12:04 AM 24/02/1995
.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。.
WHEN JOEY ATTLEE LAUGHS, she laughs magnificently. In fact Joey's laugh captures hearts: whole and ringing and louder than war.
Lola Lemont, meanwhile, does not laugh at all (unless your name is Lee Jordan, perhaps, and even then a smile only dances on her lips very rarely). The night before the Second Task is, therefore, no different; as Joey and the Weasleys enter an almost-empty common room, a breath after midnight, Lola simply looks up from her Astronomy essay and eyes the three howling redheads with curiosity and suspicion.
'What have you done this time, or do I not wish to know?' she says.
'We just Transfigured all the frogs in the Great Lake into - into Chocolate Frogs!' wheezes George.
Lee sniggers delightedly, leaning forward from his seat curled up next to his girlfriend to high-five the three in turn. 'Bloody brilliant!'
'I cannot tell if you are genius or brain-dead,' says Lola, rolling her eyes to disguise her amusement.
'Excuse me, we're fucking iconic.'
'That's 'cause of your tragic lack of creativity as a Scorpio, Lols,' says Joey, her laughter finally subsiding.
Lola rolls her eyes again before returning to her essay. 'I don't get why you believe all that bollocks Joe,' says Lee.
'You're just salty 'cause I said you're most likely to die by stepping on a banana skin 'cause you're a Leo.'
'Death by banana skin wouldn't be too bad,' says Fred. 'Great conversation starter at the funeral.'
George's head bounces up and down in agreement. 'I agree. There are worse ways to go, like seeing a massive fuck-off snake that lives in a loo.'
All four heads turn to Joey. She crosses her arms sulkily, because just for once she wishes they'd stop insulting her about the fact that she got Petrified - well, in the bath. It surely isn't her fault that she was preoccupied making her rubber ducks dance in the bathwater! 'You won't let me forget that, will you?'
Simultaneously both twins lean forward and ruffle her hair. 'Never.'
'Do you think Salazar Slytherin was bald?' she asks suddenly.
George frowns. 'Why mate?'
'Well, everybody always talks about the heir of Slytherin, but nobody ever bothers to mention the hair of Slytherin!'
'Brilliant.'
Lola swears loudly in Welsh. 'That is the worst thing I have ever heard.'
'If I die on a banana skin and die tonight, Joe, I'll die contented knowing I heard you ask that.'
'Well, it's a serious question! Do you think the four founders had pamper parties? Like, can you imagine Slytherin and Gryffindor making friendship bracelets? Merlin, let's all make friendship bracelets!'
'I would rather perish,' says Lola melodramatically.
'That can be arranged,' mutters Fred.
Joey pokes him warningly in the cheek. 'Fred, behave.'
A Muggle-born on arrival at Hogwarts, it was rather unfortunate that Joey had been blissfully unaware of the heated blood rivalries that had plagued the magical world for centuries. It was also rather unfortunate that she befriended, unknowingly, perhaps the pettiest of rivals on her first day at the school: Fred and Lola, who hailed from the Most Upright (or as Fred liked to call it, Most Shite) and Majestic House of Lemont.
But friends that argue together stay together, right? Even if Fred's favourite motto is, When life gives you Lemonts, tell both the Lemonts and life to go suck Merlin's left tit.
(He has a way with words, does her Weasley!)
Besides, it's not like Lola's the worst Lemont. A shiver flickers down Joey's spine as her mind wanders to Linden Lemont - who, for the record, should never be mentioned around Lola by anybody who is particularly fond of their head.
Joey's so engrossed in deciding what colours she'll make Lola's friendship bracelet that she doesn't even notice the rest of their party have sauntered up to bed, Lee, George and Lola bickering furiously about who needs the most 'beauty sleep'.
That is, until Fred nudges her playfully and sings, 'Just the two of us!'
Joey snorts. 'I regret the day I ever introduced you to Muggle music.'
'And Muggle films,' he says, laughing. 'Remember when I made you watch Dirty Dancing six times in a row?'
'And you cried every single time,' she reminisces, smiling into the dying embers of the fire.
'I wasn't crying, I just had ... something in my eye.'
