“I told you! I AM NOT GOING!” shouted Molly Weasley as she stormed up the stairs. Slamming her bedroom door, she paced angrily across the room and sat down on her bed. She knew she was being unreasonable, but she couldn’t help it.
The last thing she wanted to do today was go to Hogwarts for the memorial service being held on the one year anniversary of the Battle. Why did she want to go and have to relive that day? Didn’t she see it vividly enough in her dreams?
“You need to go, Mum,” came a voice from the shadows.
Molly gasped even as the tears started. She watched as Fred strode out into the light and sat beside her.
“I’ve lost my mind, you can’t be here,” she said, her voice shaking.
“You haven’t lost your mind. I am really here,” Fred said gently. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, but he was worried about pushing her too far, too fast.
“Oh, Fred,” she sobbed and threw herself into his arms.
Fred was surprised she didn’t even shudder at the coldness of his body. He wrapped his arms around her and held her gently. After about five minutes, he felt her sobs lessening and pulled back slightly to look down at her. He gave her a soft smile.
“Mum,” he began but she was quick to cut him off.
“How could you? How could you be so careless? I told you no good would come from you joking all the time,” she said to him, her voice rising with each word.
“Mum-”
“Don’t you Mum me in that innocent tone of voice, Fred Weasley. It hasn’t worked since you were two years old and the fact you are dead doesn’t change anything,” she said. Then as if realising what she said, she jumped up from the bed and stared down at him.
Gently, she reached a hesitant hand out and touched his hair and then his face. Fred watched as she drew a deep breath and turned away from him, walking across the room to look out the window.
“Why are you here?” she asked emotionlessly.
“To see you,” he answered simply. “You needed to see me.”
She spun around at his words. “I needed to see you? So, you just thought you’d float down here today of all days and visit? I needed to see you a year ago, months ago, even yesterday. But today, today I don’t need to see you. Today, I realised you are gone and you are not ever coming back. I have six other children plus Harry and Hermione and even Fleur who need me. And I need them. I don’t need a son who left his family because he couldn’t even take fighting for his life seriously.”
Fred was shocked. He knew his mother had a wicked temper, but he didn’t expect this. When Percy left, she cried, his dad was the one who raged. When Ron went off on him, he let him because that was Ron and it was what he needed to do. When Ginny went into the self-pity mode, he teased her out of it. He didn’t know how to handle this.
He also knew he had to. He couldn’t leave until they settled this. He stood and walked over to her.
“Mum, no matter what you think, I did take fighting that day seriously. I knew we were fighting for our lives, our families’ lives. None of us saw the wall falling. It happened. It was my time, Mum. As simple as that, it was my time,” he said gently and braced himself for the outburst he knew from her eyes was coming.
“Your time? Your time? You don’t know that, perhaps if you had been paying attention to what you were doing…”
Fred shook his head. “No, Mum. It was my time. It wouldn’t have mattered one bit if I saw the wall falling. Something would have happened and I’d still be dead,” he told her.
Molly shook her head in denial. “No…no…if you paid attention then you could have lived,” she said uncertain.
Fred took her hand and led her back to the bed. Sitting her down, he knelt at her feet and looked up at her.
“No, Mum. It isn’t like that. Just like with Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gideon, it was our time.” He saw her eyes widen at the mention of her brothers. “Yeah, I’ve seen them. They send their love,” he told her and saw a small smile cross her face.
“When it first happened, I didn’t want to accept it. To say I wasn’t happy about it, is putting it mildly. I spent countless hours with Albus talking. He made me understand everything works out the way it is meant to. I was meant to die, so the rest of you could live.”
“That’s nonsense. How did your dying save any of us?” she asked dismissively.
“Mum, had I not died, would you have had the anger to kill Bellatrix?” He saw the flash of anger again in her eyes. He held up his hand to forestall her. “I am not saying you couldn’t have, but had I lived, you probably would have died fighting her. Or Ginny would have died before you could have stepped in.” He shook his head at the thought.
“I saw it all, Mum. Ginny came a hair’s breath from dying. If I hadn’t been standing right next to her and deflected the spell…”
“You deflected the spell?” Molly said, her voice barely a whisper.
“Yes, I did. I wasn’t supposed to interfere. Hell, I wasn’t even supposed to be there. But, what else was I supposed to do? Stand there and watch my sister die?” he asked his mum.
“No, no, of course not. You did what you had to do,” she said to him.
“Don’t you see, Mum. Had I lived, I wouldn’t have been there. Ginny would be dead and you probably would be, too.”
Molly sat and looked at her son. She couldn’t believe she had yelled at him the way she had. Her anger with him faded as quickly as it had come. She knew he wasn’t here to stay so she didn’t want to waste anymore time yelling at him.
“So, what’s new?” Fred asked smiling.
“Oh, so much has happened. Ginny is going to play for the Holyhead Harpies. Harry, Ron and Neville are Aurors and Hermione has been offered a job with the Ministry when she leave Hogwarts,” she said in a rush.
Fred smiled. He, of course, knew all this, but he let his mum go on telling him of all the family news. When she began to slow down, he knew it was time to bring up the reason he was here.
“Mum, about the Memorial Service today,” he said.
“I’m not going,” she said sternly.
“Mum,” he said, then shook his head when she opened her mouth to speak, “listen to me. You have to go, you need to go.”
“I don’t have to do anything, and I don’t need to go,” she said as tears welled up in her eyes.
