THE FRED WEASLEY EFFECT
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I sat next to Liv and Pauline, in one of the corners, with Neville and other two boys from his year.
The competitors were preparing themselves for the task. They had to rescue one of their loved ones from down the lake where the merpeople were keeping them. All of them looked pretty nervous, even the stoic Krum. The whistle sounded and the four of them jumped into the lake.
"I've killed Harry Potter!" Neville cried out when he couldn't see Potter in the depths of the water.
"You did not, Nev. Give him a moment." I said, trying to convince him and myself that Potter was okay.
Not even two seconds later, Harry did a great cartwheel out of the water showing the effect the Gillyweed had on him.
While we all waited for the champions to do their task, my eyes flew to Weasley who was sat a few seats away from me. Obviously, he was next to his brother George and his little sister - Ginny, I think. He had his binoculars in his hand while looking completely entertained to the water and biting his lower lip, concentrated and amused. I couldn't help but remember the taste of his lips, the way his tongue played with mine and how he touched my naked skin with those slim vein-marked hands. I was still hungry for him and deeply I knew that hunger was not going to stop. His coat let free the skin in his neck, which was covered in little scars and moles that I wanted to kiss so bad.
"Lilith," Liv called me, taking me out of my daydream. "Are you okay? What are you looking at?"
"Nothing!" I said louder than I pretended. My mind was too busy to think about an excuse for staring at Fred Weasley.
But, what kind of best friend I'd be if I didn't tell Liv and Pauline about what happened?
"Girls, once the task is over, come with me to the Slytherin common room. I need to talk with you."
Pauline whistled, joking.
"Wow, girl. You sound so dramatic. What on Earth did you do?"
✵ ✵ ✵
"YOU DID WHAT?!" Pauline screamed and nearly fell off my bed.
"I kissed him," I whispered again. The thunders could be heard outside of my window. It was nearly midnight and I even skip dinner at the Hall just not to see Weasley." Well, he kissed me...We kissed." I corrected myself.
Liv had an eyebrow raised, looking discreetly amused while Pauline had a full shock face and almost couldn't believe it. She let escape a little nervous chuckle.
"Wow, I wasn't expecting that."
I let them assimilate the news while I took one of the blueberries biscuits Liv baked for me.
She knew about me skipping dinner time and made me my favourite sweet in the world. The mere taste and smell of blueberries made me happy, it reminded me of the few happy moments I had in my early childhood where my grandmother, Eileen Prince, cooked them for me. When my mother got to Azkaban, Eileen was too old to take care of me but Severus used to take me to visit her three times a year until she died when I was nine. My times with her were pretty happy since she was trying to recover her relationship with her offspring after her abusive husband abandoned her. Apparently, it was a family thing...
I still remember Severus' face one of the times he came home to take me back to the Arambella house and found me covered in blueberries. It was his favourite sweet as well when he was a child.
"That's why you were looking at him early, right?" Liv guessed, giving me a proud of herself look.
I slightly nodded.
"And how does he kiss?" Pauline asked grabbing one of my pillows and hugging it.
I gave a deep sigh before answering.
"Pretty good," I admitted. "Actually, incredibly good. The boy knows what he is doing."
"So you liked it."
"Not a bit!" I quickly said, too fast for letting myself believe it, pretending to be offended "I would have liked it if it wasn't Weasley the one who gave it to me."
"Merlin...Lilith and Fred kissing. The end of the world is near." Liv joked.
"Okay, fair enough, can we already change the bloody topic?!"I asked exasperated, holding back my laughter.
By the end of the night, when they already left, we had finished a whole round of more than 20 blueberry biscuits and cupcakes. My stomach was full and happy and my mind, now alone, kept dreaming about Weasley's kiss.
Fuck, I don't want to do it... I really don't want to.
But the bonfire in my veins asked me to, and I couldn't fight it anymore. Without the excuse of the alcohol this time, and the rain hitting my window in a bewitching melody, I touched and pleased myself thinking about Fred Weasley, more vividly than ever now that I could felt his touch, being on top of me, driving me crazy with his lips and those brown eyes full of unaccomplished fantasies. Having me weak between his arms and making him desire me until reach a lustful madness.
✵ ✵ ✵
"How was the rest of the night, Lilith?" Pauline said smiling, while we were walking in the corridor. Liv had DADA, I had Potions and Lin had to go back to the Beauxbatons place to have whatever class she had there.
I frowned my eyebrows, surprised because of the question.
"Well, I went straight to bed." technically I wasn't lying...
"I had a traumatic experience going back to my dorm," Liv announced dramatically. "I found out Cho Chang and Cedric hooking up in the common room couch. I'm not sitting in there ever again."
