Raising Hope {Fred Weasley}

Birthday Cake

Due to the fact that Henry and Hope shared very close births in August along with Ginny and Percy, Molly thought it was a good idea to have the group birthday at the Burrow.

Henry and Hope were born five days apart, Henry on the seventh and Hope on the twelfth, a day after her Aunt Ginny's birthday. Since Percy was on the twenty second, he agreed to celebrating his earlier with his family.

With Henry and Hope both turning a year old, the focus was on the two children especially when it came to their parents.

Hope was rather fussy that morning, not wanting to be placed in the dress that her Grandparents Molly and Arthur had bought for her. In fact,s he was going through the phase where she was so much more comfortable being naked the majority of the time. Anytime Eleanor or Fred placed shoes or socks on her, they would be off in seconds and thrown to the floor. Putting clothes of Hope was a battle morning, noon and night.

"No." had also become her favorite word, once she learned it from Henry, the two could throw the word back and forth. It quickly became their answer for everything.

"Hope, your grandmother would love to see you in this dress...please don't make me fight you." Eleanor sighed, pushing her hair back out of her face as Hope glared at her from her crib, the morning of the birthday celebration.

"Give me all the dirty looks you want, you're getting in this dress."

"No." Hope told her.

Fred leaned in the doorway with an amused grin watching the mother and daughter argue back and forth.

"No. No. No." Hope said before she started getting louder. "NO!"

"HOPE WEASLEY." Eleanor became loud and sternly, suddenly Hope fell silent and looked at her mother wide eyed.

"Oh there's the badger." Fred muttered to himself with a low chuckle.

Hope suddenly raised her arms and allowed her mother to removed her shirt and place the dress on. Eleanor smiled triumphantly as she dressed Hope and lifted her out of the crib.

She turned and saw Fred's face and narrowed her eyes at him.

"I don't want to hear it." she said passing by him.

"I wasn't going to say anything!"

"Oh there's one of the birthday girls!" Molly said not wasting a second scooping Hope into her arms when they arrived to the Burrow.

"Why didn't you pick me up like that when I arrived?" Ginny asked from where she was sitting besides Harry on the sofa.

"Oh stop it, Ginny." Molly said as she looked down at Hope, who was watching her grandmother.

More adults arrived for the party but Hope was occupied with her companion, Henry in a play pen in the living room.

Henry was rolling back and forth on a ball contently while Hope watched him. Eventually she grew bored of watching him, she pushed the ball causing him to roll off of it onto the ground.

She giggled as Henry remained on his back for a few minutes in a daze.

"Your daughter is still a bully." Sirius said to Fred as the two fathers were watching the children.

"Nah, she's just teaching your son how to roll over. Just like dad. You should be thanking her, she's getting a jumpstart on his training."

Sirius made a face at him before a smile cracked across his face.

Stella, Eliza, Elliot and Teddy arrived to join the two babies for fun but it was Stella who got the idea of sneaking into the kitchen with Eliza and Teddy and grabbing the cake without any of the adults paying attention while Elliot created a diversion.

Eleanor was going to check on Hope to see if her daughter still had her party dress on, but as soon as she reached the play area, she gasped and looked down at Henry and Hope that were covered in cake frosting.

She couldn't help but laugh as Henry swiped frosting back and forth on the floor as if he was creating art. Hope remained still as she noticed her mother looking at her, green frosting all over her face. She offered a smile at her mother before Teddy walked over and immediately saw his sister before backing away and motioning  Stella and Eliza to stay back to avoid the wrath of the adults.

Hope enjoyed making a mess but she did not enjoy the taste of the frosting. She made a face after licking some, her facial expression was as if she drank a jar of pickle juice.

"Oh Hope..." Eleanor saw her daughter's dress. "Why do I feel like you purposely got the majority of the frosting on your dress just to make a statement?"

Hope smiled like she had won the battle of the century, until her mother pulled out her wand. In a matter of seconds, Hope's dress was as good as new.

She had won the battle but her mother had won the war.