We will meet again ~ Fred Weasley

- Wrong Time -

"You felt like the right person in every way that mattered—except for the one thing we couldn't change: the timing."

___________________________

She hadn't meant for things to change like this.
It didn't come with an argument or a clear decision, nothing that could be pointed to as the moment everything changed. Instead, it settled in quietly over the days that followed, threading itself into Katherine's routine until it became something she was actively choosing.

She and Fred hadn't spoken since that last detention.

Not properly.

There had been moments where they passed each other in corridors, catching sight of him across the Great Hall, once even nearly colliding at the foot of the staircase, but every time, Katherine had been the one to turn away first.

Not out of anger.

That was the strange part.

She wasn't angry at him.

If anything, she understood it now in a way she hadn't allowed herself to at the time. Whatever existed between Fred and Angelina had history, weight, something established long before Katherine had ever stepped into it. She had seen it clearly in that corridor, heard it in the way Angelina had spoken, in the way Fred had answered.

Don't worry, Angie. I'm all yours.

The words didn't sting the way they had that night.

Now they just...made sense.

And that was exactly why she kept her distance.
Because what she had felt during those evenings in detention, that slow build of something neither of them had fully defined, had been real, but it had also been contained. Safe, in a way. Separate from everything else.

Outside of that room, things were messier.

Complicated.

And Katherine had come to a quiet, reluctant understanding over the course of a few days.

She wasn't ready for that kind of complication.
Not when everything else in her life had already shifted so dramatically.

Her friendships had changed. Her place at Hogwarts had changed. The way people looked at her, spoke to her, expected things from her, it was all different now.

The idea of adding something else, something uncertain and consuming, felt less like excitement and more like pressure.

So she chose not to.

And avoiding him was easier than explaining it.

It became a pattern.

Mornings in the Great Hall, usually with Blaise already halfway through his breakfast and Pansy trying to get him to slow down, Veronica watching the exchange with quiet amusement.

Afternoons filled with classes, where things felt almost normal again. Notes shared with Hermione, whispered comments with Ron, the occasional glance from Harry that said more than anything either of them voiced.

And then evenings—

Evenings were where things split.

Sometimes she found herself in the Slytherin common room, as conversations drifted lazily between people.

Draco was often there.

Not always speaking, not always at the centre of anything, but present in a way that felt different now.