Ophidian | Fred Weasley ✔

E P I L O G U E

September 1st, 2010.

A scarlet haired wizard made his way through the throng of bustling muggles who pushed past each other in an attempt to reach their destination sooner.

The very same station he remembered having visited every year for seven years of his life. The very essence of the station held memories for the vermillion haired wizard, his twin and him running with their trolleys, bickering with his siblings, arguing about who would go in through the barrier first and the foremost, he thought coming to a stop between the platforms 9 and 10, having met the love of his life for the first time on this very platform.

"Fred?" He heard someone call him. He turned around to face the Head Auror of Macusa who grinned when he recognised the Vemillion haired wizard.

"Yuko." Fred greeted, giving an equally dazzling grin back. The stuttering, scrawny boy that he had met in Hogwarts had grown into a tall, handsome and confident man. The little boy who questioned if the sorting hat had made a mistake by putting him in Gryffindor was now the Head Auror for Macusa.

"Here to drop off Hope?" Yuko asked.

Fred nodded. "What about you?"

"Here on some Ministry business. It's been quite chaotic lately." Yuko replied shrugging. Before Fred could reply, a voice cut him off.

"Uncle Fred!" Fred turned around to glance at a tuft of obnoxiously bright pink hair.

"What happened to your hair?" Fred asked, holding in his laughter at the distraught face of the eight year old.

"Hope did it!" George's son called out, pointing his tiny finger accusingly at a ginger haired petite girl who smiled mischievously. Fred had already known whose doing it had been at first glance at Carlisle's hair.

"Why, Carly, I would never do such a thing!" The young witch cried out, her hands planted on her chest in a look of mock hurt.

"My name is Carlisle! Stop calling me Carly!" Carlisle muttered out making Hope grin.

"Now, now, kids. Behave please," Fred looked at Hope giving her a look of enough, and she just smirked mischievously and shrugged. "Come here, Carlisle, I'll fix your hair for you after we've gone through the barrier."

"I better be off then, Fred." Yuko said smiling at the vermillion haired wizard. Fred nodded and held out his hand that Yuko shook with a firm grip.

"It was good to see you." Fred said.

"Likewise." Yuko said as he turned around and left.

"Uncle Fred!" He heard another cry.

Volunteering to bring all his brother's kids to drop them off for the Hogwarts Express certainly hadn't been one of his brightest ideas.

"Yes, Victoire darling?" He asked glancing at Bill's daughter who looked sceptically at her uncle.

"Hope told me that you have to duel a teacher for the sorting ceremony, is it true?" Victoire asked, her big blue eyes widened in fear.

"Ofcourse not dear," He said glancing at the witch in question who looked anywhere but at Fred. He shook his head. "Why don't we get you through the barrier first? We don't want to be late, now do we?" Fred asked trying to ease Victoire's nerves. She nodded and braced herself to run through the barrier. She looked at Fred who nodded at her and with a determined look, Victoire ran through the barrier.

"You next, Hope." He told the first year who shrugged and ran past the barrier, her curly red hair whizzing around wildly.

"Now, shall we, Carlisle?" He asked the youngest Weasley present who had insisted on accompanying his two older cousins for their first year at Hogwarts. The young boy nodded, his pink hair bouncing atop his head.

Fred picked him up and ran through the barrier making his way onto platform 9¾ to see it bustling with life, students dressed in their robes, some yielding the newest brooms while the families bid their kids goodbye.

He saw Victoire had already found her way into a compartment as she waved at her uncle shyly. Fred smiled at her as he felt Carlisle waving at his cousin, too. But Carlisle's other cousin was nowhere in sight. Fred looked around and spotted the flaming haired witch a few feet away tying her shoelaces.

"Carlisle, honey, why don't you go sit with Victoire for a moment? I'll go get Hope." He told the young boy who nodded and made his way into his cousin's compartment.

"Need help?" Fred asked crouching down in front of Hope, who seemed to be stalling by petending to tie her already tied shoes. She looked up gingerly.

"Dad?" She asked.

"Yes, love?" Fred replied sensing insecurity in his daughter's usually mischievous eyes.

"What if I am put in Slytherin?" She asked unsure. "Great Aunt Muriel told me that I was sneaky enough to be put in that house. Is it bad if I do? Will you love me less if I am?" The young witch blurted out shocking her father.

"Hope Artemis Weasley," Fred said looking into the forest green orbs of his daughter, "You are named after the one woman I loved more than anything in this world and she," he said patting her head, "was a Slytherin and she was proud of it."

"I don't care what house you are put in, honey, I'll love you just the same." Fred said smiling down at his daughter who grinned, her sparkle of mischief back in her eyes as she engulfed her father in a hug.

The father got his daughter onto the train as he got Carlisle back in his arms, his hair now back to it's usual scarlet instead of pink.

"Hope?" He called finally as the train gained momentum. His daughter popped her head out of the window.

"Blow up as many toilets as you can!" His daughter grinned and nodded her head, waving enthusiastically and then, she was a speck in the distance as the Hogwarts Express departed.

Hope wasn't his biological daughter. He had found her, abandoned on the empty streets of Diagon Alley and even in his drunken haze, he was drawn to her. His daughter had given him exactly what her name signified— Hope. When he'd felt like there wasn't any meaning to his life left, when there hadn't been a moment after Artemis' death that he was sober, finding Hope on the streets, crying with a vengeance had been like a wake up call. Her uncanny resemblance to his family with that brilliantly scarlet hair of hers hadn't been what shocked Fred, it had been the forest green eyes that had shocked him, forest green eyes that were the exact same shade as hers.

And he knew then, that he'd found another reason to live, a reason to smile, His Hope.

And as he felt a cool breeze go past him, he knew Artemis stood by his side, smiling down at him.

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