Falling Slowly (A Hogwarts Lovestory) - Fred Weasley Fanfiction

05 | My Invincible Friend

"These are bloody delicious!", I shouted cheerfully, my mouth full of chocolate. "It's like my whole throat is burning everytime I bite on one of those little chili pieces. It totally deserves the name Dragonfire Chocolate."
My friends were sitting on my bed and presented all the little gifts they got me from Hogsmeade. They were the sweetest, they even got me a little box with different cinnamon spices, that I could put on any other baking good so it would remind me of those little swedish kanebullar I was longing for since weeks.
"But what on earth is this?" I held up a small brown paper bag which smell made me almost puke.
"Yeah", Alicia and Angelina exchanged a look, "we didn't get it either. Fred insisted we'd give it to you. He said you'd understand."
Angelina looked disgusted at the little package in my hands.
"Please, Julie", Alicia added, "just throw it out."
Why would Fred want to give me something like that? Was this a prank? But I gave up the idea of throwing it away immediately, I was just too curious about it.
As I carefully opened the bag, I noticed a bunch of brownish, bad smelling wooden pieces inside. I felt my friend's sceptical eyes on me. I pulled out a little note that said Bellis perennis radix on it and now I finally understood the gag. I laughed out loud.
"What?", Alicia asked excitedly, "what is it?"
But I couldn't stop laughing so I handed over the small note to her. Someone wrote In case you need to get out of an unpleasant situation with an illegible handwriting on it.
Angelina finally interrupted my never ending laughter.
"So, tell me Julie, since when do you share insider jokes with Fred Weasley? Did we miss anything?"
I finally calmed down.
"Oh, it's nothing. It's just something we talked about lately, when I had to fill this 15 pages essay about daisy roots for Snape."
"Well, it can't be nothing, you're still giggeling about it, honey. Are you into him somehow?", Alicia concluded.
I was speechless for a moment. How on earth could she think I was into Fred Weasley?
"No", I answered a little bit too fast, "of course not. We just had a nice little conversation recently, that's all."
My friends didn't seem to believe me as they still looked at me with their eyebrows raised. It seemed to me like the perfect timing to distract them by telling them about my little chat with Oliver Wood today.
"In fact, I have to tell you something. I do have a date tomorrow. Guess who asked me out today."

The next day at breakfast my two friends were giggeling all the time, drawing more attention to us than I felt comfortable with. They put their heads together and threw meaningful looks over to Oliver's seat. Thank god he didn't seem to notice.

Later during Defence Against Dark Arts, Professor Quirrel divided us up in groups of two. Each of us had to describe to the other one how to fight either a grindylow or a hinkypunk.
The group partner that was selected for me was Fred Weasley, Angelina paired with George and Alicia with Lee.
"Does Quirrel seem a little distracted lately to you, too?", Fred asked me when he sat down on the chair next to mine.
"Maybe", I answered and looked over to Quirrel's desk. He nervously pulled at his turban and didn't seem to care about his students work. His facial expression reminded me of a person that had like the worst earwig and unsuccessfully tried to lose that annoying sound in his head for weeks. I wondered since when he wore that ridiculous looking headgear. I somehow had a bad feeling about it. But before I got lost in my thoughts about Quirrel, Fred drew my attention back at him.
"So, grindylows, hm? What am I supposed to do if I meet one?"
I looked down on the notes I made.
"Well, first of all, you better don't go swimming alone in the Great Lake. I heard those little water demons like it there. And if you do it anyway, make sure they don't strangle you with their strong brittle fingers. If that happens, you're as good as lost. The revulsion jinx would be the only thing left that may help you in that rather hopeless situation."
"Damn it, Julie. Relashio? I never get that spell right. So please don't push me in the lake, okay?", Fred grinned.
Was he making fun of me again?
"Well, you better start practicing then", I answered seriously. I didn't want to become a part of whatever game he was playing today.
"Oh, c'mon, Julie. You could help me with that. You just have to get very close to me and put your arms tight around me. Then I try to get rid of you using the revulsion jinx. What do you say?" He smirked at me.
I rolled my eyes.
"Oh, Freddy, if you need a girl's hug so badly, I guess you go and look for another candidate. There must be lots of girls at school that would die for that. Sadly, I am not one of them."
I was kind of proud of my rejection, but Fred didn't seem to care about it. He just laughed and winked at me.
"I will, Julie, I will. And meanwhile, you're going to think about what I just said whether you like it or not. And someday you will beg me for a hug. You will see."
This guy was unbelievable. I didn't even know what to answer to such a provocation, so I decided to say nothing at all and pack my bags instead, since class was over anyway.
But Fred obviously hadn't finish his game with me today.
"Oh, and you can thank me later for the present I got you. I understand that you must be overwhelmed wich must be why you didn't thank me yet."
I turned around and looked right in his deep, brown eyes.
"You can keep your little present, Fred. I don't need it to get nauseous around you."
I immediately regretted what I just said. I didn't mean to sound that mean, but before I could apologize to him, Alicia appeared and pulled me with her.
"Excuse me, Fred, but I have to take her away from you now. We have to get her pretty for her big date tonight. See you later at the training!"
The last thing I saw was a weird expression on Fred's face that I found hard to interpret. He almost looked hurt, but I wasn't sure if that was because of what I just said or because of what Alicia said about my evening plans.
But why would I even care?

