**A/N** yes you read the title right! Freddie is back! I really missed writing POV's as Freddie so I thought why not! Let me know if you'd like to have a few Freddie POV's mixed in during the Christmas holidays! I hope you've been enjoying the past few parts because they have been so much fun to write! Lots of love xx
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Standing outside of the shop is a surreal feeling. I mean yeah I grew up here and it's still my home and whatever but coming back here after being in Singapore for five months? I feel like an outsider.
The shops closed today which doesn't make much sense. I told Mum and Dad that I was gonna come home around dinner time so that they wouldn't have to close the shop for me. And I'm here at ten in the morning so I can surprise them all. I was just going to sneak in and change into my work uniform and start helping customers...
But the shops closed.
And I don't have a key anymore.
I walk along to the back of the shop and unlatch the gate so I can slip into the backyard. Well, it's sort of like a backyard. There's a big driveway that we use for shipments and general driving, but there's a lawn and some old swings and stuff from when we were all kids.
I open the door that leads to the back stairs and walk up. The faint sound of my family laughing gets louder and louder with every set of stairs that I walk up. I'll never admit it, and I'll kill you if you tell them anything, but I really miss being close to home.
Don't get me wrong, travelling the world with the love of my life has been magical, but I never really saw that as a long-term thing. I always saw that as something to do in my twenties and then come back to London, close to my and Evie's family and start our own.
Look at me, talking like I'm some old bat, I'm only nineteen.
"Fred! Sneaking out of the house like some lovesick teenager! I can't believe you!" Mum shrieks when I actually step into the flat.
Uh... what? I haven't snuck out of anywhere? And well... I am a lovesick teenager? Course I don't have to sneak out anywhere to see the love of my life cause we're getting married in the summer.
"At least invite Emma back for breakfast next time." I can hear Dad laugh.
....
Emma? Like Auntie Em? I haven't... uh, gross? No? That's my aunt?
I walk carefully down the hallway and into the living room. My entire family is in the kitchen. Mum is sitting on the kitchen counter as Dad cooks breakfast. Theo, Annie, and Ophelia are doing a really bad dance to the song playing on the radio. Cassiopeia is sitting at the table with...
What the fuck?
What the literal fuck am I looking at right now?
That Greek bastard that made Cassiopeia's life a living hell is sitting with...
My Dad?
No, cause Dad just snogged Mum as he's making pancakes.
So who the FUCK is that?
"Does this mean that you and Auntie Em are gonna get married?" Annie says to not-dad.
Not-dad laughs, "I've been back for a day Annie," he grabs my sister and puts her in his lap.
"You've been thinking about marrying Emma since you were like eighteen Freddie," Dad says, "When Vi and I got back together I waited what? A year before asking her to marry me?"
Freddie... Fred... Not-dad...
My brain feels like it's working overtime trying to process what the fuck I'm looking at. I might be dumb, I might be really dumb. But if I'm seeing this right, that's my Uncle Fred. Sitting at my dining table, alive... I need a second.
Annie sees me and hops off of not-dad, Fred... I'm Fred... Uncle Fred... I'm gonna explode.
Let's try this again.
Annie sees me and hops off of Uncle Fred's lap and runs over to me, "Freddie! Freddie's home!" She throws herself onto me and I nearly lose my balance. My bags fall to the floor as I catch my sister in my arms.
"Hey, Annie! Careful now you're not as small as you were before." I say holding onto her tight so she doesn't fall.
I walk into the living room and Mum comes over. Annie falls to the ground just in time cause Mum pulls me into the tightest hug she's ever given me and peppers my face with kisses, "I thought you weren't coming home till tonight!" She says happily, "Look ay you all grown up oh god I'm gonna cry!"
I give Mum another hug, "Hi Mumma, I've missed you."
Mum lets go of me so Dad can give me a hug hello, then Theo, then Cassie. Ophelia gives me a fist bump and that's about all of our physical interaction. She's only like two inches shorter than me and it's been so weird getting used to my little sister being the same height as me.
Once Mum gives me about five more hugs and a hundred forehead kisses she lets me go and sits back up on the counter beside Dad.
"Pancakes this morning eh Freddie?" Dad says to me.
I nod and take a seat at the dining table, "Yeah sounds good." I look at my uncle from across the table, then at Cassie who is sitting beside that Greek cunt discussing something that they've been studying in school.
"So is anyone going to explain why Dad's dead twin brother is sitting in my spot at the table or am I just supposed to accept that this is the new normal around here and call it a day?" I say.
Dad laughs, "Well you left us, so we had to find another Fred."
"What?" I say looking at Dad.
Mum is red in the face from laughing so hard, "Yeah! You know how your Dad is, we lost a Fred, then we had you, another Fred. But then you left so we had to go and find the first one."
Now everyone is laughing, even fucking dollar store Zeus over there.
"Hi," Uncle Fred says sticking his hand out from across the table, "My name's Fred."
Mum nearly falls off the counter she's laughing so bloody hard. I stare at my Uncle for a very long time, "You're not Fred. I am."
"Mate you're the one with my name, I'm not the one with your name." Uncle Fred says, "Shake my hand damnit."
I shake his hand and nearly scream. I was expecting him to just pass right through me like he did at Hogwarts all the time. But no, no, no, no, I'm shaking my dead Uncle's hand.
