4 Months later...
Four months is a long time. It doesn't sound like it, but it is. In actuality, it's sixteen weeks which makes it sound even longer. Saying one hundred and twelve days, now that makes it sound extortionate.
They say when you lose somebody, regardless in which form this loss takes, you are taken through five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, and then proceeding this, you move on.
Simple right? Wrong.
These stages reflected superbly into my life the months that followed after the day Fred and I broke up, or at least I thought they did. The denial came easier than expected, the days I spent scanning over the notes he had written me, the sketches he slipped in my textbooks, all of it did not seem as though he could have disappeared as quickly as it did.
The anger was the easiest. It was there, boiling on the surface, I didn't have to search for it. And once I let it seep through, that first time I lost my composure, it bled out of me like a wound, and no amount of pressure was halting its rapid speed. Although I was angry at Fred, and god was I irrevocably angry at that boy, I was rather more angry at myself, that I had fallen for someone so fast. I suppose I was just tired of feeling alone. I never felt alone with him.
The bargaining was one I wasn't sure I had fulfilled until further reflection later on. But realising the suggestion of changing my name, altering my appearance and moving into the muggle world where I could be anyone I wanted, rid of the troubles my past brought in order to be with Fred, definitely completed the bargaining sector of these stages.
Then there was the depression. Not much of which I can actually recall. Each day melted into the next and the means of ordinary time had stretched beyond my understanding. Remus bringing me cups of tea, Sirius replacing them with whiskey, Harry holding me until I ran out of tears, the way the slither of light peaked out from below my closed blind and disappeared again the same time each day. It was all rather bleak. I was glad to be rid of it.
The acceptance was one I was thankful for. It took an inappropriately long time, but it came nonetheless, and I needed it. The pitiful state of the blue sky after the storm, but it was a blue sky regardless, despite the state mother nature had left it in.
I think it's important, however, to note that there was one very key stage over the past four months that was not officially factored in. Guilt.
At first I wasn't even sure who it was directed at, I just knew it was festering inside me, sumberging my brain and pushing it beyond coherency. Whether it came from the piles of unopened letters from George and Hermione that I had been neglecting, or the endless nights spent awake, with Harry, crying until I forgot how to function unless streams of burning tears were violently dragging down my cheeks, I knew the guilt was there.
It became easier to manage over time, and now it was virtually effortless, or so I told myself. Summer had practically passed, a mere week until September 1st, and it was becoming harder to conceal the ever growing fear of entering back into the wizarding world, something I had managed to avoid for sixteen weeks.
"Morning" Harry greeted, proceeding a knock on my bedroom door before he entered, a cup of tea in each hand and six chocolate digestives balancing their weight across the rim of the mug and his wrist.
"Morning, how did you sleep?" I smiled, grabbing three of the chocolate biscuits and one of the mugs, placing it on my mahogany desk where I was sat, pulling at my face, debating the notion of applying makeup.
"Yeah, alright" Harry shrugged monotonously, he was always rather dysfunctional before nine in the morning, "Where are we heading today? What are we crossing off our list?"
The first week back at Grimmauld Place, on a day Harry and I spent curled up under my duvet eating ice cream, Harry had suggested the we compile a list of things that we want to do together over the summer, a way to distract me from Fred I presume, a way to feel as though we are really living as opposed to just existing, a bucket list of sorts, expect no one was dying.
Draco, who was spending his entire summer attempting to avoid his mother and outrun any contact Lucuis was trying to have with him, had also contributed to list, helping us carry out some of our tasks, watching him in a supermarket self checkout will forever remain the best sight I have ever witnessed, and all the while him and Harry still claim to be "just friends"
I call bullshit.
"We, my sweet little brother, are going to the cinema" I beamed, slurping the last of my tea, and standing from my desk, neglecting to apply any makeup as I headed to my wardrobe.
"The cinema?" Harry gawked over a me, his jaw slack, "Two night ago we snuck into a nightclub and last weekend we got the train to Surrey and toilet papered the Dursley's, and you are telling me you want to spend what could be our last opportunity before we have to go to school, at the cinema?"
