook was fun, against all my previous beliefs. Mum taught me simple spells to use to get the potatoes skinned and chopped, and once she let me cook an entire meal by myself. So boring were the first ten years of my life, that I considered cooking enjoyable.
No, let me rephrase that. Cooking was a calming ritual after spending half a day laughing myself silly over Fred and George's ridiculous pranks, and the other half chasing after them to get my things back. I had a lock on my door, of course, but that didn't stop them. Mum might as well have had two wands – Fred and George kept borrowing hers. She should never have taught them 'Alohomora', but then they had tricked her into it. They were trying to get into the mess cupboard, where you could find practically anything, Muggle or Magic.
Fred and George were also into flying. They had their own brooms, of which I was rather jealous, and they would take them out at least twice a week and do a bit of flying practise, diving, swooping, soaring, living. Emancipating themselves, and it seemed so simple when you had a bit of wood, some straw and magic...
I didn't have my own broom; for some reason Mum never considered giving me one. But I would 'borrow' Fred or George's broom from time to time when no one was around, and do a bit of flying myself. Once I got the hang of steering the broom, I loved it and started taking out the brooms a lot more. It was a special kind of freedom that I couldn't seem to find anywhere else.
Not that I didn't have any freedom in my house, but I did loathe household chores. Apart from cooking, of course. From hearing Fred and George talk about school when they came home from second year at Hogwarts for the summer holidays, I had already decided that my favourite subject would be Potions – depending on the tolerance Professor Snape had for me, of course. I heard that he despised all Gryffindors, and it was likely that I would be put in that house when I started school, because all my brothers have been: Bill and Charlie and Percy and Fred and George and Ron, and Mum and Dad too. Or maybe I would be different and land myself a place in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. Slytherin – no. If I found myself in that house, I would up and leave. I would not be put in the same house as Voldemort.
This comes to an interesting fact about me: I have never been afraid to say Voldemort's name aloud. As Dumbledore would eventually come to say: Fear of a name increases fear of a thing itself. Simply put – if everyone were to be afraid to say Voldemort's name, his reputation amongst the public would be surrounded with more mystery and thus more fear. Am I making sense? It's the best way I can explain it. But as everyone begins to look so terrified whenever his name is mentioned, I've given up and started calling him You-Know-Who. Conforming, damn it.
And as I've heard about Voldemort, of course I've heard about Harry Potter. I haven't seen photos of him, as he's been hidden from the public for a long time until he is old enough to deal with being famous, I guess. Sometimes someone will appear in the interest column in the Daily Prophet, saying that they have seen Harry Potter – in the shops, on the bus, walking down the street. As his parents are dead, poor thing, they must be his aunt and uncle and cousin, as people who see him say that he is always in the company of a snobbish woman with a long neck, a round beach ball with a moustache a few years older than her, and a smaller yet rounder version of the beach ball with the moustache – without the moustache. They recognise him because of his scar, which isn't always visible, but he does look a lot like James Potter, or so they say.
I wish I could meet Harry Potter. I have heard that he would be going to Hogwarts a year before I would. Imagine being able to say that I have met Harry Potter! I would be the envy of all my overseas friends – not my school friends obviously, unless they had no nerve to go up to him and talk to him. I decided that I would work up the nerve and go up to him and introduce myself and talk to him. Even if I never got to know him well, it would be enough for me that I had talked to him and seen the 'real thing' tête á tête.
But I would always wonder: what was it like for him? How did he cope? I don't particularly like to admit that I love my parents, but I do. How horrible it must be for him, to have lost his parents at only one year old and thus have never known them, and then be forced upon his magic-hating relatives. At least, perhaps, he could get some friends at Muggle school, before he went to Hogwarts. And at least at Hogwarts, he would be able to escape them.
Hold up a minute, I thought. Am I becoming captivated by a boy I don't even know, except by name? Then I shook my head. Not captivated. Curious; interested. I have the chance to meet him! This boy is famous and he's going to my future school next year!
The down side about this was that I would have to wait a year before really having the chance to meet him, and then he would leave school a year before I did. But I'd survive, wouldn't I? Of course I would.
In the middle of my musings, Fred and George burst in, trying to contain their laughter. It seemed they had pulled another prank. I wondered who the hapless victim was this time, and listened eagerly along with them for the expected outburst. It took a few minutes, but it came at last.
'FRED! GEORGE! DID YOU TWO PUT MEXICAN JUMPING BEANS AMONGST MY JELLY BEANS?' Percy yelled down the stairs. A prank not involving magic? This was new. But then the simplest and most childish pranks tended to piss Percy off – why bother with magic?
By now Fred and George were laughing so hard that no answer was required. Unable to help myself, I broke into fits of laughter too. Percy would have to put up with the beans jumping around in his stomach for about a week. No further pranks would be required of these two masterminds – watching him agonise over the beans would be enough for them.
Percy came storming down the stairs, though his usual entrance was diminished by the fact that he was clutching his stomach as he came in.
'THAT WAS NOT FUNNY!' he shouted.
'It obviously was,' choked Fred, 'otherwise we wouldn't be laughing, now would we?'
I smiled. Life was good.
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