"Okay seriously. I was only gone for five months. What the fuck." I say.
"Language Fred!" Mum says.
"I am a forty-seven-year-old man LeStrange, I can say whatever I want." Uncle Fred says.
Mum rolls her eyes so hard that all anyone can see is the whites of her eyes for a solid three seconds, "Not you Fred, you Fred." Mum says looking at me, "I don't care if you fly around the world battling monsters, in this house, you don't cuss like that."
"Sorry Mumma," I say.
"Bit rich coming from the woman who told her professor that his favourite colour is the colour of his own shit in her fourth year eh?" Uncle Fred says to Mum.
Dad snorts as he piles all the pancakes he's made onto a plate, 'That's what I've been saying! She's a hypocrite." Dad pecks Mum on the lips.
"Just for that you two are sleeping on the couch tonight," Mum says getting off the counter and grabbing a bunch of plates for us all to use.
"All I'm saying is that the boy is grown! He travels the world with his girlfriend for a living, let the man swear!" Dad says.
"If they're legal then they should be able to cuss in front of their parents." Uncle Fred says, agreeing with Dad.
It's hard to keep up with them. Like I knew they were close and everything when Uncle Fred was alive... I – okay he's alive now too but before he died they were close. But seeing them interact together now it's sort of creepy. Dad has never not once been this happy on a morning and the two of them just bounce off of each other's energy like bloody rubber balls.
"I agree with them Mum," Ophelia says, "As a legal witch now I think that I have earned the right to swear."
"Really? You earned the right to swear? And did you earn this right before or after you turned yourself into an animagus?" Mum says to Ophelia, then she turns to Dad and Uncle Fred, "If you think you can cuss in front of your parents when you turn legal, I want you both to swear in front of Molly next time we see her. Which should be in three days so we can all have the welcome back from Hogwarts meal."
Dad and Uncle Fred exchange a look, "Deal. We swear in front of Mum then Cass. Leah and Freddie can swear in front of you." Uncle Fred says.
I look at Ophelia, my brain trying desperately to keep up with the conversations that are happening. Living in the Singaporean forests for five months with only Evie to talk to, I'm not used to talking to this many people at a time.
"Is anyone going to answer my question?" I say as Mum fills my plate with pancakes and sausage.
"You didn't ask a question idiot," Ophelia says.
"What is going on?"
Ophelia makes an 'o' shape with her mouth, "We brought Uncle Fred back from the dead like what? Two nights ago?"
Cassie nods, "Two nights ago sounds right."
"And..." I look between everyone, "And we're just okay with this?"
"I'm fucking okay with it." Uncle Fred says as he pours way too much syrup all over his food, "I got laid for the first time in twenty-five years last night. I'm perfectly okay with it."
"Fred!" Mum shrieks and hits him on the back of the head.
Uncle Fred moves out of the way of another slap from Mum, "Christ Vi here I was thinking that Gin was the one that was gonna turn into Mum in her old age."
"I am not old!"
"Mumma your firstborn is engaged." I say, "You're pretty old."
Ah shit. Shouldn't have said that. Nope. The one thing that Evie said to me when I left her parent's house this morning was 'let's wait till Christmas day to tell your entire family, I want to see their faces.' She's not gonna cancel the engagement is she? Bloody hope not, dunno if I'll be able to trick someone else into falling in love with me.
Mum stares at me, "Engaged. You... and Evie... are engaged?" She whispers.
Cass, Theo, Annie, and Ophelia are all looking back and forth between me and Mum like they're watching a bad tennis match.
Uncle Fred laughs and covers his face with his hands, "Angelina's kid? Fucking hell I came home at the right bloody time! Congrats!"
"Thanks, Uncle Fred," I say with a smile. I look back at Mum who I'm having a really hard time reading. "Mumma?"
"Give me a second." Mum whispers.
No one says anything for a minute.
"Congrats by the way Freddie Bear." Ophelia says, "Evie's a good person for you."
"She's great, Freddie." Cassie says, "I was half expecting you to come home and say that you're married honestly."
I half-smile at my sisters and look back at Mum. I get up from my seat and put my hands on her shoulders, "Mum, you like Evie."
Mum looks at me hard, tears are welling up in her eyes, "My baby... My baby's getting married!" Mum drops the plate that she was holding onto the floor and it shatters at her feet. She pulls me in for another massive hug and she doesn't let go for a solid five minutes.
"I'm proud of you Freddie," Dad says from behind Mum, "I'd hug you too but I don't think you're Mums gonna let me do that for a while."
"Thanks, Dad," I say with a smile. Mum lets go of me shortly after and wipes her tears on her sleeve. She nods a couple of times and cleans up the plate that she broke.
Everyone gives me a hug and a congrats again once Mum has managed to get her feelings under control.
I look over at Ophelia who has dared Theo to try and eat a pancake hole, "You're an animagus?" I ask her.
She stops trying to shove pancake in Theo's mouth and looks at me, "Yeah! Wanna see?"
Mum says no but Dad gives her a kiss to shush her.
Ophelia stands from the table and goes into the middle bit of the kitchen "It's super cool ready?" Ophelia closes her eyes and in an instant, she shrinks down and morphs into a different creature. Dad and Uncle Fred burst into laughter, Cassie buries her head in Greek bitches shoulder cause she's laughing so hard. I look at my sister on the floor,
"You're a fucking weasel!?"