just for me ⚘ a Fred Weasley Fanfiction

39. the ministry

Several body aching, mind-numbingly boring days of cleaning passed as the Weasley kids, Juniper, Hermione and Harry worked through every room of the house. They removed doxies, killed spiders, found mice and avoided boggarts, from morning to night, all under the order of Mrs. Weasley.
Whenever the front door opened and the portraits begun screeching, they'd all rush to look over the bannisters, trying to eavesdrop on conversations and see who it was. Professor Snape visited a few times, never staying for more than a few minutes, and often times leaving before Remus or Sirius noticed he was there.
One night at dinner, Molly was talking to Harry about his hearing at the ministry happening the next day, when she called out Juniper's name.

"Juniper, you're going with them too." She said, taking a bite out of her lamb chops. "You'll be leaving early, so get some rest tonight."

"Why am I going?" Juniper asked, placing her knife and fork on her plate, she didn't think she'd be eating anymore now. "I didn't do any magic."
Mrs. and Mr. Weasley looked at each other awkwardly, each trying to get the other to explain.

"It's in regards to your Grandmother's will." Mrs. Weasley said finally, looking to Juniper with more sympathy than Juniper thought was possible for Mrs. Weasley. Everyone at the table stopped eating, trying hard to not glance Juniper's way.

"Oh." Juniper swallowed hard, before putting on her best smile. "Alright."

"Alright." Mrs. Weasley repeated, turning to talk to Mr. Weasley about something else, desperate to change the subject. Everyone's conversations picked back up, leaving only Juniper in silence.
She wondered what she could possibly be getting from Esme's will. Lucius Malfoy said that her house was going to be occupied by Deatheaters, so even if she did inherit it, there was no way she'd be able to live there. Esme never bothered with trying to hoard money, when you had magic and pureblood Veela looks, everything ended up falling into your lap. All Juniper could think of was the possible debt Esme had accumulated during that one summer she spent in Greece with her third husband (a muggle), years before Juniper was even born. And Juniper didn't have any money to pay that debt off.

"I'm afraid your brain might explode if you keep thinking that hard." Fred whispered in her ear from beside her. Her tongue ran across her bottom lip, realising that it had begun bleeding from how hard she was chewing on it.

"Only because you've never thought this hard." She mumbled back. When he didn't reply, she turned her head to him, unable to hide her laugh.

"That was rude and uncalled for." He tried his best to remain serious, laughing halfway through his words. "And I am offended."

"Hi Offended, I'm Juniper." She watched his expression sour.

"Okay, that was horrible and now I'm disgusted."

"Hi Disgusted, I'm J-"

"Okay! Okay! It was cheesy and overused before you said it the first time." He spoke over her, using his hand to cover her mouth and shut her up. He grinned to himself as her eyebrows furrowed in frustration, feeling the annoyance radiating from her. "Get some new comedic material, Jalapeno."

It took her a second to process what he had said, before her eyebrows raised.

"Okay so, A. My name is Juniper, and B. it's pronounced 'haa-lapeno' not 'juh-lap-ee-now'." She corrected him. Restraining her laughter was now impossible. He looked at her for a long second.

"Yeah right." He rolled his eyes in response. "And my hair is blue, not orange."

Juniper had missed that Fred had intentionally mispronounced the word. He debated spoiling it for her, but when he looked down at her, he was unable to hold back his own smile. Juniper had to grab her stomach to stop it from hurting, she was laughing so hard. Fred joined in on the laughter, quickly coming to terms that he now had to mispronounce Jalapeno for the rest of his life, just to keep her laughing.