Over Parchment Burned By Fireworks (Fremione Fanfic)

Chapter 6: Pain

*Warning: this chapter may mention situations that could be triggering to some. If you do not wish to read this chapter due to past or present experiences please feel free to skip x*

Whether it's emotional or physical, everyone will go through some sort of pain in their life. For some people, it may come sooner than for others. From the death of a loved one to the betrayal of a loved one. From the trickling of blood onto the floor to the graze of skin on your knee from a fall you took as a child. From feeling mentally drained to just having a bad day, pain takes all different forms.

Hermione had experienced many types of pain before, previously she thought the majority of her pain was because of her home life but suddenly seeing Fred with Angelina had started a completely new kind of pain, a pain she had never experienced before. She froze the second she watched their lips meet from across the room, and now her head was spinning as she watched them ascend the stairs to the dormitories.

The heartache -that she had no idea as to where it came from- quickly turned to confusion, then to disgust and overwhelming disappointment. The pair had left her field of view now, yet she still stood in the same place, staring at the staircase. Her mind racing with ideas of what the two would be doing. She felt sick.

Her vision stayed inattentive as she started roaming further into the common room, the room seemed to move in slow motion around her, the music muffled and unclear. Her disgust and disappointment slowly turned into blinding rage as she reached the drinks table. The first drink she saw....was butterbeer.

Hermione had had butterbeer on many previous occasions and she had always felt a little lighter after, happier, so she couldn't even imagine the great feelings she would have if she took more than one drink of it. She filled a cup and downed half of it, then wiped her lip that adorned a frothy moustache before downing the next half. The fizz of the very mildly alcoholic beverage stung her throat as she swallowed the last gulp.

Whatever effects of the drink that Hermione had in mind were clearly not happening fast enough for her. The ease, the forgetfulness, the carefree mind, none were showing themselves to her. So what was the next best option? Have another drink of course, but something stronger. Fire whiskey was just that.

On a usual day, Fire Whiskey isn't available to anyone under the age of eighteen. It still wasn't, but the party was for two eighteen-year-old boys. This not only meant that they could legally drink it but that it was also available to friends and guests of the party. Meaning Hermione had access to the drink even though she had only turned sixteen a few months previous.

The random bottle she reached for clanked and clinked against the others as she picked it up. No one looked at her, all too absorbed in the rambunctious atmosphere that surrounded them.

As she twisted the bottle cap off, enchanted smoke emitted from within the rim. It was warm as it flowed around her hand, the one that gripped the cold bottle. She raised the bottle to her lips and took her first sip, then her next, then again and again.

She kept going in for more, one after the other. Kiss after kiss. His lips were starting to hurt a bit if he was being truly honest. Nothing about the situation Fred found himself in felt right, nothing. He tried to take his mind away from what was happening, so he would just get through the evening but the second he would try to do that Hermione would become the forefront of his thoughts. He was almost better off thinking about how he had to stop thinking.

"Fred...?" A soft whisper pulled him away from his busy mind. If he was asked who the voice was he would have said it sounded like Hermione but he knew it was just Angelina and his mind playing games on him.

Fred hummed in response, the kissing stopped and Angelina stepped back slightly. "Are you alright?" She asked plainly but her voice was caring all the same. "Yeah, I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?" The question he asked was meant for Angelina and yet he felt as though it were aimed towards himself. He didn't have an answer. But she did.