pathetically dimwitted

“Don’t you think you could go talk to him?” George implores quietly, eyebrows pinched and lips pressed into a line. You don’t think George has removed his hand from his forehead since he’d sunk into his armchair nearly a half hour ago – just sitting and stewing quietly, adding to the thick silence permeating the common room like a stench that refuses to dissipate.

You cast a glance towards the door to the boys’ dormitory where Fred had disappeared into a few moments ago. “I don’t think he wants to talk.” 

It’s not quite a guess. Fred had barely said 10 words to anyone, even you, upon reentering the common room after the match. He had hardly complained about the unfairness of it, his getting banned from Quidditch when he wasn’t even a part of the fight. He hadn’t even taken the mickey out of Ron for playing so poorly. It wasn’t like Fred to be so broody about his displeasure – he was vocal about everything, more so than George, ready to make his emotions known at the drop of a hat, no matter what they may be.

His silence is weird. It’s worrying, even. You could read his emotions with your eyes closed but even you aren’t sure what to make of it.

“Are you worried about him?” Hermione questions quietly from her spot beside you. She’d been attempting in vain to comfort Harry before he’d headed off to bed, and you suspect she’s waiting for Ron to return from wherever he’s been to break the news to him of the mass banning. She follows your gaze to the dormitory door. “He just seems like he needs space.”

George exhales. “He isn’t the type of person to need space, Hermione. And I would talk to him, but I can never get through to him when he’s like –” he pauses and then shakes his head – “like this.”

You sink deeper into the cushions of the loveseat you and Hermione are sharing. You aren’t opposed to talking to your boyfriend, necessarily, because you’re sure you could talk to him for hours and hours on end and never get bored of it. You’ve just never seen him in this state before, all forlorn and quiet and moody. It’s new territory, and an opportunity to say the wrong thing.

“You can’t get him in a worse mood, if that’s what you’re worried about,” George pries, as if he can read your mind. You wouldn’t be surprised if he could. “You could never do that.”

That lifts your spirits.

“Plus,” Hermione adds, casting a glance towards the portrait hole offhandedly, “if I were you, I’d want to get out of here before Ron gets back. I can’t imagine he’s going to be in a good mood after today.”

You pick at the hem of your skirt. You’ve been given two points to ponder, and you do so thoughtfully. 

“I’ll try,” you say after a beat, standing unceremoniously and smoothing your skirt down. “If he hexes me to hell and back, it’s both of your faults.”

It pulls a smile from George. You muss his hair lightly before rounding the couch to head to the boys’ dormitory door. 

The walk up the spiral stairs is one you’ve done dozens of times – usually not like this, usually when it was much later and you could be entirely positive Lee and George were asleep. You’d been sent up by Angelina to wake him for practice, once. That, you think, is the only time you’ve ventured up to his dorm with non-devious intentions.

That and this, you suppose.

You crack the door open to the seventh year dormitory slightly. You’re familiar with its layout by now, and where Fred’s bed is – farthest from the door, close to the large window. George’s is to your right, Lee’s to your left. Both of their drapes are open, Lee’s bed made and George’s not, and you disregard both to draw your eyes towards Fred’s.

His drapes are closed. You’re not surprised.

“Fred?” you call, pressing your cheek against the wooden door, fingers twiddling with the doorknob. “Are you okay?” It feels like a nonsensical question. You know he isn’t. You know that, excluding you and the endless possibilities for pranks, Quidditch was Fred’s favorite thing at Hogwarts.

He doesn’t respond. 

You move further into the room, shutting the door softly behind you. You step over the mess of the room, half-done assignments and clothes strewn along the floor, until you reach his bed. 

You hesitate opening his curtains. You’re quite unsure of what state he’s going to be in, and you couldn’t be scared of Fred in any context, but the uncertainty is confusing. Unfamiliar. Vaguely distressing. 

You pull the drapes open, exposing the entire side of the bed so you can finally see him.

Fred’s curled on his side, back facing you, pale arm curled beneath his head. Mercifully, he’s changed out of his Quidditch uniform and instead is in his pajamas, looking entirely ready to sleep though it’s too early for it. 