"Look, I have my reasons, now are you coming or not?" I chewed my bottom lip as I sifted through my wardrobe, locating a leather blazer and slipping over my shoulders.
Harry nodded, disappearing briefly and returning with one of Sirius jumpers pulled over his head, only further disheveling his shaggy locks, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. After a quick goodbye to Sirius and Remus, Harry and I were hand in hand skipping like giddy children down the road.
"How much further?" Harry questioned, stopping to tie his lace, a task he struggled with but pretended as though he didn't.
"There is an independent theatre just on this corner, they show old movies and stuff like that" I replied, motioning to the end of the street where a small, bright building was located, the smell of warm popcorn and sickly sweet slush already wafting through the thin, late-summer air.
Harry nodded, finished tying his lace, and proceeded to skip down the pavement, a silly grin spread across his cheeks, a grin I had grown rather accustomed too.
The building itself was an old-looking, antique structure, perhaps an old church or primary school, its worn brown brick had been painted over with thick layers of white and green, and the door had been replaced with those modern revolving ones they installed into posh hotels.
A large neon green sign shone, despite the invasion of daylight, that read "Screen on the green" and below it a list of films being shown that week. And as we stood outside studying the list, the smell of popcorn and sugar only intensified each time someone entered or left the building and the door opened for a brief moment, mingling the warm cinema air with that of outside.
"So, what are we watching?" Harry asked as I dragged him through the revolving door, both of us giggling as Harry suggested the image of Draco attempting to walk through one of them successfully.
"Only the best movie known to man" I giggled, walking up the desk and ordering two large buckets of popcorn, one sweet, one salted, a tub of cookie dough ice cream, an assortment bag of pick and mix, each flavour of slush they had and two tickets for 'Notting Hill'
"Notting Hill?" Harry protested as we began to take out seats in the cinema, the screen we had been allocated proving to be close to empty as we entered, "Doesn't that sound a bit girly to you?"
"Harry, love, you like to kiss boys, doesn't that sound a bit girly to you?" I sniggered, placing all the snacks on the floor as I got comfy, slipping my jacket over me like a blanket and kicking my shoes off.
"Touche" Harry responded with a guilty smile, following me in suit as he pulled off his jumper and began undoing his laces.
The lights in the cinema dimmed as the screen came to life, a large notice directed at the entire room, so essentially just Harry and I and an elderly couple in the front row, boomed from the speakers to remind us to silence our mobile phones, something I could guarantee not one of the four people currently occupying these seats possessed.
"Could you imagine dictating your whole life to an electronic square no bigger than your palm?" Harry whispered, gesturing to the image of a mobile phone on the screen with a giant red arrow through it.
"And that's any different from us doing that with wooden sticks?" I scoffed, and Harry stayed silent, he did that often, asked questions just to project them into the universe rather than actually unpacking them.
Soon, the movie began to roll, the beautiful face of Hugh Grant illuminating the screen, Harry's eyes beaming at the sight of him as I tried to stifle a snigger into my popcorn.
"Gorgeous, no?" I whispered below my breath, the sight of Notting Hill expanding over the screen, the streets of London so familiar and yet so distant.
"Godly" Harry stated without hesitation, his jaw hanging slightly as he felt around for a drink, his eyes transfixed to the screen.
We watched in comfortable silence, passing each other various snacks and giggling when we were supposed to, it was safe with Harry, it always was.
Although as the movie neared an end my mind began to wander, I willed any strength I had into dragging it back to the screen but with no success, and as Anna Scott stood in William Thacker's book shop, asking him to love her, I sat in the independent theatre and cried.
I could not halt the pools welling in my eyes, and just like the breaking of a dam, unstoppable streams of heated tears poured down my face and I struggled to swallow my rapidly beating heart. I hadn't even noticed I was chewing on my lip until a metal taste linered with that of salt on my tongue.
