"NO. NO WAY. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN." Evelyn said defiantly, crossing her arms over her stomach and leaning back against the low stone wall that stood opposite to the three broomsticks.
"Oh come on Evie," George pleaded with her, waving the red scarf in his hand towards her, "We've been planning this game all week."
"I don't care," Evelyn shook her head. She could feel Lee glaring at her irritatedly and knew Max would not be pleased about her reaction, "You are not going to get me to wander around hogsmead wearing a blindfold."
"We're not going to leave you to fend for yourself, " Max clarified, "I'll be walking with you and Lee will go with Fred and the others will meet us at the hogs head."
"I don't understand why we can't just go to the hogs head now," Evelyn grumbled back, "Harry and his friends invited us to some kind of meeting - I don't want to be late. It would be rude."
"That's an awful excuse and you know it," Evelyn's gaze shifted to her left as Fred sat easily on the wall beside Evelyn, arm hooking around her waist, "stop being such a spoiled sport, love. It's just a blindfold. Max won't let you accidentally walk off of a cliff. Not that there are any cliffs around here to walk off of."
Evelyn stuck out her bottom lip and sighed. When Max had told her the first game of their final year would take place on a hogsmead weekend, she had hoped that the point of it would be to make sure the castle was quiet whilst they competed over some strange but amusing competition like usual. Instead, she'd been dragged out of bead far too early for a Saturday and directed into hogsmead village itself right at 10 o'clock in the morning only to be told that the master plan George, Lee, Max, Nikki and Ashton had come up with was for her and Fred to navigate the cobbled streets with their eyes covered. The only rule was that they must keep their blindfold on at all times. Other than that, they could use whatever means necessary to get to their destination: the hog's head. The winner would be the one who reached the strange little pub first.
Evelyn stared at Fred in his galaxy chocolate eyes and tried her best not to give in to his frustrating charm. But with the eyes of five others also bearing down on her, Evelyn found her stubbornness crumbling and she groaned, conceeding and turning around so that George could tie the gryffindor scarf securely over her eyes.
"Don't ask me how many fingers you're holding up," she deadpanned, standing slightly disorientated as darkness overtook her vision. She heard laughter, felt somebody - probably, no, hopefully, Fred - put a quick kiss on top of her head and then caught a whiff of bonfire smoke and cinnamon that told her it certainly had been him.
Moments later, Evelyn felt a hand - presumably Max's - wrap around her wrist and she clawed at the presence to try and ground herself in this new strange dimension. George had wrapped the scarf twice around her head, though the knit was so thick and close that no light would have been able to seep through even if he'd wrapped it only once. Evelyn was suddenly acutely aware of the breeze flapping against her cheeks and of how solid and safe the ground felt beneath her feet as she waited for further instruction. The sensation of nothingness was unpleasant and unnerving. Curse you, Fred Weasley. You and your annoyingly pretty eyes.
"Off you go then," George's voice cut through the darkness, muffled by the wool covering Evelyns ears, "and don't you two give them any directions."
Evelyn imagined that Max had saluted George before she guided Evelyn a few steps in what was presumably the right direction, only to be shouted at for breaking the rules already. After that, Evelyn stumbled aroujd, trying to navigate the street for about a minute until an idea popped explosively into her head. She reached up to her head and felt around for her wand in her hair, pulling it down as soon as her fingertips grazed it's handle.
"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.
|×××××××|×××××××|×××××××|
"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.