Notes and Disclaimers: This story is about Eileen Pierce's summer between "Father Figure" and "Eternal Knight", she visits several of her friends and learns some interesting things about them in the meantime. Each chapter of this story will be about a different person she's staying with and the secrets they indulge. The characters starring in this short story are: Eileen (of course), Cheryl and Gregory Applegate, Artemis Prewett, Lucas, Page, and Roderick Beowulf, Fred and George Weasley, Remus Lupin, and Severus Snape. Special thanks to Starr and Otaku for helping me find my inner New Yawkah! XD Enjoy and make sure you read it, some of this might be referenced in the next story! ~_^
Chapter 8: Fred
"Oh drat, I'm out of apples! Fred, could you be a dear and run out to the orchard for me and get some apples?" Mrs. Weasley called from the kitchen, in the middle of baking a pie.
"Alright," Fred called back with a hint of exasperation, having been in the middle of research with Eileen and his brother. He turned his attention back to Eileen, "Wanna help, Dove?"
"Sure, I've never been in an orchard before." Eileen smiled as she set down the book she was reading and got up from the living room couch, "Are you coming, Mayhem?"
"I gotta go check on an experiment upstairs, it should be done brewing. Don't want it blowing up again!" George winked as he gathered the books he was reading and scampered up the stairs.
Seeing no one else in sight to drag along, the pair headed out the back door, through the garden, and out past the house through a corn field and some tall grasses to where a patch of trees stood.
"Are they all apple trees?" Eileen asked curiously, the tall grasses standing well over her head as she waded along beside Fred.
"Yeah, we don't have anything fancy. Mum likes baking pies whenever there's a good crop." Fred explained as they broke away from the grass and walked among the trees looking for ripe fruit.
"You live in such a wonderful place, Mischief, I wish I had all of this when I was growing up." Eileen fancied a rather tall apple tree with sturdy looking limbs, gazing up at the ripe harvest waiting to be picked.
"It's not that much, really. Where did you grow up?" Fred gazed down at her curiously, seeing the sparkle of a daydream in her eyes.
"In a small house in Guisborough, Cleveland. It was very quiet but we didn't have much of anything. There were a lot of grassy fields and small patches of forest near my house, I always escaped there whenever father was angry with me." Judging the height into the tree, Eileen jumped up and caught hold of a branch, walking against the trunk to get herself up into the tree, "I loved climbing trees, it was a great stress reliever. Plus my father couldn't climb trees so I would hide away until he left me alone."
"You're like a monkey," Fred chuckled from the ground, "but I'm better!"
With that, they were both climbing around in the tree, giggling and picking apples as they went, eating a couple for fun. Filling the front of his shirt with apples after tucking the hem into his pants, he held the load with his arms and said, "I'm gonna look like this when I get old!"
Laughing, Eileen said, "I can't see you slowing down enough to get fat!"
"Not right now, no, I've got too much of life to experience!" Fred laughed, "I mean when I'm much older and settled down with a wife and kids maybe."
"You want to get married?" Eileen blinked over at him from her higher perch in the tree, reaching for a tasty looking apple.
"Sure, gotta pass along the family business and raise a new generation of hooligans to terrorize Hogwarts! Don't you want to get married?" Fred joked but seemed somewhat serious at the same time.
"I never really considered it, family life for me wasn't exactly the greatest thing in the world," she mumbled, slowly pulling the fruit off its branch, "I guess if it were like how it is with your mum and dad I wouldn't mind. They seem to love each other very much."
"It's kind of gross, really. Snogging every day before dad goes off to work…" Fred began to laugh but drifted off, remembering his last birthday. Shifting awkwardly on his branch, Fred said quickly, "We should get back, Mum'll flip a lid if we goof off too long!"
"Okay." Eileen easily climbed down, helping Fred carry the crop back to the house where Mrs. Weasley quickly went about preparing them for the pie. They headed upstairs to the twins' room to check on George and opened the door to let out a huge cloud of smoke. Coughing, they fanned the air and wrinkled their noses at what smelled like a mix of boiled sauerkraut and spoiled raw meat.
"Ugh, what IS that?" Ginny poked her head out of her bedroom door, a highly disgusted look on her face as she stared at them.
"FRED! GEORGE! What ARE you doing up there!" Mrs. Weasley bellowed from downstairs.
"Crap, clean it up, quick!" Fred shoved a reluctant Eileen into the room as he hurried to help his brother rectify the situation. Their cleaning and hiding skills were no match for Mrs. Weasley's swift movement as she was up the stairs and at the door in seconds, magicking the lock open to stand in the doorway looking cross.
Hands firmly planted on her hips and brow furrowed, Mrs. Weasley hollered in a shrill tone, "That is IT! You two have been brewing more of those silly potions for that bloody joke shop, haven't you! Out with it! What's that?"