“Yes, you do need to go. You need to go back there and truly face my dying. I know you think you have faced it and you even think you have accepted it, but you haven’t. Not really. Can you honestly say, you’re breath doesn’t catch when George walks through the door? Or that you don’t look behind him for me?”
He saw the truth to his words in her eyes. “You live everyday, waiting for me to come home. You weren’t even surprised to see me here today. It was as if you were waiting for me, expecting me,” he said.
Molly smiled. “I guess I was.” At his shocked look, she chuckled. “Did you think your little visits to every member of this family except me went unnoticed? Did you honestly think, I wouldn’t find out about them?” she asked him knowingly.
“Dad told you, didn’t he?” Fred asked.
“Yes, your father told me, but he didn’t mean to. He heard Percy talking to Charlie about a strange dream he had of you. He realised you had found a way to come back and visit and when Charlie went outside, he talked to Percy about his visit. I just happened to overhear him.” She smiled.
“By the way, I am sorry I gave you such a hard time about your inventions,” she said.
Fred noticed her blushing and wondered what his mother had done. “Mum, just how did you happen to overhear Dad and Percy,” he asked.
Molly stood and went to her dresser, opening the top drawer, she pulled out an Extendable Ear. She turned back to him and held out her hand, her eyes not meeting his.
Fred began laughing. “Mum, this is one of the proudest days of my life,” he said to her as he stood and walked over to her and pulled her into a hug. “You are truly a Weasley.”
“And just where do you think you got your brains for all of your stuff? Not from your father,” she told him. “No, brains like that came from your mother.” She patted his face lovingly.
“Will you please go to the Memorial Service?” he asked.
Molly pulled away from him and walked back over to the bed and slumped down on it, tears falling once again.
“I…I just don’t think I can face it,” she said.
“Yes, you can. You are the strongest woman I know. You can face it and you will face it. You will stand beside your family and honour those who died,” Fred said sternly. He knew he would never get his mother to agree by consoling or trying to guilt her into it.
He knew he had to be firm with her and make her realise this was something she could do rather than just something she should do. He watched as the tears flowed even more heavily and she shook her head.
“Mum, if George said he wasn’t going, or Dad, what would you tell them?” he asked. He didn’t expect an answer, so he wasn’t surprised by her silence. But, he could see she was thinking about what he said.
“I…no…I can’t do it,” she sobbed. “I can’t go back there and…and…”
“I am surprised at you. I can’t believe what I am hearing, what I am seeing. My mother, the woman who took down one of the most feared Death Eaters there ever was, a coward.”
Molly’s head snapped up and her tears stopped instantly as her eyes flashed in anger. Fred knew this was the key, anger.
“I never would have thought that of you. You won’t go because you are afraid. You won’t go, it’s not that you can’t go, you won’t. You won’t face the truth,” he said. “The truth that I am dead.”
Molly looked at her son. She wanted to rage at him, yell at him for his disrespect, but she knew he was right. How could she chastise him when she was being a coward?
“You are right,” she said softly. “I won’t go because if I do, then I will have to face the truth. I am not blinded by a haze of grief now like I was when they had the Memorial Service that first month. I, honestly, don’t even remember going. I only remember coming home and George moving out.” She shook her head.
“This time, when they read the names of the fallen, I will hear your name,” she said sadly.
“You can do it. You can because you won’t be alone. Everyone is downstairs hoping you will change your mind. Dad is pacing the floor wondering if he should come up here and try to talk to you. George is sitting at the table wondering how he can go if you don’t go and stand beside him.
“Ginny is afraid to go without you, she needs her mother’s strength to get through this. This family needs you. You are the centre, the core strength everyone relies on. Without you, this family will fall apart,” Fred said.
Molly looked at her son. She knew she was going to go. But, she also knew as soon as she agreed to go, he was going to leave. Selfishly, she wanted to hold out on her agreement and keep him here longer.
“I can’t stay much longer, Mum...whether you agree or not. My time here is almost gone,” he said to her.
She stood and went over to where he stood. She put her arms around him and rested her head on his chest.
“I’ll go. But, I am not going for me, or for any of the family. I am going because I had a wonderful son and it is my place to honour him and his memory,” she said as she squeezed him.
“I love you, Mum. Always have and I always will,” he told her as he pulled away from her. “Take care of the family.” He turned and walked back to the shadows.
“I love you, son,” Molly said as she closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see him disappear.
“Life goes on, Mum. You need to go on, too.”
Molly listened to Fred’s voice fade away. Opening her eyes, she smiled and went to get dressed. Within minutes, she was walking down the stairs and into the kitchen. She saw Arthur pacing, George and Ginny sitting at the table staring at the wall, just as Fred told her.
“Well, what is everyone waiting for? Don’t we have someplace to be, or am I going alone?” she asked. She chuckled when every head turned to her in shock and she began laughing heartily when each of them scrabbled to grab their cloaks and rush out the door.
Smiling at Arthur, she said, “Fred told me life goes on, and I am counting on it.”
Visits From Fred by mudbloodproud
Chapter Notes: Chapter Summary:
Molly Weasley refuses to go to the Memorial Service for the fallen at Hogwarts on this first anniversary of the Battle.
Can her son convince her she needs to go or will his words fall on deaf ears?
I wish once again to thank my wonderful friend and beta, Alyssa (harry4lif).
I do not own anything you recogise in this story. J.K. Rowling owns everything. I am just thankful to be able to play in her world for a little while.
Chapter Endnotes: Before anyone gets upset, there is one more chapter to go. Bet you can not guess who is left...