Pauline and I laughed.
"Well, they're a couple. What did you expect?" I said looking at how Liv's cheeks blushed. "But they were like actually hooking up? And most important of all, did they see you?"
"Oh, Merlin no. They were just snogging when I arrived and they didn't see me but the noises I heard afterwards while I was in my room confirmed they did more than that. And I'm disgusted at men but I kinda understand why you fucked him, Lilith."
I burst into laughter.
"Well I can't say you are lying, can I? Facts are facts."
We arrived at the stairs and had to part ways not without promising to meet again at the Hall later.
I went down to the Dungeons and the door was already open. I couldn't even get to my seat when the Weasley twins made their entrance.
Shit, I knew I couldn't avoid him any longer but, how I'm gonna look at him again?
I thought he will give me at least a little gaze but he didn't. Ouch, my ego! Instead, he came closer to his friend group and started talking.
"Was Finnigan in this class before? It smells like bloody fireworks." Fred joked.
I gave a little sniff and actually, it did. The entire atmosphere was drowned in a firework and powder smell mixed with... wood and honey. What the fuck was doing Snape in this class before?
"What?" Jordan chuckled looking at Fred confused. " I don't smell anything, mate."
"You don't? Lad, you should check your nose. This room smells like a fucking field of Quidditch after the fireworks, innit George?"
George tightened his lips in response, "Sorry, Fred, I'm with Lee in this one. I don't smell any fireworks."
Fred looked at him with his eyebrows frowned.
"It pains me to say it but I have to agree with Weasley in this." I intervened, catching their attention. Both George and Jordan gave a distant and indifferent look while Fred was staring at me, confused. "It smells like fireworks and powder."
Snape entered the room, closing with his wand the window, and making all of us go silent.
We were all sitting in pairs, I was next to one of the girls from Slytherin and behind me, I had both Fred and George. Bloody hell, couldn't they be at least a few seats away?
"George, have you been eating blueberries? I thought you didn't like them" I heard Fred whispering behind me.
I assumed George shook his head because Fred whispered even lower a 'what the fuck?'.
Shit, that was probably my fault. I knew a simple shower wouldn't take the blueberry essence off me. Discreetly, I took the collar of my shirt to my nose and sniffed, but it only smelled like my perfume. Weird...
Before start talking, Snape gave a slow gaze to all of us and stood at the centre of the class, with his hands behind his back.
"As you all should already know, feelings are a useful tool in magic. They can provide us with success or failure if we learn how to use them. They are powerful and inevitable, today we are focusing on one of the strongest ones; love."
"Oh, greasy-hair Snape's getting romantic." Lee Jordan joked in a little mumble, making Fred and George hold their laughs.
Luckily, Severus didn't hear him.
"Maybe it's out of your teenager hormonal brains, but the house you belong in affects how you love and how do you perceive love. Since only Gryffindor and Slytherin are in this class and they are two sides of the same coin, I'm going to tell you how each of them sees love." he took a deep breath and continued. "Gryffindors tend to have a positive sight of love, something happy, entertaining and pure. Real love doesn't hurt and it's easy and deserved. They love deeply and fiercely, as simple and shallow like that."
Everyone started talking in low mumbles that Snape quickly silenced starting to talk again.
"Slytherin's love, on the other hand, is obsessive, deep and complicated. We love in an intense way that leads us to self-destructive behaviours or the search for the loves of our lives. It is happiness but is also pain. It's a weapon and a drug, and it can't be perceived otherwise. " his voice turned melancholic and his eyes were lost. Everyone remained quiet. "When a Slytherin loves, the hunger for their lover and the abandonment fear makes them risk everything and being able to things the other houses are not even able to imagine. The desire to be loved covers and takes over them. It is like you are drowning, you let it consume you or you fight uselessly counter-current."
An annoying nuisance installed inside me before those words. They were painfully true. The room was deadly quiet while we were all absorbed in our own thoughts.
"For Merlin's sake, who broke him?" one of the boys from Gryffindor joked in a low voice, trying to erase the tension in the room.
"That's why today I decided to show you how love, in the wrong hands, can be lethal. Before this class started, I prepared a special potion and I'll let you smell it. This potion is used to create a false idea of love in another person, it bewitches and absorbs. And for your own sake, I won't recommend you to use it with anyone. I expect everyone to know what potion I'm talking about."
Oh, no.
I swallowed hard because of how nervous I felt.
"Can someone tell me the name?"
I raised my hand, shyly and Snape nodded letting me speak.
"Amortentia, sir."