⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆

Theo flicked you a look, lips twitching. "Your commentary is absolute shit. But that doesn't stop you from opening that pretty mouth of yours."

You kicked him lightly in the thigh, socked foot bouncing off his lean muscle. "Ow," he deadpanned, and flicked one card at you like a weapon. It smacked your forehead before fluttering uselessly to the sheets.

You laughed, grabbing it. "Terrifying."

"You should be," he said with a nod, but he was already smirking. That was who Theo was — he always looked a little too unbothered, a little too pretty sitting there with his collar loose, hair falling in his eyes, like the world could collapse and he'd still be dryly amused.

The problem with having Theo Nott as your best friend was exactly this: he was utterly dangerous without trying.

Which is maybe why, when you both got bored of the cards and you scrolled absently on the tablet you gifted him on his birthday, you didn't think before pulling up the browser and saying, "So what's the weirdest shit you've watched on here?"

Theo arched a brow from where he was sprawled against the headboard. "Define weird."

"Don't act like you don't know what I mean," you shot back, grinning up at him. "Come on. Everyone's searched something at least once that they'd never admit."

He hummed thoughtfully, eyes narrowing like he was amused at your boldness. "You mean porn."

You shrugged, pretending not to care though your cheeks went warmer. "Yeah. Porn. Unless you're about to tell me you've never—"

His scoff cut off your teasing. "Obviously I have."

"Well?" you pushed curiously with an arched eyebrow.

Theo tilted his head, studying you for a moment. His voice dropped just a fraction, that playful teasing he reserved only for you. "What do I get if I tell you?"

You froze for half a second. You hated when he did that — turned a simple conversation into something that made your stomach twist warmly. "Bragging rights?"

Theo's mouth curved into a smirk. "Shit prize." But he took the tablet from your hands, long fingers brushing yours, and typed something into the search bar. He didn't show you right away, just smirked at the screen, then angled it toward you.

Your jaw dropped the second your eyes landed on the screen. "Oh my god."

Theo chuckled in amusement, low and warm. "Too much?"

You slapped his arm, laughing. "That's— what even is that position? Is he trying to break her spine?"

"Flexibility training," he deadpanned with a nonchalant shrug.

You snorted so hard you nearly dropped the tablet off the bed. "You're sick."

"Please. You asked yourself." He looked far too smug, lounging like a cat while you tried to recover from the scene. Then, without asking, he tapped the next video down the list. Something tamer, but still porn.

You should have told him to shut it off. Instead, you found yourself watching curiously.

At first, it was funny. The over-exaggerated moans, the cheesy dirty talk. You mocked the way the guy kept saying "yeah baby" and "fuck" like he'd been programmed with only two phrases. Theo snorted every time the camera zoomed in unnecessarily close to the girl's face. It was the kind of thing best friends could laugh at without thinking twice.

Except... you were thinking twice.

Because you noticed how close you'd ended up sitting, your knees almost brushing his. How his shoulder shifted against yours when he leaned back at the headboard. How he absentmindedly spun the ring on his finger while watching, and how his expression wasn't as detached as you expected. Relaxed sure, but now with more intent.

When the girl on-screen gasped, Theo's tongue darted briefly over his lower lip, and your stomach flipped, dangerous and warm.

Nope. Absolutely not. This was Theo. Your Theo. You were just imagining it.

But then he glanced sideways and caught you watching him instead of the screen, he smirked.

"What?" you demanded, arching your brow in a defensive gesture.

"You're quiet," he pinpointed lightly with a slight hum. "Unusual."

"I'm just... processing."

He chuckled, tilting his head slightly, but didn't push. "Sure." His eyes flicked back to the tablet, then to you again. "And you're blushing."

"I am not."

"You are," he said with a smirk, far too pleased with himself. "Cute."

Your heart jumped. Cute? Theo called you a million names — idiot, menace, brat — but cute? That was reserved only for special occasions. And worse, he looked like he meant it.

The video kept playing. You tried to laugh at it again, but your voice came out thin. Theo leaned just a little closer, close enough that you caught the faint cologne at his collar. Close enough that when the man on screen groaned, you felt heat curl in your stomach in a way that had nothing to do with the actor.

It was all about Theo.

And suddenly you realized: best friends didn't actually sit this close watching porn together. Not without meaning something else.

Your pulse hammered. You glanced at him again, and this time, you swore his gaze dipped to your mouth before he caught himself and looked away.

Shit.

The room felt smaller by the second, the air warmer and thicker.

Theo hadn't moved much, but it was the awareness that had changed. His thigh brushed yours like it always did, only this time it wasn't casual. His arm rested behind you on the headboard, his fingers grazing your shoulder, and you felt every nerve in your body trip over itself because suddenly, it mattered.

The video kept playing, but neither of you was really watching it anymore.

"You can turn it off," Theo said finally, voice lower than usual. "If it's too much."

You forced a laugh, though your throat was dry. "It's not. Don't worry."

He looked at you, sharp eyes steady, like he was testing that. Then his mouth curved slowly, that teasing edge softening into something heavier. "Alright, then. Don't get shy on me now."

Shy? You wanted to smack him as usual when he teased you. But your body betrayed you — pulse raced, legs shifted subconsciously, and you couldn't meet his gaze for long without feeling like you'd combust.

The silence stretched, broken only by the obscene wet sounds from the tablet. And then, like the universe couldn't handle the tension between you two anymore — you both reached for it at once, fingers colliding.

You startled, jerking your hand back quickly, but Theo caught your wrist before you could move away. His grip was firm, warm, familiar but all new in a strange intimate way. "Jumpier than usual," he murmured.

Your breath hitched. "Well, it's because you're being—"

"What?" He tilted his head, studying you, thumb dragging lazily against the inside of your wrist. "Honest?"

The word sank into you, heavy and dangerous. Because yeah, that was exactly what this all was. Too honest. Terrifying in its novelty, but exhilarating all at once. Unavoidable.

And then he kissed you.

It wasn't hesitant, wasn't careful. Theo kissed like he'd thought a lot about it before, like he already knew the shape of your mouth, like your lips were destined to end up against his. His hand slid to your jaw, tilting your face to his, while your fingers bunched in his shirt. He tasted faintly of menthol cigarettes and something darker, and when you gasped, he swallowed the sound like he owned it. His tongue slid against yours, slow and deliberate, making you shudder at the sheer heat of it.

The tablet slipped forgotten onto the sheets.

"Fuck," you breathed out against his mouth.

Theo smirked, breath warm on your skin as he pressed his forehead to yours. "That's the idea."

You laughed shakily, but it broke into a gasp when his hand skimmed down your side, slipping under your shirt to trace warm and bare skin. Your whole body shivered at the contact, heat sparking everywhere his fingers touched.

"Theo—"

"Tell me to stop," he said, voice strained now, though his mouth was still curved. "And you know I will."

But you didn't. Couldn't. Didn't want to. Instead, you dragged him closer, kissing him again, more desperate this time.

The shift was immediate. Theo groaned low in his chest, the sound vibrating through you as he pulled you into his lap, your thighs straddling him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Inevitable. Blissful. Amazing. His hands gripped your hips, grounding you as you rocked instinctively against him. The friction made your head spin, and his breath hitched against your throat.

"Still just friends?" he tried to tease, but his voice was a bit too breathless.

"Do friends get hard like this?" you shot back, grinding just enough to feel him under you. The twitch of his cock against you made you both hiss.

"Point taken," he muttered, before kissing you again, rougher, more intentional this time.

Clothes blurred after that. Tugging, pulling, laughter breaking through between kisses when your shirt got stuck over your head, his muttered "bloody hell" as your fingers fumbled with his belt. The kind of chaos only two people too comfortable with each other could create.

But when you finally got his trousers shoved down and felt him, hot and hard against you, everything stilled.

Theo's forehead pressed to yours, his breath warm and shaky against your skin. "We should— fuck, we should slow down."

"Do you want to?" you asked as you looked at him, voice barely more than a whisper.

His eyes locked on yours, heavy and dark. "No."

Your body reacted before your mind did. You ground against him again, and Theo groaned, head dropping to your shoulder. His hands dug into your hips like he was fighting himself.

