WARNING: SPOILERS!!! ~A Watty's 2019 Submission!

Saved for Diana Potter

"No, George, you need to leave!" Then Diana stomped away from him, heading for the door, flustered. "I want you out of my classroom by the time I get back!" Then she slammed the door and hurried towards the kitchen, needing to get a drink of water and to calm down, the rain pattering softly outside.
As she walked, she heard laughing, then a crash.
"PEEVES!!" She immediately shouted, and the poltergeist appeared, giggling. "What did you break?" He shook his head.
"Nothing, Miss Missus!" He told her. "Twas the other ghosts!" Diana furrowed her eyebrows.
"What other ghosts? The house ghosts wouldn't have done that, except perhaps the Fat Friar."
"Nope! Not Fatty!" Peeves giggled some more. "Twas the new ones! Outside of the Gryffindor common room they play!" New ghosts? Diana hurried up the ghosts, ready to sort them out, when she saw four very familiar men, floating by a broken chandelier, laughing. One had messy brown hair and wrinkles under his eyes, scars covering his face. One had long, neat black hair and a scruffy beard. One had messy black hair and round rimmed glasses. And one had messy red hair, and a baby face with a mole on his neck.
One of them, the scarred one, saw her first and smiled. "Hello there, Diana." The other three looked over, and she just stared back in awe.
"Remus?" The scarred one nodded. "Sirius?" The bearded one gave a wave. "F-Father? Fred?" The red haired one and the glasses one came floating over, both smiling at her.
"Hey there, Annie." Fred said, and her eyes became wet as Remus and Sirius flew over. "I guess you missed me some, huh?" She nodded, and James gave a chuckle.
"What? Did you not miss your father?" She laughed, tears falling from her face.
"Where were you all?" She asked them. "I thought you only got the choice of becoming a ghost at death and I haven't seen any of you around."
"Well, your mother moved on and I thought it best to haunt the old house a while." James explained. "Remus and Sirius joined me a few years later and we went haunting all over the world!"
"I stayed in the third floor corridor for a while, not sure how you would react if I were to show myself to you." Fred said softly. "But then these three came along and I convinced them to stay."
"We weren't sure how you and Harry would feel if we stuck around, so we tried to keep a low profile." James added.
"And it would have worked, if somebody hadn't unscrewed the chandelier." Remus said, giving Sirius a look. Sirius shrugged sheepishly.
"Hey, in my defense, Peeves shouldn't have taught me how."
"You didn't have to express that knowledge!" Remus retorted.
"Wait. Back up, boys." Diana told them, then looked to James and Fred again. "Are you saying that you have been a ghost for the last nineteen years and yet you've never been there for Harry and I?" James looked at the ground.
"Please, Diana, listen..." But she cut him off.

"No! I'm sorry, but no! You've been busy haunting and playing around back at Godric's Hollow, while I took care of Harry. I soothed every fever, I dressed every wound, and I held him as he cried! I protected him from the Dursleys for years! It was me who witnessed his first steps away from the coffee table, his first words that weren't "mama", and me who had protected him from secrets that he wasn't ready for! And now you've come back to say that you want back in our lives, is that it? Hiding from us for years and now coming back when Harry is twenty years old?"
"I didn't know what you would say." He said. "A ghost for a father... Harry's upbringing was already hardly normal. To be raised by a ghost father and a living sister... He'd stick out so much in a way that I wouldn't want him to." Diana raised her eyebrows at her father.
"Stick out? Is that what you were worried he'd do? Stick out? You were the flipping Marauders for goodness sakes! You four had stuck out like sore thumbs as the most troublesome kids in school! And for god's sake, Harry was the Chosen One! He has a lighting shaped scar! His parents were killed young! His sister didn't age for eleven years! He had to defeat Lord Voldemort! So don't tell me that you didn't want him to stick out!" Then she sighed and took a deep breath. "If you see me in the hall, don't come up to me. Don't come near my classroom, and most certainly don't let my students bring news of you to me." Then she walked away, brushing tears out of her eyes. She couldn't believe her father! Heaven forbid that Harry could meet his father, even as a ghost! But no, he had to be selfish and go off to play with Remus and Sirius! And to drag Fred into it too!
She ran into her classroom, glad to see that George had left, and fell onto her knees, laying her head on her desk and sobbing. After all these years, every single time she thought her father was a hero and had died for her and Harry, she had felt proud to be his daughter. Now all she felt was regret and pain.
"Diana." She heard a Weasley voice say, and was sure it was George.
"Go away, George!" She cried, throwing a bottle of ink at the speaker, to see Fred there. "You too, Fred!" Fred sighed.
"Please, Annie, just promise me this. Promise me that you'll be with Georgie. He needs you and its obvious that you don't love me anymore." Diana stood, wiping her eyes.
"No, that's not true. Fred, I still love you! We all do and we miss you!" Fred put his hand on her shoulder carefully so that it wouldn't go through.
"Ana, come on. I'm dead, and you're a beautiful young woman. And George had a huge crush on you since we were fifteen." Diana felt crushed as this man, this wonderful man whom she thought she loved, told her to be with his brother because she loved him now.
"But, Freddie-" he cut her off, smiling.
"I've missed hearing you call me that. Take care of Georgie for me all right? And see about creating a Fred II. For me, all right?" Diana nodded as one last tear trickled down her cheek, and Fred went up through the ceiling. Then she gasped.
"George!" She dashed out of her classroom, hurrying past McGonagall, who smiled as she again called, "George!"
Diana ran as fast as her legs would carry her, past students and teachers and ghosts, then out the door and off the campus, where she saw George about to apparate in the rain. "Wait!" George turned around.
"Annie?" Was all he said, before she slammed into him, kissing him deeply and making him fall back into the mud, the rain pouring down around them and thunder crackling. She pulled away, any leftover tears mixing with the rain running through her hair and onto her cheeks.
"George, I'm sorry!" She cried. "I lied, I do love you! I've loved you for a long time! I was just scared, after everything that happened with Fred, I didn't know if I should be with you, but-" he put his finger to her lips, shushing her and smiling.
"You don't know how long I've been waiting to here that." He told her. She laughed, and kissed him again, him wrapping his arms around her waist and more thunder crackling over them as he kissed her back.
From the window in McGonagall's office, McGonagall and Dumbledore from his painting were watching the scene below, as well as Snape from his painting. McGonagall smiled at the two.
"Albus, I believe that you owe me five Sickles." She said quietly.
"It appears so." Dumbledore told her. "You were the one to call that it'd be her and George Weasley."
"Would the two of you stop gambling for a moment and enjoy my goddaughter's happiness with me?" Snape told them sternly, but he was smiling.