His shoulders aren’t shaking. You’re rather thankful for that. You’ve never seen him cry yet, though you’re sure you will at some point, and you aren’t entirely sure how you’d handle it.

“Are you asleep?” you murmur, mostly to yourself, bracing your hand on the headboard to lean over his body slightly so you can see his face. Locks of ginger hair curl over his eyes, just a bit longer than it had been at the start of the year without Mrs. Weasley bugging the pair of them to cut it, but you can see enough to know that he isn’t.

You reach down and brush the hair out of his eyes. He exhales a deep sigh, and you pause.

“I really want to be alone,” he says, and you’re not sure if you’re imagining it, but you think he may sound a wee bit annoyed with you. His tone a bit sharper, words less delicately chosen than normal. Not mean – he’s never mean, not to you, at least, he wouldn’t dream of it – but just –

Cold. Frosty.

You pull your hand back, standing up straight again. Damn George. You knew he didn’t want to talk. 

“Okay,” you say, and you hate how weak your voice sounds. “I’ll be downstairs if you do.”

He doesn’t move. You pull the curtains closed, feeling slightly miffed but at the very least confident that you aren’t leaving him in a worse mood than when you arrived. You step back over the clutter on the floor to the door, swinging it back open to head back down, when –

“Wait.”

Fred’s voice rings out from the other side of the dormitory. You pause, hand curled over the wooden edge of the door, and turn back towards his bed.

“C’mere,” he says, slightly muffled from the drapes pulled over the sides of his bed.

You oblige. A pale hand reaches out to pull the curtains open just so once you reach the edge, and you stick your head in to see him. He’s turned around, propped up on his elbows, and it’s reassuring to have a good look at his face. You can read it well – he looks stony, dull anger simmering beneath the surface of his demeanor, cheeks flushed and eyebrows drawn tight like George, and his lips are turned downwards.

You know that look, with his lips. You’ve seen it a month ago when a first year had gotten scared of a trick wand he’d left lying around the common room, and the time third year when he and George had set off a Dungbomb in the library when you and Harry were doing your Potions work together.

Guilt. Maybe a twinge of sadness, too.

“Don’t feel bad,” you say at once. Fred reaches for you, and you press your hand into his. “I’m not upset with you.”

“Who said I feel bad?”

You roll your eyes with a small smile. “Don’t be daft. I can tell.”

He shifts over slightly on the bed. You take the hint and climb in with him, shutting the drapes behind you. You sit criss cross beside his legs, disconnecting your hands so you can toy with the end of his flannel pajama pants.

“Ready for bed?” you question, relishing in how he smiles very slightly, or maybe more like the corners of his lips turn up just so. You decide, in the moment, that you’ll make it your goal to make him laugh at least once while you’re up here. Normally it wouldn’t be a difficult task, considering laughing is what he does most of the time, but you can tell it may be rough today.

“I don’t intend on leaving this room at all today,” he tells you, draping one jumper-clad arm over his eyes.

“Not even to go to dinner with me?”

He moves his arm just so to meet your eyes. “Besides that.”

A beat passes.

“I’m sorry for what happened,” you say. “It’s not fair. You didn’t even do anything.”

“I would’ve,” Fred says immediately. “I mean, if they had let me go at him, I would’ve.”

“But you didn’t. She’s a cow.” You pause. “At least you played well.”

Fred hums. “I played fine.” He moves his arm under his head. You appreciate being able to see his face in its entirety, and you shift further up the bed so you’re situated beside his hips. His jumper rides up his torso just so with his arms folded beneath his head, and you trace your fingers along the narrow stripe of his stomach exposed beneath the fabric. 

He watches you do this for a moment. You enjoy touching him in every sense – dropping your head against his shoulder at meals, curling into his side on the common room couches, linking your arms when he walks you to class. It’s not always sexual, though it sometimes is, untucking his shirt when you kiss and tracing his leg with your foot underneath the tables in the Great Hall.

You can tell by his gaze that he’s wondering which way you’re leaning today.

“Did you see Ron?” Fred asks after a beat.