'Six times?'
'Are you going back to your common room tonight?' he asks out of nowhere.
She shakes her head. Fred says nothing, just jumps off the sofa and strides up the staircase to his dormitory, slamming the door behind him.
At first Joey's stunned, staring at the unassuming door as if he'll somehow materialise again. Then it begins to rise up in waves, cascading over her in a way she rarely feels nowadays: hurt, hand-in-hand with anger, with a little bit of confusion thrown in too for good measure.
OK, OK, so she knew her fake relationship with him was exactly that; fake, an elaborately-woven facade that against her better judgement even she'd wanted to start believing. Could you really blame her when he'd started telling everybody who'd listen and even people who wouldn't that they were dating (which they weren't)? Isn't it easy to be seduced by a lie when he's saying to amused professors that they were already debating baby names (which, for the record, they definitely weren't)?
Besides, all her hopes are utterly, unequivocally squashed after the briefest of reminders of what he did at the Yule Ball. What he did to her. Still, stone-cold sobriety after being intoxicated on a fantasy is never fucking pleasant.
'Incendio.' Joey bathes in the glow of the dozing fire, trying to coax flames in the grate. They roar into life like soldiers called to arms, swathing their menacing shadows over the ceiling, throwing him completely into darkness as he stands above her clutching his quilt with both hands.
'Good idea,' he says, 'I don't want us getting frostbite.'
She turns, stunned, at the sound of his voice and surveys him, glowing in the light from the revived flames, his voice warming her insides more than any fire she can conjure. 'I thought you'd gone to bed, Weasley.'
'And leave my girlfriend freezing to death down here? That simply wouldn't do, Attlee!'
At his use of the word girlfriend her heart ricochets - seriously, not to be dramatic or anything, but she almost feels her world tilt a little on its axis. Pretending not to notice, she seizes his quilt and wraps herself up in his honey scent.
'Oi, I'm freezing my tits off here!' he says, tugging at the quilt. 'Gimme.'
Joey flashes him a devilish grin and leaps off the sofa. 'Come get it!' she taunts, running around the common room as fast as she can manage, which is quite an impossible feat considering the fabric's tangling up around her ankles.
He seizes his best mate around the waist and carries her back to the fireside sofa, both of them snorting with laughter.
'Are you nervous about the task today, Joeypoos?'
She shrugs and he catches her shoulders, pulling her into him with a confidence that surprises both of them. His mouth gliding over the back of her neck, making the silky hairs stand on end like battalions rising.
'Mmmmm. Harry'll be fine.'
'You know I didn't mean Harry.'
'I'm just scared... I know I haven't talked to him for ages, but Ced's not, like, as strong as people think.'
'Joey, he's made of tough stuff. And so are you. Trust the never-failing wisdom of your best mate on this one.'
She's never believed words are weapons, but his casual mate stabs her in the heart, puncturing her inflating hope. They would always be friends - could never be anything more - and hadn't she spent the last five years trying to accept that? Shouldn't it have ceased stinging now?
Of course it hadn't. It was unrequited love. Pain was the whole point.
'You, the creator of a Canary Cream, want to be seen as wise?'
It amazes Joey how her voice doesn't even wobble; how strength can come and stay in such moments when her heart threatens to shatter into crystals of glass.
Feeling the heartache squeeze her gut in an iron-hard clench, she reluctantly shifts away from Fred on the sofa - but he suddenly, desperately, grabs her wrist and clutches it like a lifeline.
'Please don't go,' he whispers. She's never imagined the abrasive, caustic Fred Weasley could ever sound vulnerable, but right now his voice is as frail as china.
'Why not?' she asks, intrigued. And, admittedly, smirking.
'I'm - I'm afraid of the dark.'
She splutters with laughter, unable to catch the snigger as it falls from her lips. 'You're joking.'
'I'm being serious!'
'You? Being serious? You're yanking my wand.'
'Oooo, I love it when you talk dirty.'
Joey blushes ferociously as she settles back into his arms. In his arms, everything is just a bad dream. In his arms, Matthew, her argument with Cedric, the coldness of her childhood dissipate as he breathes his life into her skin, tickling, but effortlessly loosening all the knots Joey's nerves have tied themselves in. And he doesn't even bloody know it.
