The Girl who Survived (Fred Weasley)

CH 73. Reaching out

A/N: An unexpected visitor helps put things into perspective for Elodie, while she decides what her next step would be.

~Fred's POV~

"Now you look over that care guide, you hear lad?" I said to a little boy who stood in excitedly waiting for his pygmy puff.

"I will!" He said reaching for the crate.

"Thank you so much Mr. Weasley. Tate, say thank you," His mother said.

"Thank you," He said before they turned to leave the shop.

It was slow for a Wednesday. Even though business had been booming lately, Witches and Wizards were still wary about coming to Diagon Alley. More and more shops were beginning to close, calling it a safety measure, But George and I knew that people could still use a laugh.

"Thank you for the lunch break. I can take over now," Verity said as she stepped up to the counter.

"Of course, I'm just going to grab some boxes to restock right now that we're slow. You see George around?" I asked her as I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt.

"Yes, in the back office with your wife. Looked like he was doing a small inventory, while she was reading," She said kindly.

As much as I enjoyed having Elodie in close quarters, I knew she was mostly doing it to avoid being alone at the house and having Remus or Sirius pop in on her unannounced. Though given that they'd been withholding information from her, I couldn't' necessarily hold it against her. It was a tough situation from my point of view. On the one hand, I understood where they were coming from in not wanting to being up old problems, especially ones that weren't as easily fixed. But on the other hand, they had promised to never keep secrets from her. And this was one dragon sized secret.

I knew her well enough to know when not to push it. But what made it worse was that she wasn't supposed to be dealing with stress. Merlin, all she knew was stress. It seemed like these last few years all she'd had was stress with only a few moments of plateau in between. I tried to be there for her and listen to her when she decided to vent. But I was still trying to figure out how to help her. How to take her pain. But there was only so much I could do.

The door to the back office was cracked open, and I heard her laughing. The both of them were laughing, that was a good sign. When George first told her that he and Angelina were dating again, I thought it would have put a riff in their friendship. So, it was nice to have them laughing and spending time together again like we all used to.

"You feeling peckish? I could run out and pick up those mini cupcakes from the tea shop? It'll only be a few minutes," I heard George ask.

"Have you ever thought about how mini cupcakes are twice shrunken cakes?" She said before George let out a laugh. I could almost picture the look on his face because it was the same, I had. I loved when she had these little random thoughts. "It's true! Think about it. You have cake, then you shrink it down to be a cupcake, once more and it's a mini cupcake. Why not just get the cake and eat it over the course of a few days?"

"I'm not saying you're wrong, but about how much thought did you put into that idea of yours?" George asked.

"Only a few minutes. I thought about it the day I went to go grab coffee and saw that rubbish," She answered him.

"Aren't you not supposed to drink coffee? I could have sworn I heard mum telling Fred to make sure you quit.," George told her.

It was true. I'd popped back to the burrow to pick up lunch and mum had lectured me the entire time about how I needed to remind Elodie that she shouldn't be drinking certain teas, much less coffee. Any other man would oblige and see that she walked a straight line. But I knew my wife, and if she wanted a cup of coffee, she would have it.