“No,” you tell him. “Hermione is waiting for him downstairs with George.” You pause. “I would wait – maybe a little bit – before you start making fun of him.” You know you can’t demand Fred and George to not make fun of their brother, no matter how much you’re inclined to, but you’ll try your hardest to savor your best friend’s feelings.

Fred exhales a gentle laugh. “I’ll save it for parties,” he says, and you appreciate it.

Another moment passes of silence, with you tracing his stomach and him merely watching you. You can feel his eyes moving slowly from feature to feature. You wonder if he’s focusing on anything specific, or just trying to take all of you in.

“When is George coming up?” Fred asks. “Or Lee.”

You shrug. “George wanted me to come talk to you,” you tell him, “‘cause he thought you were in a weird mood. So I’m sure he’ll wait down there until I come back down. And I didn’t see Lee at all.”

“Hmm,” Fred says, eyes now steadily focused on your fingers on his abdomen. “I just wanted some space.” He pauses, then adds, “except for you.”

You smile, and then, because you can’t help it when he’s so sweet, you push yourself forward, leaning down to press a soft kiss to his lips.

He deepens it immediately, even faster than you’d anticipated, because you hadn’t really been sure if he was in the mood. He normally starts out gentle with kisses, gradually growing more passionate, but he wastes no time now, sliding his tongue into your mouth when you open it, sliding his hand up to bury into your hair, pulling you closer into him. 

You press your hand to his cheek. His skin is warm to the touch. You slide your palm further up until you can card your fingers through his hair, growing ginger locks soft in your grasp.

You can’t help it – you tug, and Fred groans low and deep into your mouth, wrapping his arm around your waist to pull your body as close to his as he can get in the position you’re in, legs still crossed beneath you, pushed onto your knees shakily. You have a sneaking suspicion he’s trying to take advantage of the shaky foundation you’re on, because he pulls you closer and closer even as you start to lose your balance. You let yourself collapse on top of him, chest hitting his, lips never breaking even as he barks a laugh against your mouth.

It feels like an hour before you finally pull away for the sole purpose of needing air. You sit back up and drop your hand to Fred’s thigh, all muscle through his pajama pants, and then walk your fingers further up until you reach the bulge in his pants that you knew would be there, the dog, not fully erect but certainly getting close.

“Slut,” you tell him. “A little snog and you’re almost hard as a rock.”

Fred sticks out his bottom lip, pushing himself up just a bit more, hands reaching for your thighs, attempting in vain to tug you to sit over his lap. “You can’t blame me,” he says, deft fingers pushing the hem of your skirt further up your thighs. “I don’t know if you heard, but I just got a lifetime ban from Quidditch –”

“Oh, shut up,” you laugh, pushing yourself to your knees so you can swing one leg over his lap, pointedly dropping yourself down directly onto his dick just to hear how he moans, all soft and sweet and riddled with need. “You’re a manipulative slut. Even worse.”

He puckers his lips. You oblige him, leaning down to kiss him again, and you let him take charge again, tongue gliding over your teeth while you grab for the hem of his jumper, desperate for it to be off, fully off, to give you more skin to work with – you miss it, miss him, and you think that no matter how close you are to him, it’ll never be enough.

You tug his jumper off. He’s reluctant to break the kiss, and as soon as the fabric is over his head, he drags you back down to him. He’s desperate – needy – taking your lips like he’s starving for them, his hands in your hair, yours pressed between your bodies so your nails can scratch at his chest as much as they can.

You love when Fred is like this.

He moves his hands from your hair after a minute or so, replacing them on your outer thighs. He slides them up and pushes your skirt up needily, pleated fabric not obliging with his attempt to hike it permanently on your hips, but he doesn’t seem to dwell on it too hard, just drags his nails down the sides of your thighs and then back up to your hips, then shifts them around to your bum and squeezes.

You break away with an airy laugh. “You’re so needy,” you tell him, and your breathless tone betrays your own desperation for him.

“LIke you’re one to talk,” he says, voice raspier than it had been a minute ago. “I can feel you – let me see –”

His hand slides towards your inner thighs. You barely have time to process what he means before he’s pushing one cold finger into your panties, feeling the wetness gathered in the junction of your thighs, because you’re practically dripping for him – have been since the first kiss you shared – and rutting against him while you snogged hadn’t helped. 

