Pandora's Little Pithos of Preteens
A HariPo fanfiction
by mew-tsubaki
Note: These characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not me. This was done for my Pandora's Little Box of Terrors challenge found in the HPFC. You can find the challenge here (just take out the spaces!): http :/ forum. fanfiction. net/ topic/ 44309/ 27638002/ 1/ Read, review, and enjoy! And check out and join the forum challenge!
- ^-^3
Terror: Sorrow
Weasley Twins are Woeful
That war was more than nineteen years ago. Roxanne and Fred Weasley really wished their father would just let it go.
Supposedly George had healed, had mended over the decades. Supposedly Angelina Johnson had made things better, letting George find comfort when he needed it and find love when he wanted it. Apparently something had gone right, because they'd married and had twins and raised the kids.
Roxie and Freddie were good kids. Sure, they were pranksters, but they were good kids. Ask anyone at Hogwarts. Even if the world were burning outside the stone walls, the Weasley twins would find it in them to smile and make everyone laugh.
They didn't laugh on the inside.
No, Fred and Roxanne were very good at cheering others up, at being the centers of attention. The twins couldn't handle themselves, though, because at home things were very different. At the joke store, George was his usual self, a jolly bloke.
At home, he was sadder than Moaning Myrtle.
At first, when they were young, Fred and Rox had thought it a sort of game. "Cheer up Daddy!" "Whoever gets Dad to crack a smile first wins a Chocolate Frog!" "Place all bets here!" Originally, Angelina hadn't stopped them, because their antics often did get George off his dead twin. But as the years passed and the kids had their eyes opened to what George's dark moods really meant, the games weren't as fun and such a thing didn't seem as silly anymore.
Roxanne remembered the first time their mother had yelled at them.
It was when the twins were home for the summer between second and third year. Sure they had grown a little tired of playing that old game, but it was almost like a family tradition. It was in August, around the anniversary of the opening of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, the first one in Diagon Alley. George woke up late and had decided to go in late to work.
The twins had gotten up and were expecting to enjoy breakfast as usual. When they saw the grim look on their father's face, it was a natural reaction for them to start joking around.
A few Snape jokes and one Riddle riddle later, and their mother came in. Still George hadn't broken into a smile, so the twins began playing with words and rhyming.
When the words "Fred" and "dead" ended up in the same sentence, Angelina flew into a hissy fit and screamed at them. She used words Roxanne and Fred had never heard out of their mother's mouth before, and both had severely cringed.
Fred remembered the first time their father had ever scared them.
It was months after Angelina's outburst. It was the Christmas break of the twins' third year and the family hadn't left yet for the Burrow. As per usual, Roxanne and Fred were getting into the presents early. Fred guided his sister to the old attic. According to his earlier eavesdropping, Angelina had told George that the present were hidden away up there.
Naturally, the kids wanted to see what they were getting.
In the attic, Roxanne and Fred had coughed at the dust and swatted away what they hoped were merely spider webs. Roxie had found the giant pile of gifts under a ratty old cloak and called Fred over. Together they moved the large and heavy garment, knocking a few things like old brooms and racks of robes. The clatter caught George's attention and his footsteps pounded upstairs. The twins didn't have much of a chance to hide.
When George spotted them, he laughed. It wasn't the kind of laughter that reached his eyes –his children had never seen that kind from him. But he'd laughed anyway, commenting that Fred and Roxanne were just like him and his brother back in the day.
The twins realized they weren't going to get in trouble with their father. Roxanne laughed at Freddie's ashen face and he tossed the cloak back over the presents without looking at them. He and his sister started to back out of the room. Fred stepped on something and almost went down. He didn't, but the item cracked. He looked down and saw he'd just broken a broom handle.
He looked back up because Roxie grabbed his arm. His father was shocked –and then his face morphed into one of pure fury. George stormed at them and for a split second, Fred honestly thought that his father would hit him.
But George deflated and collapsed onto his knees near the broke broom. The twins took it as their cue to leave. George stayed up there for most of the rest of Christmas break.
Right before they headed back to school, their mother told them it had been their dead uncle's broom. Fred and Roxanne returned with a nasty taste in their mouths and a hollow feeling in their chests. Roxie did more of the comforting, though. Fred… For him, it was a double-whammy, since he carried the burden of the name of George's beloved brother.
That war was more than nineteen years ago. Roxanne and Fred Weasley really wished their father would just let it go.
- ^-^3
;_; OMG, this was soooooo sad! I mean, I know the terror's "Sorrow," but…damn! DX And of course I was listening to a sad Wrock song, too: Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls' "Dumbledore's Song." Technically nothing to do with any twins at all, but the line "…I feel lost at sea…" REALLY got me while writing this. *sniffs*
Oh, well. Onto the next terror. Please review, thanks!
-mew! :3
Thanks for Betaing, Morghen! For originality…*hands over an Invisibility Cloak* Why don't you go find a broom closet with Reggie-Poo? B) X3 *LOL!*