Marooned - Fred Weasley

Chapter 46: The Ministry

"You all right, then?" asked Sarah the next afternoon after the twins' departure, sitting on her bed next to Selena's. They'd avoided the subject yesterday, it was all a bit too raw to talk about but now the dorm was empty and they could just start bawling their eyes out. If Selena felt like doing that. Sarah couldn't think of a reason she would do that. Not a one.

She nodded, "I promise. We're okay. I understand why he chose to leave. I'll just focus on the NEWTs, see him in a few months."

"Okay," said Sarah, getting under her covers, putting her headset on.

"Hey," whispered Selena before she could start the music.

Sarah slid an earmuff to the side to hear her.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

"Fred left, too," said Selena, pursing her lips. Sarah stared at her for a second and took off her headset completely.

"It hits different when I hear it," she said quietly.

Selena furrowed her brows, turned to her, "If I ask you something, do you promise to tell me? No sarcasm, no humor, just straightforward."

Sarah breathed in deep, fought the urge to actually make a joke, being deprived of her coping mechanisms while facing an unknown question, but after a second to think about it and because she knew Selena, Sarah nodded.

Selena pursed her lips, obviously trying to form the delicate question without brisk forwardness, "Are you in love with him, Sarah?"

The breath got knocked out of Sarah's lungs and Selena didn't need much more than that to know. Sarah leaned her head against the wall, her mind flashing a ridiculously long montage that brought her back hours, days, months and years ago.

She felt there was something else there, when he held her, when she silently asked him to do something, anything, but it was so brief, maybe she'd imagined it. What she felt for Fred flickered for years like the spark from striking two stones together, like a damn firework. It made her shake her head in disbelief at the predictable metaphor her mind had found.

And at a time unbeknownst to her, much earlier than at the Astronomy Tower, it caught fire, expanded into a burning, glowing star, illuminating her rainy blue sky wherever she went. It was bright and pure like the shape and sound of his laughter, it was a faded shade of violet, like the twilight above their heads at the Astronomy Tower, it was a soft orange like the color of his hair when the summer sun hit it. It was a sparkling golden, it was love.

"I am, Selena, completely."

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked Selena thoughtfully.

Sarah shook her head, feeling her tears climb against her will. "I don't, I really don't," she whimpered surprising herself by the outburst of sadness all of a sudden, reaching for a tissue to blow her nose. "I don't want to think about it. I just can't. Talk to me about something else, what was that letter I saw you hide in your desk earlier?"

Selena watched her friend a bit woefully, but when Sarah renewed her plea to talk about something else, Selena abided and told her. It was about the Auror program she applied to. She'd always wanted to be a teacher, until she joined the DA and saw how the world could be, and now she'd changed career paths mere months before her NEWTs and she felt a bit self-conscious. Which is what they talked about during that evening, until Angelina and the rest stumbled over into their dorms.

Sarah didn't want to think about Fred, or talk about what she felt for him because it didn't matter. He left, his life was starting. And hers didn't stop, she had the NEWTs and St Mungo's to think about, shutting down her memories of Fred's arms around her when she had hesitated about it.