Untouchable: a Fred Weasley fanfiction

Electricity

I'm still thinking about what Angelina said a day later in Potions.

Charlie Weasley? Charlie? She hadn't told me why she brought up Fred's older brother in response to my mention of Professor Collins's suggestion of working with dragons, a pure whim of a suggestion in comparison to the whole conversation we had, but now, Ang has got me thinking.

All she said after I questioned her bringing up this Charlie who I had only heard of once from Fred was "ask your boy toy about it. He'll talk your ear off."

I sigh, twirling my quill in class. I can't remember much of what Fred said about Charlie when he first mentioned him. All I recall is that he said he was really cool– someone he and George talked to a lot when he came back from breaks during his work. He said he worked somewhere far away...

I glance at Fred across the classroom, bouncing his own quill back and forth on his notebook. Does Charlie know about dragons? Does Fred know about dragons? Jesus, where did dragons even come from in the map of my career path? This is just mad.

My wandering mind is interrupted when Snape snaps his wand to the chalkboard, startling me back to attention.

"You have your table groups," he declares. "I expect this brew to be finished by the end of the period. Get to work."

I look up at said table group and immediately wish that I didn't look up at all– I've nearly forgotten that I sit with two of Ella Walker's friends.

Ugh. I must've blocked them out of my brain in the past few weeks that we've changed seating in this class. And it's the two friends who were with her at the party, before Fred and I got together... the one where I sort of chewed out Ella in front of them.

But they still didn't stand up for me, so, I'm not exactly gonna be all rainbows and unicorns at partnering up.

I sigh, closing my notebook and pulling the ingredient list closer. "Let's get this over with."

The girls eye me hesitantly, both of them not saying anything. That's weird– their faces are all... I don't know. Cautious? Meek? They didn't look like that the last time I saw them with Ella.

"We're making rat tonic," I say flatly, sparking our cauldron's flame with a flick of my wand. "How convenient. You're used to being around such creatures all the time."

I push the list away and turn up the flame, putting my chin in my hand. They see me look bored– stone-faced. They are still appearing to be– weird.

"You guys gonna talk?" I finally say. "Or is that your friend's job in the group?"

The girls look at each other, then back at me. The blonde on the right finally opens her mouth, with great caution.

"Jolie..." she says quietly, "...if you're talking about... Ella..."

"We're not friends with her anymore," the other blurts.

My chin lifts from my hand.

"Listen, we..." the brunette leans over the table a little, "we never meant to... to be like that. To be like her, with you."

"We're real sorry about anything we said," the other frowns rather sadly, "or laughed about, or... anything. It was all just to follow her stupid lead..."

I blink. "Oh. Uh... well, thanks for that..."

"And it's not just what she said about you," the brunette says quickly. "Ella is not nice to us. She– she doesn't treat her friends well... so we finally put an end to it, and we decided to leave. Unfortunately, that's not the case for many of the others..."