Bumblebee (A Fred Weasley Fanfiction)

- CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE -

The Holidays

December arrived along with the last DA meeting before the holidays. Emmie stepped inside the Room of Requirement to see it decorated for Christmas, a hundred golden baubles were strung from the ceiling and a large clump of mistletoe was in the centre.
"Okay," Harry said once everyone had arrived, "I thought this evening we should just go over the things we have done so far because it's the last meeting before the holidays and there's no point starting anything new right before a three-week break. Get into pairs and we'll start with the Impediment Jinx, then we can get out the cushions and try Stunning again."

"Ready?" Fred asked Emmie as he pulled out his wand, "I'm scared," she squealed, he shook his head and laughed, "Impedimenta!"
Emmie froze for a minute or so before it wore off, "I suppose that wasn't so bad. Ready?"
Fred nodded, "Impedimenta!"
He froze, "yes I did it!" Emmie exclaimed before realising Fred couldn't here her.
After ten minutes they laid out cushions all over the floor and started practicing Stunning. Space was really too confined to allow them all to work this spell at once so half the group observed the others for a while, then swapped over.

At the end of an hour, Harry called a halt.
"You're getting really good," he said beaming around at them, "when we get back from the holidays we can start doing some of the big stuff - maybe even Patronuses."
There was a murmur of excitement as the room began to clear, "did you see my Stunning?" Emmie asked Fred, "I almost got it." She turned beside her where he was walking but he wasn't there, she turned around to see him stood a few metres away grinning, "you can't expect me to walk past mistletoe without a smooch," he said making her laugh.

*

It was a few days later and Emmie was walking to the Gryffindor common room. "Mimbulus Mimbletonia," she said and the painting swung open. The common room was mainly empty as everyone was in their dorms packing and getting ready to go home but Hermione was sat in the corner reading a book, "hi Emmie," she looked up, "hi, is Fred in his dorm?"
Hermione slowly put her book down and frowned, "didn't you hear?" She asked, "they all had to go to the hospital last night,"
"What happened?"
"Mr Weasley was attacked by a snake while working. He would've died if Harry hadn't dreamt about it,"
"Oh my god," Emmie took a deep and shaky breath, "that's awful."

*

Emmie was at home, sat at the dining table, eating dinner with her family. "I would have written to you but apparently everything's being intercepted, owls, the floo network,"
"Oh you're not still on these stupid theories are you?" Her mother asked, "wow," Emmie said sarcastically, "well you won't be very happy to hear that Harry has set up a sort of club -"
"Harry Potter?" Her father asked, "yeah, this club is basically Defence Against The Dark Arts. We're learning spells so we can protect ourselves,"
"Well that's brilliant!" Her mother exclaimed, "really?"
"Yes honey, whether You-Know-Who's back or not, it's good to know those spells. I wish I was better I must admit,"
"Yeah," Emmie replied, "and it's Voldemort, you don't need to be scared to say his name,"
"Hold on a minute, why can't I go to this club?" Mel said out of nowhere, "well you can,"
"You didn't tell me about it," she sulked, Emmie shook her head, "shut up."
"Girls!" Her mother said sternly before turning to Emmie, "so what spells have you been doing?"
"All kinds of things, Stunning, Impediment Jinxes, Disarming and after Christmas we're moving onto Patronuses."

*

The night before Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve Eve if you will, Emmie sat up wrapping presents for the Weasleys. She got Mrs Weasley some new knitting needles, Mr Weasley some popular Muggle items such as Toy Story on DVD and a Red Hot Chilli Peppers poster, she got Fred and George some Dumgbombs, Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans and a whoopee cushion so they could see how Muggles prank each other, for Ron she got some Chudley Cannons posters, for Ginny she got a dainty silver necklace, she got Harry a book called Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland, she got Bill a set of cool earrings, for Charlie she got a small dragon, similar to the dragons the champions got on the first task of the Triwizard Tournament and for Percy she got a set of nice quills and different coloured inks.
Next she wrote a card to everyone and a letter to Fred:

Dear Fred,
I don't know if you're back at the Burrow now but I hope Mr Weasley is better and I hope your whole family is in good health. I'm not sure how Orion will deliver so many presents but as you read this I hope they're all there. That weird pink balloon I got you and George is a whoopee cushion, put it on someone's chair ( trust me ). I didn't really know what to get Percy but I hope he likes it and I didn't get anything for Hermione because I heard she went skiing with her parents so I hope that's true because otherwise I would feel really bad. Also enclosed is a few photographs I took on my camera that I want you to have.

From Emmie xx

Using Orion, Mel's owl Moon and their mothers owl Jed, all the presents were taken to the Burrow on Christmas Eve.
The next day Errol arrived with two parcels and two envelopes.
In the envelope was a card from all the Weasleys and in the second was a letter from Fred:

To Emmie,
Jesus Christ you sent so many presents, I really hope you didn't spend too much money. Everyone loves them though, we're at Grimmauld Place and me and George put a whoopee cushion on Snape's chair, it was brilliant!
Dad's okay, getting better at least, I think your presents helped, he can't stop talking about how the poster doesn't move, it nice to see him happy. Thanks.
We got you some presents as well, it's not much but I hope you like it. Miss you.

From Fred xx

Once Emmie had finished reading the letter she opened the first parcel, it was a bright yellow jumper with the letter E in black on the front, Mrs Weasley had obviously knitted it as Emmie had seen the boys wearing red ones. She ripped back the brown paper of the second parcel to reveal a beautiful dark blue, knee length dress which had long lace sleeves. Emmie stood up and held it up against her body in the mirror, it was perfect.

- Princexiero xx