Hermione's Twin ⇒ Fred Weasley

Ch. 19: One Liners

Ch. 19: One Liners

     My heart thudded in my chest at the sound of someone's voice in the dark Common Room. The fire was burning low, so there was not much to see. "What?!" I blurted out, grasping my chest and taking a few deep breaths, recovering from the jump scare. I couldn't even hear what the person had said the first time, I was so freaked out.

"I said, what have you been up to all night?" Fred smirked, lounging on one of the couches. I could see he bright hair ignighted in the dark by the flame of the fireplace.

     Coyly, I wrapped my arms around my torso and walked over to him. I rested my head on the back of the couch to look up at his face. The low flames flickered in the fireplace, casting the Weasley in an orange glow. He almost was shining. "Were you waiting up for me?" I grinned.

     Fred's face stretched into a heart-warming smile. "No, L, unlike you I actually do my homework before class." He stretched out his arms towards the coffee table in front of him. It was littered with parchment, scattered spare pages and ink-drenched quills. "Why, did you want me to say I did?"

Chuckling, I rolled my eyes and made my way around the couch to sit next to him by the fire. "Nah, it would make my boyfriend jealous."

      Fred laughed at me for a second and shook his head, his eyes wandering towards the fire with the hint of a smile on his lips. "Oh, boyfriend, huh?" Leaning forward, Fred let out a small hmph and wrote something down on the parchment he was working on. "You know, for some reason, I don't believe that."

     Biting my lip I looked away, kind of offended. "Ouch. Why do you say that?"

"Cuz, I am your boyfriend, remember?" He grinned and shook his head at me. I laughed out loud and nodded.

      "Oh, yeah," I played along and pushed myself over the side of the couch, jumping into the cushioned seat beside the tall twin. "That's right."

     I could tell that Fred wasn't really paying too much attention to our conversation. His pale, freckle-speckled brow furrowed. He chewed his right cheek and glared down at the parchment in front of him. My eyes scoured the pages, trying to figure out where he was stuck. "Damn it." He sighed and rolled his head around on his shoulders, trying to loosen up. 

     I watched him as if he was some creature I had never seen before.

     I watched his eyes close and then open, I examined the crook of his nose, the turn of his lips, the curve of his back as he slumped over the homework. My examinations led me to the bags under his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping.

      "What's the matter?" I asked, rubbing under my eyes in an attempt to clear the sleep from the corners. "When is the last time you slept?"

     Fred yawned and rubbed at his eyes as well, mimicking my movements. "Don't worry 'bout it. I got a few hours last night. Potions class is just killin' me."

     I frowned and snatched the paper from the table. "Let me see." 

Fred groaned and reached for the paper, but I lifted it over my head. "Well there's your problem." I tsked as my eyes read down the parchment. He had mixed up chiffon with lacquer. "Your chemical makeups are all over the place."

     I grabbed a quill, scribbling down on the parchment with the correct answers. I reread through his essay and shook my head, scratching out some of his choices and fixing the errors -- and ignoring Fred's yawns about how long I was taking. "See? The chiffon is added before the newt's brain, and the lacquer is added after the grille. It's actually qui--"