"Harry" I croaked, my throat raw and stained, but before I could say another word Harry already had stood up, his sounds and jumper back on and my boots in his hand, his other one lacing itself with mine as he directed me out the cinema.
The harsh and sudden intrusion of light as we stepped out of the screen room and into the corridor forced us both to let out an exaggerated groan as Harry sat us down on the floor against a wall, placing my shoes and jacket beside him as he took his hands in mine.
"You're okay Ari, I promise" He whispered, dropping his forehead against my own, his gentle breath mingling with mine as he took a steady breath that I tried to replicate, "It is going to be okay"
And there was that guilt again, hitting me with full force, and I was suddenly over aware of my surroundings. I sobbed brutally, sliding my head from Harry's, down to his shoulder so he could hold my shaking frame.
"Do you think-" I breathed heavily struggling to form a consistent sentence, my voice muffled into Harry's broad shoulder, "Do you think they hate me?"
"Do I think who hates you Ari?" Harry asked in concern, smoothing down my hair and rocking me gently.
"Everyone, Hermione, Ginny, Ron, Georgie, everyone. I haven't spoken to them in weeks, Fred might have left me, but I left them" And as these words left my lips, the true reasoning for my festering guilt had been understood, I hadn't even been able to comprehend it until then, but nonetheless, it made sense.
I had projected my biggest fear on the people I loved. I left.
"Ari, you almost died, and then you had your heartbroken, no one is holding this distance against you, it's what you needed" Harry assured me, his fingers now laced in my air as he stoked down the back of my neck, "No one blames you, do you hear me?"
I nodded into his chest, my breath having evened out and my eyes not so raw, my head felt unbearably heavy but somehow also drastically lighter, my body was always one large contradiction.
"Why don't we go and get some coffee at Norma's? There is nothing a hazelnut and cinnamon muffin can't fix" Harry suggested, lifting me up off the floor and passing me my boots that I began to lace up.
Norma's was a cafe on the corner of Diagon Alley that had been closed all summer for refurbishment but according to Remus had reopened earlier that week. And although I have avoided the wizarding world for one hundred and twelve days, I had to return at some point, better now than never.
What's the worst that could happen?
We headed back to Grimmauld Place and immediately used the floo network to head to Diagon Alley, a violent nausea stirring within me and we stepped out of the fireplace in The Leaky Caldron.
Beyond the pub was the Alley itself, the thought of which was drastically scarier than its reality. It was swarmed with the sweet giggles of first years collecting their supplies to start school on September 1st. The sweet smell of Florian Fortescue's wafted down the Alley, followed by gentle music that always seeped out from Madam Tartan's music shop.
I often forget that this Alley is a small piece of home.
"Norma's?" Harry asks, pulling me from my trance as I look at the new display in the window of Flourish and Blotts, "We can shop for books later"
I nodded and took Harry's hand, pulling him towards Gringotts but cutting down a side street towards the cafe just before the bank. The cobbled streets were uneven below my feet, enough so that I could feel it through my boots, but the pace of my skipping distracted from that.
"Fuck" I muttered, approaching Norma's to see each table occupied and a queue at least seventeen people long leading through the small cafe. But my worry proved obsolete as a gentle voice called from the front of the store.
"Ardelle my dear come in" Norma called in her warming tone from behind the counter, beaming at us as she gestured Harry and I into the cafe.
Norma was a friend of Remus's from before the war, she was in her late fifties but didn't appear a day over thirty-five, her long curly blonde locks were scraped into a nest on the top of her head, and despite the chaos of the shop, her bright blue eyes still help an optimistic spark.
"How have you been my dear? I haven't seen you in too long!" Norma squealed, as she absentmindedly handed over a coffee and muffin to a gentleman in front of the counter.
How have I been? Did she really want to go there?
"I've been a great Norm, thanks! We were just coming in for some-" And before I could even finish my sentence, two hazelnut and cinnamon muffins were sitting on the counter in front of us, and Norma wore a generous smile.
"Take them my dear" She insisted, placing a kiss on my head and squeezing Harry's shoulder, "I'll see you soon, yes?"
