She was a misfit, he was a git.
Matilda Diggory enters her fifth year of school, ready to remain as under the radar as possible, only there's a catch. She's somehow managed to catch the eye of a particularly annoying redhead, who seems hell-bent on...
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"No, you blasted idiot, over there!"
Fred ran an impatient hand through his hair as George proceeded to move the cord in the wrong direction for the third time.
"Bloody hell, come and do it yourself, man," George said, dropping the plug with a thump!
"Fine," Fred said, stalking over and plugging in the cord to the outlet that, in Fred's opinion, was so obvious to see. He'd managed to sneak into the Muggle Studies classroom the night prior to borrow one of the telly-visions they kept in the museum, hoping to surprise Matilda with a film.
George looked around at the room, his lips pulled back with disgust. "This is where Tilly has to stay?" He patted the couch, sending up a cloud of dust thick enough to choke on. "It's horrible."
"Hence why I'm trying to lighten the place up. Care to dust it off?" Fred asked as he played with the channels. The telly-vision fizzed with static, nothing but a sea of black and white dots.
"So you can get frisky? No thanks," George made a face and wandered into the kitchen instead.
Fred felt his ears burn. "Get your head out of the gutter."
"It's Valentine's Day, Freddie," George said as though that explained everything.
"That doesn't mean anything," Fred said, shaking his head. He tried putting in one of the rectangles that he'd also taken, a VHS, apparently. The telly-vision whirred as it consumed the block, and soon a large picture with flaming red text appeared, reading "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". He had no idea what it was, but it had been amongst the popular section and looked most interesting.
From the kitchen, George called out, "You, Matilda, this place all to yourselves... no interruptions..."
"We've had plenty of moments like that before, you know," Fred said, hating the blush that crept up on his cheeks. "Besides, Matilda hates Valentine's Day."
"So she says," George countered. "She might change her mind once you actually ask her to be your girlfriend."
"Girlfriend is just a title," Fred argued. "It doesn't change anything."
George smirked, clearly unconvinced.
Fred wanted to smack it off his face. Of course he'd thought about asking her—how could he not? But the very idea had his stomach twisting. Everyone knew Valentine's Day and the Yule Ball had a reputation for students taking things further than ever before, and Fred's chest went tight at the thought. It wasn't that he wasn't ready—Merlin, he wanted everything with Matilda. It was that he wasn't sure she was ready. Not after what Montague and Pucey had done to her. Fred would rather set himself on fire than risk pushing her too far.
But now George had put the thought into his mind and all he could think of was the possibility of maybe – just maybe – Matilda was ready. His hands trembled at the thought, a confusing mixture of terror and excitement.
