My Dearest Angelina

An aged Ron Weasley slowly walked up the stairs to the Burrow's attic. His whole body gave off the aura of sadness from his stooped shoulders to the dark shadows around his eyes. His auburn hair was streaked heavily with white and his 6'4" frame lacked its vibrancy. He trudged up the stairs, almost dragging his feet, not happy to be about the task before him. Brown eyes lost in thought, the youngest Weasley son almost walked into the door. Staring at the door sorrowfully, he opened it slowly, as if the door was heavier than it actually was. Stepping into the attic, he looked around and found himself once again in the past.

Bits and pieces of his childhood in this cozy home surrounded him. In one far corner, orange assaulted his eyes as his collection of Chudley Cannon materials that once bedecked the walls of his room lay in a heap. The players still waved from the poster, albeit a little less enthusiastically then he remembered. A bit closer to him, Ron studied the outline of Percy's first desk. A surprisingly thin layer of dust coated the object, almost as if the desk still sensed Percy's meticulous attitude. Next to the desk lay a large stuffed dragon toy that had belonged to a very young Charlie Weasley. This Norwegian Ridgeback was missing an eye among other things. A grim smile lit Ron's face as his eyes fell on a large wooden crate with warning signs posted all over it. He walked over to the crate, lifted the lid gingerly and looked inside.

A streamer flew toward his face, but Ron batted it aside thoughtlessly. The crate was filled with objects from Fred and George's old room. Unused dungbombs, a few bags of canary creams, paraphernalia from Zonko's joke shop, a few wands that most likely were fake, two beat up cauldrons with cracks in them, and a large yellow notebook were just a portion of the crate's contents. Ron reached inside the crate and cautiously removed the yellow notebook, not knowing what else the twins may have done to the crate's contents in their younger years.

Ron stepped away from the crate and looked at the notebook. Its yellow cover was beaten, the words barely legible on it. "Weasley Wizarding Wheezes," Ron whispered, just making out the words by squinting his eyes. "Lumos," he said, summoning a small bit of light so he could read the notebook more easily. Sitting down awkwardly, his bones creaking, he opened the cover and began to read slowly.

On the inside of the cover, Fred and George's names were scrawled as well as the year. On the actual notebook pages itself were recipes for their different pranks, some of the first ones they had concocted over the years: ton tongue toffees, canary creams, and more. Ron momentarily wondered why this notebook wasn't at their shop, but then realized that the twain had most likely memorized these simple pranks long ago. Turning the pages, Ron also found tentative price lists, inventories, and even potential shop designs.

He was nearing the end of the notebook when several letters suddenly fell out of the notebook. In contrast to the rest of the notebook, the letters were in pristine condition, the white envelopes not yellowed, smudged or torn. Setting the notebook on the floorboard next to him, Ron took the envelopes in shaking fingers and peered at them. Fred's business like handwriting, so different from his illegible scrawls from his childhood, gleamed back up at him.

A footstep creaking on the stairs caused Ron to turn around. Silhouetted in the doorway, stood Angelina, her dark face weary but gentle. "You've been up here for ages, Ron," she said slowly. "You should come back down to the world for awhile."

Ron glanced down at his watch and realized he had indeed been up in the attic for a long time. "I will," he said slowly. "But not quite yet. I just found something interesting."

He waited for Angelina to walk over to see what he had found. "I was going through the crate like you asked me to," he explained. "I was going through this old notebook and these letters fell out." He picked up the three envelopes and showed them to the former Gryffindor Chaser. Angelina looked at them, but would not touch them, a shadow passing over her eyes.

Ron reluctantly took the envelopes back and read them. "There's one for me, one for you and one for George," Ron said quietly, his voice almost breaking. "They're from him. Do you want to read yours?"

"No," Angelina said a bit forcefully. "I mean, why don't we read them together, out loud? We'll save George's though for when he gets back from the graveyard."

Ron nodded, thinking briefly of his older brother's plight the past two weeks. It was hard enough for him and Angelina, but George was the hardest hit as he had never been without Fred before, never. Even when they had gone out into the world, they had always roomed close to one another. And when Fred and Angelina had inherited the burrow, George had taken up residence in his old room.

A little more than two weeks ago, Fred had been a vibrant part of all of their lives, running a small chain of joke shops, chasing his grandkids, and still playing Quidditch for fun despite the taunts of the younger people. Then he was gone. It wasn't an accident, which could have been possible when making pranks, it wasn't a disease. No, Fred Weasley had simply passed away in his sleep at the age of seventy-five taking a nap at the end of a day at work. George had found him.

"We can read them together," Ron replied to Angelina, stirring himself out of his memories. "Yours first or mine?"

"Yours," Angelina said quietly, sitting down next to Ron on the floor.

Ron opened the envelope, removed a piece of vibrant yellow paper covered in Fred's handwriting. Ron's eyes blurred for a minute, and then he began to read outloud slowly.

"Stop sniveling and get on with life Ronnikins," he read, a choked laugh in his voice. "If you are reading this, than obviously I am no longer living as you would never dare to open that crate otherwise since you'd probably worry that there'd be a giant spider inside."