One Proud Lion - A Fred Weasley Fanfiction

Chapter 4

August 1993

About a month later I was packing my bag for Hogwarts. Mary knocked on my door. "Hey baby, do you have a minute?" I nod. She sits down on my bed. My cat, Milo meowed at her as she sat. She shook her head. Milo had been my protector since the day I got him.

"What's on your mind?" I ask as I plop Milo on my lap. "Well...I know with your Uncle Remus attending Hogwarts he believes he can protect you from anything..." She trails off.

"But you think he can't?" I ask.

She sighs. "You are 15 now. You are a young woman now...who makes her own choices about...her body."

I let go of Milo immediately. "Oh my Merlin."

"I just think you should know..."

"Oh God. Aunt Mary." I cringe. 

"We have to talk about it!" she pleads.

"Aunt Mary, I am not hooking up with anyone."

"Okay but if you do..."

"I won't." I assure her.

"Okay but if you do...she holds up the very nice muggle invention of protection." I remember them from my muggle health class.

"Wow. Okay I will pack these. I promise I won't come home pregnant. Can we call that it for the safe s-x talk?" I beg.

She nods and starts to leave the room. Then she turns back around. "It's just that...." I plop on the bed and run my fingers through my hair. "Your mother loved you so much. And she wanted to keep you and raise you herself. That is not how things played out. However..." "However, she was 18 and was still a baby herself and you'd hate to see the same thing happen to me." I finished for her. Mary stood very still in surprise.

"It doesn't take a genius to take your ages out and do a little subtraction." Mary slowly moved back into my room. "She wanted you." Mary said firmly. I smile. "An unplanned blessing?"

Mary laid on my bed so she could look at my ceiling rather than me. "Your mother...was young, but she knew she didn't want to fall into pureblood traditions. Getting married and having kids to continue bloodlines. She wanted to be a fighter, a warrior...but things were rough and she started to wonder if the war was going to mean anything or if it was an un-winnable battle."

I felt like I was waiting with bated breath. "What happened?" Mary laughed. "She had a slip with your father."

I raised an eyebrow. Mary rarely said the f word....father. "Must have been a pretty big slip." I mumble.

Mary stopped laughing. I think maybe she regrets what she said, but she shrugs. "Yes, but she got you. We all did. And you gave us something to fight for. For the first time we realized we wanted you to have peace."

Mary always spoke so poetically. I know the war is more complicated than that, but she is so proud of herself. I just reach over and pull her to a sitting position so I can hug her. "Thanks Aunt Mary. I'm going to miss you." 

She hugs me close to her. "Oh I am going to miss you a lot this year. Promise me you'll look out for your Uncle." 

I pull back to look into her eyes. "I will. But you should focus on yourself this year. Do things just for you. You're not old yet." She just chuckles.

"Hey there are my girls. You ready to go, Mal?" Remus asks from my doorway. I nod. We walk downstairs and keeping in tradition I do a little 360 around the cottage.

The knitted blanket on the pilfering navy blue couch.

The radio on the brown three legged table that had one leg shorter than the rest.

The kitchen table doubles as Mary's office with random papers and folders covering it in systematic piles that only make sense to her.

Plus the random assortment of books... everywhere.

"It'll be here when you get back at Christmas." Mary smiles. She kisses Remus's cheek. "Take care of yourself, please." He blushes and picks up my trunk and goes to the car.

"I'll write to you next week." I say, giving Mary one more hug. "See you soon, baby."

As I walk to the car I feel like for the first time I notice that both Mary and Remus have called me 'baby.' And maybe it's because I was their friend group's first baby....now if only I could put their group memories back together.

"Are you ready for your 5th year?" Remus asks me as we drive to the train station. "That depends...you're not going to try to sit with me are you?" I joke. Remus rolls his eyes. "It would totally ruin my street cred, no offense."

"I will sit somewhere else so as to not ruin your street cred."

When we get to King Cross, Remus kisses my head and tells me to go ahead without him. He'll catch up with me at school. I think he might have wanted to get on the platform and train alone. It probably brought back a lot of memories for him.

He didn't talk about school a lot, but I knew Remus and Mary were good friends with James and Lily Potter...although I guess it wasn't quite as clear to everyone at that time that they would be getting married.

I suddenly wondered if this was going to be too hard for him. I ran ahead and once at the platform, knew exactly where I was heading. The sea of red-heads paved the way. "Bye Mrs. Weasley!" I waved as I walked past quickly grabbing George's sleeve and pulling him on the train.

"Hey! Don't forget about me!" Fred said as he struggled to board with their family owl, Errol. He slammed the cage against the door in multiple ways, unable to get it through the door. Mrs. Weasley chastises him the whole time.

George and I stood in the aisle watching the comedic scene. "He's been bragging about you being his best friend for the last month." George whispered with a raised eyebrow. 

I shoot George my all-knowing look. "Well you did break his precious heart." I say sarcastically as I watch Fred continue to struggle to get on the train and the kids behind him getting agitated.

"So...Angelina! That's so exciting. What do you want me to do? Play it cool or try to be your wingman." I ask excitedly.

George shakes his head. 

"Come on...she'd be crazy not to like you." 

George shrugs. "I can't do that to Fred."

Fred finally got himself on the train and was now standing backwards trying to pull the too-wide cage on. Ron was pushing on the other end. Harry looked like he wanted to have carpooled with literally anybody else.

"Fred will be fine. Look, I will handle Fred. You deserve to go after what you want."

Finally the remaining Weasley's tumbled on the train with Errol.

"Fine, I'll give you a chance to work over Freddie, but if it doesn't work..."

"It will!" I insist.

"You guys could have helped me! What was so interesting that you had to stand here and talk about?" Fred questioned us with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

I reached down and grabbed the cage. "Do you think Errol is overweight?" I asked sincerely. "By owl standards?"

George had to turn away to stifle a laugh. He walked into one of the compartments.

"You're impossible." Fred sighed as he followed George into the compartment. Ron and Harry looked at me with wide eyes as I continued to examine Errol.

"WELL I THINK HE IS!" I called out before walking into their compartment too, for the long train ride to Hogwarts.