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Author: Bekken Story: Untitled Rating: Young Teens Setting: Pre-HBP Status: Completed Reviews: 1 Words: 16,186
Disclaimer: I don't own and am in no way affiliated with J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., or Scholastic publishing . All characters belong to Jo Rowling, and I am just borrowing them for a spell. Neither am I affiliated in any way with Nicholas Sparks, or A Walk to Remember. The plot, however, is mine. * Author's Notes: My first attempt at a longer-ish story, so please be merciful. I did try, you know. The idea popped into my head one morning, and what was I to do but write it? And yes, the title really is ‘Untitled'. You'll see why soon. * Harry looked at the forest green cover of the book, itching to get his hands on it. "Me." it simply said in gold flourishing letters. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and tried to get back to the report he was writing for the Ministry of Magic. His eyes, however, kept sliding back to the book. "At nine thirty p.m. on Monday, August 13, Don Frinske was practising illegal necromancy in his home residence," Harry dictated to himself. "Neighbours heard odd whistling, ghostly - damn." The tip of Harry's quill had just broken, leaving a black smear over what he had already written. He scrounged around in his desk for a new quill, and dipped it in the inkwell. "At nine thirty p.m.," Harry began again. His eyes travelled to the book once more. "Oh, hang it," he muttered. He picked up the slim, dark green volume, and opened it to the first page. "Me." it said in the centre of the page in large, curly letters. Underneath it, in tiny print, were the words: "By Virginia Weasley" He flipped the page. "Acknowledgements To thank all the people who have helped me write this work would be impossible." The page read. "However, I am prepared to try and thank as many of you as possible. Everyone I know has been a great help to me in writing this book, and I couldn't have got through it without your wonderful support. First thanks go to my family. To Mum and Dad, first of all, for encouraging me to write this, and planting the idea in my brain. You two never gave up on me, and I'll always thank you for it. To Bill, who put up with my owls at three in the morning, in which I wondered if I was doing the right thing. To Charlie, who came right away when I owled him in tears saying that I could not finish. To Percy, for his never ending support, and for his wonderful help by way of grammar and spelling. You were more help than you realised, Perce. To Fred, who suggested that I add a little humour to this work, and to George, who came over and cooked my meals when I was too busy writing to eat. To Ron, for helping me remember everything that had slipped my memory over my lifetime. You were the first one to read this, Ron, and your comments and support meant so much to me. To Hermione: even before you were my sister-in-law, you were my friend. I needed that friendship throughout writing this, and you were always there for me. And to my darling nephews and nieces. Henry, Willy, Andrew, Georgie, Diana, Isabel, Mary, and my newest little namesake, little Ginny: You were always there to put a smile on my face. Of course, I have to thank my dog, Lucky, simply because he was always there. When I was ready to sob, he was there to lick my face. Thank you, Lucky. Thanks to my editor, Justin Finch-Fletchey, for taking this broken crumpled manuscript, and turning it into a real book. And thanks to all of you, my readers, for bothering to pick up this book. I hope I won't disappoint you." Harry read over the page, a smile on his face. Who would have thought that Justin back from his days in Hogwarts would become a major editor? Or that Ron and Hermione would have got married and had another little Virginia? He flipped to the next page. All it said in tiny letters was: "For Harry." His eyes widened. For him? No one had told him that! ‘Why would she dedicate the book to me?' he wondered. He was not a big help in the writing of the book, and was disappointed in himself because of it. He had been working very hard, trying to get a promotion, and was not there for his friend when she needed him. In fact, once they went to lunch to discuss the book, and Harry (he winced at the memory) left in the middle to go to a business meeting. He certainly wasn't worthy enough to have the book dedicated to him. He was still angry with himself for leaving a friend all alone like that. Ginny was one of his best friends. They didn't have a relationship exactly. Both were free to date other people, and Harry did, though he wasn't sure about Ginny. However, when Harry needed a date to a Ministry of Magic employee party, or Ginny needed someone to accompany her to the Aurors' Ball, they were there for each other. He looked at the text again. There it was, in tiny bold letters: "For Harry". He couldn't understand it. There were so many people that deserved to have the book dedicated to them – starting with his best friend, Ron. Ron