Don't fall in love with me- Fred weasley

22

George lets out a sigh as his hand knocks gently on the bathroom stall door, she'd slammed the door closed behind her. He can hear the sniffles and sobs she's trying to hide, interrupted once in a while by the sound of her being sick. 

"Please go away, I just wanna be alone," Her cry is desperate. 

"Emmie? Please I just wanna make sure you're okay?" George calls softly 

"He doesn't love me," 

Her response is a whisper but to George it feels like a scream. 

He's struggling to get his head around the entire thing. Around how his twin brother who had been head over heels for her for as long as they've known each other could have done this? How despite his brother's stupid mistake she couldn't see that she practically made Fred's world turn.

"Em," George sighs, in his mind he can't work out what he wants to do.

A part of him feels a desperate need to defend his brother, he knows they would both be a mess without each other and he wants nothing more than to wrap them up in a blanket and keep their love safe, he wants them happy and he's never known either of them to be more happy. 

The other part of him wants to go out there and punch Fred, to beat him black and blue because, christ, if anyone else had hurt his best friend like that his reaction would have been just that. 

George settles for honesty.

"He loves you. He has always loved you," George assures her, he hears the faint noise of the lock shifting but the door doesn't open. Taking his opportunity he squeezes into the small stall, locking the door behind him and following her lead. 

He sits on the ground opposite her, she looks pale and her eyes are red and watery. 

"I thought it was real George," She seems almost guilty and George tries to shake the feeling that something more is going on here 

"Of course it was. You made each other so happy, and Fred, well he's Fred he ruins things sometimes because he doesn't stop to think," George tries to comfort, his words don't seem to help though, only make her sniffles grow. 

"No. No George you don't get it. I thought it was real- tonight- I thought he meant it when he said it had been real," 

"I'm confused,"  George admits, reaching across and wiping her tears from her cheeks.

"I wanted to tell you," She sighs, her words slur a little but she seems to be slowly sobering up, almost like seeing Fred had pulled her back to reality. 

"Tell me what?" George looks confused, eyebrows pinched together and lip being tugged between his teeth as he chews at it nervously. 

"We faked it," She whispers.

George is almost certain he heard her wrong. 

Because two people can't fake it that well. You can't fake the way Fred looks at her. You can't fake the way she melts into his touch. You can't fake the way they glow when the other enters the room. 

Besides, it had been too long a time coming. They'd been too in love for too long. 

George knew the both of them, he knew them like extensions of himself, and surely he'd have been able to tell if it weren't real. 

"I've loved Fred since I was 11. It was halloween, first year, and we snuck out to get snacks from the kitchen, we heard Mrs Norris so Fred pulled me into a broom cupboard and we stood there whispering for what felt like hours and I swore I would never fall for anyone else. 

Then he told me he liked Angelina and I was devastated and he asked me to pretend to be his girlfriend and I knew, I knew how it would end. That I would only get hurt, I'd only love him more and then he'd been done with the whole thing and I'd be left empty. 

But it was Fred and I- I can't say no to Fred so we faked it. 

I was right. Every single day I loved him more and now, now he's done and, I knew it would hurt. I just- I didn't expect it to feel like he ripped my heart from my chest and threw it off the astronomy tower and proceeded to stamp on it," 

George isn't even sure what to say. He knows that no words are going to make the hurt stop. He knows she will hurt for a while and one day it'll stop and she will move on with her life. He knows he can't take the pain away but that if he could he would. 

So he doesn't talk, he shuffles on the cold stone floor to be next to her, grabbing her hand and squeezing it tight, her head drops to his shoulder and she lets out a sigh. 

"I told him. That it was real to me and we slept together and he said it back," She informs 

"When you said thought tonight was real?" 

"He told me he was mine," Her whisper sounds too George like nails on a chalk board. He hates the sound of her in pain. He hates that he can't take the pain away from her. 

Fred Weasley stands like a deer in the head lights in the empty corridor. 

He knows better than to go after her. Knows she wants nothing less than to see him right now. Knows he needs her to be calm when he attempts to explain this. Knows he looks like the worst person on the planet. 

He doesn't want to go back to the party. Doesn't know if he can stomach lying in his bed that will still smell of her perfume, the promise of a night together dead in the air. 

He needs George but he knows she does too, knows she deserves the comfort more than him, knows right now George probably wants to kill him because if it were anyone else that treated her like this he'd have wanted to do the same. 

So, he aimlessly walks around the halls, he takes no precautions to not be caught, doesn't try to hide if he hears anyone, he just walks and lets his mind trick itself into believing none of this had happened, that he'd see her in the morning and nothing would have changed.