Infamous | Fred Weasley x OC |

Prologue

My birthday had always been a special day, for as long as I can remember. I would wake up each year the earliest I've ever got up and Sarah and Amy would come in with a humble pile of presents and homemade cards. Sarah would have baked a cake and left the kitchen dusted with flour and at the end of the day, we'd all sit in the living room with the fireplace lit and eat dinner on the sofa in front of the TV. I woke up that morning, on my eleventh birthday, thinking that everything would be the same as the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that. But that year, I got one more letter than I was expecting.

Amy bound into my bedroom at just gone 7am, singing an off-key but enthusiastic rendition of happy birthday, pulling her mother along after her by her pyjama sleeves. Sarah was still half asleep and I wasn't much more awake. Amy set down my two birthday presents on the edge of my bed, one from Amy and one from Sarah. Sarah had a few envelopes and birthday cards from a few of the girls at school. I always got cards from the other girls in the village but considering they were all eleven and each birthday card was written in pristine cursive handwriting, I suspected their parents wrote them. I'd never really got along with the rest of the girls at school. I was just a bit different.

I opened each card anyway, read them once and put them aside. The last one was very different from the rest. The other birthday cards I'd got were all in bright pink envelopes with "Happy Eleventh Birthday" written on the front in glitter. But this one was in an old-fashioned looking envelope with a scarlet wax seal, embellished with an unusual crest filled with animals which only left me more confused.

Not wanting to break the seal, I tore open the envelope along the top and eased the letter out. It was a long letter for a birthday card. Intrigued, I eagerly read the letter.

"HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

"Dear Ms Caswell,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress."

"Is this a joke?" I asked Amy innocently, who was known in our family for pulling elaborate pranks on people.

"What?" she asked, peering over my shoulder and yanking the letter out of my hand so she could read it better. I watched her eyes skim over the letter and once she'd got to the end she set it down and laughed with a big frown on her face, "What the hell is this? Mum, you've got to see this random letter Allie got! Whoever thought up this joke is a genius. A weirdo, but a genius."

Amy pushed the letter into Sarah's hand, not taking no for an answer. We both sat on the end of my bed, watching Sarah read the letter. Something flickered across her eyes once she saw the seal. I couldn't place what it was, almost recognition. Her face fell when she got to the end and her hand fell away to her side, still holding the letter. She looked at me with a look I'd never seen before. Her eyes looked glossy and she blinked, turning her head away from me and sighed.

"I suppose we'll have to plan a trip to London then." She sighed and smiled sadly at me, passing me back the letter and swiftly leaving the room. Amy turned to me with a bemused frown, trying not to laugh.

"What's up with her?" She said, "She can't be serious. That letter can't be real, right?"