Catch Me, I'm Falling | Fred Weasley

Chapter 4

A confident girl with an easy smile strode up and introduced herself first.

"Hi! I don't think our first meeting went very well. Let's try again. I'm Naomy," her springy coils danced over her shoulders as she reached her hand out. Olivia gave a weak smile and shook it.

"Over there is Cho and Marietta," she continued, pointing to the wiry redhead and a well-built girl with black hair in a sleek ponytail who were walking towards her.

Cho, the girl with the ponytail waved. "Hello there. You must be Olivia Sparks. Strix told us about you. We're your dormmates. It's nice to see you awake. Yeh gave us quite the scare earlier,"

Marietta's brows furrowed. "Sparks. I've heard that name before."

Naomy's eyes widened. "Are you related to Jasper Locke by any chance?" she questioned, suddenly much more interested.

"Ugh, yes. He's my cousin. A right git he is," Olivia cocked a smile and shrugged.

"Well forget that. He's the hottest boy in Slytherin," Naomy breathed.

"The girls are all over him. He's not the... obedient type, but he sure is good-looking," Marietta added.

Cho's eyes sparkled. "You'll just have to introduce us, then."

With that, the girls swept her away and off towards the Ravenclaw dormitories. The candlelight flickered, illuminating the hallway as their shoes clacked on the stone floor. It was a chilly night, but Olivia found herself grateful for the cooling breeze. Her cheeks were warm and she was almost breathless from the endless chatter. After peppering her with questions, however, the girls began chatting among themselves about new classes.

Olivia was glad for the moment to process her thoughts. After waking up to a world of magic and insanity, she barely found anything surprising anymore. At first, Olivia had thought it was just a dream. Yet, she'd slowly realized it was something else entirely. She stopped pinching herself. This was real.

In all honesty, she was surprised that Dumbledore had accepted her into Hogwarts. After all, she hadn't studied magic. Her father's frantic lessons in the summer did little to help her. Olivia was still far behind in her studies.

She worried that her first day of classes would be a mess. At least now, she didn't have to worry about the headaches. In the meanwhile, Olivia was still wrapping her head around the fact that her mind wasn't fully tethered to her body.

Just then, an intrusive thought spilled into her mind. One second she was walking down a hallway. The next, her mind filled with the brief image of flipping pages before centering on a mess of ideas.

She saw a large black dog. Then harry. Then a man with long hair and an expression of desperation. A name: Sirius Black.

Blinking rapidly, Olivia let out a gasp. Her vision had cleared and she was once again walking down the hallway. Now, however, she recognized the thoughts as her own. She didn't know how, but they felt inexplicably hers. Yet, the thoughts made no sense. The only name she recognized was Harry Potter, the boy who she'd been warned to stay away from.

She could feel something in the back of her mind now. It was a sort of block. She was sure that it held some of her memories. Perhaps she would have to discover what lay inside.

That, she quickly decided, was a topic for another time. Olivia had more important things to worry about; classes.

-

Walking into Charms, Olivia felt decently confident. She'd read over the textbook and taught herself how to say many of the spells.

Five minutes later, however, all her confidence was gone. It didn't matter that she had a class with first years. No, she still couldn't manage to lift a feather. Even Flitwick looked at her with pity. Pity. She hated it. She hated herself. The amount of self-loathing that built up within such a small space of time was genuinely astounding.

Flitwick motioned to her after class.

"I believe you may need some extra help, dear."

"I'm aware," Olivia muttered, deliberately studying her shoes. She really had to tilt her head to avoid Flitwick's gaze as he was practically waist-height.

Flitwick sighed. "I'm taking you out of this class. It isn't fair to expect you to catch up so quickly and I'd rather spare you the embarrassment." Olivia flinched, but Flitwick continued, "You can have private lessons with me. I will let you know when soon. I'll speak to the other professors about doing the same for your other classes as well."

Olivia looked up at him in surprise. "Really? That would be amazing. Thank you, professor."

"It's no trouble, dear. Your case is... certainly out of the ordinary. I'm sure an exception is in order. Now, hurry along. I wouldn't want you to be late for your next class."

Olivia nodded gratefully and rushed down the hallway. She wasn't even walking quickly, yet she was already out of breath. She'd need to work on that.

Her next class was potions. She had the class with fourth years, as she'd already done a fair bit of practice in the subject over the summer. Still, Olivia was worried. Snape had a reputation for "destroying people's will to live" as Naomy had put it.

Since Dumbledore hadn't known how far behind Olivia would be, he'd put her in classes of various levels. In his letter, he'd also said that she would be expected to take her O.W.L.s despite missing four years. Olivia had no doubt that it would be quite a difficult year for her.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the classroom. Snape was indeed the menace he'd been made out to be.

"Late," he hissed and Olivia rushed to her seat.

An hour later, Olivia stormed out of Potions, gritting her teeth with frustration. She felt useless and pathetic. In the space of an hour, she'd managed to make Snape, who seemed eerily familiar, hate her. How? Well, for starters, she flooded the classroom. She had no idea how she'd done it. It was supposed to be a simple calming potion.

Olivia was fully drenched. Her shoes squelched as she stomped down the hallway. She looked down at them in disgust, speeding up her pace to avoid staring eyes.

She failed. Utterly failed. Because as she was staring at her shoes and wringing out her hair in her rush to get to the girl's bathroom, she slammed into someone, hard. As she collided with a sturdy chest, the breath was knocked out of her.

"You alright?" Olivia looked up into warm brown eyes surrounded by a halo of ginger hair. Her brows furrowed. She didn't know how, but all of a sudden, she knew this boy would die.

She knew it like she knew her own name. It was a fact. There was no reasoning behind it, but Olivia knew that it had to be true.

"I-I'm fine," she stuttered, extracting herself from his arms as panic set in. She felt something strange when she looked at this boy. She cared about him. She didn't want him to die. A question popped into her head and she couldn't stop herself before it spilled out.

"Fred Weasley?"

The boy grinned and cocked his head. "That's me. What can I do for you, darling?"

Olivia's eyes widened. How did she know his name? This was a mess. So, she did the only thing she could think of. She ran.

"Hey, wait!" he called after her, but Olivia was long gone.