Déjà Vu

Chapter 17

Evelyn smiles and looks down at her locket. "Oh, thank you. It was my grandma's, actually."

Angelina smiles widely, her eyes in the shape of half-moons. "Really? That's so cool! All my grandma has are these ugly chunky pearls."

Evelyn laughs. "I'm sure that she could pull them off in her day."

Angelina raises her eyebrows in a 'trust me' way. "Wait until you've seen the pearls."

Evelyn laughs and nods. "Alright, fine, I'm sure they're ugly." She briefly wonders why this girl is being so nice to her. She knows nothing about her other than the fact that she's on the quidditch team. And that she somehow knows Fred, judging by the way that they'd interacted at the party.

"So," Angelina says, most likely ready to get to her point. Evelyn patiently waits. "You're friends with Fred, right?"

Yep. There it is. She nearly rolls her eyes. "Uh, yeah, I guess. Why?"

Angelina blushes and looks to her feet. "Well, I've had this huge crush on him for a while now, and I figured that since it's his last year here, I better get a move on it. I just, um, wanted to ask if he'd maybe ever said anything about me?"

The pure hope on the girl's face makes Evelyn want to reach out a hand and set it on her shoulder in that comforting way that everyone seems to do in situations like these.

What the hell does she say? Angelina seems like such a nice girl, she should really just say that she hasn't heard anything but to go for it anyway; take the chance that could very well end her and Fred in a happy relationship. That would be the right thing to do. Evelyn's the one to keep turning down Fred, so she should be encouraging this, right? Encouraging the thing that would possibly make Fred back off? The thing that would make him feel better that she keeps turning him down? Doesn't she just want Fred to be happy?

"Sorry, but he has a girlfriend, actually," is what she says instead. She wants to slap a hand over her mouth and immediately take it back, to tell her that she's joking, but she doesn't. She can't bring herself to. "From another school," she adds, only adding to the self-deprecating thoughts that flood her head.

She really should not have done that.

The thing is, she knows just the thing that made her do it. It's that ugly thing that burns bright green and sits low in the pit of her stomach, twisting and rotating whenever she sees Fred with someone else. Jealousy. It's horrible and unfair and completely not okay, but she can't control it. The words have already been said.

The way Angelina's face falls makes her want to slap herself across the face. "Oh. That's- I didn't know. Thanks for telling me, though." She fakes a smile. "I'll see you later, yeah?"

Evelyn nods and sends her a sympathetic smile. "Yeah, of course."

Her eyes widen enough to pop out of the sockets when Angelina faces the other way. Her hand comes up to touch her mouth, wondering what the hell she's just done.

~~~~~~~~~~

Her stomach twists nervously as she walks down to dinner, her thoughts going crazy with images of Angelina telling Fred what she's said. She can't stop imagining what it will be like when he finds out; when he learns what she's done. She had no right to tell Angelina that, no right to ruin Fred's possible chances of happiness when she's already stepping on his heart daily.

She alternates between twisting her hands together nervously and cursing herself silently while she makes the journey to the dining hall.

She watches him carefully while she walks up to the table, scanning his face for any possible anger or prepared confrontation. He's talking to George, moving his hands about in that animated way that he seems to make its way into every single story he tells. She's still watching him warily when she sits down, waiting for him to acknowledge her.

When he sees her, he only smiles at her brightly without pausing his conversation.

Her dread doesn't go away like she thought that it would. Now she's just going to worry about Angelina's going to tell him what she said. Or if he hears it from someone else. She has no doubt that Angelina's spread the lie around enough already; from what she's heard, Fred having a girlfriend is going to come as a bit of a shock to the students of Hogwarts.

She returns to wringing her hands together while she thinks of all the possible ways that the lie will get back to Fred, as well as all of the possible ways that he will react.

Maybe she could just go tell Angelina that she was lying? She turns to look at where Angelina's sitting further down the table, watching as she and her friends whisper about something, half of the girls looking over at Fred.

So, no. She knows that she won't be able to bring herself to tell her now.

She takes a deep breath in hopes to calm herself down, her fingers still twisting together anxiously.

She feels something tap her foot underneath the table, and she looks up to see Fred looking at her. He has a curious and slightly concerned look on his face, asking a silent 'you okay?'

Evelyn plasters on a fake smile and nods, but even she can feel how fake it is. He isn't fooled. He scoots over on the bench so that he's directly across the table from her and sets his elbows down to lean over to her, opening his mouth to say something. Her stomach drops; she knows that she won't be able to hide anything from Fred. She hates lying. She sucks at it too.

He just starts to ask her something when she's saved, the magnified sound of Mcgonnagals fork tapping her glass silencing the room completely.

"Students," she commands from the front of the room. "I have an announcement."

Everyone curiously turns to the front to listen. Normally, the food just presents itself and everyone starts eating.

Evelyn drifts in and out of the speech, still looking at her hands and trying to calm her racing thoughts that are informing her of every worst scenario revolving around Fred available, but she gets the gist. After winter break, students 4th year and up have the option to travel with Hogwarts to go to the Quidditch World Cup. It sounds pretty fun, based on what Mcgonnagal is saying. The students apparently will get their own cool tents and everything.

She feels a nudge on her shoulder and turns to see Ginny smiling at her. "We are totally going," she says.

Evelyn chuckles and shrugs. "Alright." She's not going to say no to a trip with all of her friends where they get to stay in tents and drink firewhiskey all night.

McGonagall continues on about permission slips and cost and all that, but she mostly tunes it out. She makes the mistake of looking up at some point, only to see Fred looking at her with an even more concerned look than he had been looking at her before. She tries to send back a convincing frown, silently asking what he could ever be concerned about, but he just keeps looking at her appraisingly. It only makes her more nervous.

He seems to give up soon enough, turning to his food now that Mcgonnagal has stopped talking and they have their food, but she can still feel his gaze periodically on her for the rest of dinner. She doesn't look back at him.

After dinner's over, he tries to call out to her for her to stay back, but she just hurries off to Ravenclaw, pretending that she didn't hear him.