Invitation Only ~ Fred Weasley

THIRTY

As they were about to depart from Grimmauld Place, Sirius grabbed a hold of Viola's arm to hold her back. He shot her a smile and reached out a present to her.

"Think I forgot, huh? Happy birthday." He said and Viola stared at him. She had completely forgotten herself. It was her birthday! She had just turned 18 and everyone around her stared at her blankly.

"It's your birthday?" George said, completely baffled. Viola looked at him with an apologetic look on her face. "Well, Uhm... I had actually forgotten." She said. With all that had been going on, she wasn't surprised that she had completely forgotten her birthday. The person that looked most defeated was Fred.

"Open it." Sirius said, eyeing the present he had presented. Viola did as he said and opened the wrapping paper. A box was packed in. She opened it.

A locket. A beautiful oval shaped locket was neatly placed in the box.

"Open the locket."

She did and her mouth dropped. A picture she had never seen before. Her mom had removed all the pictures of Sirius because it was too painful to her. A small picture in the left side of the locket showed a picture of Viola and Scott when they were only 2 and 3 years old. Scott had his arms around her and was laughing. Baby Viola was looking admirably at her big brother. But the picture on the right side... it was a picture of her mom and Sirius on their wedding day. Sirius was smiling wildly and Malinda was looking up at him with love. Then to her surprise, she discovered that it was a magical photo. Malinda moved her head to look at Viola and smiled at her. Her mom. Her mom was smiling at her.

"Now you'll have all of us with you. Always." Sirius said, but Viola couldn't tear her eyes away from the little picture. She took every single detail in. They looked so young, so in love, so foolishly happy and Viola felt an intense warmth spread throughout her whole body. Her heart swelled up to twice it's size and she finally took her eyes away from that beautiful sight and looked at her dad. She couldn't even cry, only stare at him.

"Thank you, dad." She said. This was one of the few times she had used the word 'dad' and Sirius seemed to take the word to heat and enjoy every letter in that word. But this time, she didn't call him dad to get him to do something. It was reflex.

"I love you, kiddo." Sirius uttered, almost inaudible, like the words were causing him pain. This was the first time he had said that to her. But even though she knew she loved her father, she couldn't bear to say it just yet. Instead she wrapped her arms around Sirius and hugged him tighter than ever.

"One last thing, before you leave" Sirius began, still hugging Viola. "Don't get into any more trouble and that involves you as well, Fred." He said and Fred cleared his throat somewhere behind Viola.

"Things might get worse at Hogwarts from now on, so stay out of trouble, yeah? You're nearly there, kid. Enjoy it." He said and then pulled away reluctantly. Viola merely nodded and took one last look at her dad before she turned around to enter the fireplace along with the Weasley siblings, Harry and Hermione.

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Sirius wasn't wrong. Things got worse. Umbridge not had almost complete control over the entire school. Even though she felt a strong urge to rebel, Viola kept her word to Sirius. She stayed out of trouble. Mostly.

After Fred and George had begun selling their products around school, Viola helped them.

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It had been nearly a week after they arrived back at Hogwarts, when, for the first time ever, Fred placed himself at the Slytherin table on Violas side. He reached out a rather big gift.