prospicere futurum | fred weasley | cedric diggory

16

"I mean, not that I"m not happy for Ella, even if she's not... because I am. But how did she get a date before me, with a guy she hates!" Taylor shook her head, a lighthearted laugh falling from her lips as the girls walked along the corridor.

Ella had admittedly been in an interesting mood all day, but Corinne had caught her staring at the back of Eddie's head for a good two minutes during transfiguration.

"I think it'll be good for her." Corinne mumbled, starting for the staircase.

"Me too... me too..." Taylor trailed off, slowing up before Corinne realized she was no longer at her side. "I'll be up in a bit."

"Where are you going?" Corinne asked, watching as Taylor scanned over a few of the Durmstrang guys huddled near the entrance to the Great Hall.

"I'm going to get a date." She shrugged, flashing Corinne the signature confident smile before practically skipping towards the group.

Corinne contemplated staying, sure that Taylor would be heading back up the stairs in less than ten minutes with a date, but decided against it. She wouldn't want someone watching her if the roles were reversed, though she thought Taylor wouldn't mind the audience.

She tugged her bag more securely onto her shoulder and started up the stairs alone, her eyes scanning ahead mostly as an excuse to keep her gaze from the growing distance between the next flight of steps and the floor now far, far beneath her feet.

"Baker!" Her chest ran cold at the sound of his voice and she reluctantly turned back, watching the redhead hurrying up the stairs behind her. She shook her head, mostly to herself, hurrying up and around the corner to the next staircase.

"Corinne, just wait!" He called again, obviously unfazed by the fact that she was ignoring him. She was nearly to the top of this stairway when she felt the familiar jerk beneath her feet, her hand clasping around the railing as terror flooded into her chest.

Her eyes flickered to the new landing where the stairs would certainly land, running over the hallways in her mind to think if there was another staircase at the end of them before she felt the warm hand settle on top of hers against the railing.

She jerked away, her eyes linking with the brown ones. She wouldn't look down. She couldn't.

"Hey... you're okay." Fred spoke softly, glancing at her hand as it found it's way back to the bannister at her side.

"I'm aware." She snapped, looking up at the new landing as an excuse to not meet his gaze. "Did you plan this?"

Fred chuckled, though seemed to think better of it and hurried to cover it with an unconvincing cough. "Believe it or not, I don't control the stairs."

She pressed her lips into a thin line as the seconds ticked by, glaring at the landing and willing it to shift back already.

"Can I just talk to you? Or could you just... listen? And not try to push me over the railing for sixty seconds?"

"Right... Out of the two of us, I'm the one more likely to shove someone over a railing."

Fred's mouth sank deeper into a frown, though Corinne wouldn't notice, her eyes still latched firmly onto the top of the staircase.

"I'm sorry... about the st-, well... about all of the pranks. About everything."

Corinne didn't answer, the silence enveloping them almost painfully. Her heart was beating wildly against her ribcage, though she didn't know if it was from being suspended on yet another moving staircase, or from Fred's words.