"Just the tip," he rasped suddenly, voice breaking on the words. "Let me, fuck— I want to feel you. Just the tip."

You shuddered, heat pooling low and heavy in your stomach. The way he said it — pleading, wrecked — undid you more than his hot and solid body against you. "Theo..."

"Please," he whispered, lips brushing your ear. "I just need to feel you."

Your chest heaved, words spilling out of your mouth before you think twice. "Just the tip."

It was a lie, and you both knew it.

Theo lined himself up, slow and careful, and pressed forward until the head of his cock slid into your soaked entrance.

The world tilted.

You gasped. The stretch was sharp, overwhelming, delicious, your walls clenching around him instinctively. Theo swore under his breath, clutching your waist like a lifeline. "Fuck. Fuck, so tight—"

Your nails dug into his shoulders. Every nerve ending in your body lit up, the feel of him, even just like this, was dizzying, stunning. "Theo, oh my—"

"I know," he whispered, voice shaking. He kissed your throat, your jaw, your cheek, everywhere he could reach. "I know, love. Just a little... just—"

He tried to stay still, but your hips shifted on instinct, sucking him deeper inch by inch until he was halfway inside. Your eyes fluttered shut, overwhelmed by the delicious burn, the feeling of fullness.

"Not just the tip," you whimpered softly.

His laugh was broken, wrecked and warm against your skin. "Yeah, no chance of stopping now."

And then he rocked the rest of the way in, slow but steady until he was seated fully, your walls stretching around every inch of him. You moaned at the delicious sensations, thighs trembling, body shivering on top of his.

Theo's forehead dropped to yours, sweat beading at his temple. "You feel, fuck, you feel unreal."

He gave you a second to adjust, his thumbs stroking your hip soothingly. But when you clenched around him so amazingly, he groaned and pulled almost all the way out before thrusting back in. The movement sent sparkles of pleasure down your back, dragging another helpless sound from your throat.

Every tiny movement made you jolt, your body alive and burning with shivers. You could feel every vein, every throb of him. Theo fucked you slow but deep, savoring each sound you made, each tremor of your body on his. Every time your walls fluttered around him, his rhythm faltered, breath catching, like he couldn't believe it either.

Each time he bottomed out, you moaned without thinking, legs tightening around him to pull him even closer. Your nails dug crescents into his back, cries growing louder with every deliberate and delicious push. Theo's usual composure was completely gone now, his groans raw in your ear, his restraint unraveling with every twitch of your pussy.

"Taking me so good," he panted hoarsly, his pace picking up. "My perfect girl. My best fucking friend." His lips found your ear, hot breath making you shiver. "Never gonna look at you the same after this."

You shattered around him then, the orgasm crashing through you so hard that your vision blurred. Your body convulsed, walls clamping down around him. Theo cursed loudly, hips stuttering at the sensations.

He fucked you through it, every thrust dragging out the pleasure until you were sobbing his name in his shoulder. The twitch of his cock, the hitch in his breath, told you he was close too.

"Where?" he gasped.

"Inside," you begged without thinking. "Please, want to feel it all."

His groan was guttural, broken, as he slammed deep one last time, spilling inside you with a shudder that shook his whole frame. You felt the warmth flood you, felt the twitch of him as he pulsed, and that feeling dragged another aftershock from your already wrecked body.

For a long moment, neither of you moved, the only sound your ragged breathing and the faint, forgotten moans still coming from the tablet on the floor.

Finally, Theo shifted slightly. He looked at you, hair damp, lips curved into a lazy and sated smile.

"You're fucked," he murmured warmly, eyes still dark. "We're fucked."

You laughed weakly, tugging him closer for another kiss. "Best friends, huh?" you managed breathlessly.

Since the day that Fred Weasley had somewhat sheepishly (by his standards) asked you to the Yule ball, your once flirtatious friendship had quickly blossomed into a playful relationship. This came as a surprise to nobody except for the two of you. It was something that you were now able to laugh at - how silly it was that you'd both been so absolutely certain that the other was not at all interested, until your mutual obsessions became un-ignorable. Now neither of you understood how you hadn’t seen it sooner.

Despite the teasing from your friends, your hands were constantly intertwined and neither of you had any problem with kissing in the busy hallways. Physical contact was a constant between you and Fred - which was why your close friends were surprised to find out that you hadn't actually slept together yet; especially given the somewhat promiscuous rumours surrounding the Weasley twins.

And it wasn't as if you didn't want to sleep with Fred. Merlin knows you'd often fantasised about it. But you were scared of how he might react once he saw what was under your robe; not just your body, but the map of scars and cuts that it had become stained with. You always wore long sleeves, which wasn't hard to do given the climate surrounding Hogwarts even during the warmest months, so he hadn't even seen your bare arms before - let alone your thighs.

He was completely oblivious to your secret habit, as was everyone else with the few exceptions of your best friends and exes - and most of them still had never known the full extent. Throughout your years at Hogwarts you'd learnt some pretty handy spells for cleaning up blood and closing dripping wounds, but you'd never perfected the act of removing scars - something that was apparently even harder to do when the scars were created from the darkest place of a witch's mind.

Foolishly, it had been a tickle fight to finally force your secret to the surface.

Fred had started to feel suspicious a few weeks prior after having a midnight conversation with Lee Jordan about muggle girls; specifically about some of their strange habits. You weren't a muggle - of course - but being born from muggle parents, he couldn't help but theorise which traits you might've picked up had you gone to a non-wizarding school. Would you have gotten long bits of coloured plastic attached to your nails? Would you have smoked cigarettes and worn tracksuits? He found those images hard to picture.

When Lee had described his strange, muggle cousin however, and the heartbreaking struggle she had with self-harming, an uncomfortable weight of recognition had suddenly started to form in Fred's gut. It had never occurred to him before that one might want to cut their own skin.

"Mate, I don't think Y/N is anything like those crazy muggle girls and especially not my batshit cousin, I mean - I highly doubt that she's doing that. I think you're overthinking things." Lee had tried to talk some calm into his best friend; believing that you were far too bright and bubbly to pick up a bad habit like that.

Fred had almost believed him, up until a few weeks later.

As you’d squealed on the ground below Fred and reached up to tickle his ribs back, his hand had accidentally brushed every so slightly too hard against your arm and unbeknownst to him, tore open a slit of hours-old, congealed, dry scabs. He didn't hear your pained hiss between the gasping breaths of your hysterical laughter.

Tiny red dots quickly started to emerge across your pale-yellow sleeve, and then they seemed to catch Fred's eyes like a deer in headlights

"What's that?" He laughed, but the sound quickly died in his throat as he frowned; ceasing his tickling. "What happened there?"

You immediately put your arm behind your back and swallowed, still catching your breath; which was now made harder by the sudden pressure of Fred's question.

"Nothing."

"Well show me then." A weak, hopeful smile pulled at his lips, silently begging for a silly excuse, but when you were unable to speak the smile slowly dropped to the ground.

His face bore an extremely unfamiliar expression of deeply lined seriousness; one that made your stomach tightly twist and turn. Despite this sudden stoniness, his voice remained intimate and soft.

"You've been hurting yourself?" He whispered, holding his hands out to take your arm.

You didn't budge, mentally scrambling to think of an excuse, but all that came out was a weak exhalation.

"Fred..."

"Show me your arm, Y/N." Despite how gentle his tone was you knew that it was a plea somehow dressed as an order; a shiver hidden in a command then wrapped in a soft bow.

It wasn't as if you'd ever frequently received orders from Fred, but there was a finality in the desperation of his request that made it feel forbidden to disobey. What else could you do? Walk away? And then what?

You slowly removed your arm from behind your back and peeled back your sleeve; the red dots having evolved into wet lines that stuck to your skin. The movement was agonisingly slow for Fred, who's eyes darted in infinitesimal movements from your poorly veiled expression of slight pain to the reveal of your injuries. His hands moved to cradle your arm as if he were afraid to hurt it, and his expression shifted tightly into a grimace as the red tatters finally met the air. He looked as if he was examining a bad quidditch injury, and you felt your face go red at that thought.

