petrichor ☆ fred weasley

e i g h t e e n

January 7th, 1994

The Great Hall was full and bustling as the first school day of 1994 commenced. Persephone, who was dressed in her Hufflepuff robes, made her way through the crowds of excited students, eyes searching for a familiar face along her table. Eventually realising none of her friends had made it down for breakfast yet, she sat down by herself and poured herself a cup of her favourite tea. Taking a sip of the piping hot chamomile, she glanced up at the staff table, waving at her father who was caught in conversation with Professor Flitwick.

The first week of January had been rather uneventful, to say the least. Persephone had spent it mostly lying in bed with Klara whilst they ate half their body weight cauldron cakes, sneaking into hidden corridors with Fred, sneaking out of said corridors and then running back in them in order to avoid Cedric. The last was unusually easy, as he was avoiding her as well.

Tipping the contents of some cereal into a bowl, and pouring some milk on top from a larger silver goblet, Persephone began to flip through The Daily Prophet. Opening onto the second page, she grimaced as the deranged face of Sirius Black stared back at her. Feeling a shiver run down her spine at the sight of him, she turned the page immediately, coming instead onto a full page advert for Madame Puddifoot's Valentines Day Afternoon Tea.

"Hi Persi." said a figure as they sat down next to the girl.

Looking over, Persephone was faced with the smiling face of Neville Longbotttom. "Hi Neville! How were your holidays?"

Neville looked up with a straight lipped grin, "Gran made me go with her to Uncle Algie's house for a week over Christmas, which was terribly uneventful, but she told me to say hi to you and Remus."

Persephone smiled, and instinctively rose her hand to her cheek with the mention of Augusta Longbottom. Ever since she was a toddler, Mrs Longbottom had tightly squeezed her cheeks at the sight of her.

"Tell her that we say hi as well, and that we will come visit St Mungo's next break."

Neville nodded sadly, and she gripped his hand loosely in order to comfort him.

"I'm okay," he assured her with a poor attempt at a smile,  "I was just coming over to ask if you could help me quickly with Valarian? Sprout showed me the essay you had written on it in third year and said you might be able to help me with mine?"

Persephone nodded as she took the parchment from his hand that listed the details regarding the essay. "That shouldn't be a problem, i'm doing a Herbology essay tonight anyway, so ill be in the library after dinner studying if you wanted to join?"

"Nerds." muttered Fred, as he slipped in beside Persephone at the Hufflepuff table.

Leaning across so he had full access to her breakfast, he scooped up a spoonful of her CheeriOwl cereal, causing her hand to rise up and slap his lightly with a frown.

"Ignore him Neville, i'll see you later."

With a blush and a quick ramble of a goodbye, the short Gryffindor half ran - half shuffled to a seat at the Gryffindor table.

"That was your fault" mentioned Persi in a sing song voice, staring at Fred as he spread his toast with a thick layer of butter and raspberry jam.

He grunted, not looking up from his thick slice of sourdough. Clearly not a morning person.

Fred glanced up, his puffy and still sleepy eyes looking into her own awake ones, "We have defence with your Dad first, which should be good, he was banging around the common room at 3am looking for something for the lesson."