Scratches (Fred Weasley)

(40) Awful Partings

Nicolai had woken up especially early that day, creeping out of the Ravenclaw tower to meet up with George for the last time, to talk about their success. She had an unwavering smile on her face as both she and George and Lee sat down at the Gryffindor table in the empty great hall.

"Congratulations for a job well done you two!" Jordan praised, patting George on the back and giving Nicolai a fist-bump. "Now we just have to wait awhile and see how it goes from here."

"Hopefully to the direction where we want it to go." said George, who then turned to talk to Nicolai, "Did you talk to Florence last night?" he asked.

"Nope, but I saw her come in, though. By the looks of it, it did look like it went well. What did Fred say?" she inquired, looking around to see Mr. Filch eyeing them suspiciously from a distance, wondering what the group meeting was about before walking away. He must have entrusted that both George and Lee would behave in the presence of a Ravenclaw.

"Yeah, right after he got back. Fred said that they only talked though. There's more to it, I bet. He was being weirdly vague about the details though. But he said he was only sleepy so we let him rest."

"Oh I just can't wait!" Nicolai squealed as she clapped her hands together. "Finally. Our hard work's been paid generously. No more having to spend time with you." she shot back at George, who looked offended.

"Oh you say that now but you're going to be crawling back because a some point you're going terribly miss this pretty face." he said, an uncharacteristically smug look on his face, making Nicolai grimace, "You speak a load of waffle. Do you know that, Weasley?"

"Well it was a pleasure doing business with you two," said Jordan, cutting off their squabbling. "We've accomplished what we wanted to accomplish... And now all we have to do is wait, I guess, and hope there will be improvements."

"I have to head up now." said George, "Fred and I have to do our last minute planning regarding the post-OWLs prank that we have so dreamed of when we were wee little eleven year olds."

Nicolai raised a brow, "Some dream. What's the prank going to be?"

"We have a few ideas," he replied, "But hell would have to freeze over first before I told you about it." he winked at Nicolai, who frowned disapprovingly at him.

The three had returned to their respective dorms, Nicolai walking back up to see Florence awake, already piling her stuff by her bedpost. Her bed was made, and Florence even had the courtesy to make Nicolai's bed as well. If she could only make everyone's beds—as she has a thing for stress cleaning.

"Sooooo," began Nicolai, making a beeline towards Florence who was stuffing the remainder of her quidditch gear into her trunk. The shorter brunette plopped down on her bed, a wide ecstatic grin on her face, "How was last night?"

Florence snorted, "You're making it sound so weird." she said, before continuing to fold her clothes into a tiny suitcase.

"Oh come on. You owe me details from last night!" she whined, nudging Florence until she paid attention to her again, "Please?" she pleaded, "Tell me how it went? Bit of a shock, huh—"

"Nicolai," Florence cut off, her mood feeling like a train being thrown off of it's tracks. She did not want to discuss the events of last night, not wanting to let Nicolai know that it went terribly wrong and that she was stood up without any explanation afterwards. She forced a smile, "I'm still really tired and really hungry. Perhaps you could cut back on the request of story telling, yeah?"

Nicolai was impatient, but agreed nonetheless, Florence sighed. She could do that, keep pushing it away until eventually she wouldn't have to tell her anything.