Falling Slowly (A Hogwarts Lovestory) - Fred Weasley Fanfiction

25 | Foolish Things

A loud knocking sound woke me up early next morning. "Housekeeping!", yelled a female voice outside but since nobody opened the door, the voice was soon gone again.
I groaned quietly, tossed around and grabbed for my second blanket to pull it over my head - but there was already someone covered under it.
"Too bright", muttered Fred in his sleep. He turned towards me, pulled his arm around my waist and buried his face in my neck. "Too early. Come back to sleep." He immediately started snorring peacefully again. I could feel his warm breath on my skin and his red hair tickleing my jaw. I carefully sank back into his arms and tried to review the amazing last night. Just the memory of what had happened made me smile happily.
I was way too excited to go back to sleep again, so I carefully moved Fred's arm so I could sneak out of bed without waking him. I searched for my pants and shirt in the pile of clothes on the ground, but I found only my shorts, so I pulled on Fred's shirt instead. I wouldn't be gone long, just getting a coffee from Tom, and since it was still pretty early I didn't expect to meet anyone in the hallway.

The door closed noiselessly behind me and I quickly snuck down the staircase. Tom was already awake and just cleaning the tables as I entered the bar.
"Morning, Tom", I greeted him. "Can I get two coffees, please?"
"Sure, Miss", said Tom, who had just finished cleaning the last table, and took two large cups out of the wooden kitchen closet behind the counter. "To drink here or to take away to your room? I can bring it up to your room in a few minutes if you like."
"Oh, no, please - I can wait", I said hastily and blushed at the thought of what or rather who he'd see in my room.
"Okay, you can wait with Mr Weasley then", Tom said and nodded into the direction of the smallest table in the corner - where I shockingly found George Weasley sitting, grinning from one ear to the other.
"Mooorning", he grinned as I sat down next to him, avoiding to look him in the eyes.
"Morning, George", I mumbled and inspected the wooden table as though it was the most interesting tabletop I had ever seen.
"I reckon you slept well?", teased George. "Nice shirt by the way. I happen to have the same one. What a crazy coincidence, isn't it?"
"C'mon, Georgie, don't make fun of me", I mumbled.
George laughed. "I'm sorry, Julie, you know I'm actually pretty happy for you two. I must say, you have a very good taste in man, he's a good looking guy."
"Promise to keep it to yourself for a start, okay?"
George agreed and just in that moment Tom finished the two coffees, so I set off back to my room.

When I entered, Fred wasn't asleep anymore. He was standing in the middle of the room, studying one of my books (gladfully just a novel and no library book about dark wizards). He didn't wear a shirt because I was already wearing his and the view of him made me turn crimson.
"Didn't you get enough of me yesterday, love?", he smirked as he saw the look on my face. He took the coffee out of my hands and put it aside onto the windowsill. "I have to admit that my shirt looks better on you though", Fred said and stroke fondly over the soft fabric and my skin immediately began to shiver where his fingers touched it. "But I'm afraid I have to take it back." He pulled the shirt over my head and threw it on the floor, then he kissed me even more passionately than he did yesterday.
If this continued, I wouldn't get much sleep at all the rest of the summer.

The last three weeks of the summer holidays passed by exactly as I expected. Fred snuck into my room almost every night and gratefully nobody but George found out. I didn't want anyone to know before Fred and I had defined what exactly that thing was that was going on between us. Hermione glanced suspiciously on us from time to time when we all sat together at dinner and I was sure she knew it too, but gladly she was too polite to say anything.

Everything was so exciting. I finally felt as though I didn't need to deny my feelings and it felt like a huge relieve. I smiled silently as I remembered how afraid I have always been that a relationship between Fred and me wouldn't work out. In fact, Fred turned out to be a very attentive lover and despite the wonderful nights we spent with each other, he also managed to made me very happy during the rest of the day. I almost broke my rips once from laughter at the way he and George teased Percy because he, now that he was Head Boy, behaved like he was a royal member.
Also, when I sat on the balkony of my room playing the Ukulele after breakfast, Fred used to watch me almost all the time. I didn't think he was into music the same way I was, but he obviously adored me and that made me feel very special. Everything was absolutely perfect.
When the last day of the holidays came, I planned to ask him to define our relationship. I finally was sure that I wanted him to be my boyfriend, now that all my former concernes had vanished. Yet I was kind of nervous that day, even though I was quite sure he wanted the same thing as I did.

