Falling Slowly (A Hogwarts Lovestory) - Fred Weasley Fanfiction

26 | Pretty Poison

"Miss Daniels, since you obviously don't think it is necessary to pay attention during my class, I believe you agree on handing me a twelve page essay on the Befuddlement Draught and how to extract Salamander blood correctly until tomorrow morning. And fifteen points will be taken from Gryffindor."
Snapes spiteful proclamation pulled me out of my daydream within a second. I had indeed not payed attention to what he was talking about and now that I found myself back in reality I noticed that I had accidentally thrown one full instead of just half a teaspoon of powdered Chinese Chomping Cabbage into my potion. What was inside of my cauldron had therefore turned into a nasty brown coloured mush and the weird smell coming out of it had catched Snapes attention. Damn it. I reckoned he would torture me the entire school year from now on. Somehow he was the only teacher I didn't get along with.
I apologized for my behavior and tried to clean up the tremendous mess that I had caused.
"Everything okay with you?", whispered Alicia from my left. Her potion had a nice mint green colour and smelled like elder. She looked pretty worried though. "You seem offhand since our fifth year had begun. Wanna talk about it later?"
I nodded. "Okay. Let's meet up at the lake this evening, but I have to get some books out of the library first for Snape's detention. It's going to keep my up all night. Once again."
Alicia grinned and gave Katie and Angelina a sign that we'd all meet up later.

When class was over, I grabbed my demolished cauldron (I reckoned no one would ever be able do use it again, my sticky brown potion had completely ruined it) to throw it away in the trash bin. On my way over to the other side of the classroom I tried to focus on my feet on the floor, so I didn't have to look at Fred, who was standing right in my way chatting with his twin brother.
We hadn't talked to each other since our last day at the Leaky Cauldron. As I walked by, I noticed how George whispered something I didn't understand to Fred and made a gesture in my direction, but Fred just groaned a grumpy sounding answer and left the classroom without his brother. George watched him leave and mumbled something to himself that sounded like the word "idiot" to me.

I stopped beside George on my way out.
"You're the worst, both of you", George said to me. He sounded annoyed. "Why does it always have to be so complicated between you two? I thought you finally made it when we were at the Leaky Cauldron."
"It's definitely not my fault", I justified myself. "He totally overreacted."
"Maybe. However, I can't stand arguing with my brother anymore. And you should propably overthink your own behavior as well, Julie. You told him you didn't want to be with him several times, didn't it ever occur to you that he wouldn't run after you forever?"

I never thought about it that way. I had told Fred I didn't want anything to do with him just when we started to become friends in third grade, but that was because he acted like an arrogant jerk towards me.
I had then screamed at him at the hospital wing last year because he was trying to take care of me, but it was me who acted unfair back then.
At last it wasn't so long ago when I confessed to him that I liked him back but I had also told him I didn't want to be with him.
George was right. It wasn't only Fred's fault that things between us had gone down again, even though it probably hadn't escalated so much if he hadn't said such horrible things to me at the Leaky Cauldron.
"You're right", I said and Georges gloomy face brightened a little. "I don't want things to be that toxic between us either, Georgie. I'm sorry you got in the middle of this."
"Thank you. At least someone understands."
"I will try my best and talk things out with Fred so we hopefully can get along again. I promise."
George seemed rather pleased as we both finally left the class room, but we separated right after because he had Quidditch training and I needed to go to the library.

I wanted to return the books I had borrowed during the holidays before I borrowed new ones for Snape's detention, so I went up to my dorm first. The books didn't help me to find out anything about my past anyway.
I tucked three of the heavy books under my arms and tried to balance the other ones in my hands but I stumbled on the first staircase on my way to the library and everything fell down. Great.
One of the books, Wizards with Wicked Wounds, fell down the entire staircase in the third floor and would have probably fallen much further if Peeves hadn't stopped it. Unfortunately it was still Peeves who had catched the book, so it wasn't really the better option.
"Looky looky a new old booky!", yelled Peeves and lifted the heavy book up over his head and started to play with it as though it was a ball.
"C'mon, Peeves", I said annoyed. "Give it back to me. Madam Pince will freak if the book gets damaged."
But Peeves just laughed and smashed the book against the stone wall of the castle. I could hear a loud cracking noise as the spine of the book broke. Madam Pince would kill me, that was for sure.
"Peeves scores!", shrieked Peeves and cheered, but he finally had enough and left.