"Yeah, sure," I said with a smile before leaning in and quietly saying, "I was looking for an excuse to take a break anyways". They both nodded and I said, "Let me just grab a sweater real quick and then we can go".
I quickly walked over to the closet and grabbed George's sweater again before walking out and shrugging at Hermione and Ginnys questioning looks. I didn't know why they wanted to go on a walk, but I wasn't going to question a break from reading about all the different kinds of potions that can be used with animals.
"Is something wrong?" I asked both Fred and George once I closed the door behind me. I had realised that I didn't really know why we were leaving or where we were going.
"No, not at all," George assured me. "We just thought that we could all use some fresh air".
"And we have something that we kind of want to talk to you about," Fred said, resulting in a 'shut up' look from George.
"What?" I asked in a worried voice. Whenever someone wanted to 'talk' to me about something, normally something was wrong.
"No, no, it's nothing," George reassured me again.
"You guys are making me nervous," I said with an anxious chuckle.
"Don't be, Freds just being weird," George said.
I looked at both of them with questioning looks before shrugging my shoulders and rambling on about one of the tests that I was studying for as we walked through the castle, both of them listening intently to my stupid retelling of what I had learned and both of them looking at me fondly as they did so.
We walked through the hall until we reached one of the back doors (that was technically only supposed to be used in emergencies), which opened out to behind the castle. Fred walked out in front of me and held the door open, and when I walked out into the dark night a brisk gush of air hit me and I wrapped my arms around myself. It was the time of year right before it would begin to snow, which meant it was extra cold except without the pretty white dusting all over the school.
"Do you want another sweater?" Fred asked when he saw me shiver, already starting to take his off.
"No, no," I said while reaching my hand out to stop his, "I'm fine. It was just the wind".
"You sure?" He asked in a worried tone.
"Yeah," I chuckled.
George walked out behind me and they began to walk straight ahead.
"Are we going somewhere in particular?" I asked.
"Yeah we thought that we'd head over to the lake," George said.
"Isn't that like really far over there?" I asked while gesturing over by where Ginny and Hermione and I looked over it on our picnic.
"No, there's the little bay over here," Fred said.
We walked in a comfortable silence, the only things to be heard being the wind whistling and rushing through the leaves of the magical forest, and the sound of our own feet walking leisurely through the grass. They were on either side of me, my arms brushing with one of theirs with almost every step that I took. It was really peaceful, and I just watched our feet as we walked, barely being able to see them as it had gotten so dark outside.
When I looked up, we were approaching a little sandy area that sat right in front of a little body of water that opened up into the larger lake further out. I was pretty sure that this was the place where Harry fought all of those dementors with Sirius, but it looked a lot prettier than I imagined. Probably because there weren't a million death machines flying through the air to eat my soul.
"Woah, this is pretty," I said in awe. The moon sat directly atop the lake from our view, and it created a reflected line that sat on top of the little lake and ran all the way out to as far as we could see of the Great Lake. It was truly peaceful at this time of the night; it was silent and only lit up by the moonlight. I took a deep breath and appreciated the moment of peace in comparison to all of the stress that had been whirring around my head those past few days.
"Just like you," Fred said from the side of me. I looked up at him, ready to hit him for his teasing, but from what I could see of his dimly lit face - he wasn't joking around.
We held eye contact for a long moment, and before I knew what was even happening, he was leaning down and closing his eyes before softly pressing his lips against mine.
I closed my eyes and let his lips brush against mine before I realised what was happening and the confusion hit. I placed my hand and pushed against his chest, not very hard but strong enough to push myself backwards and off of him, resulting in me bumping into George's chest. I stepped away from George and looked at Fred with a confused look, portraying how utterly bewildered I was.
"What- you- I um". I couldn't even get a full sentence out.
"I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it," Fred said while scratching the back of his neck. "That's what we wanted to talk to you about".
"We?" I asked, turning to look at George with an even more confused look. He just nodded at me.
"You both - both of you?" I asked, still way too confused for my own good.
"Yeah," Fred said. "I know it's a lot, we just really wanted to tell you that we both like you".
"Really like you," George added.
"Both of you?" I asked, still in disbelief.
"Yeah," Fred said.
How could both of them like me? There were two of them. Two. How the hell would that work? They were brothers. Brothers!
"Like me?".
"Yeah," they both said at the same time.
"And just with the holidays coming up and the dance, we were just wondering if you-"
"Both of you?" I asked again, interrupting him.
Even if it was fine that there were two of them, and that they were brothers, I didn't even know if I liked them. After all of the bugging from Hermione and Ginny, I always shut down the idea. I loved them so much, but I had never considered the idea of being with them in that way.