You gasp out a moan, lifting your hips slightly so Fred can glide his finger further down your wet slit. He doesn’t seem to have many intentions with it yet, electing to merely slide up and down rather than finger your clit or dip one inside of you, and that’s fine for you for now. Really, this is about him. You’ll follow where he leads – take what you can get.

“You’re soaked,” Fred practically breathes, adding another finger to your cunt. His hands are freezing, always are and always will be, and the contrast from their temperature to the burning heat of your folds makes you jolt against him. “Does seeing me all sad and moody get you going, honey?”

His voice is spun-sugar sweet like it always is when he teases you.

“Arse,” you whimper, trying to rock your hips against his hand – trying to force his fingers where you need them – but he can expertly evade you, can predict your every move before you do it, and you struggle in vain. “Stop teasing, Freddy, arse –”

Fred hums. “Be a little nicer, sweetheart –”

“Please –”

“There’s the magic word,” he says cheerily, and then his fingers dip back down your slit before pressing them into you. He doesn’t go slow and you don’t let him. You push your hips down onto his fingers until they’re down to the last knuckle and you’re practically seated on his hand, and only when he’s in all the way do you let your head fall back and moan, loud and wanton.

He lets you adjust for a moment – pushes himself up so his back leans against the headboard, giving him more room to work – before he shifts his hand, fingers turning inside of you, and you bear down onto his hand – clenching – moaning.

“Ride my hand,” Fred tells you. He sounds breathy, and you can still feel his cock underneath you, pressing against your thigh now, achingly hard. You can’t imagine how he’s restraining himself from fucking you senseless, considering the state he’s in both physically and mentally. “C’mon. Get yourself off.”

He presses his thumb to your clit. When you do your first experimental roll of your hips against his hand, the rough pad of his fingers provides just enough friction against the slick nub that you practically whine his name. It feels torturous, doing this, when normally he’d push you beneath him and finger you with such voracity that you’d be sobbing into his pillow within minutes.

You can’t get yourself off like he can, but you’ll try.

You press your hands to his stomach and use it as leverage to begin rocking your hips steadily against his hand. For the most part, he stays still, one arm propping himself up just so, watching you work yourself on him like you’re a sight to behold. 

“Beautiful,” he says softly after a moment, as if he could read your mind. You grind your hips further into his hand. You wonder if your wetness is dripping down his hand. “I wish you could see yourself.”

A whimper tears its way from your throat as Fred presses his thumb harder to your clit. It’s enough pressure for you, bordering on too much with every rock of your hips, but you want it. No, you need it, need to feel everything he has to give you however he wants to give it.

It’s a quick climb until you’re sure you’re going to cum. Your skin is burning, feeling like Fred had set a flame under you, forcing you to keep riding his fingers – when he curls them inside of you, you dig your fingernails into his abdomen, clenching around him so tight you think it must hurt.

“I’m gonna cum,” you tell him, quick and breathed. Your sweater is constricting – you grab at the bottom, practically ripping it up and over your head. Fred grabs it from you and tosses it over the edge of the bed. “Fred – please –”

“Cum,” he says, nearly a demand, his free hand reaching for the sheer lace of your bra. He tugs one of the cups down, and then the other, until your tits are exposed, and then he ducks his head forward, taking one of your peaked nipples into his mouth. He flicks his tongue over it, his arm coming to wrap around your torso as you jerk against his hand, so close to your climax you can taste it on the tip of your tongue. “Come on, honey, want you to cum for me –”

His words are murmured against your tits, teeth brushing over your nipple as he speaks, and the feeling is so sensational that you grind down onto him fully, feeling yourself start to fall apart. He works his thumb quick over your clit, helping you over the edge, letting you ride out your orgasm completely until you’re practically shuddering away from his touch.

Fred pulls his fingers out of you once the aftershocks die away. He lifts his hand for you to see, and you were right – you can see your slickness coating his fingers, connecting each digit with a shiny strand, dripping into his palm, a smear, even, on the side of his wrist. You wonder if he’s going to want you to clean it up, because he loves watching you do that, but before you can open your mouth to accept his fingers, he takes them into his own mouth, cheeks hollowing and tongue swirling around, and it’s so erotic you think you could cum again just like that.

