Seeing Fred

Ottery St. Catchpole

"Thanks for that." She smiled before she popped a painkiller in her mouth. "It was getting to me."

"Yeah, they can be a bit much, but they mean well." George chuckled as they walked further in the garden. "I never asked, but how old are you really?"

"I turn 22 this year." She answered looking around the grounds.

"When?" The twins asked.

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it does!" They called again.

"You're doing it again." Leah chuckled. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Just taking a stroll to the village." George said, turning them to the right. "But don't change the subject."

"Fine, my birthday is next week." She grumbled.

"What? Why didn't you say anything?"

"I actually forgot about it with everything going on." Looking stunned herself. "Oh shit!"

"What?" George asked, as Fred was lost in thought.

"My friends from college throw me a party every year. They told me the time and place the night before everything happened. It's this Friday."

"You should go, you deserve a little break from it all. And it's before we go to Minnie, so before your life will be turned upside down."

"Maybe..."

They walked in silence for a bit as they walked through the forest, the only sound coming from the birds that flew around or the crunches their footsteps made on the leaves or branches on the ground. When they reached a creek, Leah frowned when it looked familiar but before she had a chance to think about it, George spoke up.

"You did great by the way, that stuff about expanding our muggle line, genius."

"Yeah, well." Leah shrugged. "When Fred showed me everything in the shop, I thought the muggle line was a bit ... small? And Fred and I already came up with some ideas."

"Really?"

"Show him the notebook." Fred said excitingly, talking for the first time since her birthday had come up, making Leah chuckle.

"I don't have it with me." She turned back to George. "We wrote it down in a notebook but it's at my flat."

"Ah." George said, understanding what the two of them talked about. "You're really good at lying, I might add. Maybe even better than me and Freddie."

"Yeah, should I be worried about that?" Fred asked, with a teasing grin.

"No." She grinned back. "Even though I lied my butt off today, I normally tell the truth. I've been told I'm too honest someti-" She stopped in her tracks, her heart starting to hammer in her chest, her breathing becoming fast as they arrived in the small town, standing on a familiar cobbled street.

"Leah?" The twins asked worried. George grabbed her shoulders as he levelled with her, Fred next to him with the same worried expression etched on his face. "Come here, sit down." George ushered her to a bench a few meters away.

When she calmed down and slowed her breathing, she looked past the twins, to her surroundings. "I know this place."

"You've been here?"

She nodded her head. "See the country house on the end of the street? That's my grandmother's house."

The twins looked at the old house before looking back at Leah with big eyes. "Leah..." Fred started slowly, when it dawned on him. Leah looked away from her grandmother's house and looked in his blue eyes. "Remember what you called me the first time you met me, at the park?" He said, while showing his scar.