just for me ⚘ a Fred Weasley Fanfiction

27. bet on it

After they had both come to terms with their mutual life-threatening dilemma, Juniper and Draco had actually started to work as a team, and could almost consider each other a friend. Draco had started treating Juniper like an actual person, and in turn she started talking to him by choice. He started standing up for her and protecting her from other students that would do as little as look at her the wrong way, and the odds of him turning violent on her started to slim. She began to feel safe and comfortable around him, to the point that she could imagine herself actually choosing to date him, rather than being forced to.
In other words, Juniper had almost forgotten all of the pain and fear that Draco had put her through.
Almost.
It was only when she would catch Fred's eye at dinner, as she laughed at something Draco had said, placing her hand on his, as a girlfriend would. Or when she would walk around a corner, hand in hand with Draco, and almost bump into Fred. Or anytime that she saw Fred and the disappointed, unapproving look had on his face almost permanently, that she would remember what the past year and a half had consisted of.
And despite the overwhelming stress she experienced every second of everyday, worried about what the future had in store for her and her grandmother. She still had the time to feel the crushing weight of guilt, manifesting into physical pain and illness, because of what she had put Fred through. Her constant mood swings, leading him on and then dropping him a minute later.
Everything she felt was horrible.
Which is why she decided to go to the second task of the Triwizard tournament.

The weather was must as gross as she felt, cold and wet, and spending the day at the Black Lake would only make it worse. Which was why she originally decided not to go, but after a few days of wallowing in her own self loathing, she felt that a day of damp shivering was what she deserved. And she was nosy. She'd hate to be the last one to find out if something went horribly wrong.
She ended up going alone, Draco ditched her for Professor Snape the day before, and she hadn't seen him since. She had gained enough trust in him to know he wasn't doing anything to ruin the facade they created, but she wasn't completely convinced.
Her jeans were the tiniest bit too small, leaving her ankles bare for the wind and dampness of the air, the perfect amount of inconvenience that she believed she deserved. She even sat in a boat with three Ravenclaw second years to get to the task, just for a little bit of extra torture.

Once they arrived at the questionable decking that managed to fit all three schools, plus Ministry representatives, Juniper took her place to the side, sitting away from the crowd to watch the task. She listened to Ludo Bagman explain the task very vaguely, before blowing a whistle. Three of the champions dove into the water, while Harry fumbled for a second, tripping and flopping in after them. Then the crowd began talking again, they had an hour before the task would be over, and there wasn't a whole lot to do in the middle of the Black Lake.

Juniper sat by herself, watching over the crowd. Half ignoring everyone that stared at her, half looking for a friend to talk to. She spotted Blaise and Matilda across the crowd, but they were huddled close together, and Juniper didn't want to get in the middle of that. Juniper expected Hermione to be front and centre to support Harry, but neither her or Ron were to be seen.
She took note of where Fred and George were, wandering around, secretly collecting bets for the tournament, she didn't want to risk being caught interacting with either of them.

It had been half an hour since the champions entered the water, and Fleur Delacour had come out empty handed, complaining about Grindylows. And Fred and George had inched their way closer to Juniper, and she could now hear everything they were saying to their 'customers'.
By the time the hour was up, Cedric Diggory and Viktor Krum had retrieved Cho Chang and Hermione from the water, Harry was no where to be seen. And Fred and George had made their way to Juniper.

"Time's up but you can still place a bet." George shook their little box full of coins in Juniper's face. She took her eyes off the lake to look up at them, as though she hadn't been anticipating their arrival.