• • •
you make me hard
but she makes me weak
• • •
"Are you sure you want to go in alone?" George asked bitterly, standing before the doors and blocking Rose from her path.
"Did I come with you when you broke up with Annie?" Rose snapped back quietly, twisting her ring over and over again.
George sighed, lovingly putting a hand in her shoulder. "Please, try not to make me choose," George whispered -almost begged- as he hugged one of his best friends.
"Don't worry," Rose smiled, pulling back and clearing her throat. "You won't have to." With that, the young Gryffindor walked past George and inside the hospital wing where her boyfriend was being kept.
She walked as slowly as she could, careful not to make a lot of noise and wake up somebody else. Finally, she found his bed thanks to the flaming red hair peeking from under the covers. Rose settled herself in the chair beside his bed, putting her bag in the floor and taking a deep breath before patting his arm.
He jerked awake, ripping the covers away from his face; eager eyes greeted her before morphing into hurt, betrayed, dark brown eyes. "It's you," he said, too quietly she almost didn't hear him. "Didn't think you'd come."
"I'm your girlfriend, Fred," she answered, but even she didn't believe her own words. "Of course, I would come." She waited for him to nod before she continued. "What do you remember?"
"Not much, honestly," he shrugged, sitting up in his bed. "George and I were on our way to the kitchens, and they come out of nowhere and started hexing my arse."
"Nothing else?" she pushed, her nervous fingers not dethatching themselves from her ring. "Did they say something?"
Fred's face was flushed with rage before he painfully concealed it with indifference. "Just one thing," he muttered, leaving her in doubt. Rose didn't say anything else, instead she urged him to continue. "It's nothing-"
"Are you sure?" Rose interrupted him, her neck flushing from anger and hurt. "Are you sure it's nothing?"
"Rosie-"
"No more lies," she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest and fixing her posture. "We promised."
Rose wasn't sure if she got through him, he looked about ready to convince her that whatever Adrian and Avalon had said wasn't important; but after a five-second stare down, he sighed.
"You already know what they said, don't you?" He muttered, his voice broken as he looked up at her eyes. She nodded, sinking deeper into her chair. "I-"
"You shagged Angelina," she interrupted quietly, nodding, her voice emotionless, but she feared the way her throat began to lock up.
"What?" he spluttered, sitting straighter in the bed. Surprised, Rose looked up, a spark of hope erupting in her chest by the way his face seemed to contour in alarm. "No, Rose, it wasn't like that!"
The spark of hope that began to flutter in her chest died down, leaving panic in its wake. She focused; his heart was hammering way too loud for her like. "What happened? Tell me everything." He debated again, his eyes said it all. "Please."
"When we first started dating, everything was great," he said, his voice wistful as he spoke, as if he was remembering a really happy time in his life. "But then you got bit..."
If she was honest, it felt like she was being pushed to the ground by a Hippogriff. Her skin suddenly went numb and cold sweat began to trail down her neck. Involuntarily, she scratched the scar that ran down her torso, just above her tattoo.
"And something changed," he continued. Fred was no longer looking at her, instead, he was looking down at his hands as they curled the duvet. "You were serious and cold; I didn't know why, but you got better. Then Harry got into the tournament, and suddenly it felt as if you weren't my girlfriend at all. If you weren't with Harry, you were with Cedric, if you weren't with either of them you were with your cousins. I tried to pretend everything was alright, Rose, I really did."
"But it wasn't," she ended his sentence, urging the tears to stay inside her eyes.
"You were gone," he said, yet again, not looking into her eyes but Rose sensed the way his voice started to gain a little more confidence. "And I had my own shit going on; do you know mum doesn't speak to me anymore?"
Rose looked up, surprised, her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped. "No, I didn't," she meant to say something else, but no words left her mouth.
"Well Angelina did," he snapped, Rose glared at his eyes even harder. "Because she asked."
"Is that your problem?" Rose huffed, clenching her fist tight. "That I didn't bloody ask?"
"My problem is that we're supposed to be there for each other," he clarified, it didn't make her feel better. "And you weren't."
Rose nodded, taking a deep breath and looking up at the ceiling. "Remember that time I hexed you for insulting me?"
"Yes?" he answered, perplexed as to why she would bring up that topic.
"That was the day I knew we would never work out," Rose admitted, looking back at his face. "That was the day I knew there would always be someone else."
"There won't be someone else," Fred stated, lifting his shirt over his waist and pointed at the words that were tattooed on his hip. "I've got this for the rest of my life; that means I've got you with me for the rest of my life."
Rose admired the words, she fantasised that everything would work out, but her heart was set. "We're already broken up," she declared, biting her lip to focus her mind on something else other than the stinging of her eyes. "I won't pretend otherwise; I just came here to tell you that my family will always come first to me, and right now, that includes the Morgenstern's and Adrian."
She stood from her chair and turned on her heel when she gathered her bag, only to be stopped by Fred's voice.
"What if I don't find someone else?" he wondered, pain clear in his voice. "What if it's only you."
"You should've thought about that before you fooled around with Angelina," she shrugged.
"Will you?" He stopped her again. "Will you find someone else?"
Her heart didn't skip a beat and her insides didn't run cold, instead, a soft smile played on her lips. "Sometimes I think I already have."