"It's fine, I swear. It's nothing." You spoke quickly, wanting nothing more than to tear your arm from his hold and whip out your wand - to modify his memory and make him forget he'd ever even seen the accidental red dots.

"It's not nothing though, is it?" He whispered with a short sigh. "You've been hurting yourself... Cutting your skin in a really dangerous place."

He dabbed the blood with his sleeve. There wasn't too much fresh moisture, but he struggled to tear his eyes from it - as if he were monitoring a life threatening wound. Only after another minute of attempting to halt the weak flow did he finally reconnect his eyes to yours.

"I'm going to make the bleeding stop. Is that alright?"

He had his long, pine wand pointed at your arm before you could speak - not that you were going to. Your throat felt tight and you were struggling to keep your eyes dry.

"Episkey." He whispered, and you both held your breaths as the tip of his wand acted as a gentle vacuum to your tattered skin.

All of the blood; even the little, dry flakes, disappeared into the wood - leaving the cuts in your skin now entirely exposed and somehow looking worse. Until you'd been forced to consider the sight from someone else's perspective, you'd not realised how severe it looked. Fred's wand was quick to be back in his pocket and his hand holding your arm, his other hand moved to cradle your downwards facing jaw.

"Now can you tell me, darling.. why would you want to do this to yourself?"

"It's only sometimes, I-I don't do it a lot - just when I'm really angry, or upset-" You whispered with a cracking voice before you cut yourself off, feeling foolish like some small child explaining why they'd wet their bed.

Unable to blink them back anymore, fat liquid orbs rolled down your face and left behind salty trails. You tried to look down at the ground again, but Fred's supportive hand beneath your chin stopped you from doing so, and his thumb had already started to catch some of the tears, softly rubbing them into invisibility against your cheek. He was frozen for a second; shocked by the unlikely sadness that you'd been hiding so well, ashamed at himself for not saying anything sooner, consumed by newfound worry. Then he pulled you into a tight hug.

"Oh, baby." He sighed, feeling your silent tears erupt into cries against the safety of his broad chest. "I didn't realise you were... I didn't know you were feeling so sad."

You said nothing back; only continuing to cry, which worsened the knot of guilt in Fred’s stomach. He’d never heard you cry so heavily before and he didn’t like it - not at all. He swallowed a dry lump of his own before continuing in a desperate whisper.

"I need you to promise me that you're not going to do this to yourself again. Scream at me, hit my chest if you're angry, give the pain to me - just don't turn it on yourself."

"No, Fred. I wouldn't ever want to hurt you." You croaked.

"Well then why would you do it to yourself?"

"It's different... I... I deserve it."

You knew that Fred would react badly to those words and you cut yourself off before more could come out. Nonetheless, he pulled back just enough to look at you; his eyes wide with hurt.

"Deserve it? Are you serious, Y/N? You think you deserve to be hurt? I don't understand. Why would you deserve that?”

"Because I’m just…” your mind trailed with too many reasons and there was one simple way to put it “Shit… I’m just shit.”

Fred shook his head and placed his thumb under your chin again, lifting your damp face to look at his.

“You’re not shit, not at all. You’re my gorgeous, brilliant, hilarious, little Pygmy Puff. What’s shit about that?”

A tiny smile weakly cracked at the corners of your lips and your eyes met his for a second before being weighed down by hot, embarrassed tears again.

Fred still felt that his questions were painfully unanswered, but he doubted that he would get any more clues whilst the discovery was still so fresh. He decided that the best temporary course of action would be to get you cuddled up in his dorm hidden under his covers, where his twin brother and two best friends would happily vacate to afford you both some privacy. Once comfortable; he would scheme out loud just to make you laugh and pepper your face with kisses. Explanations could come another time, all that Fred knew was for that night he needed to keep you safe and warm

A/N: my first Fred imagine I hope you all enjoy and don’t forget to interact as it means the world to myself and other writers! also my requests are open <3

Your brother, Oliver Wood, had never said you are forbidden from dating Fred Weasley. He didn’t need to, it was in his glare anytime the two of you would be to close for his liking, in the way Fred would make a joke only you laughed at while Oliver tried to make sense of what was so funny. You knew Oliver liked Fred. That was the worst part of it. He liked him in the way you like a thunderstorm when you’re safely indoors: impressive, useful, devastating if it ever turned toward you.

Fred was chaos. Fred was laughter echoing too loudly in corridors meant for silence. Fred was a future that looked like a question mark scribbled in ink that refused to dry. Oliver loved him on the team, trusted him with bludgers flying and bones breaking, trusted him to show up when it mattered—but not with you. Never with you. Not with the girl he still called his baby sister even when you were old enough to know better than to correct him.

He had known about your crush since first year. He had always known. Oliver noticed things like that. He had started warning you gently at first—half-joking comments over breakfast, raised eyebrows when Fred laughed too close to you in the stands while watching Hufflepuff crush Slytherin. Over the years, the warnings sharpened. Not cruel. Never cruel. Just firm.

“Fred’s brilliant,” Oliver would say, staring into his tea like it might betray him. “But brilliant isn’t the same as serious.”

You learned, early on, how to nod without agreeing.

Fred and you didn’t plan to start anything. Honest. That’s the lie people tell themselves after the fact. What really happened was quieter. He walked you back to the tower one night when the castle was breathing slow and deep, torchlight stretching shadows along the stone. He said something ridiculous—something about Filch—and you laughed too hard, the kind of laugh that slips out before you’ve checked who might hear it.

He stopped walking. You didn’t.

But honestly you felt it before you saw it: the absence of his footsteps, the way the air behind you shifted. When you turned, he was close enough that his freckles were a constellation you could trace in the dark. He didn’t touch you that night. He just looked at you, head tipped slightly, like he’d stumbled onto something fragile and wasn’t sure whether to joke or apologize.

“Well,” he said lightly. “That’s new.”

That was how it began. With one sentence that hovered between you and refused to fall.

You both agreed that it would be nothing. Just a thing. No complications. No Oliver. No explanations. A secret small enough to fit in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

Fred was very good at secrets when he wanted to be.

There were moments—tiny, stolen ones—that felt like they belonged to someone else’s life. His hand brushing yours under the table in the common room, knuckles warm, fingers careless. Passing each other in the corridor late at night, the castle emptied out, and he’d tug you suddenly into a shadowed alcove, laughter caught in his throat as his mouth found yours, quick and hungry and gone before the portraits could clear theirs.

Once, after a truly awful day—one of those days where everything goes slightly wrong and none of it is important enough to justify the heaviness—you found a Canary Cream sitting on your pillow. No note. Just the sweet, ridiculous thing perched there like a dare. You laughed despite yourself, then laughed harder when it chirped at you indignantly.

Later, Fred leaned against the doorway of an empty classroom, arms folded, watching you with that infuriating half-smile.

“Cheered you up, didn’t it?” he asked.

You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to. He could always tell.

He still pranked you, of course. That was part of the deal. But never cruelly. He liked the sound of your laugh too much to risk breaking it. Sometimes he’d watch you laugh like he’d done something cleverer than usual, it never was.

At night—when the castle grew vast and echoing, when Oliver was asleep and the world felt briefly unguarded—you met in places no one thought to look. Empty classrooms, unused stairwells, the narrow strip of floor behind a tapestry that smelled faintly of dust and old magic.

Fred kissed like he lived: fully, recklessly, like he expected the moment to be stolen at any second. Hands warm, mouth insistent, laughter bubbling up even when his breath hitched. Sometimes it went further—sometimes your back would hit the cold stone walls of the castle and the sound of your name pulled apart in his mouth—you would leave marks along his back without meaning to and he would get wonderfully still for a moment before pressing closer, like the pain was a drug he happily took.

Sometimes he would drop to his knees and devour you as if you were his first meal in centuries. You would gasp out his name, praying to Godric he would never stop.

Afterward, he’d kneel there grinning, breath still uneven, murmuring praises under his breath as if it were all a grand prize he was still unpacking. But sometimes—sometimes—he went quiet, thumb tracing idle patterns against your wrist, as if memorizing something he hadn’t meant to keep.