"Yes, definitely" I agreed with a beaming grin, before walking out of the cafe, the cool air of the street a vast contrast to the heat of the overrun cafe, Harry and I both sighing, thankful to be back in the sharper air.
"Want to walk?" Harry asked, already peeling the wrapping off of his muffin and tossing it into a nearby rubbish bin, I followed in suit. I nodded and we began to walk.
We chuckled about nothing, making pointless jokes and eating, the street lamps starting to power up as the sun began to dim and the light of the day escaped us. The moon was awfully full, but not quite whole. Harry and I both cursed it simultaneously, sticking our middle fingers to the sky, before erupting into fits of laughter.
Soon we approached a street I wasn't sure I had seen before, it felt disconnected from my memory and somehow faintly familiar all the while. A couple quick glances was enough to bring it back, the relatively empty street, the one with very few open shops around, and even fewer people.
And there it was, the tall building, situated on the corner of the street, the one that once appeared rundown, that seemingly went without notice no longer appeared to lack promise.
The window frames were painted a vibrant orange, masking the once washed out navy, although the windows were still covered in thick sheets of dust, so heavy that they muted any light that could have spilled inside of the shop.
Half of the bricks were still a shade muted purple where the painting had not yet been completed, whilst the other half, that half that had been painted, was a shade of magenta that complemented the orange pleasantly.
Boxes upon boxes were stacked around the doorstep, and the front door was wide open, a dim and rather depressing light hanging in the centre of the doorway, barely illuminating the room.
I knew what this was, I knew what I was looking at.
The underdog.
I still remember that day, as though it was seemingly yesterday...
"We have thought of opening a joke shop for a while now, even though the odds are stacked against us, but we figured if we are really going to do this, might as well give this underdog it's best chance too, even if the odds have forever been stacked against it"
"Fred" I hummed, my heart practically swelling as I caught a glimpse of his expression. Passion and drive had ignited within those beautifully amber eyes and the pride was visibly swept across his features, he looked genuinely happy.
"What do you think?" He asked, in an almost desperate tone.
"I think you're crazy," I admitted with a lighthearted chuckle. "But it's perfect, this shop is going to make a hell of a lot of people smile"
...They did it, they really went and fucking did it.
"Weasleys Wizard Wheezes" I hummed, staring at the orange and purple building, the moon light illuminating the windows of the apartment above where a shadow was moving objects across the room.
"Yeah" Harry smiled, "Ron mentioned this to me about this place, how do you know its name?"
"Fred might have mentioned it one time" I smiled, my eyes trailing a moving figure in the top window. And for the first time in the longest four months of my life, I had thought of Fred as nothing more than a happy memory, and I was finally okay with that.
"Oi, we need to get these boxes inside before-" A voice called from within the shop.
Four months. Or sixteen weeks. Or one hundred and twelve days. That's how long it had been since I had heard that voice. The husky and gravelly draw, it was thicker now, he was tired. It was smooth in the air and almost echoed through the quiet moonlit sky.
And then I saw him. He stood in the doorway, stopping immediately his tracks and his sentence hanging openly as he saw me.
His shoulders were broader than I remembered, his muscular arms still pressed against the fabric of his form fitting t-shirt, one he knew was slightly too small but used when he knew he would get messy, in this case the front splattered in purple paint.
He had grown out his hair as it now flopped over his eyes, longer enough that he could have tucked it behind his ear. His jaw was just as sculpted and strong as it had always been, his angular features catching the illumination of the moon so perfectly.
His eyes caught mine. God I have missed those eyes. The pools of honey, sweet and captivating, set beautifully against his auburn lashes. Swimming with something indecipherable, and somehow I could read him more freely than any book I ever held in my hands.
And round his neck, my locket.
Nothing had ever felt more like home in that moment, because Fred Weasley was home. Our current relationship however, beautifully juxtaposed the last time we stood here, just a boy with a vision and a girl in love. Now a boy with a reality, and a girl still very much in love.
"Hey there"
And just like that, four months didn't seem so long anymore.