Before you (Fred Weasley)

CHAPTER 77

"That's a terrific movie! And Brad Pitt is such a sweetheart in it!" said Hermione.

"Who's Brad Pitt?" Ron said, setting his fork down and looking at Hermione.

"He's this actor, totally gorgeous, even more so than Gilderoy Lockhart" said Hermione. She was adorable when she gushed about him. It was true, whoever that actor was definitely had the looks, even Fred had said so.

"Hang on a minute, more than Lockhart?" said Fleur, her eyes widening. Bill choked on his food.

"Oh shh Bill I'm just curious" she chuckled.

"Wait, so, this Brad..person..do you know him?" Ron asked.

"Not personally" said Hermione.

"It's good but it's really long. Toy Story is so much better" said Dean, about the movie.

"Yea but the real Tom Hanks hit was Forrest Gump, nothing can beat that" said Hermione and Dean nodded in agreement. Everyone stared at them as they raved about the Muggle movies. Even Harry hadn't heard much about them.

"Did you go to the pub I talked about?" asked Dean and Fred simply nodded in response. He pushed the food on his plate around with a fork, seemingly focused elsewhere. Had I said something last night that I didn't remember?

I felt the tickle of a sneeze in my nose and turned away from the table to sneeze into my elbow.

"Oh dear, you must have caught a cold from last night" said Fleur as I sniffed. She passed me a bowl of soup.

"Where are Mr. Ollivander and Griphook?" I asked.

"They're upstairs, I had a talk with them just a few moments ago. Mr. Ollivander even gave me a new wand" said Luna.

After lunch was over, I cornered Fred who was standing by his own by the window. I placed my hands on his shoulders and he jumped.

"What's wrong? You've been acting weird all day" I said.

"What? No I haven't"

"You have never remained quiet for such a long period of time" 

"I-I'm just tired" he sighed. Somehow, I didn't believe him but maybe it was true.

"Alice, y-you don't remember much of last night do you?" he asked, not making eye contact with me.

"No not really, why?"

"I mean, you don't remember me saying anything out of the ordinary?" he looked a little nervous.

"Apart from when you said I had small ears, which is completely untrue by the way, no, you didn't say anything out of the ordinary" I chuckled and he visibly relaxed.

"Your Birthday's coming up in a couple of days" I reminded him, sitting on the sofa.

"Oh yea, I almost forgot about that. We're probably just going to stay in this time" said Fred, sitting next to me.

"Y'know, I hate imposing on Bill and Fleur like this, they've housed us for so long" I said, looking through the mail on the side table to see that I had two letters. One from Bella and one from..Mrs. Lume, Amelie's mother? Why was she writing to me?

"Yea but we don't even have a place of our own except for the flat and that's full of death eaters" Fred sighed, leaning his head back on the sofa and closing his eyes.

I ripped open the first letter from Bella.

Dear Alice,

I just wanted to tell you that I really miss having you around. I'm at my mum and dad's now after that wretched death eater took me from Atlantes. Please write back to me, I really miss you. How's Helena and Cadmus? Or maybe I should say mum and dad..

Can't wait to see you soon.

Love,

Bella

I still hadn't told Bella that our mother was in St. Mungo's and I felt horrible about it. I had visited my mother twice and both times she was almost unresponsive, I didn't know if Bella was ready to see her yet.

I wrote a letter back to Bella on a piece of parchment, not mentioning my mother's current state. I told her that I was staying at Shell Cottage and that I was fine. I even apologised for not writing to her regularly. 

I realised that Fred had dozed off so I grabbed a sofa throw and covered him with it.

I opened the next letter from Amelie's mother.

Dear Alice,

I regret to inform you that my daughter has been very terribly injured by a death eater, we aren't very sure if she's going to make it. When I asked her if she wanted anything, she said that she wanted to see you once again.

I am aware that you are currently not attending Hogwarts and I would really love it if you could meet her, please, for her sake. She isn't doing very well and you have been her childhood friend. I know that it may be difficult for you to travel to France in the middle of the war but Amelie really misses you.

Please consider it.

Regards,

Janet Lume

My heart shattered into a million pieces. This couldn't be happening again, the death eaters couldn't take more of my family away from me. What the hell had they done to Amelie?

There was no way that I wasn't going to meet her, I had to see her, she was my best friend. I started to panic, not really sure how I was going to get to France. It wasn't possible to apparate such long distances and I was certain that death eaters would be guarding the borders and platform nine and three quarters.

The only thing I could think of was taking the muggle train which also had some spies from the dark side according to The Daily Prophet. I wanted to go before it would be too late, possibly tomorrow. But Fred was definitely going to say no. After all I had been through, being caught by the death eaters, Fred was not going to let me go. I didn't blame him for being protective, I had a habit of getting myself in difficult situations.

Fred suddenly jerked his head up, looking around as if someone had slapped him.

"I had a dream that my face was being eaten by a Blast-Ended Skrewt" Fred shuddered. He looked at me and immediately realised that something was off.

"What is it?" he asked. I handed him the letter and he read through it.

I looked at him nervously, awaiting his reply.

"There's no way in hell-"

"Fred please! My best friend is dying!" I said.

"But-"

"Please" I pleaded.

Fred thought for a few moments.

"Fine, but you're not going anywhere alone. I'm taking you along with George. And we're going to come up with a proper plan so that no one gets caught" Fred said hesitantly.

I threw my arms around him.

"Thank you!"

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