Marooned - Fred Weasley

Chapter 2: Memories

It was Christmas Eve, which meant it was Sarah's birthday, her eleventh birthday. They were all gathered around the fire, and Sarah was unpacking some sweets from everyone, this was her tradition with the Weasleys for birthdays and Christmas. Laughing until tears and sharing sweets, bickering over who got the most and who got the least. Usually, Fred doing something to annoy Sarah, resulting in her shoving him, and then running around the house while he chased her, George trapping her and everything ending in shrieks.

Now was the aftermath of another succession of these events, they were all finally calm, to their parents and Remus' greatest joy.

"Sarah!" yelled out Fred, pointing at the window, making Molly and Remus exchange a look and bid farewell to the couple minutes of calm they had.

Sarah gasped in delight, "It's snowing! Can we go outside?" she pleaded, excited at Remus and after exchanging a look with Molly, he nodded.

"Come on, let's go!" she said, getting up, followed by Fred, George, Ginny and Ron. They grabbed their winter coats, beanies and gloves, put on their snow boots and after Molly checked them all, they left outside to play and run around.

Fred and George made little snowballs and threw them at Sarah's face, "Birthday present!" they yelled, making her run after them with a tree branch she picked up from the ground. Only it wasn't smart because they were two, and she was alone. George jumped on her, made her fall on her stomach into the snow. They were all wearing big coats and hats, landing on full inches of snow, the fall was barely felt, but her red face from the snow, she felt it all right. Fred threw all the snow he could find over her and with his twin, they started running again.

Ron was trying to make snowballs too, and he threw them into the air, but they landed on his face. Fred and George went after Ginny as Sarah threw one at Ron's back to make him turn around and he laughed, started running after her.

Remus, Arthur and Molly watched the four of them run around and screech, shout and laugh, hearts warming at the sight.

"You'll do it then?" asked Molly, still looking through the window at Sarah. Remus sighed, knowing what she meant, and he nodded.

"Oh, but would it be so terrible to leave those images in that flask? She's such a joyful girl," implored Molly, having witnessed Sarah grow in such a peaceful and wonderful way, considered her as her own daughter, heartbroken at the thought of all fading away. Arthur glanced at her, reading it all on her face and put an arm around her shoulders, his thumb gently brushing over her arm. His wife looked down, understanding that Sarah needed to know, as dreadful as it was.

"I'll do it later, for now, let her still be a child," said Remus, looking at her throw a snowball at George's face and running away laughing. He let her be just a couple more hours, as he had promised himself to give her back the memories on her eleventh birthday, not a second later.

Eventually, the children come back inside, only the boys at first, followed by Ginny and Sarah comes in last, fully covered in snow, waking stiffly, making the boys double over in laughter. She takes a few tensed steps forward, because with every step she took, snow would set on her neck.

The adults start chuckling, "What did they do to you?" asked Molly.

Sarah sighed, shaking her head, "They buried me in snow after I threw a big snowball at their faces."

Remus smiled softly, "Go up quickly and change, there's something important that I need to talk to you about."

Sarah frowned, confused, and hurried upstairs.

"You're leaving a snow trail behind you, Sarah," George pointed at the floor, laughing.

"Yeah, snow turds!" said Ron excitedly, and the twins high-fived him, earning a glare from Sarah as she went up the stairs.