Falling Slowly (A Hogwarts Lovestory) - Fred Weasley Fanfiction

23 | Eat, Sleep, Wake

Roger's been right. I did bring nearly the whole school library with me.
If you'd look around in the room I lived in at the Leaky Cauldron Inn, you'd think someone's broken in. There were books all sizes and colours spreaded all over the floor. Several piles of parchment paper, some old and faded, some new with dark letters on it, were covering the bed and the small desk in front of the window. The yellowish wallpaper above the desk was decorated with a parchement poster that pictured something that looked like a family tree. All sorts of names appeared on those poster, some were connected by lines, others were just followed by a large question mark.

I groaned and looked desperately at my work. How could I ever find a connection in this mess?
I bet if I didn't got distracted by a certain handsome face appearing in my mind every five minutes, I'd already found the answer by now. But unfortunately my concentration got disturbed by the memory of Fred's kiss several times per day.

I didn't find any reference to my family in there yet. Of course I knew that Daniels wasn't my birth name, but I was looking for a hint, any hint at all, that some witch from one of the old wizard families had left a child. I didn't expect to find any record of an abandoned child at all but I hoped to get a better picture of the old wizard families on the whole so I could get further clues.

There weren't many records of confirmed Parselmouths in britain at all. Most of the information about ancient wizards was lost. What I got from Notable Magical Names of Our Time was that almost all known Parselmouths were relatives of Salazar Slytherin. Dumbledore told us that You-Know-Who himself was able to speak Parseltongue. I didn't find much about him in the historical books, his birth name Riddle appeared mostly in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts. There was one name I marked on the wallpaper, the name Gaunt, because I found several records of this family to speak snake language at home in Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy, but I didn't get the connection yet. Maybe I should've taken some books from the Restricted Section of the school's library as well.

I was just about to open a heavy and shabby looking book with the promising title Wizards with Wicked Wounds when a loud grumble disturbed my concentration. The noise came right out of my stomach. I hadn't eaten properly in days, I was too busy reading pages over pages of old books that unfortunately didn't lead my anywhere. I sighed. I had to get something to eat before I could continue my research.
I tried to put everything in my room roughly into order in case the room service entered during my absence, stuffed my diary into the back pocket of my jeans and closed the door to my room carefully. Hopefully Tom had prepared something more appetizing than the usual house soup. I had to admit that his cooking skills needed some approval. The butterbeer at the Cauldron was pretty good though.

But when I entered the bar only a few seconds later, I got distracted by something else and my empty stomach had to wait a little longer. Right there, in the middle of the bar at the largest table, sat Harry Potter. He looked rather harassed and tired and he was having a heated conversation with Cornelius Fudge, the current minister of magic.
"Miss Dursley has been punctured and her memory has been modified. She has no recollection of the incident at all. So that's that, and no harm done", I heard Fudge say. What by Merlin's beard did Harry do?
"Ah, Miss Daniels", Fudge called as he noticed my appearance. Why did he knew my name? "Dumbledore told me that a dear student of his is calling the Leaky Cauldron her home this summer. Do you mind showing Mr Potter his room? He'll take the room right next to yours. I bet you two will get along staying neighbors the rest of the summer. Harry, if you need something, don't hesitate and send me an owl. Goodbye."
Fudge disappeared and left Harry and me alone with Tom, who quickly went into the kitchen to get me my own bowl of soup (too much pepper, too little salt as always).
I greeted Harry with a long hug, happy to finally have a friend to talk to, and he told me the whole story about how he'd accidentally blown up his aunt earlier this day. I nearly spilled my soup because I had to laugh so hard at the thought of that.

When we arrived at our rooms, I wasn't able to hide the mess inside mine from Harry in time.
"Blimey, Julie, what are you up to? I don't remember having that much homework." He looked curiously at the wallpaper with my notes on.
"Tom Riddle", he read slowly. "That's Voldemort's real name. Dumbledore told me at the end of last year after Ginny was bewitched by his old journal. What are you looking for?"
I didn't know what to answer. I didn't want to lie to him since he was my friend but I wasn't ready to tell anyone about the fear that was growing inside me since I had first heard the weird hissing voice in the walls of the castle last year. So I remained silent.
Harry continued searching through my notes. He seemed quite interested but I didn't think he was suspicious towards me.
"Confirmed Parselmouths", read Harry frowning from one of my notes. "Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunt family, Tom Riddle, Herpo the Foul, Rionach Sayre... there's one name missing." He took a quill and a small bottle of ink from my desk and added the name Harry Potter to the list.
"I don't know what exactly it is you're looking for and why you're so obsessed with it, Julie, but I want to find out more about Voldemort's - I'm sorry, You-Know-Who's - past, too. Do you mind if I join you on your research?"

I didn't and so Harry and I spend the following days searching through the rest of the books I borrowed from Madam Pince together. We completed the gigantic family tree of ancient wizards and succesfully connected some important family names; among others the Peverells, the Gaunts, the Prewetts, the Lestranges, the Blacks, the Potters and the Weasleys.
"Black...", I mumbled as I looked upon our finished work. "Where do I know that name from?"
"It's all over the news", Harry answered and pulled the Daily Prophet out of his pocket. "Sirius Black, a sentenced murderer, has escaped Azkaban, the well-known wizard prison, a few days ago. He was one of You-Know-Who's followers."
I looked at the picture on the front page of the newspaper. The man, Sirius Black, looked devastated but I didn't see any spitefulness in his eyes, to be honest. He just looked tired to me. And sad.
But much more interesting than the article of Black's scandalous escape I found the article about the Weasleys in Egypt on an older version of the Daily Prophet. I immediately noticed Fred's face smiling at me from the yellowish paper. My heart made a little leap. I didn't hear from him since he kissed me at the train and left without a proper goodbye. My heart longed to see him again, even if I knew that kiss was a one time thing.
"What are you looking at?", said Harry, who noticed my staring. "Did you find anything of interest?"
"Eh, no", I said hastily and turned crimson. I closed the newspaper and tried to change the topic. "I'm tired and I think I should go to bed now. Do you want to meet up at breakfast tomorrow? It's our birthday, we should celebrate it at least a little bit. Tom's serving cinnamon buns, he promised."

When I woke up, I didn't feel different, not even a little bit. Fifteen, I thought. Two more years to go until I'll reach the legal age. I watched my reflection in the mirror. I looked different though than I did a year ago. My face was still the same, maybe a bit thinner, but that could be the fault of Tom's cooking skills and my eyes, still bright green, looked more seriously back at me than before. I searched my wardrobe for my favourite sweater, but then my eyes caught my blue dress. The dress I had worn on my birthday last year when Fred told me he liked how I looked in it.
I pulled on the dress, brushed my hair and stepped out of the door to meet up with Harry down at the bar for breakfast. I expected my birthday to be as boring as every year, but right when I reached the stairway I was nearly pushed down by a fat grey rat that's been chased by something that looked like a small red tiger with long fluffy fur.
"Crookshanks!", someone called the cat but it was too late. I had already lost balance and was about to fall down, when suddenly two strong arms catched me. I looked down and noticed that the arms that had catched me were quite muscular and freckled and I didn't even need to look up to know who had kept me from falling down the stairs.
"Oy, Daniels", Fred's familiar voice smirked. "You should pay more attention on where you are going or did you plan on landing in my arms this morning on purpose?"

I can't stick to the path
'Cause I dream about nothing but you
- Bombay Bicycle Club