May the Best Man Win |×| Fred Weasley | 1 |×|

×| SIXTY-EIGHT |×

"Point me." Evelyn ordered, and her wand spun in her hand to dictate the correct way to travel. Evelyn took a confident step forward, and another, and another until a satisfied smile spread on her face.

"Genius," Max said from somewhere - Evelyn guessed she was stood to her right -  as they turned a corner, "quick sticks, Evie. You can't let Fred win just because you're in love with him or whatever."

And if she wasn't concentrating so hard on not falling over, Evelyn may have paid more attention to Max's words. And if she'd paid more attention to Max's words, Evelyn might have considered more seriously that they may have been true.

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"Are we close?" Evelyn asked. She had been following the tactile movements of her wand for what felt like an hour now - though she was sure that was due to the many tiny steps she'd been taking in place of her usual strides. She'd gotten used to the darkness now - perfected a tactic of feeling the ground with the sole of her shoe to make sure she wouldn't kick any corners and deduced a method of keeping people out of the way by walking with her elbows sticking out from her sides. So far, she'd almost tripped only three times and had actually fallen over twice. And now, she was yet to walk into a single person.

"I'm not meant to tell you that," Max replied, "but yes. We are rather."

"How far?" Evelyn continued, adjusting to the feeling of her wand swivelling j in her hand.

"Literally a couple of st-" Max began to say, but Evelyn didn't get to hear the rest. Something had ploughed straight into her shoulder and she slipped backwards, plummeting through the void and desperately grasping at the air for something to catch her until her back collided with something cold and solid that painful that she could only assume was the floor.

Evelyn was just thinking how glad she was that she'd ended up accepting the blindfold from George because the padding from the scarf had protected her head during the fall, when a voice she didn't want to hear came a little bit muffled to her ears.

"Evie?" There it was. The American drawl. Ethan. Evelyn raised her head a fraction and threw it down again at the ground, suddenly frustrated at the scarf for now preventing her from knocking herself out, "I'm so sorry - why are you wearing a blindfold?"

"Go away Patterson," Max had venom in her voice. Evelyn didn't bother getting up. She wished the ground would swallow her whole.

"Can't I just -"

"I said go away." Max repeated. Evelyn could hear feet shuffling somewhere around her head.

"Evie, please. I've been trying to find an excuse to talk to you for a while." Ethan pleaded. Evelyn thought his voice was suddenly much louder and clearer than it had been before, "I'm not with Rachel anymore - she was nothing compared to you I-"

"Just leave me alone. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear you." Evelyn told him. She was acutely aware of the sound footsteps coming from a little ways behind her. Finally, Evelyn began to push herself off of the ground.

"Here, let me help you," Ethan put his hand tightly around her lower arm and pulled. Evelyn immediately pulled away. Ethan sounded almost upset as he continued speaking, "Oh come on Evie, it's me. I've missed you. We were good together. I know you know it. Everybody knows it. And you can't possibly be happy playing around with that ginger buffoon all the time? Surely somebody like you would prefer somebody much more mature." He laid his hand again on Evelyn's arm and she felt the fire of rage erupt inside of her.

Evelyn reached up to take off her blindfold - if only she could see that manipulative little pig, why, she'd put her handprint on the side of his face. Her fingers peeled the edge of the scarf and she shook off Ethan's hand, vaguely listening to Max's lecturing beside her.

Then there was a hand on her lower back and Evelyn stiffened. And then before she could get the blindfold off she'd been twirled around on the spot and the next second she was being kissed.

For one horrible moment, Evelyn thought Ethan had forced himself on to her face, but then she smelt the sugar and cinnamon and felt the familiar gentle pressure of Fred's thumbs holding her cheeks and she all but climbed into his arms as she kissed him back.

The next second somebody was untying the blindfold and Fred was shouting at Ethan to sod off in not such polite terms and once her eyes had adjusted again to the light of day, the first thing Evelyn saw was the end of a Slytherin scarf disappearing around the corner.

"Bastard," Fred said, putting his chin on top of Evelyn's head, "you alright love?" Evelyn only nodded. Looking around to try and regain her bearings, she realised they really were standing just a few feet from the hog's head.

"Who won?" She asked. Then vibrations of Fred's chuckling moved comfortingly through her.

"Technically neither of you. You didn't get through the door," George explained as the group moved off in the direction of the pub.

"but since Fred took off his blindfold first, shouldn't Evie win?" Nikki asked. Everyone nodded, other than Fred, who insisted as they sat down to wait for Harry to begin speaking that he should have won for resisting the urge to pound his fists into Ethan's face until it was a broken, bloody mess. Again.

And then, around about an hour later, Evelyn had almost completely forgotten about the encounter with Ethan. She was too ecstatic as she signed her name third on the list (just after Fred and George) about the prospect of actually learning something useful about defence. That way, with the help of the newly formed Dumbledore's Army, maybe next time somebody she didn't want to speak to wouldn't leave her alone she could simply fire some advanced magical repplent at them. Ethan and unbridge wouldn't know what had hit them.