I know you haven't made your mind up yet / But I would never do you wrong
.::.
It is one last goodbye before they graduated.
There is fire in her veins and ice in her heart and he's never met anyone remotely like her, ever. There is a silence about her that says so much – she is intelligent and opinionated. He is joking and didn't understand things like she did, and why was she bringing herself down for him?
There's something so icy and so different about her – she is not a straight line, but a jagged edge, and he had to climb the mountains and the edges. He doesn't mind, of course. He started climbing those mountains that night he found her leaning off of the edge of the astronomy tower with a twisted expression on her face.
.::.
She blames him.
He blames himself, too, but it wasn't like she told him to stop. He remembers how soft her hands were, how her hair looked like spilled across the pillow, and how she rolled over and gave him a gentle smile.
But she's yelling and screaming with so much fury that he shrinks away, and her voice is not the cold beauty of the winter but the iceburg that sank the Titanic.
He is shocked. He had never even thought about this, and in a moment of panic, when her yelling was blocked by the haze of his own thoughts, he realizes that he's been trying to grow up so much he hadn't realized how much of his childhood he has left.
His attention is brought back to her when she screams again, spitting words out like poison. Getting rid of it, not worth it. He is jerked to attention and shakes his head, no. No. He is young and he is stupid, Merlin is he ever stupid, but why? It is her body and her decision, he knows this, but...
She says something about hating it and he feels himself go pale. Maybe it's because he's just a boy (a stupid kid, he doesn't forget to remind himself cuttingly) but he didn't know how she could hate the baby that's growing in her so much.
He doesn't hate it – he's shocked, yes – but he doesn't hate it. Why does she?
.::.
When she meets his parents, she doesn't smile at them.
His mother says hello, would you like some tea and his father grins, crosses his ankles, and slouches in his chair, tinkering on a new product. Roxie nods at her before sitting on the arm of her father's chair and helping him.
She just tightens her lips and nods. She's trying to conceal the evidence, he notices – she drapes her body underneath loose robes, and you can hardly tell.
Freddie wonders if she's ashamed. She probably is, he thinks, and his upper lip almost raises at the thought. He – well, he's had so long to sort out his thoughts and he's gotten absolutely nowhere. It still doesn't feel real, but he smiles and he laughs and he tries to make plans for the future.
She doesn't. She tunes him out every time he tries to talk. Maybe it's because he's Fred Weasley the second and he does not make plans or have a schedule, but Merlin, they are children playing a game meant for adults and they have no idea what the fuck they're doing.
When they found out, his mother was silent for a moment before nodding.
"I trust you, Freddie," she says. And that's all she needs to say.
His father laughs. He isn't mad, but protests slightly. Too young to be a grandparent, I'm only forty, he says. His wife turns to him and smiles slightly. You've always been too whiny for your own good.
It sparks a faux-arguement which results in his mother laughing so hard she can't breathe and his father jokingly trying to kiss her, only to have her push him away.
They make him smile.
She isn't smiling.
.::.
Her mother is gaunt and frail, a wisp of a woman who could blow away with the wind. She gives him a searching look, and she's painfully truthful.
"You're not good enough for her," her mother says, and he nods and doesn't say anything.
Her house is big and dark and cold, and he learns that she has lived in cold her entire life.
.::.
His daughter comes on a late March night, during the slushy transition from winter to spring. He's there, of course, waiting in the waiting room. Nervous. Tapping his foot to the ticking of the clock. The Healers have put a Silencing charm up, and he's been here for four hours...
His mum and his dad are next to him, and his mum is as nervous as he is. She's clutching onto him almost painfully, and she's twitching in her chair.
His dad breaks the silence. He's tinkering on a product – something that's not safe for a hospital, most likely – when he speaks.
"Never thought I'd be here again, so soon," he says, laughing and nudging his son.
His mother releases her death grip on his arm. "I'm sure she's doing fine," she whispers. "She's a strong girl, is she not?"
Freddie nods. She is. Well, she was. He isn't too sure what she is now. The last half a year, she's hardly talked to him. His nineteenth birthday passed two months ago, and nothing. He had wrote to her, several times, and she never thought to write back.
He wonders what they're going to do. They've figured out nothing.
Twelve minutes later, a Healer exits the room, smiling.
"She's here," the blonde Healer said, "if you'd like to meet your daughter, Mr. Weasley."
Freddie expected her to be holding her own baby as soon as he walked in, but his daughter – his daughter, he had a daughter – was in the arms of a Healer. She was pale, and her face gaunt. She was also asleep.
"She fell asleep a few minutes after your daughter was delivered," said the other Healer, an older, kindly one. "Would you like to hold her?"
Freddie nods. Everything seems to cease to exist outside this room, and suddenly he's terrified, a bout of panic that hits him so fast he can't breathe. He's a kid! He can't...
His mother's hand is on his shoulder, and he takes a step forward. He knows how to cradle a baby, but he hasn't had loads of experience in this area.
He isn't breathing when she places his daughter in his arms. Her eyes are open, blinking up at him, but she doesn't make a sound.
"She looks just like you, Freddie," his mother whispers, and it was impossible to deny it. They have the same eyes – a shocking blue, and the same hair, dark brown with little hints of auburn. She has freckles, smattered across her cheeks, just like him.
Despite her mother, and every other problem he is facing, he can't help but love her at first sight.
a/n - for the Off The Block Competition. A head!canon of mine. WC: 1,234.