We visited Diagon Alley all together that day to run our last errands. Hermione wanted to buy one more book about Arithmancy that wasn't even on the recommendation list (I wondered how she planned to attend all her new classes anyway) and Ron was searching for some medicine for Scabbers, his rat, who looked pretty thin and exhausted since they came back from Egypt.
While Hermione was searching through the large book shelves at Flourish & Blotts and Ron was desperately trying to explain the sales assistant at the Magical Menagerie that Scabbers didn't have any magical powers, Harry, Ginny and the twins persuaded me to come with them to Quality Quidditch Supplies.

In front of the large store window, which was decorated with loads of golden paper snitches, we found a glass showcase with a new and apparently very high quality broomstick in it. The boys were on fire immediately and started to discuss some Quidditch moves they'd be able to play with this new broomstick with the cheesy name Firebolt.
"Oh, hey guys! You found the Firebolt, I see", said an enthuastic voice from behind us. "I already tried to convince Professor McGonagall to buy some for the Gryffindor team, but she said they're way too expensive so I'm afraid we have to keep the Cleansweeps. It's my last chance to win the Quidditch cup, I'm leaving Hogwarts at the end of this school year." Oliver Wood, the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and my ex boyfriend, came over to talk to his team mates. The boys greeted him and just tried to convince him to talk to McGonagall a second time, when Oliver finally noticed me.
"Julie! How nice to see you. You look good!", he said happily and hugged me. "How was your summer?"
"Thank you, you look good, too. And you look tanned, so I reckon you didn't spend your summer in rainy Britain?", I joked.
Oliver laughed. "Well combined. My parents took me to Croatia. The sun at the beach almost burned my whole skin and I got myself bitten by a nasty little jellyfish." He pulled up his shirt a little bit so I could see a palm-sized wound on the left side of his hip. "My parents weren't able to fully cure it, so hopefully at least Madam Pomfrey will have something for it."
"That looks bad", I said frowning. "Did you already try Essence of Dittany?"
"Ditt-what?", asked Oliver laughing. "No, I don't think so. How do you always know such things?"
"I happen to pay attention in Herbology from time to time. You should risk a look into One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi ", I grinned. "You better try the apothecary over there - they can help you with that."
Oliver thanked me, waved goodbye at Harry, Fred and George and left into the direction I had just pointed.

Back at the Leaky Cauldron, we all had dinner together. Mr and Mrs Weasley went to bed early and demanded us all to do the same, since we all had to get up early the next day to get to King's Cross in time. Right before he left, Mr Weasley had one last and very serious looking talk with Harry in private - I wondered what they were discussing so eagerly.

I expected the day to continue like all the former days did; that Ginny, Ron, Hermione and George would leave to their rooms one after the other until only Fred and I were left. But to my suprise it was Fred who stood up first and left without even looking at me.
Did I miss anything? I looked questioningly at George but he just shrugged his shoulders. I decided to walk after him since I wanted to talk to him about us anyway.
"Fred, wait", I called him. "Can we talk? Why are you in such a hurry?"
He stopped and turned around. He looked angry somehow. Did I do anything wrong?
"Oh, you wanna talk, Daniels? Why don't you talk to your boyfriend, eh?"
"Boy- what?!", I asked dumbfounded.
"C'mon, don't take me for a fool. Do you think I didn't notice how you looked at Wood earlier? I could see from the look on your face how badly you wanted to touch his abs."
"You can't be serious, Fred", I said perplex.
"Doesn't suprise me that you think I can't be serious", he answered harshly.
"What's that supposed to mean? Why are you like this right now?"
Fred still eyed me angrily. "Doesn't matter anyway", he said and turned to leave.
"Wait! Please don't go. I don't want this to end this way. Didn't we just started to be something?"
"Be something? Don't make a fool of yourself. We aren't anything."
I wasn't able to speak. I just watched him speecheless. Why was he doing this to me? Was it just because of Oliver? Or was he playing with me all the time?
When I finally found my voice back, I tried my best to hold back my tears and decided to ask him directly what he was thinking about us. Better rip off the band-aid quickly.
"So... everything that has happened this summer... it didn't mean anything to you?", I asked him.
He looked at me coldly and I will probably never forget his following words.
"We had fun, that's all. No more no less. If you're looking for something serious, I am the wrong one for you."
He slammed the door loudly and left me standing in the hallway, lonely and heartbroken.

And we believe such foolish things
like 'Love love love, love is all we need'
And living would be easy
if we never ever had to bleed
- Brian Fallon