had told him just the other day that in the midst of writing the book, Ginny had shown up on their doorstep, sobbing, and said she was going to kill herself if she didn't finish soon. Ron, being a good older brother, invited her in and calmed her down. Yes, Ron deserved it far more than she did. Or Charlie, or Bill, or Percy, or Fred, or George, or Hermione, or anyone but him. Why had Ginny chosen him? He wasn't as big a part of her life as he had been at Hogwarts – work was taking up a lot of his time, especially now with working towards the promotion of Head of the Department of Prevention of Illegal Magic. ‘But I still have time to spend with Ron and Hermione,' he thought. This revelation surprised him. ‘And I have time to go to Quidditch games. And I still have time to go to casinos or clubs sometimes. ‘My time with Ginny was the first time to go,' he realised, shocked. He had never been more unhappy with himself than he was when he turned to the next page. "Introduction I've always hated reading introductions, so feel free to skip this one. However, if you do actually read introductions, then by all means read it, though I probably never will." Harry smiled. "I wrote this book at my parents suggestion, and I laboured for what seemed like forever on it. I tried my best, and it would be lovely if you would read it with an open mind. Don't judge me from this. Don't think about me as a character. I'm a person. This book is me. It is my life; it is my memories. It is my personality. It is my loves. It is me. This is my story, and I promise to leave nothing out.*" Harry laughed, feeling a little better, and turned to the next page. "Chapter One Early Beginnings My mother tells the story like this: One fine Saturday afternoon, my parents were walking in the garden, when my mother complained of an odd pain in her stomach. Since I was due in only a week, my father assumed it was labour pains, and called a midwife. However, it turned out that my mother was not in labour, but simply had a stomach infection. ‘I told your father over and over again that it wasn't labour,' she reminisces. ‘But he was insistent.' After that false alarm, and after my father had to pay the midwife ten Galleons for making the journey out, he resolved to be more careful and be sure my mother was in labour before he called for help. Two weeks later, my mother was standing in the kitchen, when her labour began. The labour was rather easy to begin with, and she actually finished cooking the stew she was making before she lay down. She called to my father, but he wouldn't believe she was going to have me. ‘It's just your stomach, acting up again,' he told her. ‘It's labour,' my mother insisted, but he would hear none of it. He insisted that it was just her stomach, and made her take more of the medicine the doctor had given her. My mother started having contractions, and she realised this was not going to be the easy labour she had expected. She yelled for my father to send for the midwife, but my father was stubbornly stuck on the fact that my mother was not in labour. Finally, my mother gave up. She lay, wondering how she was going to have this baby herself. Thankfully, my thirteen-year-old (at the time) brother, Bill, heard my mothers' cries and sent for the midwife himself. My father was furious with him at first – he still couldn't believe my mother was having me. But, while he was scolding Bill for wasting the ten Galleons, the midwife came out. Holding me. According to Bill, my fathers ‘jaw dropped wide open,' and his eyes, ‘just about popped out of his head.' ‘What's that?' he asked. The midwife looked insulting. ‘Why it's yer new baby, Arthur,' she said, sternly. ‘And yeh shouldn't be talkin' ‘bout ‘er like that.' ‘Her??' Bill's eyes went wide, and he looked my baby face in the midwife's arms. ‘It's not a her!' He checked under the blanket and his eyes went wide. ‘It's a her.' My dad was still standing in a dazed shock next to the midwife. ‘I have a baby,' he said aloud. ‘I have a baby.' ‘Well, yeh got six of ‘em already, now, don'tcha?' asked the midwife. My father rushed past her into the room. My mother always blushes at this part of the story, and Bill says he heard frantic giggling coming from inside the room. However, the midwife strode in before anything could really happen. ‘Don't show the chil' such things,' my mother remembers her scolding. ‘What will we call her?' wondered my father. They had been planning to name me Thomas, but I couldn't really be called that now, could I? ‘Elisabeth?' my mother asked. At the same time, my father said, ‘How about Virginia?' My mother smiled. ‘Virginia Elisabeth.' ‘Well,' said my father, taking me from the midwife, and holding me, ‘Virginia Elisabeth Weasley, welcome to the world.' My mother always smiles when she tells this story, as if she really goes back in time and feels everything she felt again. I love to listen to it – it's the story of my birth, after all. When I was little, my older brothers and I would group in a large circle around my parents and listen to the