Stumble - A Fred Weasley Fanfiction

Chapter 45: 120 Days Before

Addie did not go back to the caves, nor to the Burrow. She apparated mere blocks away from the small park where she had left Dirk, appearing on the manicured front lawn of a pretty little house with a wide front porch. She wiped away the last of her tears, pushed her hair out of her face, and approached the front door with a calm determination.

Her mother opened the door moments later, throwing her arms around her daughter before Addie had a chance to greet her. "Oh, Addie!" she exclaimed. "I was so worried. When you didn't come for Christmas, I thought something had happened. Are you alright?" Her mum pulled away to get a better look at her. "Have you been crying?"

"No," Addie said quickly. "I'm just tired. I'm sorry I missed Christmas."

"It's alright, you're here now. I saved your present." She ushered Addie inside, leaving her in the sitting room while she went to grab the gift. Addie's eyes were drawn to the mantle, and she slowly walked over to it, staring at the framed pictures on top. There, in the middle, as it had been for years, was the framed picture of her and her father sitting on the porch. Addie looked closer at that photo than she had in years. The man was unmistakably Dirk: the same brown hair and dark eyes. His face was clean-shaven in the photo, where now it was replaced with stubble, and the man in the photo did not have the lines of a hard life that had since marked his face. But it was Dirk.

Her mother returned. "Here it is-" she started, but stopped as she noticed the picture in Addie's hand and the odd look on her daughter's face. "Addie? What's wrong?"

"I met him," Addie said, not looking up from the photo.

"Met who, honey?" she asked.

Addie jabbed a finger at the picture. "My father."

The present in her mum's hands fell, and whatever was within shattered, the sound echoing in the silence between them. "Shit," she muttered, reaching down to pick up the box, holding it in her shaking hands. "I'll have to get you another one."

Addie shook her head. "I can fix it," she muttered softly, and pulled out her wand. "Reparo," she said, pointing her wand at the box, and there was a slight clattering as the pieces came together.

Her mother nearly dropped the box again in her surprise. She quickly set it down on the table and sat on the couch, refusing to meet Addie's eyes. "So, you met him?"

"Yeah, I did. I guess he's not very good at staying dead."

Her mother visibly flinched.

"How could you?" Addie demanded.

"I'm sorry, Addie. You just don't understand."

"He told me that he came back for me. That he wanted back in my life and you told him to leave. Why would you do that?"

"Addie, he was gone for three years. He went to fight in a War, and I knew there was a chance he wouldn't return. Months went by, and he didn't come back, and I had no way of knowing what had happened to him. You kept asking about him, asking when daddy would be back. And after a year without hearing a single thing from him, I really thought he had died. I was forced to move on, and I told you he had died, so you could too."

All of Addie's anger and frustration fell away at her mother's words. Her mother, she realized, was a broken woman who had wondered every day for a year if her husband had died, wondering if she would have to raise her daughter alone. Addie sat down beside her mother, letting her mum wrap her arms around her. Addie leaned into her, putting her head on her shoulder, and closed her eyes.

"Two years after I had finally decided to let go, he showed up on my doorstep. It had been three years since he left, without a word from him between. I had finally moved on, had accepted that I would raise you alone. And then he showed up out of the blue. You were six years old, you knew what it meant when I said your father had died. It would have been so hard to tell you he was back, as if from the dead. And I was selfish. I was hurt and angry that I had gone through all that pain for a man who was still alive..." She hugged her daughter closer. "I was selfish to keep him from you. I'm so sorry."