In daylight, you pretended. That was the hardest part. Standing near each other and not touching. Passing jokes back and forth that meant nothing to anyone else. Watching Oliver clap Fred on the shoulder after practice, pride plain and uncomplicated, and feeling the secret curl tighter in your chest.

You told yourself it was temporary. That it was easy. That it was nothing.

But secrets have weight. They press into you slowly, the way snow does on a roof—quiet, patient, inevitable. And somewhere between laughter and stolen kisses, between sex and Canary Creams, something shifted. Something neither of you named. Something that sat in the space between you when you two weren’t touching and it felt louder than any confession.

Fred never said it. Neither did you.

You just kept sneaking through the castle like you weren’t already leaving footprints everywhere.

And the thing about footprints is that eventually, someone follows them.

~~~

(I switched to first person for some reason without even realizing it lmao and was to lazy to re-edit it all)

The pitch looks wrong when I step onto it.

Not just worn—ruined. The grass is torn open in long, ugly streaks where brooms scraped too low and bodies hit too hard, where the game stopped being about points and started being about damage. This isn’t the neat aftermath of a fast match or a clean loss. This is what happens when Slytherin decides winning matters more than playing fair.

The stands are emptying quickly now, green and silver streaming away in loud, satisfied clusters, already celebrating as if they hadn’t clawed their way to it. Gryffindor lingers. No one seems ready to move first. No one wants to be the one who admits it’s really over.

Last game of the year.

And this is how it ends.

I walk out onto the pitch with Lee, my steps slowing instinctively when I see the looks on the team’s faces. Everyone looks hurt.

Torn sleeves. Blood drying too dark against red and gold. Bruises already blooming beneath skin. Angelina Johnson is on her feet, jaw set tight, handing out towels like she might rip something in half if she stops moving. Katie Bell is sitting heavily on the grass, pressing a cloth to her mouth, eyes bright with the sort of anger that hasn’t found words yet.

“Honestly,” Lee mutters, voice low, more dangerous than his usual commentary. “I swear they’d bring a bat to a pillow fight if they thought they could get away with it.”

“Tell me something new,” George growls from nearby, nursing a bloody nose as he glares across the field to where the Slytherins had been only seconds ago.

“I don’t know why you lot are acting surprised,” Angelina snaps sharply, not looking up. “We’ve seen them only getting more aggressive as the games went by and still we decided to play fair-“

“Would you rather us play like they did?” Katie shot from her place on the grass, her cloth covered in blood. She glared at Angelina.

George looked between the two, already stepping towards them. “Guys-“

“No but we could’ve upped our game more, you know it’s not illegal to play aggressive Bell,” Angelina spat, ignoring George.

“Are you trying to insinuate something?” I turn my gaze away from my two bickering friends, my eyes catching onto the only person who hasn’t said a word since the game ended

Fred is standing a little apart, broom abandoned on the ground like he doesn’t care if it gets trampled. His hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat and blood—someone else’s, I think, though it’s hard to tell anymore. There’s a cut under his cheekbone, already swelling and a split at his knuckle that’s still bleeding slowly, he hasn’t bothered to stop it.

His sleeve is torn clean down the seam, exposing a forearm already blooming purple.

And somehow—infuriatingly—he still looks handsome. Bright-eyed, flushed, dangerous in that reckless way that makes it hard to look away even when you should. He’s talking to Lee now, his expression undeniably angry. Angry in a way I’ve never seen Fred.

“—calls it accidental,” Fred sneers, voice carrying, brittle with disbelief. “Accidental! Took my arm out like he was aiming for it.”

Lee snorts darkly, trying to easy the tension. “Should’ve taken his broom in return.”

Fred huffs, his eyes catching mine from the other side of Angelina and Katie’s escalating fight. “Tempting. But I’m trying to be a reformed citizen.”

It lasts half a second—no more—but it’s enough. Enough for his expression to shift, just slightly, like something unguarded flashes through before he can smooth it away. His mouth tilts into a smile that’s different from the one he’s usually gives. Softer. Tired.

I feel it in my chest before I let myself think about it. But shake away the feeling as I glance down at the water bottles I brought for the team. I step forward and pass one to Fred automatically, like muscle memory.

“Cheers,” he says, taking it.

Our fingers brush.

The contact is brief, meaningless to anyone watching—and somehow it lands harder than the game itself. I snap my hand away without thinking, stomach bubbling with fear as I look around for Oliver.

It’s ridiculous. I know that.

That doesn’t stop it.

Oliver storms over moments later, already mid-speech, voice tight and clipped, eyes blazing with everything he hasn’t let himself feel yet.

“They controlled the pace,” he says sharply. “They dragged us down to it, and we let them. That’s on us. We don’t play their game next time. Ever.”

No one argues. No one needs to.

Fred nods along, jaw clenched, listening in that serious way he only gets with Oliver—respect written all over his posture, all jokes stripped away. Watching them together twists something uncomfortable inside me. Captain and beater. Trust intact. Lines clean.

When Oliver finally claps his hands and dismisses them, the team starts to break apart slowly, grudgingly, like leaving might make it real.

Fred steps toward me without thinking. His arms lift, easy and familiar, like this is something we’ve done a thousand times already, like the pitch and the blood and the crowd don’t exist at all. Like he forgot my brother stood only feet away.

My chest tightens, my feet moving on their own, taking a small step back. Enough to make Fred still. I shake my head.

Once.

That’s it.

The moment stills. No one notices. No one ever really does. Fred’s arms drop slowly, his expression unreadable, like he’s choosing not to say something he very badly wants to. His mouth curves into something that passes for a grin if you don’t know him well enough.

“Right,” he says lightly, too lightly. “Best get out of here before Pomfrey decides I’m a full-time project.”

I feel my heart drop slowly, regret slowly forming in the pit of my stomach, I want to reach out for him, but my arms refuse to move towards him. George glances between us, eyebrow lifting in brief curiosity, his mouth opening but after seeing the look on his brother’s face he closes it. Fred turns away before I can fix it, before I can say anything at all.

He doesn’t head toward the hospital wing like he should’ve with his injury’s. Instead he walks straight toward the dormitories. Bleeding. Bruised. Angry.

And I stand there on the torn grass, watching him go, knowing exactly why he wanted that hug—and exactly why it felt like the last thing I was allowed to give.

~~~

By the time I leave the pitch, Fred is gone.

The corridors are louder than usual, still buzzing with post-match energy, but it thins as the hours stretch on. By the time night settles into its familiar shape I’m already waiting.

When George and Lee finally slip through the common room, cloaks pulled tight and whispers barely contained, I give them a full minute before moving.

The staircase to the boys’ dormitory creaks in complaint when I step onto it, but no one stops me.

Fred’s door is ajar.

Light spills out in a thin, uneven line. He’s sitting on his bed, boots still on, elbows braced against his knees. He looks up when I knock and his face shifts into something almost normal.

“Evening,” he says lightly. “Come to congratulate the tragic hero?” I step inside and close the door behind me. The click is too loud.

“You left,” I say.

“Well spotted,” he replies. “Always admired your observational skills.” There it is. The tone. The words say one thing; everything else says another. He doesn’t look at me when he speaks. His fingers pick at the seam of his glove, worry it loose, then tighten again.

I move closer.

“Is this about earlier?” I ask. “On the pitch?”

He huffs a laugh that doesn’t reach anywhere important. “Merlin forbid. Can’t imagine why that would matter.” I wait. Silence stretches. The walls feel nearer than they should.

“Was it because you lost?” I try again, softer. “Because if it is, that was a rough match and—”

He looks up then.

“Do you know what,” he says, voice still light, still careful, but just like he can’t hold in the words anymore, “I thought I was being clever. Thought I’d cracked it. Best of both worlds, right? All the fun, none of the fuss.”

I don’t interrupt him. I’ve learned not to when he gets like this—when the jokes line up neatly but his eyes don’t follow.

“I told myself I could handle it,” he continues. “Told myself I was a genius for agreeing. Because who wouldn’t, honestly? You come along and say no expectations, and I say, brilliant idea, where do I sign.”

He stands, suddenly, pacing once across the room before stopping in front of me.

