Elusive // The Weasley Twins

24. Downhill

Cosette could barely grasp onto everything that happened and Nick was already a few drinks in so there was no way he was going to understand anything either.

But even though he was drinking, he recognized the painful look on Cosette's face and cleared his throat as the conversation took a more serious shift, "Do you want to talk about it?"

She really did.

Everything had been weighing heavily on her shoulders since the morning she woke up in George's bed.

But she needed someone who wasn't going to judge her. Nick knew Fred, barely, but still. If Cosette told Nick that she slept with his twin brother, she was going to be met with some sort of criticism and it wasn't going to be helpful at all.

Cosette hadn't often found herself in this sort of dilemma. For the most part, she stayed away from drama and thought it was unnecessary. There were a handful of times at Hogwarts when she was annoyed with Fred or George if they pulled a stupid prank or needed space from them and she would turn to her friends. Angelina and Alice always offered words of encouragement and were an easy way to forget about the twins, even just for a day.

But she wasn't at Hogwarts anymore and her best friends didn't sleep in the beds across from her. She couldn't wake them up and sneak down to the kitchen to get a midnight snack and gossip late into the night.

She could always write to them.

Angelina, maybe not. She dated George on and off for a while and probably wouldn't like to hear about how Cosette slept with him. It didn't matter if they were on good terms, she didn't want to risk being judged by her.

Alice was always very positive, very loud too. Not just her voice but her personality. She was warm and welcoming to anyone she met and never went out of her way to make someone feel bad about themselves. She tried to look on the bright side of things whenever possible and Cosette needed someone like that in her life right now.

After graduation, Alice took a job at the Ministry in the Department of Magical Transportation so it wasn't shocking that her job involved a lot of travel. Her and Cosette kept in touch for a while, but it became hard. They never had a bad falling out, they both mutually just stopped talking.

Maybe it was time to reach out again. She could use a friend like Alice.

There was one other person in her life that Cosette turned to from time to time, but ironically enough, it was the one person she was going to try to avoid.

George was always there for her whenever she got into a fight with Fred. It was rare that the two of them really went at it on each other but once in a blue moon, it would happen and when it did, Cosette turned to George for advice.

George knew exactly how to calm her down and talk her out of doing something stupid. Cosette relied on George to be the voice of reason in her relationship when things went south.

---

Cosette apparated into Fred's flat, eager to see him after being away at a training camp in Edinburgh for the last ten days. It was excruciating and tiring and Cosette was worn out from it all and all she wanted was to see Fred.

She was a little worried because he was supposed to meet her at Kings Cross so the two of them could get a late dinner and he never showed up.

However, she didn't want to panic. Cosette had planned her train ride so she would arrive back in London after the shop closed but there was a chance that it got busy and the closing tasks took longer than usual. Cosette didn't want to jump to any conclusions so she grabbed her bag and went directly to the flat after waiting around for twenty minutes.