Callidora ☆ Fred Weasley

[chapter 141]

Calli had spent years learning how to hide things.

Bruises beneath long sleeves.

Sleepless nights behind a composed expression.

Fear beneath perfect posture.

One raw hand was hardly going to be the thing that gave her away.

She had no intention of telling her friends about the detention.

Not yet.

She needed time to think.

The moment Fred, George, Lucy and Stella found out what Umbridge was doing, they would storm into her office without a second thought. Fred and George would probably test every unfinished Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes product on the woman before breakfast, Lucy would hex her on principle, and Stella, despite usually being the calm one, would likely help hide the body afterwards.

No.

She couldn't let them throw themselves into detention too.

Not because of her.

Instead, she spent hours thinking of another solution.

Some way of exposing Umbridge without breaking Harry's trust.

Without betraying the confidence he'd asked of her outside Gryffindor Tower.

Dumbledore would know what to do.

If only she could actually find him.

Since the start of term, he seemed to have vanished whenever she looked for him. Meals came and went, corridors remained empty, and even as Head Girl she hadn't crossed paths with him once.

Perhaps that had been the reason he'd made her Head Girl in the first place.

An excuse.

A reason for either of them to request meetings without attracting attention.

She clung to the thought.

If he didn't contact her by the end of the week...

She would ask to see him herself.

The decision settled something inside her.

For now, it was enough.

She informed Montague that she had earned another detention but would still make Quidditch tryouts afterwards.

He merely nodded, muttered something about not being late, and hurried away before she could say anything else.

He was still afraid of her.

Fortunately, the back of her right hand was easy enough to conceal.

Calli was left-handed.

She naturally wrote, ate and cast spells with her left, leaving her injured hand resting quietly in her lap or tucked beneath the table. Whenever anyone reached for it, she simply shifted position before they noticed.

Fred only complained that she wasn't holding his hand as often.

She laughed it off, slipped her left hand into his instead, and hated herself a little for how easily the lie came.

Years of practice had made deception feel effortless.

That frightened her almost as much as the scarlet words that still faintly lingered beneath the skin on the back of her hand.

By the time Calli met Harry outside the Great Hall before detention the following evening, she was silently hoping Umbridge would actually let them leave in time.