Falling Slowly (A Hogwarts Lovestory) - Fred Weasley Fanfiction

15 | Run Me Out

As I climbed through the portrait hole and entered the Gryffindor common room after choir practice, I saw Angelina, Alicia and Katie sitting in the cozy corner near the fireplace together with the Weasley twins. Katie waved at me as a sign to come over and sit with them.
I pulled myself together and walked over to them. It was time I left my feelings behind and stopped acting awkwardly near Fred.
"Hey guys", I smiled timidly at them. "Can I sit with you?"
"Oh, of course, honey!", Alicia said and offered me a seat next to hers.
"Thanks. Sorry for acting so strange lately. Don't know what came over me, perhaps it was the memories of all that's happened last year with my brother and stuff."

My friends were all very understanding and so we sat there by the fire for the rest of the evening.
Percy entered the common room even later than I did, but he didn't want to sit with us and went straight up to his dorm.
"He's acting more and more odd everyday", George said. "Isn't Prefect meeting on mondays not sundays? What was he doing out there so late at night?"
"If I didn't know better, I'd say there's a girl behind everything. But, no way, who'd date good old Perce?", said Fred and Angelina laughed unreasonably loud at his joke.
"You're being mean, Fred", I snapped angrily at him. My words came out a little too harsh. "After all he's still your brother. Why can't you act nice towards people that you like for once?"
"Oh, I do act nice to people I like, Daniels. See?", said Fred, turned to Angelina and gave her a long passionate kiss. Then he turned towards me again. "When was the last time you kissed somebody, eh, Daniels?"
"FRED!", Katie cried outraged.
"Never mind, Katie", I said indifferently. "He's right. I haven't kissed someone since Oliver and I broke up. But, as a matter of fact, I'm currently planning on doing it again soon. Roger Davies asked me out today and we're going for a trip to Hogsmeade tomorrow."
Fred suddenly looked like he'd seen a ghost. This point goes to me, Weasley, I thought.
"Oh my goodness, honey, that's awesome news! Roger Davies is absolutely hot. All the Ravenclaw girls are after him. You're so lucky, Julie!", Alicia said and hugged me.
"I see", Fred muttered angrily, "apparently Quidditch capatains are your type. Thought you'd be less superficial."
"Why are you so angry, Freddy?", I snapped at him. "You don't have to worry about anything, you're not captain of any Quidditch team."
That being my last words, I stood up and walked straight up the stairways to my dorm without looking back.

My date with Roger turned out to be even better than I expected and it didn't took me long to realise there was much more to him than being just another handsome Raveclaw Quidditch player. I felt attracted to him from the moment I saw him on the Hogwarts Express on our way to school and now it was not only his beautiful dark eyes that made me shiver - he was the first person I met at Hogwarts who was as much into music as I was. He told me his great great aunt was one of the Weird Sisters and that he fell in love with music ever since she taught him how to play the piano at the age of only five.
I was honestly impressed. I had to promise him to show him one of my songs one day and he promised me to play something on the school's piano in return.
Later at Hog's Head we were joined by some of Roger's Ravenclaw friends and he introduced me kindly to everyone. Penelope was one of them and with her was - to my joyful surprise - Percy Weasley, holding her hand. Percy blushed when he saw me but he was more than relieved after I whispered "you're secret's safe with me" in his ear.
Penelope and Percy wanted to stay in Hogsmeade a little longer so we made our way back to the castle without them. Roger pecked me on the forehead as a goodbye and left with his friends when I turned off back to Gryffindor tower.

I was just marching down an empty corridor when it happened.
I heard something. What was that? A voice?
I tried not to make any noise and listened.
There it was again.
A quiet, hissing voice. It wasn't far away and it was moving into my direction.
I got up my feet again and ran down the corridor as fast as I could.
The voice followed me and it grew louder and louder.
I heard the words "killing" and "come to me" and I pushed myself to run faster.
I turned around corners, stumbled about my own feet twice and I just thought that the strange voice has catched up to me when I ran into someone.

"Ouch, Julie!", said Ron, rubbing his back from pain. "What's up with you?"
I couldn't give him a proper answer because Harry crushed into him from the other direction at that very moment. He looked just as terrified as I did.
"Harry! Are you okay? What happened?", said Hermione. I could hear how worried she was.
"Did... did you not hear that?", said Harry furiously. "There was a voice, loud and clear! It said it was going to kill somebody!"
"Harry...", Hermione said quietly. She put her hand on Harry's shoulder as if she wanted to calm him down. "There was no voice. We didn't hear anything, right Ron, right Julie?"
Ron agreed, but I wasn't able to speak. It didn't matter though, they didn't wait for my answer.
"Hearing voices is not good, not even in the wizarding world, Harry. Maybe you should talk to Dumbledore about this", said Hermione.
But Harry didn't listen at all and I knew ecactly why. The voice was back it was now closer than ever. Harry turned around and ran straight into the voice's direction, followed by his friends so I had no other choice than to join them.

We all stopped abruptly as we entered the corridor of the unused girl's bathroom in the second floor.
"What the-", I looked down at my feet, I was standing on a wet floor. Water from the bathroom had somehow flooded the whole corridor. And over there, at the wall, someone had written down something in large, bloodred letters.

The Chamber of Secrets has been opened
Enemies of the heir... beware

"Mrs Norris!", whispered Hermione. Harry stepped closer to the motionless cat hanging down from the wall, when suddenly, many footsteps approached behind us.
"You'll be next, mudbloods!", I heard Malfoy's voice shouting but I still couldn't let my eyes off Mrs Norris.

I was horrified.
What was that voice I had just heard?
Was that the killer?
What was happening to me?

Many things happened pretty fast around me then. Dumbledore asked the Prefects to bring all students back to their common rooms, everyone but Harry, Hermione, Ron and me.
I said nothing.
Filch yelled at Harry and accused him of killing his cat.
I said nothing.
Dumbledore and the other teachers started discussing loudly but I hardly even noticed what he was saying. We wouldn't be punished, I heard someone say - it sounded like that person was talking with a mouth full of cotton - the teachers agreed we must have all just been at the wrong place in the wrong time.
Finally, Dumbledore sent us all off to our beds, but he wanted to talk to me one last time in private.
"Miss Daniels", Dumbledore said calmly, but his voice sounded serious. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"
But I still said nothing.

You know that I'm tired
You know that I'm ill
But it don't matter 'cause
I know that you will
Run me out again
- Zola Jesus