"I will definitely don't go looking like that", I said when I looked in the mirror. "We're just going out for a walk, it's not like we're having a candlelight dinner!"
I was repulsed by my own reflection.
"I think you look stunning", Angelina said. "And you always have to keep in mind, you're dating a fifth grader today. Don't you want to look a little more... adult?"
"I don't see how blackened eyes and tomatoe red lips do make me look more like an adult, to be honest. I feel like a clown. What's wrong with my natural look?"
"Just think about it, Julie. You still have enough time to get rid of that make up, if you really don't like it. But we have to go now, we're already running late for today's training. And we certainly do not intend to upset Oliver, especially not tonight. See you later, honey! We want to hear all about it tonight!"
Alicia winked and both my friends left.

(Lili Reinhart as Julie Daniels)

I risked another look in the mirror, but no way, the make up needed to be removed as soon as possible.
On my way over to the girl's room I ran into Hermione.
"Oh, Julie, what happened to your face?", she said.
"It was an experiment. It failed, obviously. I'm just on the way to remove it. Wanna join me?"
I hadn't talk to her much lately and I now realized how much I missed conversations with her. Compared to her best friends, Harry and Ron, she already seemed quite mature to me which made it easy for us to develope a friendship even if she was two years younger than me.
"Oh, I'd love to!", Hermione answered, "you can tell me more about the occasion for your stunning look on our way over to the bathroom. I'm curious! And I'm also thankful for any kind of distraction right now. Ronald totally got on my nerves today. I don't know what's wrong with that jerk sometimes."
I glanced at her from the side.
"I guess that runs in the family", I simply replied.

On the way over she told me all about how annoying Ron Weasley was, about his total inability not do his homework alone and how he would ask her to copy her homework almost every second time.
I was too polite to ask her why she had the need to talk about him the whole time if he annoyed her that much and meanwhile I tried to ignore my own upcoming thoughts about a certain annoying someone as well. I didn't want to spend any thoughts of him tonight, since I was really looking forward to meeting Oliver again.
Hermione helped me get rid of the make up and wished me good luck with my date tonight.
I was a little bit nervous. I never went out with a guy before, boys had just started to get interesting for me.

I checked my look in the mirror one last time. My bright green eyes definitely looked better when they were not covered in black eyeshadow. Ben always said I was the only one he ever knew who had eyes of this rare, mint green colour and that he wished we were related so his children would get the chance to have eyes like that, too.
I smiled as I thought of that memory, brushed my long honey blonde hair one last time and set off to the Quidditch field.

And that's how summer passed
Oh, the great dividing range, the green, green grass
And oh, maybe I'll hold on fast
To you
- Ben Howard