Muggle | 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑊𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

Chapter 133

"Fred..." I muttered breathlessly, getting up from the snowy ground immediately along with Draco.

Our eyes bore into one another as we stood there motionlessly. I felt my heartbeat pick up as I stared up at Fred who was standing only a few feet away from us.

He was staring back at me blankly, his expression unreadable, which somehow made my heart ache.

"I'll catch up with you later," I whispered at Draco over my shoulder and he nodded hesitantly, walking away with one last glance at Fred.

"So is this how you were planning on gaining his trust? To lead him on?" Fred finally said when Draco was out of sight, and I felt sick with guilt, even though that wasn't true.

Only then did I start to feel the bitter cold, my nose going numb as my breathing sped up.

"That wasn't what you think," I tried to say as I took slow steps toward him, but my voice came out weaker than it ought have been. "Draco and I are just —"

"Friends?" He raised a brow at me, still looking emotionless. I was actually going to say 'cousins', but I didn't find the strength to break him off or to correct him. "What kind of friends go out with each other and end up doing whatever you two were doing on a Valentines day!?"

"V-valentines day?" I repeated in an empty voice. "I — I had forgotten —"

"Well, that's understandable," he said flatly, the mockery obvious in his voice.

"What's that supposed to mean!?" My eyebrows knitted together at those words.

"It means that I couldn't stop thinking about you all this time! So I thought I would come and surprise you on this day! But you've been too occupied lately to even remember it!"

I gaped at him for long seconds. "There's nothing between Draco and me! Fred —" I scoffed in disbelief, shaking my head as I hissed, "he's my cousin!"

He blinked at me a few times in silence. "He's — what!?"

"You didn't know?"

He was bearing a puzzled expression. We were now both staring at one another, as if we couldn't believe our ears. So I lowered my voice even more as I neared him and said,

     "Draco's mother's maiden name was Black! She's my father's and Sirius's first cousin! Which makes Draco and I second cousins! I don't know how it is with you Wizarding families and your twisted pureblood stuff, but where I was raised, we don't even think about going out with our that closely related cousins!"

He wetted his lips which had gone completely dry, due to both shock and the freezing air. He was still staring at me.

"I — I didn't know he was your —" he tried to say, "i-it's just that you had said that you used to have a crush on him —"

"Not on him! On a fictional character!" I retorted, not sure if that even made sense. "I only liked reading about him! But until last year, I despised him in person! But now I realized I was wrong to have judged him... and frankly, so were you, for thinking that I would ever want to be with him!"

But Fred said nothing, like he was in deep in his thoughts as he breathed heavily in and out from his nostrils. And then without a warning, he turned on his heels to leave.

"Fred? Where are you going!?" I called after him, but in a blink of an eye, he Disapparated. "FRED!"

But there was no point yelling anymore. He was gone, taking a piece of my heart with him. I walked back toward the castle, my tears at the verge of falling as I did everything in my power to hold them back. I don't even know how long it took me to get back to castle, but by the time I reached the second floor, my tears had started streaming down.

I found a deserted chamber and walked inside, sitting down on a stair nearby, crying silently.

But not a minute had passed that someone said softly from behind me, "Hey."

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Draco walking toward me. I tried wiping away the tears with my sleeve, but he had already seen it as he was sitting next to me on the stair.

"You okay?" he asked rather awkwardly.

"Never better!" I said with a sarcastic scoff.

       There was long seconds of silence reigning the chamber as we sat there, not even looking up at each other. Until Draco finally decided to break the silence.

"Look..." he took a deep sigh before continuing, "I don't know what happened between you and Weasley... and I know now's not the time... but there's something I need to confess, before it's too late and you hear it from someone else and things get even worse for you than now..."

"Wh-what?"

"Okay... so I agreed that I would come to Hogsmeade with you, right?" he started hesitantly. "Well... Crabbe and Goyle were going to get suspicious — no matter how dumb they are — so I kinda lied and told them that I — er — that I asked you to come with me so I could... you know... figure out what you were up to — why are you laughing?" He raised a brow at me as I let out a chuckle.

"Oh, I'm gonna seem like a terrible person for saying this," I laughed, "but I actually told my friends that too."

Draco gave me a look before snorting out in laughter. "How you weren't sorted into Slytherin is beyond me."

I smiled, shaking my head at him before looking away, staring down at my feet.

Draco then broke the silence again. "About what happened today — I shouldn't have —"

"It wasn't your fault," I said quickly. "It wasn't Fred's either... It was all me. I always seem to screw things up. Even though I never mean to. I just wish people would realize that I never mean to hurt anybody's feelings..." I sighed again, tears blurring my sight once more.

"Well, if you ask me, you're better off without him," Draco mumbled under his breath grimly.

I frowned at that. "Meaning?"

"It means that — that —" I watched him struggle with words. He was avoiding my gaze, until he finally turned to me, his pallid eyes gazing into mine, and so he whispered, "I think I'm falling for you."

My eyes widened. My face went pale. But before I could react, before I could stop him, before I could even move, Draco leaned forward and suddenly pressed his lips against mine.