stories of when we were born. Mine was always the funniest, and always the time when it would get the loudest. Everyone was jumping in and trying to give their personal account of the event. I was born into a family of six older brothers. The oldest, Bill, is probably the one that felt he had the most responsibility over us, and since he was thirteen when I was born, it was like having a live-in babysitter. Bill, my mother says, was always the one who had to take care of us. And he says that he always got in trouble whenever we got into mischief, but I don't remember this. Then there's Charlie. Charlie has two loves in his life: sports and animals. It was Charlie that took me out on nature walks, so we could find different types of Quagdoodles, and it was Charlie who first put me on a broomstick and taught me to play Quidditch. Charlie Weasley is something of a legend, if you ask anyone at Hogwarts, and I have no trouble at all believing it. There is Percy. Percy was always the responsible, cautious one. He was probably the one that kept me out of too much mischief in my younger years, and probably, even now. Despite what some people say about him, he did turn a blind eye to children's fun that may have been "against the rules." He did know where to draw the line, and I can't thank him enough for that. Then are my twin older brothers, Fred and George. Fred is more of a leader than George, but George is more of a thinker than Fred. Together, they make an incredible team. Fred and George are pranksters, and often added a bit of humour to an otherwise dreary lifestyle. I have them to thank for my own sense of humour. Even being the target of their jokes often helped me: it made me develop a thick skin that I would need later in life. There is Ron. Ron is only one year older than me, and we constantly bickered as children. My mother called us her two ‘torment children,' and rightly so. We tormented each other to the brink of insanity. We'd constantly fight over tiny little things. Ron would be angry because I followed him. I would be angry because he took my toy. Yet, Ron was always my protector as well. When Fred and George got too vicious, Ron would step in, often risking a lot. Sometimes, he would take the blame for mischief we had got into together, or even something I'd done myself. He always pulled through when I really needed him." ‘He did,' Harry thought to himself. He recalled the last year of Hogwarts – the reason Ron hadn't left school that year, and was forced to retake it. That had been for Ginny. Ron always pulled through in the clutch, and Harry admired him for it. Too often, he himself would get nervous and pull out. Ron's real strength came when he was depended on for something important. Harry turned the page any continued to read. "My first memory is, in fact, of Ron. Perhaps it has been added to in my brain, from the various accounts of it I've heard. It wasn't a very memorable experience, but with eight other people in the family, there is bound to be someone who will remember what you do. What I remember is I was two or three years old (Charlie says three, and Percy says two). My father was away on Ministry of Magic business, rounding up a few more of Voldemort's supporters. Being quite the Daddy's girl, I was very sad that my father wasn't there. I was quiet all day long, and at three o'clock, willingly went to my room for my nap, without even putting up a fuss. Ron followed me into the nursery we shared, and Ron lay down on his "big boy bed," while my mother came up and put me into my crib. She waved her wand, and soft, slow music began to play. ‘Go to sleep,' she said. ‘Shhh…' I lay in bed for what seemed like hours in my baby mind, but was probably only a few minutes. Then I crawled out of my crib (I had figured out how to do this long before) and got onto Ron's bed. ‘What?' he asked, sleepily, feeling none of the insomnia I did. ‘I can't sleep,' I whispered. ‘I want Daddy.' Without even hesitating, Ron shifted over, and gave me some room under the covers. Percy and Bill say I hugged him tightly while I was sleeping, for the whole nap. To this day I love sleeping in the same bed as one of my brothers. I always feel safe, and protected. I'm never scared, none of the little scares, like a monster under the bed, or the big scares, that someone might crawl into my window. Whenever I have a bad dream, I'll crawl into one of my brothers' beds. Most children run to their parents with their problems, but I ran to my brothers." An owl flew in Harry's window, disrupting his reading. It dropped a letter on his desk, then flew off. Obviously, the sender wasn't expecting a response. Sighing, he put down the book, marking his place, and picked up the letter. "Harry- I need that report, ASAP. As soon as you have it done, send it to me. -Jeff" Jeffrey French was the man who could (and just might) promote Harry. Sighing, he picked up the report and began to write again. He gazed longingly at the book. It would just have to wait for another time.
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