Never Alone

Disclaimer: Everything that can you can recognize belongs to J. K. Rowling, which means that everything belongs to her.

Thank you, all my great readers and reviewers, for your interest in this story.

Again, I must say that I wrote this before the information about George and Angelina came out.

Chapter 4

A few hours earlier...

"George?"

"Yes, honey?"

"There isn't really a troll at Hogwarts, is there?'

George's grin almost split his face in two. "You mean I was convincing enough even for you to believe that there is?"

Elly shook her head. "Oh, you sounded convincing - I think Fred really believed you, but me, I don't believe anything you say from the moment you told me that you were a wizard."

Next to them, Bill laughed. George's explaining to his Muggle girlfriend that he was a wizard had become a legend in the family - George had been forced to put a Levicorpus on her to have her convinced, and even then he had to perform all bizarre kind of magic that came to her mind to prove that he was not just an ordinary juggler.

"There isn't any troll there, Elly," Bill assured her just when the others appeared from Platform 9 ¾ where they had seen the kids off.

"A troll?" Molly Weasley asked and her eyes flashed dangerously. "George Weasley, what are you trying to do, scare Elly off her wits? Really, I don't know why she keeps putting up with you."

"No, Molly, it's fine," Elly quickly assured her. "I didn't actually believe him. It's just - I miss Fred already."

"It's normal, dear. Don't worry, you'll hear from him soon - I'm willing to bet that the owl informing you about his first detention won't be late. Two days. Maybe four."

Elly Weasley only groaned - she suspected that her mother in-law was right.

"Tomorrow," George whispered in her ear, and she shot him an angry glance.

"Is that pride that I'm hearing in your voice, George?"

"No, honey, not at all."

Elly was far from convinced, but right now, she had no time for this. "I have to go. If I'm not at the publisher's in twenty minutes, the boss is going to kill me."

"I can Apparate you there in less than a minute," Hermione suggested, and her sister in-law smiled gratefully.

"Thank you, Hermione."

"Not a minute's bother."

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A few days later...

His father, his grandfather and all his uncles - and Teddy - had been right right: Fred Weasley loved, loved, LOVED being at Hogwarts! He loved everything about it - getting lost in the corridors, talking to the portrait of the Mad Knight, trying to outsmart Peeves, pulling pranks on his unsuspecting classmates and not so unsuspecting teachers. Well, the fact that the teachers seemed to expect only the worst of him was one of the things that he DID NOT love. It was like all of them, from Sinistra to Flitwick, were constantly looking look for dungbombs in the classroom or to see someone's ears being replaced by rabbit's ones, ready to shout 'Mr Weasley and Mr Potter!' at any minute. Not that Fred minded being considered a troublemaker, because he was born one, but he was disappointed that everybody seemed to think that he was so predictable. Just because his father had been a prankster, that did not mean that Fred was his copy! He could leave his own track in the records of Hogwarts Most Dangerous students, thank you very much!

One of the things that he was not quite he liked was the brief pause almost everybody tended to make before saying James' name - it was like they were going to say someone else's name and checked themselves in the last moment. Which, in fact, they did.

Fred had grown up hearing stories about the other Fred, but his uncle had never seemed like he'd been real - not until now.

"Hi, kid, what are you doing?"

Fred looked around. Teddy was standing next to him in front of the great memorial of those who had died during the Battle of Hogwarts.

The boy tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to his mind. Truth be told, he had no idea what kept dragging him to this memorial. He felt silly.

Teddy looked at the plaque. He seemed to understand. "Sometimes I come here," he said and smiled. "To my mother, my father... and Fred. I come here when I need to be alone to think about something, usually in the evening. It is so calm then. Peaceful. I love to think that they died to make Hogwarts a place like this. A peaceful one."

Fred looked curiously at Teddy's hair. He'd seen him wearing it in all sorts of bizarre colors, green and turquoise being Teddy's preferred hairstyle, but he'd never seen it pink. Pink was a girlish colour, or so Teddy had always proclaimed. "Why is it pink?"

"I usually make it pink when I come here," Teddy answered without hesitation. "People say that my mum always wore her hair pink. That makes me feel - closer to her, I suppose."

Closer to her. All of a sudden, Fred understood why he had come here - he had wanted to feel closer to the uncle that he had named after, to understand him better maybe.

"Everybody keeps behaving like I am not me," he heard himself saying. If he told this to James, his cousin would mock him for being a complaining baby, but somehow, it felt right with Teddy. "The teachers, I mean. They - they look at me, talk to me like everything is okay, but they keep looking over my shoulder as if they expect to see someone else."

Teddy nodded. "It was something like that with me in m first year, too, especially when I changed my appearance and when I morphed back into myself. That's because I look like my father and I've inherited my mother's rare gift. You, on the other hand, are named after your uncle and you look a lot like him. It's inevitable."

Fred thought about this for a moment. "I wish I knew him," he said longingly.

"I know you do."

Fred looked at him with curiosity. "Do you miss your parents?"

"Oh yes," the young Metamorphmagus answered without hesitation. "You see their names? They are right there." He raised his hand to show Fred. "I don't remember them. I don't remember how I lost them. But I miss them and sometimes there are moments when I wish more than anything to meet them. Grandma kept some of their belongings - my mother's clothes, some of their favorite things, my father's books, their photos and I love looking through them. The fact that I was too young then does not change the loss."

Fred frowned. "But I thought you were happy," he said and there was a sight note of accusation in his voice. The idea of Teddy being miserable seemed just wrong.

