If This Ain't Love 《C. Weasley》

5th Year

1st August 1988

Errol had succeeded in crashing right through the kitchen windows, landing inside Brooke's bowl and wallowing in her breakfast cereal yet again.

But thankfully, the bird had thrown all the letters near the kitchen counter. Hence, none of the mail and posts were damaged or torn by the bird's actions.

Arthur handed all the letters out to their worthy recipients. Brooke opened the envelope to find a red colored-shiny-thing falling out of it along with a letter. The same happened with Charlie, and Bill, on the other hand, had carefully opened his envelope.

Brooke picked up the contents of the envelope and examined the shiny thing and read the letter, her confused expression turning into an excited one as Brooke stood up, cleared her throat, and spoke up. "So the apparent shiny thing that had fallen out of mine and Charlie's envelopes were nothing else, but Prefect Badges." Molly and Arthur gasped in excitement as Bill smirked and Charlie looked up at Brooke.

"That's right. Charlie and I are the new Gryffindor prefects." Brooke squealed in excitement as Charlie stood there, too stunned to speak.

"Charles, are you in there?" Brooke asked and snapped her fingers in front of Charlie's face as Charlie snapped out of his trance, threw his arms around the girl in front of him, and hugged her tight. Brooke had always found Charlie's hugs warm and comfortable. But this one was different. Charlie had now grown much taller than Brooke and had a toned chest, abs, and veiny and muscular arms. Receiving a hug from this version of Charlie allowed Brooke to rest her head against his chest, as she could hear every single one of his heartbeats and the speed it picked up when he was excited. Hence, this hug made Brooke aware of the excitement and genuine happiness Charlie felt.

"And I am the new Head Boy," Bill exclaimed as Charlie and Brooke pulled away, as Broke approached Bill and gave him a hug as well. Molly and Arthur enveloped the two new prefects and the Head Boy in another one of their bone-crushing hugs as Ginny and Ron cheered, Fred and George joked around about how being a prefect would be boring, only to receive a glare from Molly and Percy looked at his brothers and Brooke with a look of idealism and admiration in his eyes.

30th November 1988

Saying that Brooke was feeling ridiculously overwhelmed would be the understatement of the century. Brooke Potter had officially ended things with Andre Egwu.

When the pair had started dating after the Christmas break, everything had been perfect. Both of them had been able to take out time for each other, went on dates, had study dates in the library, and spent time with each other's friends.

Charlie had shown no hard feelings towards Brooke for dating Andre, after the incident on 18th February 1988 and had been great friends with Andre as well. This was something that made Brooke happier.

All Brooke wanted was for her to not be a distraction to Charlie from his path to Romania, and to move on from the feelings she had for Charlie. And all Charlie wanted was for Brooke to be happy. Although at times, he did wish that he was the one to make her happy.

But Brooke's feelings had grown more intense towards the redhead, with time. And she felt that she was leading Andre on and was using him. Brooke did have feelings for Andre, but they weren't as intense as the ones she had for Charlie. Brooke had tried hard to like Andre the same way she liked Charlie, but something didn't feel right.

Hence, to avoid hurting Andre, Brooke had decided to end things with him, and Andre had understood what Brooke meant and thanked her for caring about his feelings. The couple had broken up on a positive note, but Brooke couldn't help but feel that something was still missing. That was something that overwhelmed Brooke to her core.