Just A Bet ● Fred Weasley × Reader ●

27 - Pigwidgeon Is A Stupid Bird

TW - Mentions of abuse, Mentions of death, Mentions of alcoholism, owl flying and hitting window

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● One month later ●

No letters. Absolutely nothing from anyone. At all. George promised to write me at least every week. Hell, even Fred said he might try to write. And yet, nothing...

Today marked the exact one month since... him... Since Cedric... For so long had I tried to bargain eith myself, trying to figure out a way for him to not be gone, but nothing worked.

No letters.

No Cedric.

No home.

The word 'home' had begun to rot on my tongue. This house was no home. This house was a place that haunted my every waking day. A place that I couldn't even begin to fathom staying another day in. I stayed cooped in my room, reading the countless books that I've already read time and time again. When I was done with those, I decided to study textbooks. I had managed to sneak one about herbology into my bag before leaving school.

And even when I had finished that in a night, I still felt dull and empty. I'd only come out for meals. Did that make my mother increasingly angry? Yes. Why? Because every day, she'd messy the house and tell me to clean it like she didn't have alcohol problems and go out until morning every day.

It got to a point where I stopped cleaning up after her. I stopped doing a lot, actually... Too much had gone too wrong this past year, and I didn't want to put up with another ounce of it.

I still struggled to wrap my head around the chaotic month that made up June. Higwarts won the Triwizard cup, the tournament was vanquished, Cedric was dead, Voldemort was back, and as it turns out, Barty Crouch Jr had been disguised as Professor Moody the entire time.

I lay down, eyes shut, mind racing.

That was until something crashed against my window with a sqwuak. I move my curtains to see Rin's owl, Pigwidgeon, on my sil. Stupid bird... always running into things. Glass or not. And yet here he was, holding a huge stack of... letters? Why so many?

I open my window, putting my finger to my lips in a shushing motion. I take the bird gently in my hands, unclasping the letters. There had to be at least seven here... Looking at them, they were all old and battered, yet the last one was only dated three days ago. Four were from George, two were miraculously from Draco, and the last was from Fred.

The ones from George were his usual summer check-ins - full of joy and laughter. Though his fourth letter definitely lacked the warmth and almost felt cryptic.

Munchkin,

Hey, Munch. How've ya been with your mum? I hope you're okay. If not, you're always welcome here at the Burrow. Had a chat with Sirius the other day. He's actually pretty cool for being Potter's godfather. I hope you're well... I wish you could be here.

Georgie

'I wish you could be here'? Where? At the Burrow? It wasn't hard to get there. I kept a tiny vase of floo powder in my room. All he had to do was ask me to come over, and I would drop anything and everything.

Odd...

Draco's letters were also a bit strange, but he was strange as himself anyway.

Y/N L/N,

Hello, l/n. I didn't know Cedric very well, but you did, so my condolences go out to you. I've never been one for deep emotions, as I'm sure you can tell, but just know that I am here for you. I also went out with Astoria Greengrass yesterday. She's a nice girl, I'd say. My mother says we are 'cute', but I don't understand where she's coming from. Have a good rest of your summer.

P.S - My mum says 'hi'

~ Draco Malfoy

His writing was always so fancy that I was almost envious of it. I do chuckle at the mention of Astoria. She is a very pretty girl, so I can see why Draco asked her to the Yule Ball all those months ago.

Gosh... the ball felt like yesterday, and now it was July... Harry's birthday was soon. I wonder how he's doing. Neville, too. It's been a while since him and I discussed plants together. That was when he opened up the most. He was shy but in an endearing kind of adorable way.

And then there was Fred's...

Y/N,

My idiot twin brother forced me to write you this letter, but whatever. Why? I don't know or really care. But he did say you might be having a hard time at your house, so I left a small bag of chocolates tied to Pig's foot. If he ate them, I'll pluck that bird and roast it myself. Ginny says she misses you and your gossiping girl talk or whatever you call it. Oh, glorious mother claims to miss cooking for you, I guess. I wasn't sure how to respond to that one. See you on the train, y/n. Enjoy the sweets.

- F

Something in my chest melted at that letter, and one spare glance at Pigwidgeon's foot said the parcel of chocolate was intact. Now, to see if it was pranked is the question.

I opened the tiny bag and sniffed. Usually, prank sweets smell unusually sweet or almost sour, but these smelled... normal. With a tentative hand, I grabbed one. No reaction with the skin. Good sign. Slowly, I put it in my mouth and hardly had to chew because it practically melted on my tongue. These were delicious and harmless... Thank Merlin.

It takes me an hour to eat five out of the twenty. I didn't want them to go to waste. These little bombs of choco were my inly source of happiness, and I planned on elongation it for as long as I could stretch it.

Now I just have to survive a whole summer stuck in depression and abuse...

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A/N - Uhm... yeh. A bit of a filler, but I feel like we might need a bit of a break between last chapter and the next because that one was angsty in ways I didn't even know I could write about.

With my finals coming up for the summer, posting will be limited, but the plan is to wrote as much as I can during my 'brain breaks' between studying, stockpile chapters, then release them all at once, so yeh...

Anyways! I hope y'all had fun throughout y/n's rather chaotic sixth year. Don't worry, seventh will be just as chaotic. Maybe even a bit romantic ;)

Until next time, Darlings! Xxx