Her wand was moving a mile a minute, picking out hidden potions and finished products, as well as discovering the order forms they had been attempting to stash away when she barged in. Glaring at the papers, her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets at the descriptions of the items meant to be sold. Her gaze snapped up to the guilty looking faces before her, giving them a hard look before flicking over to Eileen who looked somewhat frightened by the whole ordeal.
Swiftly, Fred stepped in front of Eileen and said, "Eileen had nothing to do with this, Mum! She didn't even know what this stuff was, we wouldn't tell her."
"Yeah, it was just us!" George chimed in, hoping this wouldn't end too horribly.
Drawing in a long breath to prepare for the onslaught of lecturing soon to ensue, Mrs. Weasley began to shake the order forms in their faces and shrieked, "NO MORE! Do you HEAR me? You're suppose to be studying! Earning good grades! Thinking about the FUTURE!"
"But Mum, this is our future!" George tried to defend their work defiantly.
"What kind of future is this? Your father has worked so hard to see that you two got a good education, and this is how you repay him? WITH JOKES? What kind of respectable wizards destroy their future playing games! Do you want to put your father to shame in front of all his peers? In front of the Minister of Magic?" Mrs. Weasley barked shrilly.
"It's not all jokes, Mum! We've been working on other things too! Like this idea for a cloak that -" Fred tried to rationalize their experiments.
"Have you been working on your N.E.W.T.S? Forgot about those, didn't you? You failed your O.W.L.S miserably, 3 each! You're going to have a long meeting with Minerva when you get back to school!"
"Aww, Mum…" George sighed.
"We were busy, it's not like we're stupid or anything." Fred grumbled.
"Busy doing what, ruining your lives?" Mrs. Weasley was turning red, having been yelling the entire time.
"It's MY life! This is what makes ME happy! I don't want to be a damn drone and work in some damn boring office like my damn brother and -" Fred went off on his mother before being cut off.
"DON'T YOU DARE! You're father works HARD to support this family, don't you dare say such things about his job!" Mrs. Weasley screamed, "Are you really THAT ungrateful?"
"No, I just -" Fred mumbled nervously.
"NO, you listen to ME! No more jokes! No more experiments! No more goofing off PERIOD! I don't want to see you two doing anything but studying and trying to make your father proud of his sons! End of discussion!" With that, Mrs. Weasley did away with all the potions brewing away in the room as well as any other evidence of their work that she could find, including the order forms. Turning, she stalked back out of the room and slammed the door behind her, leaving a very awkward silence behind.
No one spoke for the longest time until Fred moved suddenly, darting over to the closet and pulling out his broomstick. Stalking to the window, he threw it open and began to mount his broom as he said, "I'm out."
"Where are you going? Mum will flip a lid if you run off." George started to go for his broomstick too.
"I'll be back later, I just need some air." Fred grumbled, kicking off and disappearing out the window.
Pausing mid-grab, George sighed and lowered his hand, "I guess he wants to be alone…"
Frowning, Eileen grabbed George's broom instead and mounted it, taking off after Fred and leaving George behind to protest to the abandonment. Awkwardly flying over the grassy fields and trying not to fall off as she looked for Fred, she spotted him in the distance disappearing into a forested area. Gracelessly pursuing him, she fumbled her way through the trees before crash landing and dangling indignantly from a branch.
"Nice flying. Why'd you follow me?" Fred muttered as he floated over on his broom, looking grumpy.
"I was worried about you." Eileen grunted as she struggled to get her footing in the tree.
"It's not like I was gonna go jump off a cliff or anything," Fred grumbled before sighing and sidling up to her, offering his hand to her, "Come on, get on."
Blinking at him for a moment, she took his hand and climbed onto the back of his broom, still holding onto the borrowed broomstick as she wobbled on the seat. She rested her hand on his hip to steady herself, causing him to blush as she said, "I don't think I'll ever get the hang of these things."
"Sure you will…you can do anything." Fred muttered, trying not to show his awkwardness as he took her hand and slid it further around his waist, "Hold on tight, I want to show you something."
"Okay." Eileen did as she was told, leaning into his form as he leaned forward to fly off through the trees, making sure she kept the other broomstick close as well so it wasn't knocked away by passing branches. Weaving through the thicket, Fred took her to a tree that seemed to be way too big for its kind and for the forest as a whole, so wide and stocky that it almost reminded her of the twins' body type. She smiled to herself as they landed in a nice little nest between the broad branches.
"Welcome to my hide away," Fred sighed as he settled into a corner that looked out at a nearby lake and had a splendid view of the rolling hills that made up the region, "It's magicked so no one else can see it and Muggles can't stumble across it. I come here whenever mum and I have a serious row."