“I was wrong,” he says. The word lands harder than anything else he’s said. The air shifts. I feel it in my ribs.

“I don’t want to do this in secret anymore,” he goes on, quieter now. “I don’t want to pretend I don’t know you the way I do in corridors or that I don’t want to—” He cuts himself off, scrubs a hand through his hair. “I won’t pressure you. I won’t. You know that. If you say no, I’ll… I’ll manage. I always do.”

I hear what he doesn’t say in the space after that. But my heart is pounding to hard to understand where he’s coming from. I thought he understood what this was, I thought he knew of my fears.

My mouth opens before my thoughts catch up. “I told you what this was,” I say. “From the start.”

“And I agreed,” he snaps, just enough edge to break the careful balance. “I know. I know. I just didn’t think it would feel like this.”

“Like what?” I ask, even though my hands have curled into fists at my sides, even though my pulse has picked up like it knows something I’m still refusing to name.

“Like I’m being asked to disappear,” he says. “Like I’m good enough for the shadows but not the daylight.”

The silence after that is unbearable.

It settles in the room the way dust does when you disturb an old cupboard—slow, visible only if you look at it sideways, choking if you pretend it isn’t there. Fred stands a step away from me, hands loose at his sides like he’s afraid of what they’ll do if he lets them decide. The cut under his cheekbone looks darker up close, the swelling already making his smile sit wrong when he tries to summon it.

I open my mouth and nothing comes out that feels safe.

So I do the thing I always do when the truth is too bright: I grab the nearest harmless thread and tug.

“You’re bleeding through your sleeve,” I say, pointing at his torn cuff as if that’s the emergency, as if blood is simpler than the way his eyes keep flicking to my mouth like he misses it.

Fred glances down at his arm and gives a soft, humourless puff of laughter. “Brilliant observation,”

It lands like a stone.

I step closer, then stop myself halfway, the floorboards under my shoes making that faint, complaining sound they always make in boys’ dormitories, as if they’re offended by the idea of me being here at all. My hands hover uselessly, wanting to do something ordinary—fix his sleeve, press a cloth to his knuckles, make him sit down and let me fuss at him like a person who has the right to fuss.

The wanting has nowhere to go.

“I came to check on you,” I say instead as I watch him make his way to his bed. Like he is dismissing this conversation.

“I noticed,” Fred replies. He leans back against the bedpost, and for a second he looks younger in a way that hits me low in the chest—he pushes it away with the same practiced ease he uses on everything else. “You’ve done your civic duty. You can go now.”

I blink. The words are easy, almost casual. The space behind them isn’t.

“You don’t mean that,” I say.

Fred’s grin flashes—quick, sharp, all teeth. “Do I not? That’s a shame. I was hoping it would catch on.”

“Fred—”

He lifts a hand, palm out, a mockingly polite gesture. “No, go on. Explain it to me. Slowly, if you could. I’m only a Weasley, you see, and we’re famously dim.”

His sarcasm is usually a lantern—warm, bright, drawing people in. Right now it’s a blade he’s turning in his own hand, daring it to cut.

I swallow. The room feels too hot for how late it is, for how the window glass is fogged with cold outside.

“I said I’m sorry,” I manage.

He tilts his head. “Did you?”

I hate how small my voice feels in this room. I hate how my spine knows it should straighten and still refuses.

“I didn’t want anyone to see,” I say. “It was the pitch. Everyone was there.”

Fred’s eyes flicker, bright and flat at the same time. “Yes. That’s generally how matches work.”

The air between us tightens. I can feel the words lining up behind my teeth, impatient, tripping over each other.

“I can’t—” I start.

“You can’t,” Fred echoes softly, and there’s something in the way he says it—too practiced, too familiar, like he’s repeating a line he’s been fed for years. He pushes off the bedpost and starts pacing, one slow line across the room, back again, like movement might keep him from saying the wrong thing. “You can’t hug me in front of everyone. You can’t look at me for too long in corridors. You can’t—Merlin help us—hand me a bloody water bottle without flinching like you’ve touched a hot stove.”

“That’s not what happened.”

He stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell the grass still clinging to him, the faint metallic tang of blood, the soap from the locker room he never actually used tonight.

“No?” he says, very quietly. “Because it felt like it.”

My throat goes tight. I try to take a breath and it catches, like the air has decided it’s loyal to him tonight.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” I say.

Fred’s mouth twitches, like he wants to laugh and doesn’t trust himself to do it without breaking something. “Brilliant. That’s comforting. Next time I’m stood in the middle of a pitch with half my face rearranged by Slytherin’s elbow, I’ll remember you’re not trying.”

“That’s not fair,” I say, and I hear the wobble in the sentence and hate it. “You know why.”

He stares at me for a beat too long, then looks away like he can’t bear to watch whatever expression I’ve made.

“Do I?” he says. “Because I’m starting to think I don’t. I’m starting to think you’ve invented a dragon where there’s just—” He gestures vaguely, as if Oliver might appear from the shadows the moment his name is thought. “—a bloke who yells about formations and thinks Quaffles are a food group.”

I flinch at the casualness with which he says it. The way he reduces Oliver into something easy, something laughable, because for him that’s safer than acknowledging what Oliver is when he’s family. When he’s furious. When he’s afraid.

“You don’t know him like I do,” I say, and the words come out sharper than they should.

Fred’s eyes flash. “There it is.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” Fred says, voice rising just slightly, “every time I try to talk about this, you say the same thing. Like it’s a spell. You don’t know him like I do. Well, you’re right—I don’t. I don’t know what secret, terrifying version of Oliver Wood lives in your head, but I do know the one who laughs when George puts a toad in his kit bag. I do know the one who bought me a Butterbeer last weekend and told me I played ‘like a lunatic’ and meant it as a compliment.”

“You don’t see him at home,” I say, and the sentence comes out before I can dress it up. “You don’t see what he’s like when something touches me that he didn’t approve.”

Fred’s jaw tightens.

“Approve,” he repeats, as if the word tastes wrong. “That’s what this is, is it? Permission.”

“It’s not—”

“It sounds like it.” He drags a hand through his hair, exhaling hard, the movement rough enough that it pulls at the cut on his knuckle and fresh blood beads. He doesn’t notice. Or he does and doesn’t care. “Look, I’m not asking you to stand on a table in the Great Hall and announce it to the school, am I? I’m not asking for fireworks and trumpets. I wanted a hug. That’s it. I wanted you to put your arms around me for two seconds like I mattered in the daylight the way I—” He cuts himself off, lips pressing tight, the words swallowing themselves because they’re too honest and too close to something that doesn’t have a joke taped over it.

My pulse thuds once, hard.

I take a step back without meaning to. The distance feels like a betrayal even as my body insists on it.

Fred notices. His eyes flick down to my feet, then back up, and something in his face shifts—hurt turning sharp because it has nowhere else to go.

“Right,” he says, and the grin returns, brittle as thin ice. “Sorry. Forgot my place. Silly me.”

“Fred, stop—”

“Stop what?” he snaps, and now the anger is there, contained like a spell being held back with sheer will. “Stop wanting you? Stop wanting to act like we’re not—” His voice dips. He shakes his head once, like he’s trying to shake himself awake. “Stop wanting something you told me you didn’t want.”

I lift my chin. I hate that he’s making it sound like I’m cruel when I’ve been terrified this whole time, terrified in a way that lives under my skin and hums.

“I told you what I could handle,” I say. “I told you what this would be.”

“And I agreed,” he says, softer now, and that softness is worse. “I agreed because I thought—Merlin, I don’t know what I thought. That I’d get used to it. That it would stay easy. That I could tuck it into corners and pull it out when it suited us and then put it away again like—like a joke product.” His laugh is small and ugly. “But it’s not a joke, is it?”

My hands curl tight enough that my nails bite into my palms. The pain anchors me, keeps me from reaching for him, keeps me from doing the one thing I want most because I know it will undo me.

“You’re making this into something it isn’t,” I say, and the sentence comes out wrong even as it leaves me, because it’s a lie I don’t fully believe anymore.

