Scratches (Fred Weasley)

(159) Wear This For Me

Florence was anxious to go to back to work.

Even though, admittedly, she had been rather impatient about lounging around the house, she was still feeling quite nervous about going back, knowing the atmosphere was never going to be the same. They had lost a few people, and several nearly died. Florence knew it was going to be hard to move on from that.

But before Auror business, Florence had busied herself with packing her things for her move to the twins' apartment. She had hauled several boxes in to her room, going through the things she might want to bring with her, though making sure she still left a sufficient amount of things in her room, incase she had to go back. Or incase it might not work out again.

She hated thinking that way, that she and Fred would ever break up again. But it was never really a surefire thing and he had to take precautions. Just in case. That's why she had labeled one of the empty boxes 'home', and planned to stash it in her closet.

Florence was on the floor, sorting through more stuff when she heard a knock on the door, her calling for the person to come in, not tearing her eyes away from her work.

"Thought you'd want something cold to drink?" Came Sirius' voice, Florence looking up to see him holding a bottle of butterbeer in each hand, extending one towards her, Florence gratefully accepting. "I didn't know we had butterbeer."

"Well we didn't. Until twenty minutes ago. I asked Tonks to bring us back some, since you look pretty busy with whatever you're doing."

"Oh you know," she said, taking a long swig before continuing her sentence, "Just weeding out the things I'm bringing with me to the apartment and things I'm leaving here."

He looked at the boxes, pointing to the bigger one, "And these are...?"

"Stuff I'm leaving here," Florence answered, taking another swig. Sirius raised his eyebrows, before sitting down across from her on the floor, "That's a lot of stuff you're leaving behind."

"Well, the place is pretty small so I don't want to overcrowd it with anything unnecessary."

"Please, Florence, I've been to the place. It's not that small," Sirius said, making her raise one of her eyebrows, "You've been? When?"

"Opening week. Helped clean up upstairs and everything since I was bored at home and Remus left me unattended for quite some time."

"I see," she said, taking another swig at her Butterbeer, before looking around at the room once more, "I can't believe I'm actually leaving this house... I can't picture myself not coming home here anymore..."

"Well for someone who's moving out, you sure are leaving behind a lot." Sirius remarked, drinking out of his butterbeer afterwards, Florence giving him a weird look, "Why do I feel like you have an entirely different implication?"

"Not entirely different, darling," he said, "I'm just saying. Its like you're holding yourself back...or am I wrong?"

"Well..." Florence trailed off, setting her bottle to her side, "I guess I'm just playing it safe... I just. I don't know what the future holds for me, and things that might happen. I'm just trying to have a back up plan."

"By things, do you mean things with Fred?" Sirius inquired, making the brunette sigh, "Yes. Things with Fred. Don't get me wrong, Sirius. I love him. To death. But we're so young. And we've broken up once already. How certain can I be that it won't happen again?"

"You can't be certain at all, my dear." he replied, reaching over to put a hand on top of Florence's, "Your fears are reasonable, and yes you're young. That's the best part. Being young and in love and just diving in head first in to decisions. It sounds reckless when I put it like that, but sometimes life's that way. You just have to go for it. And that boy, Florence, I've seen it with my own two eyes, he loves you more than anything. I know he'll take care of you."