DOROTHEA {fred weasley}

sixty two

The first day at Oliver's house showed that summer in the highlands would be sure to provide an excellent distraction for every witch and wizard there. The boys spoke about the war on the way back from the shop, Dorothea staying silent, but soon, they were distracted by the horses and the views, laughing and reminiscing on Hogwarts.

"Bet you'll miss this in Wales," Fred grinned, slapping Oliver on the back.

"You're moving to Holyhead, then?" Dorothea asked.

"Yeah, well, until I'm needed, I suppose."

"We can hold up the fort here," George said, shaking his head. "You go live your dream matey, keep Vira safe."

"George," Fred hissed, gesturing to Dorothea.

"She's moving with you?" The witch asked with a smile.

Oliver's hand went to the back of his head, he looked rather guilty, "er-yeah. She is. Sorry, she wanted to tell you."

The witch laughed, "I'll pretend I don't know, don't worry. I'm really happy for you. Big step."

"We never know where your safe house will be anyway," Fred said cheerfully, nudging the witch slightly, sensing her sadness at the prospect of losing her best friend. "Could be near Holyhead!"

"Yeah," Dorothea said, through gritted teeth. She didn't know what to do about Fred. They'd never mentioned anything like feelings to each other, or mentioned wanting anything more than what they were already doing. She was torn. Spending a few weeks with him at Oliver's would be hard, she couldn't exactly shut off to him, although she knew that that would be what's best.

"No war talk," George said, approaching the house, pushing his trolly into Fred's, waving at a grinning Elvira. "In fact, that's a rule."

"What's a rule?" Elvira asked from where she leant against the front door.

"No war talk," Oliver replied.

Dorothea let out a sigh of relief as they unanimously agreed to have a final, normal few weeks. That was what she needed, that was what she was here for, really.

"Unless you want to talk about it," Fred said to her, quietly so no one else could hear.

"No, of course not," she snapped, sounding more curt than she meant to.

Dorothea was put in a beautiful room overlooking the quidditch pitch, it was as large as her room at home, but lighter. Fred and Lee were on the same floor as her, in separate rooms, with George downstairs and Oliver and Elvira on the top floor, the master bedroom being in one of the turrets. She heard Lee and Fred play fighting in the other room, laughing carelessly and felt a familiar strike of envy for how light their lives seemed to be.

It was clear that the four Gryffindor men had no plans for their summer, other than to get drunk and play quidditch, with them opening their first bottles of muggle beer within the first hour of being in the house, which turned into a broom race around the grounds, which Elvira agreed to umpire. Dorothea let herself roam around Oliver's house, there were nowhere near as many portraits as her own home, and whilst her house was grand, this was more homely. Instead of painted portraits, there were countless moving images of Oliver and his parents, all picture-perfect, with genuine smiles. Dorothea wasn't sure if there was a single photo of her and Clementine in Rosier Manor. In fact, she couldn't remember them ever having a genuine photograph taken that wasn't for an event.

When she headed down into the drawing room, she found the twins playing snap, apparently already having grown born of Quidditch.

"A disgrace-" a portrait suddenly began shrieking from the walls. "A death eater, in my home-"