Fred’s eyes hold mine, and there’s something stranded in them, something that looks like he’s been standing in the rain too long pretending he isn’t cold.

“Oh, that’s brilliant,” he says quietly. “That’s really brilliant. After all this time, that’s what you land on.”

“It’s not—Fred—”

He laughs again, sharper. “No, no, you’re right. It’s nothing. It’s nothing when you slip into my room at night like you’re breaking into a vault. It’s nothing when you laugh at my stupid jokes like they’re—like they’re for you. It’s nothing when you—” He stops, like he’s about to step into a line he refuses to cross, and the restraint in him is sudden and startling.

I stand there, breathing shallow, watching him fight with himself in real time.

Then he says, very clearly, very deliberately, like he wants it to hurt so it will stop hurting later.

“Maybe Oliver’s right.”

The words hit the room like a slap.

For a second I can’t move. I can’t even breathe properly. The world narrows to that sentence and the way it sits on his tongue as if he didn’t have to force it out.

My eyes sting. I blink once, hard, furious at myself for it, furious at him for giving me a reason.

“What did you say?” My voice comes out thin, and I hate that too.

Fred’s mouth twitches, like he regrets it the moment it lands but won’t take it back on principle. That’s Fred—pride and honesty tangled together so tightly you can’t separate them.

“I said,” he repeats, quieter now but no kinder, “maybe Oliver’s right. Maybe I am exactly what he thinks I am. Good for a laugh. Good for a match. Good for… whatever this is when it’s convenient.” His eyes flick to me. “Just not good enough to be beside you where people can see.”

Something in my chest goes hollow.

I don’t answer. I can’t. If I speak, I’ll say the wrong thing—something soft, something pleading, something that proves him right about me being terrified.

So I do the only thing I can do.

I walk to the door.

“Wait,” Fred says immediately, and now the anger falters, replaced by something rawer. He takes a step toward me. “I didn’t—”

I turn just enough to look at him, to let him see what that sentence did without giving him the satisfaction of watching me fall apart.

“Don’t,” I say, and it’s the first time the word sounds like it belongs to me.

His face tightens. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t reach. He stands there like he’s tethered to the floorboards by his own stupid stubborn heart.

I open the door. The corridor air is colder, the torchlight harsher, the castle suddenly enormous again.

Behind me, Fred’s voice catches, quieter than I’ve heard it in a long time. “I meant what I said about staying.”

I don’t turn back. My hand closes around the door’s edge, knuckles whitening before I slam it closed. The sound cracks down the corridor, sharp and final. A portrait somewhere gives an offended gasp. Footsteps pause in the distance. Someone murmurs.

I don’t wait to see who.

I move fast, because if I move fast enough maybe my body won’t betray me, maybe it won’t fold, maybe the ache in my ribs won’t spill out onto the floor where anyone could step in it.

By the time I reach my room, my hands are shaking so hard the handle rattles.

I get inside. I close the door with a quieter click, like the castle deserves gentleness even when I don’t. I lean my forehead against the wood for one long second, breathing in and out as if that’s all living is.

Down the corridor, a door opens.

For a heartbeat, I think he’s coming. I think I’ll hear his footsteps, that familiar careless stride that always sounds like confidence even when it isn’t.

But the corridor stays empty.

