Bad Decisions | Fred Weasley

Nine: Count Your Blessings and Say Your Prayers

As if the day needed to get anymore depressing, he saw her as he was walking to class, back up against one of the arches by the courtyard, holding a pile of books and parchment against her chest like a little schoolgirl. But she was mostly obscured by another body, someone talking to her. A tall someone. A tall, curly-haired, French someone, powder blue uniform and all. He seemed to be making quite the impression because she had that predatory look on her face, even if she was looking up at him with big doe eyes and an innocent smile.

Fred half-expected her to glance away from the Beauxbatons boy and meet his stare, but she just kept staring up as he talked at her, her sweet smile turning into a smirk as she nodded and pushed off the wall, slinking past the French boy to cross the hallway into the classroom, making a point of not noticing Fred, who stood dumbfounded by the doorway.

He walked in behind her and followed her to the back of the classroom, where she took a seat at the desk farthest from the front, the ghost of a satisfied grin on her lips.

"What did Jean-Claude want?" He sat in the chair next to her, but she kept her gaze forward, propping her elbows on the table and resting her chin in her hands.

"His name is Julien." She replied with an exaggerated accent, only growing more satisfied with Fred's skepticism.

He shifted in his seat, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest, "Okay? What did he want?"

"That doesn't concern you."

"Why not?"

"Why would it?"

"Because I might have seen that very same Beauxbatons kid talking up a fourth year last week."

She chewed on the inside of her lip and leaned off the desk as Moody limped in, ordering students to get ready for a pop quiz. There was a collective groan, but Sylvia just pulled out her parchment and quill, feeling Fred's eyes on her.

"Let's start with an easy one!" The Auror boomed from the front of the classroom, pacing back and forth, "Name the three Unforgivable Curses and their effects."

Quills clicked against inkwells and scraped against parchment. Fred glanced at Sylvia, who scrawled down her answer in quick chicken scratch before setting her quill down and looking forward with a stiff sniff.

"I hope that information isn't too disappointing." He whispered, taking his time in copying down his own answer.

"Oh shove off. You're just trying to make me mad."

"I'm really not. I just wanted to let you know what you were getting into."

She took a deep breath as Moody asked the next question, making her voice as quiet as possible.

"Okay, then which fourth year did you see him with?"

He nearly said the first name that came to his mind, but remembered Hermione was in a... something with Krum, "Daphne Greengrass."

She scoffed, receiving a few glances from the surrounding students.

"Why are you even telling me this? What do you even care if I talk to a Beauxbatons boy?"

"I don't."

"Well you're not very convincing."

"Callis! Weasley! Zip it!" Moody snapped.

Sylvia pursed her lips together and exhaled a tight sigh through her nose, her fingers pinching around her quill so hard they were turning white. Fred leaned back, spalling his legs out under the desk so his foot bumped against hers.

Moody continued with the questions, his glass eye swiveling around, looking for cheaters and the like. And Sylvia wrote down her answers with ferocity, ignoring the fact that her handwriting was becoming more and more illegible with her annoyance.

Fred's foot was bumping steadily against hers, and even when she moved it, he found it again and swung his toe into her arch. So without taking her eyes off her paper, she lifted her shoe and brought it down with a hard stomp. With a sharp inhale of pain, he pulled his foot away and sat up straight, murmuring out an "ow" under his breath. She felt quite pleased with herself.

But that didn't put an end to his pestering, if anything, it only made it worse, because when they passed their quizzes up to the front of the classroom and began the lesson for the day, he reached over and grabbed a small handful of her hair, giving it a solid enough tug that her head was pulled to the side with it. He was rewarded with a sharp elbow to the ribs.

"Cut it out." She hissed, turning to look at him when Professor Moody's back was turned, regardless of the fact they all knew he could quite literally see out the back of his head, "What is your deal today?"

"My deal?" Fred smirked, tapping the feather end of his quill against the desk.

"You're trying to piss me off."

He chuckled under his breath, "Why would I want to piss you off?"

She glared at him and let out a quiet groan as she turned back to her classwork, shaking her head in annoyance. For a moment, it seemed as though he had given the badgering a rest, returning to his own work in relative silence, his quill scribbling steadily against his notebook.

Sylvia hated admitting things to herself, though for the remainder of the class period, she found herself missing that little itch at her temple, where she would feel Fred's eyes on her. It was a hard pill to swallow, but she was secretly wanting his attention. She felt strange without it, but the more she noticed herself caring, she realized that he must have been doing it on purpose.

There was a constant tug-of-war between the two of them, even when there wasn't anything going on between them. They knew exactly how to push each other's buttons in just the right way, and once one realized what the other was doing, they pushed back. So it really wasn't so much of a tug-of-war as it was gladiatorial jousting, poking and shoving each other with Pugil sticks until one of them pushed just hard enough to get the other on the ground.

It wasn't until they had left the DADA room and were walking through the hallways to their next class that he addressed her.

"Sylvia." 

It was stupid, but she didn't like it when he called her that, it was too formal coming from him.

She didn't reply, just glanced over her shoulder as he jogged up to her, raking his spindly fingers through his hair. He sighed.

"I know you don't really like me right now, but--" He rubbed his lips together, swallowing, "I don't like that we're on the verge of biting each other's throats out every time we're around one another."

She arched an eyebrow, which he took as a signal to continue.

"I want to be friends."

"Alright." They stopped in the intersection of two hallways, where a flood of students moved around them.

The slightest look of surprise flashed across his face, his brows raising as he blinked.

"Alright?"

She scoffed with a half-smile, beginning to step away, "Yes Fred, I'll be your friend." And she turned away, disappearing into the traffic of bodies.