Fred and Joey drift in and out of consciousness throughout the remaining hours of the morning, clinging onto each other in the waking moments and sinking into each other in the slumber. Joey, guarding him from the ink black darkness of the room and Fred unknowingly protecting her from something far more deadly: the loveless life that's threatened to diminish her light on so many occasions.
A few long hours later, the sun melts dreamily into the common room like candle wax, bringing Minerva McGonagall with it. As the formidable professor gazes down at the two teenagers, wrapped protectively around each other, all her sternness ebbs away and she's astonished by the young Hufflepuff's capacity to love.
It is, of course, a miracle - after all that she's been through.
'Mr Weasley,' she says softly, shaking Fred awake. 'Please wake up your twin and follow me to Dumbledore's office.'
'Wha?' grunts Fred. Then his fingers tighten on the shoulder of the girl whose tangled hair has tumbled beautifully over his face.
'I'm not leaving Joey, Professor. She's nervous and I want to look out for her.'
'Attlee will be fine, Mr Weasley.'
'Bu-'
'No buts, Weasley!'
'Killjoy,' mutters Fred, giving Joey's hand a swift squeeze before begrudgingly letting go.
WHEN JOHANNAH WAKES UP TO LOLA shaking her vigorously, she thinks last night must have been a dream.
'Wheresfredgone,' she mumbles, fingers clawing helpless through the empty air for her redheaded refuge.
'Not here,' says Lola, yanking Joey to her feet. Her hair is a brilliant auburn mane, flowing magnificently around her shoulders like a Gryffindor lion. 'We have to go or else we will be late. Surely you want to see your charming friend Diggory before?'
'Before what?'
'Before the Task, twmffat.'
She may as well have slapped Joey in the face. Cursing loudly, the Hufflepuff seizes her wand and stumbles out of the portrait hole, head spinning, heart racing, bedhead billowing out behind her.
Joey's barely talked to Cedric over the past month, every forced exchange leaving a bitter aftertaste, the sugar of all their serene Sundays together turned sour and vile. The word 'pushover' had fallen flippantly from his lips, but it had still fallen, and that was all it took for all her memories of Matthew to come flooding back unwanted.
But she still loves him, ferocious and fearlessly, like a brother, so as she arrives at the Great Lake she flings her arms around his muscly shoulders and promises to never let go.
She let go to a boy she revered like this once - and she will never do it again.
'I'm so sorry,' they both say in synchrony into each other's hair.
'I never thought you'd speak to me again,' Cedric admits, 'and Merlin's pants, Jojo, I would have deserved it!'
Joey beams, a slice of sunshine that's mirrored across his own features. 'You're not exhibiting the intelligence Hufflepuff House is known for! I'll be friends with you always. Even if you do think I'm a pushover.'
'Well you probably think I'm bigheaded, so...'
'I think your head is normal size.' She stands up on her tiptoes and plants a kiss on his cheek. 'If you don't stay safe down there Mr Diggory, I'll kill you with my own hands!'
He grins back at her as he leaves, throwing his palms up in jokey surrender. 'I'll stay safe Jojo, don't you worry! I'm a Hufflepuff, it's what we do.'
Then he's gone, eaten up by the crowds and the water.
It's hell, waiting for him. Waiting without Fred and George, who she'd guaranteed on being there to calm her down... where the hippogriffs were they? The Lake has claimed the boy she loves as a brother and is taunting her about it, and quite frankly, she's in dire need of a laugh! Joey would have murdered someone - if she was of a more venomous disposition, or perhaps if her name was Lola - just to see George's big toe right now.
'Why aren't they here? They said they'd be here!'
Lee eyes her anxiously. 'Joe, if I tell you something do you promise you won't jinx me to death?'
'Of course not Lee! Who do you think I am, Lola?'
'Well,' Lee begins, fidgeting awkwardly, 'I may or may not have overheard McGonagall telling the twins this morning that they would be Diggory's underwater bounty.'
'Oh my Merlin, what if they're drowned forever? WHAT IF THE GIANT SQUID EATS THEM?'
