#fredw

You liked muggle movies enough, they were entertaining and there seemed to be a whole plethora of them, so many different stories. But you hardly expected your birthday to end up like one of your favorite ones. You were currently Molly Ringwald, and this was Sixteen Candles.

It had felt like a joke at first. When you woke up alone in your dorm, everyone else having gone down to breakfast without waking you. Maybe they let you sleep in for your birthday? You put on your uniform and went down to the Great Hall and went to your usual seat with Katie and Angelina, but both of them just kept talking Quidditch. The only time they acknowledged you was when you asked if they wanted anymore of the toast on the rack.

A joke. It had to be. You had looked down towards the Weasley twins and caught Fred’s eye. He shot you a wink. Of course it was his doing. Had to be.

Classes - your friends had the excuse of McGonagall breathing down their necks. But then nothing happened at lunch. Quidditch talk. Laughing about something that had happened to Oliver the year before. You laughed along with them, waiting for the ball to drop. But it didn’t. Another afternoon of classes. Still nothing. They really forgot your birthday. All of them. Not even a letter from your parents.

Dinner. You looked at everyone expectantly. Please, you were praying. You didn’t want to have to bring it up and make everything awkward. Please just let someone else remember so that you could claim maybe you forgot as well and all of the tension could be lifted.

Dinner turned into dessert. Grumpily, you grabbed some putting and started to put it on your plate when it was yanked out from underneath you. You looked up to yell at whoever was stealing your dessert to see Fred Weasley standing there, bit of a grin, and he set a cupcake with a birthday candle in front of you. “Make a wish then, birthday y/g.”

That’s when people started to look at each other with horror. They were now remembering that they had forgotten. But Fred hadn’t. You didn’t even remind him. “Is the candle going to go blow up if I blow it?” You asked, suspiciously.

“Nope.”

“Is something going to pop out?”

“It’s just a regular cupcake, y/n. Just blow out the candle.”

“Is this one of your weird products? Because I swear, Weasley, if something happens - “

“Bloody hell,” Fred said, leaning over your shoulder, close enough that you could feel his cheek brush against yours, and blew it out himself. Nothing happened. He then lit it again with the tip of his wand. Against your better judgement, you thought for a moment of a wish, and then blew out the little flame. Nothing happened. Just a little tendril of smoke and applauce from your friends.

And your wish came true. Fred didn’t back away right away, but rather gave you a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the back and a little “Happy birthday, luv,” before going to sit with his brother.

Your parents sent you a new issue in the post every week. Batman. Batman: Bride of the Demon. Batman/Judge Dredd: Judgment on Gotham. Batman Gothic. Batman: Dark Joker. You had a large array that scattered around your dorm, and you were hardly ever seen without it either beign in your hand or sticking out of your book bag. It became sort of your thing. Just like how the Weasley twins’ had their pranking, Oliver Wood had Quidditch, andHarry Potter had the weight of the world on his little shoulders.

It was nice to escape into another world. Especially with Umbridge around all of the time. The walking pink nightmare. You were reading Batman: The Ultimate Evil and even that didn’t seem nearly as bad as having her breathing over your shoulder.

“So you’re saying -” George said, taking the volume out of your hands and flipping through it. You had to spend the majority of the year before explaining how yes, it told a story using pictures but NO, the picture didn’t move. They just didn’t get it. “-that this guy, this man that’s a bat-”

“He dresses as a bat, he’s not actually a bat,” You mumbled.

“Be a lot cooler if he was a bat,” Fred chimed in.

“- and he dresses in black all of the time, and he’s usually pretty grumbly and-”

“With how many of those books I’ve seen you have, no wonder why they’re called issues, there’s always an issue!” Fred cut in again.

“-and you’re supposed to have me believe that this doesn’t just scream Snape to you?”

“Snape’s not nearly as cool as Batman,” You said, trying to get the book back. But George was taller than you and he held it over your head. “Batman is - Bruce Wayne, he’s just - he’s really cool and -”

“Cool?” Fred asked, grabbing the book from George. “Really, look at this drawing. Hold up-” He took a quill out of Hermione Granger’s hand from where she was working on an essay and started to draw the nose bigger, and add some more hair. He turned the book around to show you what he had done to Bruce. “See? Snape.”

“You’ll never understand,” You sighed, shooting an apologetic look to Hermione. “Just because you look like you could be Two-Face’s Henchmen, Min and Max, doesn’t mean that you’ll ever fully appreciate -”

“There’s a guy with two faces now?" George asked.

“Quirrel,” Fred nodded, knowingly.

“Guys ... I’m honestly starting to freak out here.” You admitted to the Weasley twins as they brought you further into the forest. Fred was holding your left hand, and George holding your right - at least that’s what you thought, you had trouble telling them apart on some days. By the star and moonlight, which was all that the three of you had, you could see that the one on your right was wearing the jacket - definitely George.

“Just a little bit further-”

“Need us to carry you?”

“You’re a bit heavy but-”

“Shut up.” You hissed, your face turning red. “Can’t you just tell me why we’re - uck!” Your foot slipped into something wet. God, you hoped that it was mud or a puddle or something. You never could tell in the Forbidden Forest.

“Ta-Da!” The twins said in unison. They lit their wands up with lumos, and sent the little ball of light forward so you could see around you.

“A bog? We snuck out in the middle of the night... to a Forbidden Forest for a bog?”

“And not just any bog!” Fred said, letting go of your hand to present to you a particularly nasty bit of water. “The inspiration for our new nature line of products!”