"Really? You hide in a tree too?" Eileen seemed intrigued by their similar behaviors as she settled against a branch across from him and watched him curiously.
Fred nodded and fell silent for a moment as he watched the world lull about below. Quietly, he glanced at her with a bit of caution, "Sorry about all of that back there, I didn't want you to get in trouble."
"It's okay, I did help you after all, I should have gotten some of the blame too." Eileen looked confused by his protection.
"Nah, if we let that happen mum would have thought you were a bad egg like us and never let you come by anymore. I like having you around, you're more fun than most of the girls at school. They definitely don't climb trees." Fred smirked a bit, causing Eileen to blush.
"I'm not terribly lady-like, am I?" Eileen looked into her lap at the dirt and smudges on her jeans from the various experiments and tree climbing adventures.
"You're not a lady, you're a witch," Fred grinned more fully, "You're not afraid of getting a little dirty in the name of witchcraft and adventure."
"I suppose so...why can't I be both though? Draco's mother is very elegant and sophisticated but she's a pretty good witch." Eileen almost pouted, a look of shame that she was so powerful but extremely uncoordinated when it came to anything delicate and girly.
Fred wrinkled his nose, "She's a hag, if she frowns any more her face will freeze that way. In fact, I'm not too sure it hasn't."
"She's not so bad. I think she wishes she had a daughter, we had a lot of fun playing dress up when I was at their home." Eileen fiddled with a twig that was entwined in her blouse, trying to separate it from the fibers without tearing a hole.
"You did? Why?" Fred made a face at the thought of the Malfoys having more offspring.
"For the dinner party they had, I didn't have anything fancy so she let me try on her clothes. I've never seen so many pretty things before, I wish I had that kind of money." She finally worked the twig out and flicked it out of the tree, watching it tumble to the ground below.
"Money isn't everything. I bet they aren't a very happy and healthy family like mine is!" Fred puffed his chest out proudly.
"They did seem a bit formal and disconnected." Eileen admitted with a sigh.
"Exactly. Money doesn't buy happiness, you make that on your own." Fred looked at her intently, making her feel a bit awkward.
Looking away at the hills in the distance, Eileen muttered, "Then why are you so determined to start this business if money isn't that important?"
His mood changing to a look of sullen regret, Fred looked away as well, "My folks have been struggling for so long trying to make sure we all get a good education and a better future than they had, I want to pay them back. They deserve to be taken care of, don't you think? Fix up the house so it's not falling down around them, buy my dad some nice robes with no holes or patches, maybe he can even get a better job if he didn't look like he was so poor. We might fight a lot, but I still love my parents, that's why I can't give up on my dreams just because they don't believe in them right now. I have my brother to back me up, and I have you...what more do I need?"
Eileen stared at him with a slight rosy tint to her cheeks, "Fred..."
Too embarrassed to meet her gaze, Fred got to his feet and gripped a branch over his head, leaning over the edge of the tree and shouting with all his might, "I am Fred Weasley and I'm going to be the greatest inventor in the world if it kills me!"
"Fred! Don't say such things! Get down from there!" Eileen scolded, swatting at his leg.
"I'll show you world! Just you wait! I'll go down in the history books as the amazing Weasley who revolutionized magic! Nothing's gonna stop me, not even my mum's wicked summoning spells!" Fred let out a string of laughter that echoed across the hills, pumping his fist in the air and declaring his worth to the land, "Come on, Eileen! Shout with me! You're going to be in the history books too, as the greatest witch that ever lived!"
"I don't know about that..." Eileen shied away.
"Don't be daft, you could best Ol' Moldymort himself if you wanted to! Come on! Say it! Say 'I'm the greatest witch that ever lived and nothing can stop me'!" Fred danced around the limbs of the tree like a crazed monkey.
"I'm the greatest witch..." Eileen muttered, afraid of shouting lest someone prove her wrong.
"Not like that, I don't think you even convinced the squirrels! You gotta be LOUDER!"
"I'm the greatest!" She said a bit louder.
"Come on, stand up and scream it to the world! I believe in you!" Fred grinned, urging her to her feet.
Sucking in a breath for courage, Eileen got to her feet and grabbed a branch for balance, shouting, "I'm the greatest which that ever lived!"
"And you can knock Malfoy flat on his arse any day!"
Laughing, Eileen blushed, "Fred!"
"It's true and you know it!"
"I can knock Malfoy flat on his arse EVERY day!" Eileen shouted, blushing at her profanity but feeling a surge of confidence building inside.
"YEAH! Hear that, world? Nothing's going to stop us! We're unbeatable!" Fred cheered, hooting and whooping for all to hear. The duo shouted and laughed until the sun disappeared over the horizon, leaving the world to ponder their declarations as they settled down for the night.