Déjà Vu

Chapter 24

Fred quickly turns to look over to the Ravenclaw table, and sure enough, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Padma, and Evelyn are all sitting over there, not one of them looking over towards him. He gulps and turns back around, already prepared for the look that George is giving him.

"Well I'll go see what's up then, yeah?" he says with a clap of his hands and a smile, avoiding looking back at his twin's knowing stare.

Not one of the girls looks at him. Not when he's walking over, and not when he's standing directly over them at their table. Evelyn's sitting directly in the middle of all of them, almost as if they're protecting her from him.

He clears his throat, but still, no one looks up. He waits another moment before he softly says, "Ev? Do you think I could talk to you for a second?"

It's Ginny who finally looks up at him, though. "Go away, Fred," she says, much more quietly than he would have expected from her. There's an obvious tone of disappointment in her voice that sends a chill through his body, reminding him only of his mother on very rare occasions. "No one wants to talk to you right now," she finishes and looks away from him once again.

He nods and clears his throat, trying to push past the awkwardness of the situation. "Right. Uh, that makes sense, yeah."

The air builds with tension when he doesn't leave, but he just can't bring himself to. He can't bring himself to leave Evelyn when she's right there, just sitting there without having heard an apology and explanation from him. Without having heard his promises to never hurt her again. To spend the rest of his life giving her everything that she deserves. To love her with every fiber of his body until the day he dies.

He can't stop himself from trying again, saying, "Evelyn, please, if we could just-"

"I'm pretty sure she doesn't want to hear it, yeah?" Padma quickly snaps, giving him one of the iciest glares that he's ever received. He's not about to mess with her.

"Okay, yeah, fine," he says, raising his hands in surrender. "Just, Ev, please let me explain at some point. I'm so fucking sorry. I'll do anything. Anything you want. I love you more than anything, just please-"

"Fred," Padma warns again, this time a bit more urgent. This is when he notices that Evelyn's crying, quickly wiping silent tears away from her face and pointedly looking away from Fred.

He nods quietly and walks away, his heart heavy in his chest and his eyes threatening to spill tears down his face. He's never felt anything like this, the pain that comes with hurting someone that you love as much as he loves Evelyn. He wants to punch himself. He wants to throw himself off of the astronomy tower. He wishes that he could just magically fix everything, maybe go back in time and stop himself from saying what he did in the first place, but he knows that he can't. He said what he said, and he said it to Evelyn. Maybe it wasn't on purpose, but it's what happened. And it's his fault.

He hasn't prepared a lie about what he and the girls talked about by the time he walks back over to the boys, so he's not prepared when Harry asks, "So why are they sitting over there today?"

"Oh, um," he starts, frantically trying to think of a valid reason that isn't just the dirty truth. "I dunno, really. They just said that they felt like having a girl's breakfast or something," he says with a shrug.

Ron scoffs and rolls his eyes, saying, "That's quite rude of them, if you ask me," before shoving another forkful of eggs into his mouth. "I mean, what's so bad about us?" he asks through his mouthful, nearly spraying the stuff all over the table.

"Right," Fred says through a laugh, looking over to his twin in hopes of sharing an eye roll over their idiotic younger brother. George isn't smiling when he looks at him, though. Instead, he's still got that disapproving look on his face.