The Ensconced (A Fred Weasley Love Story)

A Good Start

We were after a specific horcrux, Grandpa told us. Not all of them, just one. He wanted us home by winter break so the others wouldn’t be able to see anyone had left. He said they weren’t quite ready yet. He had told us the information he had gathered already which was the horcrux in question was Salazar Slytherin’s locket. It had been passed down to Marvolo Gaunt, the same person who owned the ring. After Marvolo and his son, Morfin, were put into Azkaban prison, Grandpa assumes Marvolo’s daughter Merope was the next person to inherit it. Grandpa isn’t too sure what happened to the locket after that. That’s where we come in. Fred and I must journey and find out the path of the locket- who had it, how Voldemort got it, and where it is.

Only very few people knew of our quest: Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Grandpa, Grandma, and George.

We packed the necessities: a charmed tent, water bottles, granola bars, first aid kit, some more granola bars, a map, extra clothes, a spare wand for Fred (just in case), extra sneakers, more granola bars (and some other packaged food), a compass, two sneakoscopes, Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, decoy detonators, shield gloves and cloaks, and an invisibility cloak (one that Grandpa charmed for us).

Within a few hours of Grandpa’s request, Fred and I apparated back to Little Hangleton. It was decided we travel there first, to see if we missed anything on our last visit to the shack.

As we walked through the overgrown weeds, Fred muttered, “Blimey, they really need to have a restoration committee or something. “

I laughed, and we made our way to the remains of the home. What was once a door lay in pieces at my feet. Nailed into the door was a decayed snake. Gross.

“Obviously this lot was a bunch of Slytherins.” Fred mumbled.

I nodded and said, “Definitely. Anything that represented Salazar Slytherin, their heritage, or bloodline would’ve been priceless to them.”

As we looked around the ruins, I saw something reflect the sunlight out of the corner of my eye. Walking closer to it, I saw it was a picture frame. The glass was shattered, and the wood that held it was cracked. The picture it was holding was one of a family- a husband and wife, and their two small children. One was a toddler, boy, and the other was a girl infant. The man looked mean, and well, powerful. He looked like an aged monkey with broad shoulders, long arms, but a shorter torso. Around his neck was a necklace. That’s strange, why would a man wear a necklace? The locket had an ‘S’ engraved into it. The ‘S’ looked like a snake. It was a fairly large locket, and seemed awkward on the man. That must be Slytherin's locket. The woman was a petite thing. She seemed to have a look of… terror on her face. In the charmed picture, she edged away from the man next to her. He just kept looking at the camera with that mean look.

“Oi, Belle! I found something.” Fred shouted to me from across the debris. I walked over to him slowly, trying to see anything else in the mess.

In his hands Fred held a broken jewelry box. It was a black box, with green emeralds decorating the exterior. Engraved in the top of the box was the name Merope. It was rusty, and the top of the box that opens was broken, hanging on by one hinge. I removed the top, and looked inside the box. There was a picture of the woman who had been terrified only this time, she was smiling happily. She seemed to be several years younger than the picture I saw. I then found another picture of a young man. This picture was a Muggle picture, for the man didn’t move. He was handsome; his dark hair fell right above his equally dark eyes. He had a tall, lean build. The man seemed wealthy- he wore nice clothing and was riding a grey horse.