Rating:
PG
House:
Astronomy Tower
Characters:
Angelina Johnson Fred Weasley
Genres:
Romance Humor
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Order of the Phoenix
Stats:
Published: 09/07/2003
Updated: 09/07/2003
Words: 2,000
Chapters: 1
Hits: 872

Flight of the Weasleys

TheFriendly2x4

Story Summary:
So Fred made his miraculous escape. What exactly did Angelina think of it all?

Posted:
09/07/2003
Hits:
872
Author's Note:
Okay, here we have my first completed piece of Harry Potter fanfic. Excuse the beginning--I completely rewrote the first 500 words or so because it was too sappy the first time around. Am most definitely planning a sequal. Perhaps a prequal as well. Who knows.

Flight of the Weasleys

He was gone. Really and truly gone. He had left school in a blaze of glory and hadn’t even said goodbye. She’d been given no warning, no chance to understand exactly what was going to and now had happened. It’s been less than a day and she already missed him. Less than a day and she already wanted him back. She missed his jokes, she missed his tricks, his smiles, his kisses, she missed everything about him.

She missed that he’d escaped before she’d been able to properly strangle him.

Right now, he was out in Diagon Alley, probably somewhere near that new shop of his, sitting with his brother, both of them laughing fit to burst. They probably thought they were pretty smart, pretty sly, pretty good at giving Umbridge the slip and getting out right under her nose. After all, they’d pulled their best prank yet, and their jokes were always among the best of the best in the first place-unless, of course, you were on the receiving end.

Or left completely out of the loop.

Angelina scowled. Oh yes, Fred Weasley was definitely going to be hearing about this one for a long time. He knew that she hated being left out more than she hated anything. Well, anything other than decaffeinated coffee, because that stuff was just wrong. If it had to taste bad it should have at least one good side-effect and... he had done it on purpose, too! Just that morning she had found him and George plotting together in the common room with that familiar glint in their eyes. She had asked him what he was up to, hoping to get in on the conspiracy. He had looked her straight in the face and said - cool as you please - that they were planning to slip Veritaserum into Snape’s pumpkin juice and find out just why he fancied the pants off Draco Malfoy. Because, of course, they already knew that he did.

And she had believed him. In an instant, mopiness had turned into righteous anger - but who it was directed at she had no idea. He had flat out lied to her, and she had believed him. But of course she had believed him, he’d never given her any reason not to. Fred had never lied to her before. Stretched the truth, yes. Conveniently left out a few facts, yes. But directly lie? Never. Fred was of the blunt-and-to-the-point sort. He’d proved that on multiple occasions. Take the Yule Ball.

Angelina smiled and shook her head at the memory. She had dated before, tried a few things in a few closets but never gone very far because it was common knowledge that she had the hots for Fred Weasley. Well, common knowledge to Katie and Alicia, her two closest friends. Alicia had an off-and-on thing with Lee - on, at the moment - and Katie had given up on a long-distance relationship with Oliver in order to get with George, leaving Angelina as the only single in the Trio (even when spoken, it was spelled with a capital ‘T’). Her friends were bound and determined to find someone for her. They had been sitting in the common room talking and Alicia had just mentioned someone Angelina wouldn’t have considered in a thousand years when a loud voice calling her name caught her attention.

“Oi! Angelina!”

“What?” she had replied automatically. ‘Oi’ indeed.

“Want to come to the ball with me?”

It took Angelina a few moments to respond - she felt as if she had been put in a full-body bind. When she finally forced a few words out of her mouth, a smile was dancing on her lips. “All right, then” she somehow managed to not stammer, turning back to face her friends. The two of them were grinning widely and it took Angelina no time flat to figure out that they had known something beforehand. Turned out that Katie had heard from George that Fred fancied Alicia and a few hints had been slipped here and there and...

Then the Yule Ball had rolled around and she’d thought he’d looked wonderful and he’d thought the same - regarding her of course - and they had terrified their fellow dancers with their wild and crazy ways. When the music slowed, so did they. When he held her close in his arms, she had rested her head on his shoulder. When no one was looking, he had kissed her. And when she said she needed some fresh air, he’d caught the hint.

And followed. What came next was something of rare occurrence - Fred Weasley had taken a serious conversation seriously. They had walked in silence for a few minutes, but it wasn’t an awkward silence at all. Not at the start, not at the end, not in the middle when he gently reached down and twined his fingers in among hers. Not a word passed between them until they had finally found a private spot and then he didn’t seem to be able to speak quickly enough. In a bumbling, stammering way so unlike his usual self, Fred had barely been able to spit out that he liked her and had for a while now and didn’t know how to tell her and didn’t want to ruin their friendship and -

At which point Angelina had taken matters - and his face - into her own hands and promptly shut him up with a kiss. It was a bit of an awkward kiss, not what she would have wished, really, but it wasn’t so terrible. It was the kiss of two people who, after years of uncharacteristic, secret pining, had finally admitted their feelings. He had jumped a bit at first and she had only caught the corner of his mouth and at one point they had clacked teeth, but it was a sweet kiss and she had liked it.

