Funkytown : Fred Weasley

deux;

~raspberry tea~

//

July 30th 1989

I felt the waves wash over my body, at first they were only a slight trickle of water until they became crashing and violent and stormy. Maybe I liked it when they were violent, their loud crash and swash disguised the screaming from down below and the voice of my internal fears. My dreams were my sanctuary, they were my one place to escape to and forget about the turmoil and chaos of the life I actually lead.

Now I didn't lack many things in life, my family were never poor as to say. But there was always one thing I felt poor in: love.

I would lay up in my bed, my duvet encasing me away from the danger that lurked about my house at night and cursed me in the day. My body would shudder at the sound of slamming doors and thundering footsteps, I would seal my eyes shut at the sound of anyone or anything approaching. My breath stay caught in my throat as if i was unable to breath or scared to even make the tiniest sound. I lived in fear.

Salt streams would pool out my eyes and soak into the white sheets the balanced my head and conceal my loud crying sobs.

It was always worse in the winter, always worse when my dad would leave to go on his yearly business trip. Sometimes I wouldn't believe that he would be off to go on a business trip and instead just needed to get out of the house, I could tell he needed to. My mother would boil him up to fizzing point and wait for him to explode like it was her own little game. She plagued the house, living there was like a life long sentence consumed by an epidemic of hatred and somehow my brother was immune.

There was always a simmering between my mother and I, like two continents of indifference.

The night of July 30th was no different: I tucked myself into my bed, blew out the candle on my dresser and waited for her to strike again. I waited as I heard my brothers footsteps creep up the long hallway and up to his bedroom just beyond mine, "Goodnight sweetheart" my mother's voice would echo down to his room. An echo that never once met my doors and most definitely avoided it at all costs, I had never been told "Goodnight" since I was seen in mother's eyes as rotting our legacy.

I clammed my eyes shut, squeezing them so hard they almost pincered my eyeballs as I did so. It was easier that way, it was easier to not see anything as I waited. I counted unicorns in my mind, imagining them jump over rainbows to fall asleep, just like the muggles do as well but instead of unicorns they think about a fluffy creature called a sheep.

Oh there we go again... I could picture my mother if she were to know about what I had just thought. Her words scarred into the back of my mind- "You shame our name with you and your muggle fascinations, you will never be like them so stop acting like it". That was the first time she had caught me, I had been reading a book I had found at an antique store when I went shopping with Clara our house elf. The book was gorgeous, it was covered in pretty coloured flowers like a rainbow and called 'The Secret Garden'. I was so excited to start reading it I started to whilst walking home again, my mother spotted me in the act as I had reached our garden. She made me watch as she burnt the book page my page in our fire place as she scolded me before every page that was thrown into the flames.

And so I began to count again, each unicorn jumping effortlessly over each rainbow until I fell into a sleep. A sleep I wished could last forever as I dreaded the next morning to come around and what was waiting for me downstairs.

...

Tap. Tap. Tap.

My eyes flung open just to be met with a blinding light from my window, Clara was opening my curtains with a piercing screech as the metal rails met. I sat up and rubbed my eyes as they sagged in tiredness, I smoothed out my hair that flew in all directions from my tossing and turning that night.