First Love, Last Love (Fred Weasley)

Chapter 41 | Please Be Okay

Monday, June 22
(Your POV)

Hector is gone. My bird pen is nowhere to be seen. Fred and I have looked everywhere and have asked everyone but no such luck.

It has not helped my growing anxiety at all. Hector, my love, my best friend, my dearest, is gone. Will I ever find him again? What if someone took him? What if he just, I don't know, died??

Can pens even die?!

When I asked Fred this, he just shook his head and tried to assure me he had to be somewhere in the castle.

School ends at the end of this week. I have one week to find him, or I might as well go ahead and say my goodbyes. I can't believe I'm so worked up over a pen.

A. Pen.

Still, I do have other things to do than look for him. All of my teachers have gone ahead and given me homework to do over the summer, and are letting me do some of it in class so I don't have to spend all of my summer doing work.

I was grateful for that. It means I can think of other things besides Hector and the third task.

Which will occur in two days, I might add. That is not helpful either. Apparently (according to Hermione), the last task is the deadliest and the most dangerous out of all three.

I just wondered what the third task would be. I mean, what was more dangerous than stealing a dragon's egg or diving into the Black Lake?

Earlier today, Seamus reminded me of our bet. Why did he seem so confident that Harry would die? Come on, Finnigan, he survived the Dark Lord once, a three-headed dog, and Sirius Black (the murderer who escaped Azkaban). He even survived 3 years (4 now) of Professor Binn's dreadful class.

I'm 100% sure he can survive anything and everything now.

Seamus disagreed, but you know what, screw him. I don't need his agreement.

It's lunch and I just realized this is the last week we'll get to see the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students. I hope they had a good stay.

Fred nudged me while I was nervously gulping down forkfuls of ravioli. "Chill, (Y/N)."

My hands were shaking by now. "Sorry." I was trying to be "chill" but my bad feeling about everything was growing worse and worse.

Fred and George shared a look and it seemed as if they didn't believe me.

"Listen, are you okay?" Fred asked me. "You keep almost having these breakdowns over nothing, and we're worried about you."

I sighed and put down my fork. "I'm worried. What if something bad happens?"

He shook his head. "It won't." Then he added when I gave him a disbelieving look, "And if it does, we'll keep you safe. I'll keep you safe. I won't let anything happen to you."

I nodded, taking a deep breath. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was getting worked up over nothing.

I mean, I'm not even worried about losing money at this point. I just hope the end of the year goes by smoothly.

After regaining my composure, the rest of the day and the next day went by a lot better.

I just had to get one thing off my chest.

After classes on Tuesday, I went to seek out Harry. He was just coming out of Potions. I hurried to the Dungeons to catch him leaving.

"Hey, Harry," I called. He looked up, and I could immediately sense the worry in his bright eyes.

"Can we talk?"