They both nodded. "I mean, it's been for a pretty long time. We always kind of talked about how sweet and cute you were but this year we both started to have much stronger feelings, like scary strong," George said, chuckling a bit at the end.
Fred nodded and said, "And we both like you way too much for just one of us-"
"You guys," I interrupted him. "You guys, I- I just- I can't, I'm sorry. I just-" I didn't know what to say. I took a couple of steps back from them, heading back towards the castle. "I'm sorry, I'm just- I'm so sorry," I said before turning around, pulling out my wand and murmuring 'lumus', and quickly speeding back to the castle, not being able to bring myself to turn around to see the two heartbroken boys that I left behind me.
Oh god, I thought to myself. Oh god, oh god, oh god.
I loved them. They were two of my best friends and I had no idea what I would do if I lost them. They were hilarious and so much fun to be around, but they also always treated me so well. They were so sweet to me, always treating me as if I deserved the world.
Oh god, I thought to myself again. What if they stop treating me like that? People always say that they treat me differently, is that only because they have feelings for me? Is that going to stop? Was it all fake?
Tears streamed down my face as my walk back to the main entrance of the castle turned into a run. I was so confused, and so scared of losing my best friends.
If I had known about their feelings, I wouldn't have acted the way that I did with them. I realised that I had probably led them on by accident by mistaking their real flirting as jokes and returning the same energy.
This is all my fault. I'm so stupid. This is all my fault.
I approached the entrance and tried to take a deep breath to halt the sobs from escaping my body. I was scared to lose Fred and George and I felt horrible for hurting them. I just overall felt drained and confused, and I just wanted to get back to my room and go to sleep, hoping that I would wake up and that this would all be a dream.
I managed to take a deep breath, rub my face of any tears and hope that I looked presentable enough to keep my head down and make it back to my room without any interactions.
Somehow, I made it up to my room without any issues. Curfew was approaching and this was also valuable studying time, so not that many students were out in the hall. When I reached my door, I took an extra deep and shaky breath and made myself put on my best 'I didn't just get confessed to by two of my best friends and I'm not terrified that I'm going to lose them' smile for practice. I took one more breath and opened the door.
"How was the walk?" Hermione asked in the middle of writing something down.
"Good, i'm going to take a shower," I said in a surprisingly steady and casual voice.
They both nodded and I made it into the bathroom, releasing another shaky breath once the door shut behind me.
I turned on the shower and stripped off my clothes, stepping into the stream of water once I adjusted it to the right temperature.
I let the water run through my hair, thoroughly soaking it, before wiping my face of water and letting it run down my back.
A million questions ran through my mind, I couldn't even pick out one to think about.
Do I like them back?
What does this mean?
How long has it been like this?
Can I tell Hermione and Ginny?
That one I knew was probably a no. They were both Ginny's brothers and I didn't know if they wanted people knowing. I had done enough hurt to them tonight, I could at least keep this information in and not create any more awkwardness for them with their other friends.
I had let a few more tears stream down my face and join the water on the floor before I forced myself to stop crying. I was not the one who was supposed to be crying. I took a deep breath and rubbed my eyes, trying to wrap my mind around what this all meant.
I hoped that we could act somewhat normal around each other the next day, but I also knew that I probably needed to talk to them. There was no way that I was going to leave them with my stupid 'i'm sorry I can't'. I knew that it was an idiodic response and I wanted to hit myself for it, but I was overwhelmed and confused at the moment.
I needed to actually think about what I wanted to say to them, and I needed to pray to Merlin that they would still stay my friends. I knew that it was selfish to hope that they would continue to be friends with me after I shut them down, but I couldn't lose them. I couldn't.
I just hoped that I wouldn't.
I shut off the water, not having actually washed my hair with shampoo and conditioner because I didn't have the effort to. I stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around myself and stepped out of the room and into the closet.
I threw on a pair of underwear and a t-shirt and left the room, immediately jumping into my bed.
"Are you going to sleep?" Ginny asked.
"Mmm," I groaned into the pillow.
Ginny took the little desk lamp that lit up the room and angled it so that it was facing the opposite wall of me, leaving my side of the room darker.
I had wanted to think some more about what I needed to do about the twins, but once I was engulfed in my comforter and my head hit the pillow, I immediately began to fall into a deep sleep.
My mind had been racing for the last half hour, and now it was completely drained of any thoughts. I would just have to hope that I could fix this the next day.
A/N you guys please don't be mad I promise that it will get better soon <3