'No doubt that would make life more pleasurable,' mutters Lola, seizing Joey's shoulders. 'Calm down. Go to your happy place; you are a Hufflepuff, you must believe in all that cachu.'
'Imagine a party,' pipes up Lee. 'Imagine sunshine and cake and balloons and-'
'MY BOYFRIEND AND MY BEST FRIENDS COULD BE DROWNING AND YOU WANT ME TO THINK ABOUT LITTLE BOMBS OF HELIUM THAT CAN EXPLODE AT ANY TIME? HOW IN THE NAME OF HELGA HUFFLEPUFF IS THAT MEANT TO CALM ME DOWN LEE?'
Lola and Lee share a mischievous glance and briefly, briefly, Joey observes the love children dream about etched wholly on their faces; a love conjured up in fairytales at firesides, saved for those who treat passion as though it's criminal, both tenderly and with fury.
Love that she has never ever known.
'Attlee, did you just call him your boyfriend?'
Joey's willing to bet an immeasurable amount of Galleons that her freckled cheeks are now painted a furious shade of fucking tomato. 'I meant my fake boyfriend, obviously!' she hisses - but it's too little, too late.
She guesses the damage is already bloomin' done, yikes!
'Well,' says a smirking Lee, pointing at the water, 'here comes Cedric with your beloved!'
Sure enough, rising triumphant from the Lake, dripping and to die for, is her Poseidon - clutching the Weasley twins, no less. Overjoyed, she shoves her way through the crowds to drag them out of the water's dangerous depths, even if they are soaking and strewn with seaweed and a little smelly.
Fred emits a guttural groan at the sight of her, tears of joy flowering on her cheeks, and tackles her into a bear hug, George soon behind. Feeling their water seep through her clothes like blood and not giving a flying Filch. 'I was worried sick!' she yells, muffled, into George's hair - or is it Fred's?
'Well, it was alright for you!' cries George.
'Yeah!' agrees Fred. 'You didn't have to worry if you'd be drowned forever! And you didn't have to be a fucking damsel in distress!'
'Oh, I dunno,' sniggers Joey. 'I think you've suited that role excellently.'
'So when are you gonna admit you're obsessed with us, Diggory?'
'Yeah, we completely understand if you are. Must be our charm!'
She grins at their teasing and turns to Cedric, seizing him tight just to feel his frantic butterfly heart still thrashing from adrenaline, so fast it's as if it'll never cease.
'Do you understand why it was them, that I had to rescue?' he asks Joey earnestly. 'You're my best friend, and they're the most important people in your life.' He runs a hand, almost sheepish, through his tousled hair. 'Just tell him that you bloody love him, will you?'
'Why?'
Cedric smirked. 'Because as soon as we got out of the water, he was begging we find you. Asking if I'd seen you this morning, if you were OK.'
As for her own heartbeat, well, it might have stopped beating at this revelation - she couldn't possibly say!
Joey attacks her champion one last time in one last bear hug before leaving him to the mercy of a worried-sick Roger Davies. She weaves her way through the roaring crowd to find Fred and George basking in its glory, taking ridiculous exaggerated bows.
'You two are so embarrassing!'
'Admit it, you'd have missed us if we drowned,' says George.
She rolls her eyes. 'Flippin' obviously.'
Fred smirks, his stupid grin that she absolutely, definitely does not adore emblazoned across his stupid face that she absolutely, definitely does not adore. 'You'll be pleased to hear that I didn't get seduced by any of the mermaids down there.'
A smile plays at the corner of her lips. 'Oh yeah? And why, Weasley, should I be pleased to hear that?'
'Oh, y'know, Attlee,' he says dismissively, waving his hand through the air and then catching hers with it, as if it's second nature to him, like breathing, 'I just thought you might find it interesting to know.'
You could bet both your Bludgers that she bloody well did!
.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。.
A/N:
guess who's back, back again— ur fave gingers with a serving of sassy lola and a sprinkle of sweet cedric for good measure:))
hope ur all doing well ! thanks for reading this chap even if it was a lil belligerent <3333
lots & lots of love, nolan x
—24/7/2020