WILD ➞ Fred Weasley

epilogue

EPILOGUE

RORY FELT SO STRANGE looking at her reflection. She was wearing a dress that didn't even belong to her, it was Cordelia's. The black fabric was beautiful, but wearing it just felt wrong. Perhaps the thing out of place was why she had it on.

She peered out the window of Percy's room and saw what the backyard of the Burrow looked like.

It had a similar set up to Harry's birthday and the wedding just months before. A long table under a white tent stood near the orchid. It was a beautiful day, she knew why. That was no accident.

"Rory! Are you ready, dear?" Molly's muffled voice shouted from below her.

Rory gave herself another long look in the mirror and nodded. She was ready, she was ready to do this. She touched the silver F on her neck and took a deep breath.

"Coming!" She shouted. She slipped on her flats and left the room. The girl went down the steps where the kitchen smelled heavenly. Molly had made all of his favorite foods.

The look in the Weasley woman's eyes was full of sadness, "Oh, Rory. You look beautiful."

"Thank you, Molly," Rory said softly.

The woman began crying as she looked at Rory, "He loved you so much, dear. Since the day he met you he always spoke about you like you were the greatest girl he'd ever met..."

Rory hugged her, having no tears left to cry herself. She felt so strange... being in the Burrow, hugging Molly Weasley. Was she still welcome now that Fred was gone? Now that he was no longer her boyfriend? Was she still part of the family?

"I know..." Rory said, "You raised him right. He was... he was the greatest to me."

Molly pulled away and wiped her tears with a lavender handkerchief that was clutched tightly in her hand.

"Everyone's gone to the backyard... have you seen it yet?" Molly asked.

Rory shook her head, "Just through the window."

She smiled, not a bright smile, but a sympathetic one, "Oh, I think you're going to love it. C'mon, let's go... I'm sure everyone is hungry."

Rory nodded and followed Molly outside into the white tent. It was much different than it was over the summer. If Rory were able to cry, she would've. A happy cry, though.

Around the tent, pictures of Fred were hung all around. All of the images were moving, truly capturing the moment. His moments. The few guests were scattered around, stopped at certain pictures and looking at them with reminiscing smiles.

Photos she had never seen of him as a baby and a young child, with his siblings, pure joy on his face. His freckles were much more prominent in his youth, but his smile always stayed the same.

It seemed to go in chronological order... images of him when we was younger at the entrance to the tent and those later in life were towards the back. It was like she was watching his life. Watching him grow up.

As she walked further down the tent, Rory saw herself in more of the pictures. Pictures of them as young as eleven and twelve, in the common room or laughing in the courtyard. Marina was in the pictures too.

Rory noticed something in some of the pictures as they got older. Around thirteen and fourteen years old, in certain images of them... he couldn't keep his eyes off her. He really had loved her before either of them knew the meaning of the word. She missed that look in his eyes. His loving gaze that no matter what, made her feel content.

Then came the years of seventeen and eighteen. Pictures of them as a couple. Holding hands or accidentally asleep on one another. Rory was beginning to notice Fred never took one serious picture. In every image he was laughing or making a face or anything of the sort.

She chuckled softly at a particular picture of them studying in the library during seventh year. She wasn't sure who took it, but she was glad they did. Fred was dramatically slamming his head into a book while Rory was giggling. She remembered that moment and how much he was trying to make her less stressed about exams.

Then there was a picture of them on a hammock by the Black Lake, their last picnic before the twins left Hogwarts.

The pictures quickly turned into anything and everything about the shop. Flashing smiles on opening day with George and another, a more candid one of him politely holding a ladder for Rory so she wouldn't fall.

Then there were images of them in the flat. Rory had taken loads of him doing the most random of tasks. Andrew must've taken her camera and got the pictures, but she was happy that he did.

As the pictures ceased at age twenty, she felt a strange pain in her heart.

That was all that was left now, pictures.

She looked down at her hand, noticing the blue gemstones on her ring shining in the sunlight. Rory slowly took it off, because she needed a "pick me up" from Fred. The girl had only needed to look at the ring a few times since he'd given it to her. Right after the war she had completely forgotten it even existed or the type of magic it had.

But the inscription was not some cheesy compliment or anything like that.

In his handwriting, Rory read the word: Forever.

TIS A FEARFUL THING

'TIS A FEARFUL THING
TO LOVE WHAT DEATH CAN TOUCH.

A FEARFUL THING
TO LOVE, TO HOPE, TO DREAM, TO BE –

TO BE,
AND OH, TO LOSE.

A THING FOR FOOLS, THIS, AND A HOLY THING, A HOLY THING TO LOVE.

FOR YOUR LIFE HAS LIVED IN ME,
YOUR LAUGH ONCE LIFTED ME,
YOUR WORD WAS GIFT TO ME.

TO REMEMBER THIS BRINGS PAINFUL JOY.

'TIS A HUMAN THING, LOVE,
A HOLY THING, TO LOVE
WHAT DEATH HAS TOUCHED.

— JUDAH HALEVI