“That was hot,” you tell him. You don’t mind how needy you sound.

“You taste good,” he says. His tongue darts out to lick the glistening stain on the side of his wrist. You think it’s the hottest thing you’ve ever seen. Then he licks his lips, and you decide no, that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. “Just – come here –”

Fred manhandles you with absolute ease. He closes his arms around your waist and flips you so he’s hovering above you, hair hanging down and brushing your forehead when he leans down to kiss you chastely.

“Hey, baby,” he says, all cheeky and amused, and you roll your eyes at him. Grab at his face, then, desperate and wanting, dragging his mouth down to yours, kissing him so hard you feel like you could suck the life out of him. You can taste traces of yourself in his mouth and it makes you delirious with need, trying to push your hips into his.

You feel one of Fred’s large hands over your chest again, tugging the cups of your bra down where they’d begun to slide back into place. He tugs them down, and they slide back, and he tries again, and finally he pulls away from you with a huff.

“This bloody thing,” he grunts, bracing a hand on the headboard to balance himself as he reaches a hand through the drapes surrounding his bed. “M’vanishing it, no reason –”

“Fred Weasley, don’t you dare vanish my favorite bra –”

You peel his arm away from where he’s fumbling around for his wand. You worm your hands away behind your back, fiddling with the clasp of your bra until you successfully undo it, hastily peeling the offending material off. It’s unceremoniously dropped on the side of the bed as Fred zeroes in on your freshly-exposed body part, pressing a kiss to your jaw and down your throat until he lands at your tits again.

He spends less time there than you’d expected, kissing over your chest and stopping to suck a love bite into the skin there before continuing his journey downwards. Gentle hands push the fabric of your skirt up so he can hook his fingers in the hem of your underwear, tugging them down your thighs and your legs until he’s unhooking them from around your ankles.

To the ground they go. 

You push yourself onto your elbows to watch him work as he presses kisses into your inner thighs, but there isn’t much to see as your skirt flows around his head, leaving only the ends of his ginger hair visible. You focus, instead, on feeling it all – letting your eyes shut and sinking back into the pillows, focusing on everything he does.

He doesn’t delve right into your cunt, still swollen and sensitive from your last orgasm. Instead, he kisses up and down your inner thighs, just a hairs length away from where you want him. His hands push your thighs further apart, holding them away when you try to shut them on his head, force him to where he should be.

“Patience,” he says, words muffled and so close to your center that they nearly reverberate through you. But he tilts his head closer to you, flicking his tongue over your folds, and you wonder if you maybe have a dash more patience than he does.

The flat of Fred’s tongue skimmed a long stroke over your opening, a lewd slurping noise emitting from between your thighs as he laps at your wetness – your face flushes and your hands clench around his maroon comforter but you can’t possibly bring yourself to feel embarrassed, not when he’s making you feel this good.

He works you up fast. His tongue circles your clit before his lips press against the nub, sucking it gently, the pressure enough to make her feel dizzy with need. When your hips jerking against his mouth grow too much for him, he presses one of his forearms over your hips, pressing you down into the bed so he can work you up. It’s messy – quicker than usual, but no less thoughtful and nearly more passionate. His lips slide over your cunt so lovingly you almost wonder if he’s kissing it.

“Fred –” you breathe, because you can’t gather your thoughts together enough to speak any louder. “Fred, please –”

“Please what?” Fred inquires, and this time you know his words reverberate through you, sending a chill up your spine and a fresh coat of arousal to the spot his tongue is working at. He flicks over your clit, and your hips jolt. “Are you close, honey?”

You nod. Clenching the comforter isn’t doing enough so you search for something else and wind your hands through his hair, tugging ginger locks so he groans into your clit. “M’close, Freddy, please –”

His tongue plunges through your folds and circles your clit and then he’s gone, tugging his head away from you and emerging from beneath your skirt. Your pleasure, mounting higher and higher, wanes into nothingness nearly immediately, your legs quivering and your head spinning and you almost think you could hit him for doing this to you.

