Novus Orbis | Fred Weasley x reader | SCRAPPED VERSION

Chapter 1 - Strange Morning

It's a regular day, as they come and go. Y/n's gotten a fair amount of work done, and she's ready at last to climb in bed and get a good night's sleep (which, due to the stress of a combined secondary school, family, and extracurricular activities, hasn't been had for a few nights). It's supposed to be a pretty regular tomorrow, too, until she wakes up in a four-poster that isn't hers (she's got a nice big daybed) in a room that most certainly isn't hers.

So why does the layout still seem familiar to her?

Not to mention the two identical boys with fiery red hair sitting in another four-poster across from her with confused looks plastered across their faces. The girl, still half-asleep at the early hour of 7:00, murmurs nondescript nonsense and rolls over in her slumber, thinking perhaps she's dreaming.

"Do you reckon she'll wake up soon?" The first boy asks, shifting in his seat on the mattress.

"I hope so," the other replies. "I want my bed back."

"What an annoying git," continues the first, "to interrupt such an important time as sleeping. And to think, she could've appeared any other time of day."

"I'd rather she not have appeared at all," his companion says. "D'you think she's a Death Eater?"

"Blimey, no, Fred, she's naught but our age if I had to take a guess."

"Maybe not, George," the one called Fred says, "But you never know."

Now the girl stirs. Rolling back over to face them, she peers at the boys.

"Good morning..." She squints at them before closing her eyes again, obviously still oblivious to the fact that something is very much amiss.

"Awfully interesting greeting for a stranger who just apparated out of nowhere into my bed." Remarks Fred, his hand readily on the wand lying beside him.

"She looks a little too young to apparate, Fred," George corrects him, though he, too, readies his wand.

"How else would she have gotten here?"

At the word "apparate", the girl's head shoots up like a rocket. Now she is awake, realizing she is not, evidently, dreaming, and not at home at all.

"D-did you say apparate?"

"D-did I stutter?" Fred mocks her. The girl's hand flies up over her mouth, her eyes widening in shock at her own voice, and they sit in silence for a moment. "Finally, the intruder awakes," he adds.

"But I can't be..."

"Can't be what?" George pushes.

"Here, I mean." Comes the response. "At the Burrow."

"How do you know where we are?" He peers at her with much more suspicion than before."

"I mean, aren't we? It doesn't look much different."

"But you've never been here before." It's Fred who speaks this time.

The girl swings her feet over the side of the bed, looking around with an expression of wonder.

"No, but..." She trails off, and doesn't offer any explanation. "Listen—what time is it?

"What's your name?"

"But I asked you first!"

"Ask us no questions and we'll tell you no lies."

The boys grin at each other as she slumps in defeat with a sigh, rolling her eyes.

"My name is Y/n."

"It's 7:24, Y/n," Fred says, his eyes flicking to a clock on the wall and back.

"We are at the Burrow, then?" The conversation quickly reaches a point of tedious back-and-forth interrogation.