ad astra per aspera - {♕ f.w.}

3. Pompous Percy & Ron's Battered Rat

As predicted, the week following the Weasley's return to Britain was scheduled full, which meant that unless you accidentally crossed paths in London somewhere, there was no chance of you seeing them before going to September first. It was only a week away, closer than ever, but you found yourself feeling particularly down that you still had that much time left to wait.

Errol, looking beaten and tired as usual, arrived the morning after your visit to Diagon Alley. His unsuspected visit changed your arrangements for the day, which had been to sulk around in the continued absence of your friends. Before you even had a chance to complain about not seeing the twins for another week, the owl slammed into the closed kitchen window. After a moment in which you allowed him to fix his feathers, you detached three wrinkled envelopes from his leg.

The first was from Ginny. On three double sided pieces of parchment, she detailed the entire trip, before informing you that the family had returned home only to immediately go and visit their Aunt Muriel. Apparently, she was upset that they had travelled to visit Bill without her.

The other letters were from Fred and George. You opened George's first, which turned out to be a wise decision. After a lengthy paragraph spent complaining about several things (Percy, visiting his Aunt, Ron, and Percy again), and a quick line saying he would tell you about Egypt when he saw you next if Ginny hadn't already spoiled everything, he warned you to caution yourself in opening Fred's letter. He was almost certain his twin had slipped jinx powder into the envelope.

You opened it anyways and found that you lost your sense of smell for the rest of the day.

The cookies your mom baked for dessert were odourless, and the daisies in the vase on your desk could've passed for being made of plastic. Yet, none of this particularly mattered; you had received a letter from Fred, which made up for the temporary loss of an important sense.

Unlike George, who was complacent in writing school essays and often wrote you letters before you got the chance to write him, Fred Weasley and a quill dipped freshly in ink were comparable to two magnets. For the longest time you were absolutely certain he had never written anything that wasn't a homework assignment in his life. Even then, he rarely wrote those.

The letter was exactly what anyone would expect a letter written by Fred Weasley to look like. The parchment was torn with hastily crossed out spelling mistakes and inky fingerprints on the edges. The letter itself was short and so similar to speaking to him in person. He told you he did not miss you at all and that he was absolutely dreading having to see you again. He signed off asking you to let him know if the jinx powder (which he had bought in Egypt) had worked.

It was almost an honour that he bothered to write at all. The letter deserved to be framed as proof to anyone that, if Fred Weasley cared about you even just a little bit, he would find it in himself to do something so painfully similar to school work. You could imagine his face writing the very letter you held: nose scrunched up and brows furrowed together, deciding to do it on his own accord yet treating it like it was the absolute worst inconvenience he had ever endured.

His letter, along with George and Ginny's, lay in a pile on your desk amongst the thick stack of others you had received over the course of the summer. Fred's, which you had read over several times (at a distance in case there was any lingering jinx powder) lay on top.

The following week went by tauntingly slow. No more owls, from school or any of your friends, showed up while you sat at the breakfast table. It was like August was purposefully holding on for as long as possible just to make you restless. Twenty four hour days felt like twenty six, and you swore you lived through Wednesday twice. For fun, you unpacked and repacked your Hogwarts trunk just to look through all of your new books and supplies.