Fred crashes his lips onto yours. You vaguely pay mind to him tugging down the elastic of his pajama pants, digging your nails hard into his scalp to hear how he hisses into your mouth.

“Arse,” you mumble, “I hate you, I swear –”

One of his hands pushes your thigh away, and you feel the weeping head of his cock sliding against your folds, so slick with your arousal that it slips with ease up and down your folds. Your thighs are glistening with dampness – his mouth the same. 

“I love you,” Fred says just as he presses into you, and oh fuck, you think, that means he’s going to fuck you, hard and fast and maybe a little mean, and the thought would make you wetter if you thought it was even possible.

It’s a tight fit, as drenched as you are. Fred is big, you’ve come to know it quite intimately, and he isn’t so cruel as to not give you time to adjust. The feeling of getting filled feels neverending until his hips come to press into yours, skin warm, hands pushing your thighs away again, and you inhale shakily before he pulls out, and then –

His restraint is gone. His pace is unforgiving from the get go, hips slamming into yours, pulling out for only a fraction of a second before pounding back in. The sounds between your two bodies are lewd, skin slapping skin and the soft squelch of your cunt, overflowing for him, and his steady grunts as he fucks you.

You can hardly breathe, too far gone to even make noise, to moan or whimper – your mouth is open and your eyes roll back into your head, and he hasn’t even touched your clit yet but you’re so on edge that you clench around him and cum, like a meteor hitting you. It’s a lot and Fred doesn’t slow for even a second, pulling your legs up and hooking them in the crooks of his elbows, hitting even deeper and faster as your cunt flutters around him.

Fred’s nails dig into your calves, eyes on yours but struggling to stay open. You can tell he’s close, has been for a while now, trying to conceal it but you know him entirely too well. He’ll make it last as long as getting another one out of you, you know, but perhaps not far past – he’s groaning, eyebrows pinched, and he’s close.

You reach for him. Your hands close around his neck and tug him down, and he nearly collapses on top of you until he grabs at the headboard to balance himself. He meets you in a gnashing kiss, tongue feeling like it’s gone down your throat, so intense it leaves you breathless when he eventually pulls away, leaning down to nibble love bites into the side of your throat.

“Fuck —“ Fred moans into your neck, pushing your leg further up, giving him more room to jam his hips into yours. “Fuck, honey, feel so good —“

Words hardly seem possible as Fred ducks his head down to your chest for the third time, taking one of your nipples into his warm mouth, tongue lashing over the peaked nub. Your legs shake in his grasp, your nails scratching against his throat, pliant and wanting. 

“Touch your clit,” he mumbles into your chest, releasing your nipple with a pop before sliding over to the other. “Need you t’cum again, babe.”

You push yourself onto your elbows as much as you can, watching Fred work against your tits, cock fucking deeper and deeper into you with every thrust. “I can’t,” you tell him, every syllable punctuated with a gasp for air. “I — Fred — s’too much —“

“You can,” he remarks breathily, hiking your leg around his hip so he can free his hand, slithering it between your bodies. His fingers are rough on your clit, and you jerk under him, so sensitive and overstimulated that you think you might faint. He’s unrelenting, getting you off even when you bury your hand in his hair and tug harshly, refusing to let up off his pace for even a moment. “I’ll do it — I’ll do it for you, babe —“

You can’t produce words. You’re steadily working up to your climax again, so fast that you don’t even think you’ve fully processed the last one, or the one before that. All you know is that you’re close, can taste it on the tip of your tongue, and Fred isn’t far behind, grunting and fingering your clit with well-practiced precision. Sometimes you think he knows what your body wants more than you do — can get you off in half the time you can get yourself off.

Hands still in his hair, you drag his mouth from your chest and reconnect your lips. You’re panting for him, and he swallows every gasp for air, kissing you so deeply you feel like you’re going to combine into one. 

His finger works faster against your clit, and you drop your head into his pillows, mouth open in a silent shout as you cum. Your cunt clamps down around his cock where he’s still trying to maintain his steady pace, but you cumming always sends him over the edge — that tightness, the rush of slickness that floods him, how you grab his neck and pull him down to you so your moans are muffled by his sweat-slick skin.