And somewhere behind his closed door, Fred Weasley stays exactly where he is—hurt enough to lash out, stubborn enough to mean it, in love enough to let me run anyway.

~~~

A week can be a long time at Hogwarts when you’re measuring it in corridor-glances and almost-words.

It isn’t that we don’t see each other. That would be simpler. Hogwarts is a place designed to force you into proximity—moving staircases, shared classrooms, the Great Hall like a great beating heart you have to pass through twice a day whether you want to or not. It is impossible to avoid someone here without making it obvious you’re avoiding them, and that’s the sort of obvious I can’t afford.

So we orbit.

We pass in corridors and do that careful, practiced nothing—my gaze sliding past him as if my eyes have never learned his face, his voice going bright when anyone else is listening, like the last week didn’t happen and his door never shut in my face like a verdict. Sometimes, when there’s a crowd, his shoulder brushes mine and I feel the exact point of contact all the way up my arm, like my skin is keeping a record my mouth refuses to admit.

We talk, technically. We exchange words the way you exchange coins you don’t want to keep—quick, clean, impersonal. And if we’re forced into the same space for longer than a minute, something small and petty sparks, because it’s easier to fight about butter than to say I miss you.

The Great Hall is warm with noise, plates clattering, owls swooping low, sunlight slanting through the high windows. Gryffindor’s table is its usual chaos: elbows, laughter, crumbs, someone talking too loudly about summer plans as if the idea of leaving doesn’t make their stomach twist.

George and Lee have claimed spots early—George lounging like he owns the bench, Lee wedged between a gaggle of fourth-years, already narrating something animatedly. Fred is there too, of course.

I slide onto the bench opposite them. George’s eyes flick up, he grins as if everything is normal. “Morning,” he says, dragging it out, as though tasting the word.

Lee nods at me, mouth full, cheeks puffed like a chipmunk. Fred doesn’t look up at all. He’s buttering toast with aggressive precision, like the bread has personally wronged him.

I grab a piece of bread, eyes searching the table for butter dish. When my gaze finally lands on it I let out an irritated sigh. The butter dish sits just out of reach—close enough to see, far enough to be annoying. I could stretch. I could stand. I could do anything except ask him.

“Pass the butter?” I say, keeping my voice even.

Fred’s hand pauses mid-spread. He glances up at me, expression blank in a way that doesn’t suit him. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t make some stupid comment about buttering my own toast like an independent witch. He simply slides the butter dish—further down the table.

I stare at him.

It’s so childish, so small, that for a second I can’t quite process it. My fingers hover in the air where the dish should have been, the gesture unfinished.

George’s brow lifts. Lee stops chewing, glancing at Free before his eyes shift to me. I let my hand drop slowly to the table.

Fred continues buttering his toast as if he hasn’t just moved the world two inches to make a point.

“Right,” I say. I pick up my knife, scrape at my toast with a deliberate calm that feels like holding a shaking cup steady. “Brilliant. Didn’t know we were doing this today.”

Fred finally looks at me then, and his eyes are too bright for a morning that should be soft. “Doing what?”

“The thing,” I say, and I hate how vague it sounds, how the words have to walk around the truth because the truth would set the table on fire. “The—acting like you’re twelve.”

George makes a small sound, somewhere between a cough and a laugh, like he’s trying not to get involved and failing on instinct. “Oi—”

Fred’s mouth curves, sharp and humorless. “Twelve’s generous. Some days I feel at least thirteen.”

Fred leans back, toast in hand. He takes a bite with exaggerated enjoyment, chewing slowly, as if giving me time to reconsider speaking.

I don’t.

“You know,” I say, voice still low, still controlled, “for someone who prides himself on being funny, you’re being painfully predictable.”

Fred swallows. “Predictable?”

“Yes,” I say. “Slide the butter away, refuse to look at me, pretend you’re above it all—”

“Above it all?” he repeats, and his tone turns light, the way it does right before it turns dangerous. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

George’s eyes dart between us now, quick as a Snitch. He doesn’t interrupt. He just watches, and something about that makes my skin feel too tight.

“Can you not,” George says finally, half-pleading, half-amused, as if he’s trying to defuse a skirmish he doesn’t understand. “It’s breakfast.”

Fred’s gaze flicks to George like he’s just remembered George exists, then back to me. “Fine,” he says brightly. “No arguments. I’ll be an absolute delight.”

He reaches for the butter dish at the far end of the table—leans across several plates with theatrical effort, nearly elbowing Lee’s pumpkin juice—and then, with a flourish, slides it to me as if presenting a trophy.

“There,” he says. “Butter. Triumph. Everyone clap.”

A couple of nearby students glance over, curious.

I force a smile that feels like it might crack my teeth. “Thank you,” I say sweetly.

Fred’s grin flashes. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

George looks like he wants to ask what in Merlin’s name is happening, but he swallows it down with the practiced caution of someone who’s lived with Fred too long to step on a landmine without knowing where it’s buried.

I take the butter and spread it on my toast as if its personally offended me. I feel Lee shift from his place beside me, for once not knowing what to say.

It doesn’t stay at breakfast.

It follows us into the day like a ghost that refuses to be ignored.

In Transfiguration, there are no seats left except the ones at Fred and George’s table—because of course there aren’t. Everyone always tries to sit near them until they remember what near them actually entails. I slide into the empty chair beside Fred, the wooden legs scraping softly over stone.

McGonagall’s voice is a crisp metronome at the front of the room. “Pair up. You will be working on human-to-animal switching sequences. I want precision. Not enthusiasm. Precision.”

Fred’s parchment is already out. His quill twitches in his fingers like it’s impatient.

I keep my gaze on my own notes.

We work in stiff, awkward silence at first—the kind that makes every little sound enormous: quill scratches, pages turning, the faint hiss of someone’s spell going wrong two rows over.

Fred writes quickly, decisively, as if daring the page to challenge him. It would almost be impressive if I wasn’t watching him do it with the cold competence of someone who’s trying not to think.

He mutters the incantation under his breath, wand poised. He makes a precise flick—and the mouse on our desk sprouts a tuft of feathers in the wrong place, panics, and darts under the table.

I catch it automatically, lifting it by the scruff before it can run into someone else’s experiment. The mouse trembles in my hand, feathers poking out at awkward angles like a botched hat.

Fred watches me, eyes narrowed slightly.

“That,” I say, keeping my voice quiet, “is not what we’re meant to be doing.”

He leans back in his chair. “Oh? And what are we meant to be doing, Professor?”

“Not turning it into a—” I glance at the mouse, “—whatever this is.”

“A fashion statement,” Fred says blandly. “It’s very daring.”

I set the mouse back down gently. “You did the movement wrong.”

Fred’s quill pauses. “Did I?”

“Yes,” I say. “Your wrist—”

“My wrist is fine,” he says, and there’s that bright edge again, too cheerful, too controlled. “My wrist is positively thriving.”

“You’re doing it wrong on purpose,” I say, before I can stop myself, because the absurdity of it—this smart, capable boy pretending incompetence like it’s a weapon—makes something in me tighten.

Fred’s eyes flick up, sharp as a snapped thread. “On purpose,” he repeats softly. “Interesting theory.”

I lean closer, keeping my voice low enough that only he can hear. “You’re sulking.”

“I don’t sulk.”

“You do,” I say. “You just do it theatrically.”

His mouth twitches. “That’s called performance. It’s an art.”

“And I’m meant to applaud?”

“You could,” he says lightly. “It might encourage me.”

I stare at him. He stares back, unblinking, like this is a joke. The mouse squeaks weakly. McGonagall’s shadow falls over our desk like a blade.

“Mr Weasley,” she says crisply, “Miss Wood—would either of you like to share your riveting conversation with the rest of the class?”

The room goes still in the way it always does when McGonagall speaks—every student suddenly fascinated by their own parchment.

Fred looks up at her, expression innocent enough to belong to a saint. “We were discussing wrist health, Professor.”

McGonagall’s lips thin. Her gaze drops to the mouse, then to the feathers, then back to Fred. “Fascinating. Five points from Gryffindor. Perhaps if your wrist is unwell, you should refrain from using it for spells.”

Fred’s grin flashes, quick and bright. “Yes, Professor.”

She moves on. The class exhales. I keep my eyes on my parchment because if I look at him, I’ll see that tiny twist at the corner of his mouth, the one that says he’s pleased he got a reaction.

And I hate that my body still knows him well enough to respond.

By the end of the week, the stupid arguments feel like a language we’ve accidentally invented.

They never say anything that would give us away—never anything that would make anyone suspect we’ve touched each other in places no one else gets to see, never anything that would make George’s eyes narrow in that way. It’s all petty.

By Friday, the common room feels like it’s holding its breath when we’re in the same space.

A once beautiful friendship turned rotten, we’ve made ourselves look like we can’t stand each other. We’ve done it so consistently that people are starting to treat it like entertainment. Like it’s a weekly feature.

Fred and Y/N: Will they bite today?

It’s pathetic. It’s also the only thing keeping us from saying something we can’t take back.

Then the year ends.

The castle shifts into that strange, bright restlessness it gets right before everyone goes home. Trunks appear. Owls arrive in flurries. People talk about summer like it’s a promised land, and the air is full of goodbyes that haven’t happened yet.

Everyone is whispering about the end of year party the houses all hold together. It isn’t official. It never is. But older students don’t ever ask for permission; they’re just waiting for the right opportunity. And the right place where the first years won’t accidentally come in and ruin it for everyone else by grabbing a Professor.

The head of Ravenclaw opens the room of requirements, telling everyone where they can find it. Someone drags couches closer to the fire, someone charms the ceiling to scatter tiny sparks like floating embers, someone smuggles in bottles that clink softly and smell like trouble.

Fourth year and up only—old enough to know how to break rules properly. As Fred would always say.

I take my time getting ready. Because if I can’t say what I mean, I can at least walk into the common room looking like I’ve won something.

When I step through the door, the room shifts. A few heads turn. A few smiles pause. Someone’s sentence stutters.

The firelight catches my hair and makes everything warm, makes my skin look like it’s lit from within. The dress isn’t extravagant—Hogwarts wouldn’t be Hogwarts if it were—but it fits snuggly around the places it should.

I don’t search for Fred but my eyes find him anyway. He’s by the edge of the room, half-leaning against the wall with George and Lee, drink in hand, looking like he’s trying very hard to be easy. His hair is messier than usual. His sleeves are rolled. His grin is on, bright as ever—but something about it looks held up by stubbornness rather than joy.