Teddy laughed and ruffled Fred's hair. "Merlin, I forgot how young you are. I am very happy, kid. The fact that you've lost someone does not necessarily make you miserable for the rest of your life. Ask your father to tell you about this. I am very, very happy. And I'm not alone. No one is never alone in this family. It's always full of uncles, aunts, and little buggers like you - "

"I am not little!" Fred objected fiercely.

"Oh, but you are. You're practically a baby," Teddy grinned, and the younger boy gritted his teeth.

"I am not!"

"Yes, you are. Never mind that, come with me."

"Where?"

"I want to show you something."

Fred looked at him suspiciously, but his curiosity stopped him from further arguing about his age. He followed Teddy to the fifth floor, where they stopped in front of a little swamp, separated from the rest of the corridor by a wide tape. Fred looked at Teddy, astounded. "What's that?"

Teddy grinned. "When your dad and your Uncle Fred were in their last year, the Ministry sent a new Headmistress here, a witch by the name of Dolores Umbridge. From what I've heard, she was a real nightmare, a walking disaster. She terrorized the students, tried to tell the teachers what to do and generally, made everyone's lives pure hell on earth. No one liked her and your dad and Fred decided that they didn't want to finish their education, if that meant that they had to put up with her till the end of the year. So, they made the swamp - it was bigger than this one, it took the whole corridor - and when she tried to punish them, they Summoned their brooms and flew through the front door in front of the whole school, saying that they had started a jokeshop and inviting everyone to buy their products."

Fred was laughing so hard that he could hardly breathe. "And what happened to the swamp?" he asked. "Why is it still here?"

Teddy grinned in response. "Well, Umbridge was unable to get rid of him and those who could chose not to. When Umbridge left, Professor Flitwick dried it up but left this part because it was a good magic - and as a memorial to Fred and George, if you ask me."

He pointed at something that Fred had not noticed. He'd been staring at the swamp, but now he looked at the wall behind it and there they were, in their big picture, waving at him - two red-haired boys at fifteen or so, with a mischief air around them, hugging, grinning boys, unimaginably alike.

Fred swallowed hard and tried to tell which one was his father, but he could not - they were both red-haired, with two ears, with the same sly grin. While he was watching them, they looked aside, mouthed something to someone outside the picture and then looked at each other with such ease, like they were reading each other's thoughts. Fred frowned - for a first time he started realizing what the two of them must have meant to each other and how his father must have felt after losing his twin. How he must feel now. Was Teddy right about the feeling of loss? Was his father still suffering? This possibility had never occurred to him. In fact, it disturbed him very much.

Teddy was looking at him with calm, understanding eyes. "I suppose you could use the fireplace in the common room after the others are asleep," he said. "That is what I did when I wanted to talk to Harry in my first year."

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A few hours later...

"Hey, kid, what are you doing?" his father asked, grinning. "You want to have me prepared for the Hogwarts owl that would come tomorrow?"

Fred grinned too. "No, not today. What are you doing?" He saw that George was in the kitchen, placing something that looked like a chocolate cake with some disgusting orange frosting on the table.

"Your mother wants a dessert."

"A dessert? Now?" It was well past midnight.

"You should have been in bed, snoring," George pointed and Fred gave up the discussion about the disgusting cake.

"I wanted to talk to you," he said.

"I'm listening."

"About Uncle Fred," Fred elaborated.

"What about him?"

"I am not sure. What was he like?"

George smiled. "Like you. And me. A prankster, who was ready to pick to anyone, but his heart was in the right place." The smile disappeared. "Why are you asking me about him now? You've never been interested before."

"That was before."

"Ah." George nodded. "I understand. Hogwarts made you curious, didn't it?"

"Something like that, yes."

"Well, wait until Christmas and then I promise we'll talk about him. I don't think we should have this conversation through the Floo."

Fred grinned. "I can't wait."

George returned the grin. "Same here."

The boy suddenly became serious. "It must have been awful that between all of them, it was he who had to die."

George looked at him sharply. "What do you mean - between all of them?"

Fred looked confused. He did not answer, but there was no need - in less than a minute, his father figured it out and his face softened. "I wouldn't have traded any of them for Fred."

"Really?" Fred was surprised. "But I thought - not even Uncle Percy?"

George laughed. "No, not even your Uncle Percy. Fred was something very special for me, but at the end, they are all my brothers and I could never want one of them dead, so the other one could live."

Fred looked thoughtful. "I wish I had a brother," he said wistfully.

George grinned again. "Don't let your Aunt Ginny hear you," he said, "or you'll have to listen to a lecture about the tendency of the men in our family to underestimate women."

"I'll watch it," Fred promised. "Bye, Dad."

"Bye."

Fred's head disappeared and George stood for a while, looking blindly at the flames in the fireplace. Then, he stood up and took the cake upstairs.

"God, how long does it take to bring a piece of cake from the kitchen?" Elly looked at him, smiling. "What took you for so long?"

He shrugged. "Fred Firecalled from Hogwarts. Stay calm, he's fine and he isn't in trouble," he said hurriedly, noticing her sudden paling. "He just wanted to talk to me."

"About what?" Elly asked, sat upright in bed and started eating the cake. "Do you want some?"

George shook his head. "Chocolate cake with orange frosting, I don't think so."

"Good, that means that there will be more left for me," she stated, and George chuckled.

"If we have a child who loves this stuff, I'll go and throw myself under a bridge," he said. "I think I prefer your passion for ice-cream from the first time."

Elly was busy eating, so she did not give him a proper answer. After the morning sickness from the first two months, George was glad that she was eating something, even if it was chocolate cake with orange frosting.

"Eric," he suddenly said, and she looked at him, surprised. "I want to name him Eric. Fred was named after my brother and I think it is right for our second baby to be named after yours."

Elly looked at him with gratitude. "Well, then Eric it is," she agreed.

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