Your vision goes dark when Fred finally cums. It’s entirely overwhelming, almost too much pleasure, so much that your body has no choice but to collapse in on itself. He presses his hips flush against yours, grabbing your head to keep it close to his, and you feel the warmth flooding into you. His moans are choked, his hands shaking as the vulnerability overtakes him, pressing kisses to the side of your face over and over as if to steady himself. 

He pulls out as you come back to. His hands smooth up and down your thighs as he kneels between your legs, just watching you, your eyes reopening and your breathing slowly beginning to steady. For a minute, he doesn’t speak. He climbs back up your body and lies down beside you, then tugs your body on top of his when it becomes apparent that the dormitory bed is entirely too small for the pair of you to lie side by side. Your bare stomach presses to his, his arms tight around your back, and you bury your head into his neck, inhaling his scent, pine-scented soap and sweat and mint conditioner when you nose higher up into his hair.

He smells all too familiar. It relaxes you as your body comes down from your high. His nose presses to your scalp, and you wonder if he’s trying to consume your scent like you are his.

You stay like this for a while. You’re not sure how long, though you’d put the over-under at 5 minutes. You’ve stopped trembling, though you’re not sure how well your legs will be able to handle your weight when you stand. Fred hasn’t moved, just inhaling your hair, arms a heavy weight around your bare back.

“I should go downstairs,” you say into his throat. You’ve kept your lips pressed there, just as a comfort, to him but mostly to yourself. “George’ll be wondering –”

“Not yet,” Fred says, arms tightening around you, and you’re surprised to hear that his tone sounds a little pleading. Higher than normal. “Just a few more minutes.”

You lift your head just high enough so you can see his face and oh, shit, you think you may have forgotten the entire reason you’d come up here to begin with. Because Fred is no longer his horned-up self, plowing into you, getting you off like it’s the only thing he knows how to do –

You think he might start crying. His eyes are squeezed shut, cheeks flushed light red, and your heart plummets at the sight.

“Oh, Fred,” you breathe, bringing one of your hands to his cheek. “It’s okay.”

“I know,” he says quickly, sniffling. “It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.” Delicate fingers brush his hair out of his eyes, and when he opens them to look at you, they’re glassy – not overly so, but you can tell he’s trying to hold himself back. “It’s not fair. It’s okay to be upset.”

Fred doesn’t say anything. You shimmy forward, hands still working through his hair, and press a kiss to his nose.

He smiles. You relish in it.

“I love you,” he tells you. “You can go, if you’d like.”

You hum. “Maybe I’ll go smuggle us food from the Great Hall and come back,” you muse. “So you don’t have to leave.”

“You don’t want me to get dinner with you?”

He looks almost pouty. You kiss him, then. You can’t help it.

“If you stay here,” you explain, pushing yourself off of him, “then maybe we can have another go when I come back.”

Fred grins, tucking his arms beneath his head. “Sounds good to me.”

  –

  The dormitory is much emptier when you finally emerge downstairs than it was when you’d left. A group of first years sits around a table by the fire, poring over their books, and you can see Dean and Seamus in the corner, talking quietly amongst each other.

You beeline for George where he sits, still in the same armchair as before.

“Hey,” you say to him, sinking back into the spot you’d occupied before. He’s flipping through a book absentmindedly, chin in his hand, looking so profoundly bored that you feel a tad guilty for taking so long. “I talked to him.” “Did you?” George casts his eyes over to you. “How did it go?”

Amazing. “Good.” You pick at the hem of your skirt, trying very hard not to think of how Fred’s head had looked ducked beneath it. “I think he’s doing better.”

George’s eyes narrow at you. Your skin burns beneath his gaze, and you try to keep a straight face.

“Perfect,” he commends after a beat, slamming his book shut and standing. “I’ll go up and check on him, then.”

You nod, following his figure as he heads towards the door to the boys’ dormitory. “Good idea.”

George opens the door, and just as he ducks inside, he turns to give you one parting glance. “By the way,” he says, corners of his lips turning up just so, “your sweater is inside out.”