His gaze hits me like a spell. It’s immediate. Unavoidable. For half a second, his mouth parts—just slightly—the way it does when he forgets to perform. Like he just got caught staring at something that isn’t his.

George says something, and Fred’s face snaps back into place. His eyes slide away as if I’m just another person in the room. As if I haven’t been living under his skin for months. As if the week hasn’t been a slow, ugly ache.

George and Lee drift—like they’ve decided they’re going to keep Fred penned in tonight. Every time his weight shifts in my direction, George shifts too. Every time my path takes me near him, Lee “accidentally” steps between us with a laugh and a story and a hand on Fred’s shoulder.

I roll my eyes at the attempt to keep us apart, as if I’m even willing to go near Fred tonight. I ignore them, moving around the room with Angelina, plastering a fake smile as she drags me around to talk with people I don’t care to talk to.

I drink something sweet that tastes like cherries. I laugh at a joke that isn’t funny. I let the night be light around me even as something heavier keeps tugging at my ribs.

Then someone asks me to dance. And because I refuse to stand still and look like I’m waiting for a boy who is pretending not to see me, I say yes.

I don’t even realize it’s Cedric Diggory until he pulls me closer to him, forcing my gaze to lift.

Of course it is.

Cedric is the kind of handsome that makes the room tilt without trying. The kind of boy who looks like he was carved out of the idea of “good.” He’s polite, steady, gentle in the way his hand rests at my waist—respectful, careful, like he’s aware he’s touching a person and not a prop.

“Having a good night?” he asks, smiling down at me.

“I’m surviving,” I say, and it comes out a little too dry. Cedric chuckles anyway, like he understands that kind of humour.

We move with the music—not wildly the way Fred would dance with me—just a simple dance, a simple moment, the firelight making everything soft.

I look over Cedric’s shoulder and my breath catches when I meet Fred’s eyes. His face is too still. His jaw set. His eyes lock on the place Cedric’s hand rests like he’s memorizing the shape of it so he can break it later. He lifts his drink and takes a long swallow without looking away.

Then another.

George notices. He leans in, says something in Fred’s ear. Lee appears beside them, trying to take the drink out of Fred’s grasp but Fred just shoves him away.

I hear Fred laughs too loudly when George says something he clearly did not like. It slices through the room like a crack. He drinks again ignoring the protests of his two best friends.

The music keeps going. Cedric turns me gently, spinning me once, the dress flaring, and when I face the room again Fred is no longer leaning against the wall.

He’s moving.

Straight toward us.

George gets there first, stepping in front of him, his grin gone. A look his mother must’ve given both boys a million times over plastered on his face. “Oi, Fred,” he says roughly, too rough, “what do you think you’re doing—“

Fred tries to sidestep him. George catches his arm. Fred doesn’t even look at him as he jerks away.

Lee’s hand lands on Fred’s shoulder, a little firmer than a friendly touch. “Mate,” Lee says, voice low, “don’t.”

Cedric’s hand at my waist loosens slightly. He looks past me, brow furrowing, polite confusion shifting into caution.

Fred’s eyes flick to Cedric. Then back to me. And something in him snaps, I almost flinch. He shoves past George. Not hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough to make a point.

“Fred,” George says, sharper now. “You will ruin—“

Fred steps right up to Cedric. Cedric straightens immediately, stepping in front of me, calm but solid, the way a Hufflepuff becomes when they stop being gentle and start being immovable. “Everything alright?” he asks, voice measured.

Fred smiles. It’s not a friendly smile.

“Fantastic,” Fred says brightly. “Just taking in the scenery.”

“Fred,” I say, warning threaded tight through my voice, because there are eyes everywhere now, and the room has gone quieter in the way it does when it senses trouble.

Fred doesn’t look at me. He looks at Cedric’s hand. Then he looks at Cedric’s face.

Then he says, loud enough to carry, “Do you mind?”

Cedric blinks. “Mind what?”

Fred’s laugh is sharp. “This.”

He reaches as if to pull me away but Cedric steps forward fast, blocking him, protective without being aggressive. George grabs Fred again, this time properly, fingers digging into his shoulder.

“That’s enough,” George says, low and furious in a way I’ve almost never heard from him.

Lee’s voice comes too, strained. “Fred, stop it.”

Fred wrenches free. And then he shouts. Not a controlled announcement. Not a neat confession. A shout—tired and furious and soaked in drink and something far more dangerous than drink.

“I’m done,” he yells. The room freezes. Even the sparks near the ceiling seem to hover. My heart slams so hard into my chest I think it might’ve broken a bone.

Fred turns, sweeping his gaze across the common room like he wants everyone to see him properly for once. His cheeks are flushed. His hair has fallen into his eyes. His drink sloshes in his hand.

“I’m done pretending,” he says, voice rougher now, less performance, and the words start coming faster, like they’ve been trapped behind his teeth for too long. “I’m done acting like I don’t—like I haven’t—Merlin, I know it started as nothing. I know that. I agreed to it being nothing, didn’t I? Brilliant plan. Round of applause for Fred Weasley, the absolute idiot.”

A couple of people laugh nervously, as if waiting for the punchline.

There isn’t one.

My breath catches in my throat, I know no one knows what the hell he is talking about, but the way people are glancing at me makes me think they’re putting two and two together. And I almost pull my wand out to shut him up. But it’s like I’m frozen in place.

He points at me.

“And then I fell in love with her,” he says and I feel as if I’ve fallen over. The silence that follows is violent.

George’s face goes white. Lee looks like he’s been punched. Someone near the stairs gasps. Someone else whispers, “Isn’t that Oliver Wood’s—”

Fred’s voice breaks through again, stubborn and bright and wrecked. “And I’m not doing the secret anymore. I’m not. I don’t care if Oliver Wood strings me up and uses me for Bludger practice. I don’t care if the castle itself throws me out. I wanted a hug after a match and couldn’t even—” He laughs once, short and broken. “I’m done being a ghost.”

My body moves before my mind can decide what to do with the humiliation burning up my spine. I cross the room in three strides. I grab the front of his collar and yank him toward me.

His grin flashes, wild and disbelieving, as if even now he can’t quite believe I’m real. “Hello,” he says, because of course he does.

“Shut up,” I hiss, and it comes out like a prayer and a threat all at once. I can’t believe he just did that.

George reaches out as if to stop me, then freezes, eyes darting between my hand on Fred’s collar and Fred’s face like he’s watching his whole world rearrange itself.

Lee mutters, “I knew it,” in a tone that suggests he absolutely did not know it and is furious about being surprised.

I drag Fred toward the exit.

He stumbles a little as we step out, because he’s drunk enough to be loose and honest, and he lets me drag him anyway, like he’s decided being hauled out by his collar is worth it if it means I’m touching him.

The corridor hits like cold water—torchlight harsh, stone walls unforgiving, the air sharp and clean after the warmth of the party. My grip is still on his collar.

Fred leans against the wall as soon as I let go, catching himself with one hand, breathing hard, grin still hanging on his mouth like he can’t help it.

I shove his shoulder just enough to make him sway and laugh under his breath.

“What is wrong with you?” I hiss anger curling around my throat.

Fred blinks slowly, eyes glassy around the edges but still painfully, infuriatingly Fred. “Several things,” he says, thoughtful. “Most of them hereditary.”

I hit his shoulder again. “You just said that in front of everyone.”

He turns his head to look at me properly. The grin softens—not gone, but quieter, less show. “Yes.” I almost take a swing but I refrain myself, taking a slow, deep breath in.

“My brother—”

“Your brother can take a number,” Fred says immediately, then sees my face and flinches into something gentler without meaning to. “No—no, I know. I know. I just…” He swallows, throat working, and for a second the drunkenness slips and something frighteningly sincere shines through. “I watched you dance with him and I thought, this is it. This is what I get for agreeing to ‘nothing.’”

“It was a dance,” I say, voice shaking at the edges despite my best effort.

Fred’s laugh is small. “Everything’s just a dance until it isn’t.”

I stare at him, chest rising too fast, the corridor suddenly too narrow, too bright. He looks flushed and foolish and beautiful in a way that makes my anger lose its footing. His hair is a mess. His eyes are too open. His mouth keeps twitching like he wants to joke because joking is how he stays standing.

“You’re drunk,” I say.

“I’ve been accused,” he replies, solemn as a judge.

“I could hex you,” I warn.

He brightens, actually brightens, like that’s the best offer he’s had all week. “See? You do care.”

I shove his shoulder again, and he laughs, low and pleased, and it makes my throat tighten because the sound is so familiar—because I’ve missed it like you miss warmth when you’ve been cold too long.

“You’re unbelievable,” I whisper.

Fred’s grin turns soft around the edges. “And yet,” he says, leaning in a fraction, voice dropping into something corny and honest and mortifying, “you’re still here.”

I stare at him. His gaze doesn’t slide away. For once, he doesn’t hide.

“I’m so madly in love with you Y/N, and if that means getting mauled by Wood, so be it,” he says, as if he’s testing the words in the air, as if saying them out loud makes them less like a bruise inside him. Then, because he’s Fred and cannot help himself even now, he adds, “Properly in love. Stupidly. In a way that should come with a warning label.”

My hands tremble where they hover at his chest.

And before I can stop myself I pull him forward by his collar again—not to drag him now, but to anchor him, to keep him from swaying away from me, to keep myself from falling apart.

“I hope,” I whisper, voice tight, “that you remember this in the morning.”

He smiles.

“I remember you now,” he says quietly. “That’s enough.”

Something in me breaks loose. I drag in a heavy breath before pulling him a little closer, connecting his lips with mine. I try to be gentle, but it fails miserably, maybe because I’m still awfully angry at him, maybe because the kiss has been trapped behind a week of petty arguments and swallowed words.

My hands grip his shirt like I’m furious at it for existing between us. His breath catches hard, delighted, and he makes a soft sound against my mouth that tells me he’s missed me too, missed me in every place he’s been pretending not to look.

His hands find my waist, firm and grateful, holding on like he’s afraid I’ll vanish again. When I pull back, my forehead stays close to his because distance feels like danger.

“And I hope,” I add, still breathing hard, “that you don’t regret it.”

Fred’s laugh is quiet, rough. “I’ve done a lot of stupid things,” he says, eyes on my mouth like he can’t help it, “but I don’t think loving you is one of them.”

Behind us, somewhere in the castle, the party keeps going. In front of us, the corridor stretches—cold, bright, real. And in the space between one heartbeat and the next, I can almost hear the future shifting its weight, preparing to come down on us.

Because Oliver is going to find out.

And Fred Weasley has never been good at surviving consequences.