just for me ⚘ a Fred Weasley Fanfiction

90. boredom, baking, bonding

A few days into the summer holidays, Arthur brought home an old Muggle television that he found on the side of the road on his way home from the Ministry of Magic. It was old and beat up, the knobs and dials on the side to turn it on were missing and the timber frame it sat in was scuffed and scratched. When he proudly dropped it in the living room of the Burrow, it tipped to one side with a loud thud that made everyone wince.

"What is that thing?" Ron asked from the couch, peeling his eyes away from the letter he was writing.

"A TV, stupid." Ginny smacked him across the back of his head, dropping in beside him to watch whatever Arthur was doing.

"I know it's a TV, but what is it doing here? And why is it ancient?"

"It's about time we had a TV I think." Arthur announced, getting work with his wand to fix it up. "Ever since the Prophet introduced their own television news program, I thought we were missing out."

"On what? We still read the paper, don't we?" Ron continued to annoy everyone in the room. Juniper groaned from an armchair, where she was curled up in Fred's lap, both of them mellowed out for the day.

"You're the only person to ever complain about getting a TV, dude." She laughed under her breath, her fingers intertwining with Fred's. "Your dad wanted a TV and a TV came to him, let him have the TV."

"You just said 'TV' so much, it sounds weird now." Fred chuckled quietly into her ear. "Teeee-Veeeee."

"Teeee-Veeee." Juniper repeated in a giggle, both of them snickering under their breath together.

"Here we go!" Arthur declared with a final tap of his wand, and a grainy feed of a witch-newscaster popped up, wearing a long witches hat and reading off of a Daily Prophet newspaper. He pushed Ron's legs off the couch taking a proud seat to watch the news.
The five of them sat for ages, their eyes glued to the TV as the news was read out to them, there was an occasional comment about a story that the newscaster read out, and a chorus of murmurs in agreement.
Eventually, Molly returned to the house, Remus and Nymphadora following her in the front door.

"Guys, look!" Tonks burst into the lounge room, waving her hand in front of everyone's face, drawing their attention away from the TV.

"Mmm." Juniper hummed, moving her head so she could see around Tonks.

"Remus and I got married!" Tonks continued, bouncing around the room with excitement. Remus in the other hand, was awkwardly leaning against the wall, his eyes turned to the TV. "Husband and wife!"

"What!" Juniper sprung back to life, snatching Tonk's hand to look at the diamond ring on it. "When did that happen?"

"Earlier today! Molly was a witness!" Tonks beamed, running to show Ginny the ring. Juniper whipped her head over her shoulder to look at Fred, her eyes wide with confusion. He mimicked her expression with a shrug, just as confused as she was.

"We put it off for a while because I... I'm a werewolf, and I had some... concerns." Remus spoke up awkwardly, causing all heads to turn towards him. His words sounded rehearsed, as if he had been rethinking his excuse. "But Bill and Fleur, uh... convinced me otherwise."

Glancing back at Fred, Juniper raised an eyebrow, a gut feeling kicking in. Remus's eyes had flicked to the floor, painfully uncomfortable by everyone looking at him knowingly. Tonk's remained blissfully unaware, still showing off her ring to anyone that had eyes.
Fred was biting back a smirk now. The werewolf excuse felt like a convenient cover. Between the Burrow and Grimmauld place, she had heard the rumours and she felt the quiet tension that loomed over Remus like a dark cloud, the Shotgun-esque wedding was something he didn't quite fit into, something he wasn't sure he wanted, and it wasn't about his lycanthropy at all. It was about the way he looked at Sirius Black, and that wasn't the way you looked at a 'just an old friend'. It was about the sunken in, tired and vacant look that took over Remus since Sirius died.
But he wasn't getting Sirius back so he settled for the next best thing, Sirius' niece.
It was weird. Like if Fred died and Juniper married George. Odd.