Muggle | 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑊𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

Chapter 127

After George chased us angrily back to the Burrow as we laughed, we finally were safe with Mrs. Weasley around the house.

      At Christmas Eve, everyone had gathered at the Weasleys' house; from Bill and Fleur to Sirius and Lupin who were talking with Harry as they sat around the fireplace, and I was sitting on the couch nearby with Fred and George.

      Harry seemed in an oddly better mood after that day, and I just assumed that it was because he could spend more time with Ginny over the holidays.

      Mrs. Weasley kept turning the music's volume higher to muffle out Fleur's voice, and I found myself deeply pitying her. Although I knew soon their thoughts about her were going to change.

       "Eez eet over?" said Fleur after the song finally came to an end. "Thank goodness, what an 'orrible —"

       "Shall we have a nightcap, then?" asked Mr. Weasley loudly before his wife could get angry, leaping to his feet. "Who wants eggnog?"

       With that, he quickly went to the kitchen and came back, handing out the eggnogs on a tray to everyone as they went back to chatting.

       Fred and I were last to receive ours, so Mr. Weasley handed me the tray which had two glasses of eggnog left on it.

       Fred raised his hand to pick up one of the glasses, but in a quick motion I smacked him on his knuckle before he could even touch it.

       "Mine," I said with a grin, pushing the tray further away from him.

       "You can't have two!" Fred said with a frown. "You'll explode!"

       "Once again, you're underestimating my stomach, Weasley."

        "Okay... but haven't you heard the saying?" He raised a playful brow at me. "Sharing is caring, Pooper."

       I opened my mouth to retort, but just then I caught Sirius giving us a curious look.

       "I swear it's not what it sounds like!" I said defensively, but Sirius only grinned and looked away, going back to talking with Lupin and Harry.

       Gritting my teeth together, I turned to face Fred — who had taken advantage of my distraction and had grabbed the eggnog — and so I smacked him on the arm.

        "Stop using that word!" I hissed at him in a low tone.

       "What word?" he asked obliviously, before grinning and saying, "Oh! You mean Pooper?"

       "Yes!" I glared at him.

       "But that's not fair! You've got 'Cheesy Weasley'! Nothing rhymes with your name!"

       "There are a lot of things that rhyme with my name if you think about it!"

       "Oh, yeah? Like what?"

       "Ugh..." I started thinking, searching my head and saying the first thing that came into my mind, "I don't know... at the top of my head, Super Hooper!? Or even Sexy Lexi —"

       "Sexy Lexi?" Fred repeated with a smirk, and I quickly came to regret saying those words. "You sure do think a lot of yourself, don't you?"

       I crossed my arms, giving him a look.

       "I'm just kidding, love," he said, chuckling and so I shook my head at him with a smile, going back to my eggnog.

       "What have you been up to lately?" I heard Harry finally ask Sirius and Lupin.

       "There are a lot of people that Voldemort wants on his side," said Sirius. "We're trying to get to them before the Death Eaters get the chance to."

       "Can't the Aurors help?" Harry asked.

       "Yes, but other than the Aurors that are part of the Order, the rest of them work for the Ministry, and frankly the Ministry doesn't know what they're even doing. They just to want seem like they're up to things, but in reality they're getting nowhere."

       "Like arresting Stan Shunpike?" I asked and Sirius nodded.

       "But we go on Dumbledore's orders," said Lupin. "He's the only one knowing what's going on. He has his... sources."

      And with that, he told us about his mission and how he had been living undercover with the werewolves as a spy for the past few months, under Dumbledore's orders.

      After a few minutes, we were all now listening to Lupin as he went on telling about his heartbreaking story of becoming a werewolf, and how Greyback had bitten him when he was merely a child.

     "Greyback believes that werewolves deserve blood," said Lupin gloomily. "He thinks that we ought to revenge ourselves on normal people by attacking them."

       "But you're not like them! You are normal!" said Harry fiercely. "You've just got a — a problem —"

         Lupin and Sirius both burst out laughing at those words. "Sometimes you remind me a lot of James," said Lupin brightly. "He called it my 'furry little problem' in company. Many people were under the impression that I owned a badly behaved rabbit."

       "I'm pretty sure Marlene spread that rumor," said Sirius and Lupin nodded, chuckling.

       "Marlene McKinnon?" I said, raising a curious brow at them. "I knew she was part of the Order, but I didn't know you guys were friends back in your school days."

      "Well, we weren't direct friends," said Sirius. "She was just a friend of — er — another close friend of mine."

       "Too close, I would say," said Lupin with a scoff, causing Sirius to shot him a warning look.

       Harry was looking between the two men with a smile on his face, as if he were in on their inside joke as well.

       "So now that we're on the topic of old school days," Lupin started amusingly and held up his glass, turning to face me and Harry, "how's Mr. Filch doing? I'm sure Padfoot here misses him a lot."

        Harry and I looked at him with a puzzled expression and so we turned to face Sirius, only to see that he looked murderous by those words, glaring daggers at Lupin.

        "It's been twenty years!" he shouted. "Let it go!"

       But Lupin said nothing and just smirked into his drink in silence.