The Queen of Vipers || Fred Weasley

III.XXII

Fred sulked in the corner of the Room of Requirement.

The meeting had ended only minutes before and most of the members congregated by the door in small groups or pairs, waiting for Harry's okay to depart without raising any suspicion with the help of the Marauder's Map..

But Fred hardly paid them any mind. It was Electra he couldn't stop stealing glances at. And not because she was so lovely to look at.

She may be hard to read, but it was written in plain English that she was out of sorts. Electra was always a bit stand-offish— it was one of the things he was so drawn to about her— but the past few days there'd been a shift. Today even more so. She seemed downright dejected.

And worst of all, he knew he was behind it to some degree.

Fred wanted to bash the back of his head against the bookshelf behind him at the reminder. 'Who would ask you on a date?' Godric, he was such a fucking muppet.

And as if he didn't instantly feel like shit the second the words were out of his mouth, Angelina, Alicia, Katie and his own sister had descended on him like a pack of hungry werewolves and chewed him out till they were hoarse, polishing off his bones for good measure. Fred had never seen the Room of Requirement clear out so fast.

Worst of all, George had just stared silently at him during his brutal take down, a hard look in his eye. When he finally piped up all he did was jam a finger into Fred's chest and said, "Fix it," in a menacing tone Fred hardly ever heard his brother use, before taking Angelina around the waist and pulling her with him, the other girls following suit, and leaving Fred alone in the Room of Requirement feeling shit.

And he wanted to fix it. It was all he could think about. Not that thinking about Electra was a rarity to him. She was on his mind from the second he woke up in the morning until the moment he drifted off to sleep each night. It was becoming a bit obsessive to be frank.

Even now, he couldn't help watching her. Electra's head, her curls as dark as night twisted behind her head with her wand in that effortlessly stylish way of hers, was bent to hear Neville. She was nearly a whole head taller than him, and they seemed to be talking secretively. A pang of jealousy went through him. They'd gotten pretty close fast.

His bout of envy was cut short as a jolt went through him as Electra's eyes flickered up and caught his eye immediately.

As quickly as their eyes found each other, hers were darting back to the floor. Her face scrunched, no doubt in disgust. He didn't blame her.

Beside him, Lee let out a heavy sigh in annoyance after peeking over his way. "I joined ya over here cause I'm your mate and didn't want you looking so pitiful standing alone," said Lee, crossing his arms over his chest, "but if you're just gonna brood silently, I might as well go join the others and leave you to it."

Fred peeked over to where George stood with the girls. He had Angelia pressed against his side while her arm wrapped around him as they chatted with Katie and Alicia. The new couple had become nauseating to be around since Valentine's Day, which was the only upside to being ignored the last week by his brother and friends, but it was still the longest he and George had been on the outs, since, well around the Yule Ball... yeah, the pattern wasn't lost on him, okay?

Fred sniffed and shifted to stand a little straighter. "Sorry."

"Oh, so you do know how to apologise?" Lee scoffed. "And here I thought you were sulking because you had some inability to say sorry. Ya know, for being such a knobhead."

Fred grimaced. "On second thought, why don't you join the others."

Lee snorted. "Come on mate, just say you're sorry. Explain what you meant to say."