Before you (Fred Weasley)

CHAPTER 43

A/N: For those of you wondering, Alice is now 17 years old. Her birthday is on the 5th of October and she was born in 1979, making her older than most of her classmates except Hermione.

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The next few weeks passed by in a blur. Katie Bell was still in St. Mungo's but fortunately, no one had traced the necklace back to Draco. Dumbledore seemed unfazed by the whole incident probably because no one knew the real reason why Katie had that necklace.

As if it wasn't bad enough already, Harry was now fully convinced that Draco was behind this whole incident and I had to spend all my time trying to divert him, hoping he would forget about it soon.

Fred hadn't written back to me ever since I sent him that letter, I didn't blame him. I had been very harsh. To be honest, a small part of me wanted to receive a letter from him.

I picked up my bag from my nightstand and started pulling out all the letters that I had received from Fred. All of them were the same. I tried to collect them to form a neat pile when another envelope slipped out from the bunch and fell on the bed. It wasn't addressed to The Malfoy Manor, like all the other letters were. It was addressed to a house in London. And it was addressed to Eleanor Rose.

It had been returned from Eleanor to the cottage, without a reply.

I recognised my mother's handwriting on the envelope.

Why had my mother written to Eleanor Rose? Was she the same Eleanor Rose we had met at the train station? I thought my mother didn't know who she was.

My curiosity got the best of me and I ripped the letter open.

Dear Eleanor and Daniel,

I know that I am the last person you want to receive a letter from. After all, you have made yourselves very scarce from my life. Do not try to change your address again, I am not after you for anything.

I am only writing this letter to let you know that I met Bella at Hogwarts a few weeks ago. She has grown up to be a beautiful girl. I am surprised you told her that she is adopted at such an early stage although if she's anything like Alice, I bet she found out herself.

You have taken great care of her.

Yours Sincerely,

Helena Aster.

I checked the date on the letter to see that it had been written in January. Ten months ago.

This letter made no sense, why did my mother need to tell them that she met Bella? Did they have a fight that caused the Rose family to stray away from her? I was very confused, I kept the letter back in the bag along with all of Fred's letters which I had organised in a pile.

I wanted to talk to my mother about this but I couldn't write to her now. I didn't know if she was still in Malfoy Manor or not.

I decided to put it off for a while.

In the Common Room, I saw Bella, hunched over a table and scribbling on a piece of parchment.

"Hi Bella, what's up?" I asked, sitting next to her.

"Potions essay" she grumbled.

Maybe Bella knew what the whole letter was about?

"Bella, have you been living in London all your life?" I asked

"No, we used to live in France but all of a sudden, mum and dad wanted to move to London"

"You were in France?"