Of course he, in true Fred Weasley style, had nearly ruined it with a yelp of pain halfway through. Angelina had jerked back, startled, and asked what she had done to which he had quickly responded, nothing - he had merely pinched himself to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming. At which point she burst into giggles. At which point he had silenced her with another kiss. At which point they had decided that this was a very nifty private spot indeed and proceeded to think that it was a very nifty private spot indeed until they were interrupted by a very shocked Ginny (indeed) some twenty minutes later. Never mind why Ginny had been out in the gardens in the first place.

Angelina stifled a grin at the memory of Fred trying to force-feed Draco Malfoy his own dress robes. But she had to admit - Ginny did have taste. And Fred did deliver vengeance with style. Although, he was going to learn a whole new meaning to the word vengeance once she got her hands on him. If she didn’t get an explanation - and soon - Peeves wasn’t going to be the only one giving hell. That shit, how dare he pull a (uproariously hilarious) prank like that and leave her gaping as he flew through the window, an iron peg hanging from his broomstick nearly taking her head off as he went. Once she got a hold of him, she was going to take those chains and (in a fashion that was in no way kinky) wrap them around his not-so-scrawny neck.

She was jerked from her thoughts as a small ball of fluff went flying past her ear. ‘Flying’ being a more correct term than she had thought at first, for it was not a ball of fluff at all but a tiny owl that Angelina recognized as belonging to Ron. It swooped around the room a few times, dropped an envelope directly into her hair, and sat hooting happily on Katie’s bedpost. It also refused to budge until she read the letter so, sighing, Angelina complied. Only to get that stupid thing to stop staring at her with those freakily over-large eyes.

My dearest Angelina, it read.

So he was buttering her up.

No, I am not buttering you up. I’m simply stating a fact. You are my dearest Angelina. You’re also my only Angelina, but that’s entirely beside the point. Ah, the wonderful Weasley humor. Makes women want me, men want to be me, and everyone want me to shut up.

Fred Weasley was a dead, dead man.

After that horrible introduction, I want to get to the point of the letter. I want to say I’m sorry. Yes, yes, I know, I used the s-word. Bad Fred, no biscuit. But I am sorry, really and truly I am. I lied to your face and that was wrong. The truth is, I knew the chances were good that we were going to be caught with that last one, and I knew you would know that too. I didn’t know how to tell you that I was leaving so I didn’t tell you at all. I’ve never felt worse in my life. Not even when I missed seeing Malfoy bouncing around the corridors as a ferret.

Merlin, I love letters. Means I can’t stutter when I’m saying the important stuff. And believe me, this is really, really important. No, this is more than important. This is past important, beyond important. If important is the Earth, than this is Pluto. This is...

A really good way of stalling. Now if I can just stop that and say what I want to say.

I love you, Angel. There, I finally got it out. I love you and that’s the gods’ honest truth. I’ve known you since we were eleven and I don’t want to ever stop knowing you. And look, just for you I’ve refrained from commenting on the impossibility of being able to stop knowing someone... oops. I should probably erase that sentence, I really want to erase that last sentence. But I won’t. I want this to be a completely honest letter so no changes, no nothing like that. I want this to be straight from me to you. And ignore that double negative up there.

I’m going to finish this letter up soon so I can send if off before I lose my nerve. You know how bad I am at this serious stuff. But the term’s over in a few months so come visit me - please. We’re in Diagon Alley, right next to Madame Malkin’s. And in the meantime, write back (not that you have any choice, by the way. Pig’s under strict orders to stare at you until you do.) I want to know how badly you torment the Umbridge hag. I know Flitwick and McGonagall can get rid of the swamp, but here’s to hoping that they “forget”. Three Galleons says they won’t budge it - I once heard McGonagall telling Peeves how to unscrew a chandelier.

I’m rambling again, aren’t I?

The point is, I miss you, I love you, and I have to see you again soon.

Yours always,

Fred

Angelina’s face positively glowed with her smile as she clutched the letter to her chest and skipped around the room in a manner even Parvati and Lavender would have approved of. This was beyond belief incredible. She never would have imagined this-he loved her! Her! This was... wow. Of course, if he really wanted to be forgiven he would have to tell her to her face but until then he would be on some sort of probation. And the length of his sentence would be inversely proportional to the number of letters he sent. Letters! She twisted in mid-skip and landed flat on her bed, stomach-down and reaching for a quill and parchment. Ron’s owl hooted happily as it peered over her shoulder.

The end of the term couldn’t come fast enough.