Moon Child [Fred Weasley]

11

Teddy must have missed the first dance because everyone was on the floor, dancing with their partners to a string quartet of violins and cellos.

This, of course, was where Teddy stopped moving entirely, frozen to the outer edge of the area, suddenly unsure of what to do with himself. He was never one for crowds, nor for several voices talking at once. His eyes carried his gaze upward toward the tall roofs that arched several feet overhead. Teddy wondered what the whole spectacle would look like from above. Dimly, he knew, it would be beautiful.

He was brought back to the spectacle at hand by the telltale sound of a familiar laugh. It was one Teddy had heard several times during the year and one he now easily placed as belonging to the infamous Fred Weasley.

He was talking to Angelina Johnson and was idly leaning against one of the room's wide pillars, arms crossed as he listened to what she was saying. He donned an easy smile and had cleaned himself up impressively. His hair had been combed and his robes fitted him nicely, revealing a burnt umber shade of vest over an ironed white button-up.

It almost looked entirely off as Teddy supposed he had grown so accustomed to seeing Fred in his half undone, rolled up wrinkled sleeves of his uniform that he never did wear properly. And Angelina? Teddy had forgotten about that breakfast when Fred had unceremoniously asked her to be his date.

There was his excuse right there, staring at him in clear sight. He could leave, go to bed early, and read or work on his unfinished homework by candlelight.

But then Angelina was leaving, hand lingering on Fred's forearm as she smiled and muttered something. Teddy was sure he would have been able to hear it if there weren't so many other voices filling the space.

And then, as if he could sense Teddy looking, Fred met Teddy's eyes across the room and then winked. The bastard actually winked. But then he was turning his gaze back to the ball as if he were bored; as if he were waiting for something to happen. Usually, whenever Fred had caught sight of Teddy, he would be walking over within the second to try and loop him into a conversation or prank him in some way that was bound to fail but now he was doing nothing of the sorts.

Teddy would have had to contemplate it for a while longer if it weren't so obvious what he was trying to do. And so, setting aside his pride, Teddy once more broke the script of their usual encounters and cut through the hall, weaving through dancers, trying to avoid as much contact as possible.

He tried to think of something witty to say; to strike up a conversation in a luring manner in which Fred always seemed to easily achieve but all he was able to come up with was,

"Hi."

Fred looked at Teddy then, as if he hadn't been expecting him, that cunning bastard, and smiled. "Hi yourself. I didn't think you were coming."

"I didn't think so too."

Fred let his head rest on the pillar as he studied Teddy quizzingly, that small smile never once leaving his lips. "What made you change your mind?" He waggled his brows suggestively. " A date?"

Teddy shook his head. "No."

Fred grinned and Teddy suspected he had just been read like a book.

A moment of silence elapsed before Teddy, taking great pains to do so, spoke. "This afternoon was fun." He said instead, to try and guide the conversation.

"Oh, skip the pleasantries," Fred said, cutting straight to it. "I know it was fun. Anything you have the pleasure of doing with me is fun."

Teddy scoffed and opened his mouth to retort but Fred spoke first.