Falling Slowly (A Hogwarts Lovestory) - Fred Weasley Fanfiction

24 | Little Death

Fred carefully helped me up on my own feet again, but his hands didn't let go of me. He pulled his arms around my waist and pulled me a little closer to him. The top of my head just reached his chin since he was a lot taller than me. I raised my head to look in his beautiful hazel eyes and I immediately shivered. His lips turned into a wide smile and small laughter-lines appeared around his eyes. I noticed that I stared at him, turned crimson and sheepishly cleared my throat. This guy took away all of my self-consciousness in a second just by looking at me.
Fred grabbed my chin and moved my face softly towards him. I knew he was about to kiss me right now, finally, I had waited weeks for this, and-

"YOU BRING THAT BEAST BACK WHERE IT BELONGED, HERMIONE!"
A loud voice yelled from above followed by the sound of quickly appearing footsteps. I fastly stepped back from Fred; I didn't want to be seen with him since I still didn't know where that thing between us was going.
"Oh, hey, Julie", said Ron whose face had turned dark red from anger. "Good to see you again. Hope you had a great summer so far. Anyway, have you seen Hermione? She's hiding that monster she called Crookshanks from me, but it's killing Scabbers so it has to go back."
I shook my head. "I've seen a large orange cat just a second ago but I don't know in which direction it ran, it almost knocked me out. Sorry, Ron."
Ron looked questioningly at his older brother. "And you, Fred?"
Fred looked pretty annoyed down at Ron and rolled his eyes. "Just leave, man. I didn't see this stupid cat."
But our moment had passed.

After Ron left, Ginny showed up and I found myself in a conversation with her about their trip to egypt. We went down to the bar together and all I could do was to throw a meaningful glance back at Fred, that was supposed to say "I wanted to kiss you too and I missed you and I think fell in love with you and I can barely think of anything else than to be with you and I don't know what to do with my feelings and please love me back" hoping he'd somehow get it so I didn't have to say all this anymore.

At least it turned out to be a wonderful birthday for me and Harry. Tom had fondly tried to decorate the great table in the bar with a red tablecloth and his shiniest tea cups and there were piles of presents laying in the middle of the table, each one carefully wrapped up in different coloured wrapping paper. I reckoned that was Mrs Weasley's work.
"Happy birthday, dear", she said when I entered the room and hugged me tightly to her chest.
"I don't know what to say, Mrs Weasley", I whispered overwhelmed and glanced excitedly at everything she had prepared. "This is amazing. Thank you so much for it!"
"Anytime, dear, anytime. And I told you to call me Molly. Now come on, have a piece of birthday cake, you look as though you didn't eat enough lately, then you can go open your presents."

I got a thin homemade scarf in my favourite colour (green) from Mrs Weasley and an old leathern wristwratch from Mr Weasley, which he had bewitched so the hands were now showing anything but the exact time; unfortunately I didn't understand what it was supposed to show me instead, but Mr Weasley seemed so excited about it that I put it on anyway.
Percy got me a special quill that was supposed to made me write faster and more effective, Ron a large bag of chocolate frogs which was already opened ("You don't collect the cards anyway, do you?") and Hermione a wooden bookend in the shape of an owl. Harry and I decided not to get us anything for our birthday, but he seemed quite happy about his own presents, too.
"Now ours", demanded George and handed me a small flat package about the size of an envelope.
"No, mine first", interrupted Ginny. "She's gonna like mine better anyway."
George gave in and so I opened Ginny's present next. It was a new diary, smaller than my old one so it would better fit in my pocket, with an emerald green leathern cover.
"I noticed your song diary is almost full", said Ginny. "So I thought you might need a new one. Do you like it?"
"I love it!", I cried enthusiastically. "Thank you so much, Ginny!" I decided to collect all my songs in the new diary from now on, even if there was still space in the old one.
Now there was only one present left and there was indeed an envelope inside the small package from Fred and George.
"Promise us not to tell anyone else", Fred whispered. I nodded. Now I was even more curious. I opened the envelope and pulled a small parchment note out of it. I read it carefully.