inertia || a Fred Weasley love story

thirty eight.

Lupin's words stayed with me for the rest of the night. Everyone was pretty tipsy by the time we left, and it was well into the early hours of morning. Fred put up a fight when his mom told him he couldn't sleep in Charlie's room with me, which was weird and embarrassing and I kept apologizing even though it really wasn't my fault in anyway- and everyone kept being sure to remind me of that. George filmed the whole thing on his phone, and Ron had ended up on the floor, clutching at his stomach and crying from laughter.

Alice slept with me, though, and it was nice to have the moment where it was just the two of us. We talked for a while, only drifting to sleep when the night started to lighten out the window. We came up with a whole plan for the future, where we were both old spinsters living in the countryside of France and all the children of the town would be scared of us because we'd cackle and yell at them from our porch. It was a nice plan, and some of the turmoil from the night settled down in my chest.

In some ways, I knew that I wasn't actually picking Fred for life. I mean, I had already dated Judas, and we sure as hell weren't ever going to stay together the way that Lupin and Sirius Black had. Or Harry's parents had. Or, I guess, even Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had. I'd turned onto my side, watching Alice's breathing slow. Her eyelashes flutter. I reached out and brushed some hair away from her face, and her nose scrunched up for a moment. Lupin's words were floating back to me again- everything is changing. I sighed, then turned to look at the ceiling. Yeah, it was changing. God, for a moment, I missed Judas. It was brief, and stupid, but I did. I missed the simplicity of life that had surrounded my relationship with Judas. We'd been young, and ridiculous, and everything had been pretty okay, aside from all the relationship drama he'd been stirring up.

Alice snuffled a little in her sleep, and I glanced at her, and her hand was grasping at the blanket. I reached out and slid my hand into hers, and she made a strange little grunt. And then she squeezed my hand, and settled down once more.

I woke up still holding her hand, and she was frowning in her sleep. It was early- like, really early. I'd probably only slept a total of three hours, really, but my body felt restless. It was Christmas morning, after all.

I shoved Alice a little. She snorted and rolled over and blinked at me grumpily.

"Morning. Merry Christmas." I said to her, and she groaned, stretching, still frowning. I pushed her again, and she yelped, and shoved me back. I was about to push her off the bed when there was a rap at our door. We both froze, and just blinked at one another.

"Ir's me." The person on the other side of the door said, and it was mom, and she was opening the door wearing a sheepish expression. In her arms were a handful of presents. "I think- well the- the Weasleys seem to open their presents separately, I think." She said. We just stared at her, and she nodded towards the end of the bed. I moved before Alice, crawling on my hands and knees to look over the footboard, and sure enough, there was a stack of shiny wrapped presents. Alice ducked up beside me, resting her chin against my shoulder.

"Damn, that's a lot of presents." She said. I elbowed her.

"Your breath stinks." I said. She moved closer and breathed hotly into my face. I gagged, pushing her away abruptly.

"Girls." Our mom said sharply, and we both withdrew, sheepish and sleepy.

"Sorry mom." Alice muttered, but I simply snorted and shoved her again. Our mom was sighing, and padding over to the bed, sitting in the warm spot that we'd left, pulling the blanket over her feet. She spread her own presents out before her. I turned to watch her while Alice leant over the end of the bed, slowly dumping each present in between us.
"You didn't want to open presents with David?" I ask, and I really honestly didn't mean it to sound as bitter as it came out. My mom simply sighed, and rubbed at her eyes.