Fool For You || Fred Weasley

five

Rosalie Evans absolutely hated when her daily routine got messed up. She used to have panic attacks if she was running late for breakfast, thankfully, Tara had calmed the extremity down but she still needed a routine. She tried to eat breakfast every morning, be to classes on time, study on breaks and make it to bed at a decent hour, every day.

Some days, especially recently, were hard for Rosalie. She didn't even want to leave bed some mornings let alone do school work and then continue to do ministry paperwork.

She ran her fingers along the pages of an Advanced Herbology book, taking in information that may be used on her next test. Rosalie's fingers were littered with paper cuts from how fast she grabbed books or flipped pages, although, she usually would flip pages non-verbally.

Rosalies stomach growled, she was skipping dinner. It irked her that her routine was being thrown off but for some reason she couldn't stand listening to the chatter of students or even the bugging of Tara and her boy-talk.

Rosalie had spent the whole summer alone with the exception of the house elves and Dumbledore, so now that Tara was back she was feeling quite overwhelmed. She wanted nothing more than peace and time to herself. To any student she may have looked comfortable and quite indulged on her book, yet she was induced with stress. School, the ministry, Tara, Weasley twins; her mind shuffled these things back and forth as it refused to let her focus on Herbology work.

She closed her fist, knuckles turning white, why couldn't she focus? Everytime she read a sentence, she had to go back and read it again. The letters in the words started to shuffled around and her breathing got heavier and before you knew it she was panting.

Rosalie sighed loudly almost an agitated cry before slamming the book shut and standing quickly out of the library chair. She made eye contact with third-year, Hermoine Granger, who gave her a concerned and confused look. Rosalie didn't have time to decipher which before she stormed out of the library heading to the Ravenclaw dorms.

October was approaching , the air was crisp and the hallways were practically empty with it being so close to curfew. Rosalie would usually be showered, perfectly clean and tucked in bed by this hour, the only thing crazy she would be doing at this time would be reading a book. But Rosalie couldn't read right now, she couldn't even think let alone see straight. It could've been from the stress or the overwhelming chatter from Tara from the past few weeks or even the fact that she hadn't eaten in almost two days. She couldn't keep food down, especially after her Boggart scare in Defense Against the Dark Arts a few days prior. Thankfully, the class was over for the week and she didn't have to face it until Monday.

The only sound in her ears were her shoes clacking against the empty hallway as she walked quite briskly. And of course, the moving pictures on the hall spoke among themselves.

Rosalie was strong willed yet it seemed as though her fifth year was chiseling away at her, making cracks and chips that she couldn't keep together. She went through her mental checklist — this usually made her feel better. She had completed her homework and an extra credit assignment, did some paperwork for her Ministry Internship which she would have the next morning, and also had a meeting with McGonagall for who knows what reason.

She took a deep breath, the mental checklist doing it's routine job of keeping her breathing steady. Rose hadn't gotten much sleep lately, dreams and thoughts of her past haunting her as she laid in the dark. So she really wasn't ready to go to bed.

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that once again she hasn't eaten a single nutritious item in the past two days (just a cookie Sunny had given her). Rosalie took a glance around, she could make it to the kitchen before curfew, right? She itched her skin at the thought of getting in trouble but decided that her passing out in the hallways would be even worse.

Rosalie made it to the painting where she tickled the pear and was allowed entrance to the kitchen. The house elves were running about, preparing food, cleaning up and chatting amongst themselves. Many of them smiled at her and some hugging at her calves as she made her way through the kitchen. The elves loved Rose, I mean they had spent every day, every summer and every holiday with her since she was twelve.

Obviously, the girl had changed since then. Rosalie had not only grown and matured in her body, but her hair had gone a few shades darker and she kept it at a short length sitting on her shoulders.

Sunny was there waving at her, flour on her nose. "Miss Evans!"

"Hi, Sunny," Rosalie said to her, wiping the flour off Sunny's nose with her pointer finger. "Making a little mess, huh?"

"Oh, yes, yes. Making a mess, making a cake..." Sunny muttered in almost a song like tune. She stirred the bowl aggressively, Rosalie laughed at the effort she was putting into a cake, she looked like a muggle baker.

One of the elves brought Rosalie a plate of food, filled with Rose's favorite items from the usual Hogwarts dinner feast. She thanked him and patted him on the head as she began to pick at the plate, letting Sunny rant about her day.

Rosalie was working on scarfing down a roll when she heard someone enter the kitchen. Once again, her skin itched and her face turned red, she feared for the worst. She was going to get a detention or lose her Ministry internship, I mean, what was she doing up. She scolded herself.

Her skin began to itch less but her face flushed even more when she saw the bright red hair first. Of course, she was overwhelmed all week with Tara talking about boys, specifically the twins — and now one was here, in the kitchen, standing in front of her his mouth slightly parted almost as thought he wanted to say something.
Rose's lips were in a tight line. Sunny kept talking.

"Uh, Miss Evans? Did you hear?" Sunny waved her hand in front of Rosalies face before following her line of vision to the red-headed boy standing there. "Oh."

"Hello! Mr. Weasley," one of the elves said to him. He looked down and smiled and nodded but still stayed silent.

He walked over to where Rose was but didn't sit, he stayed by the table next to her. "You don't strike me as the sneaking into the kitchens late at night type."

She didn't know what to expect him to say or do and didn't understand why there was an awkward tension in the room but she let out of a sort of humorous huff, finally breathing again.

"Let's just say it was an emergency," she took another bite of her roll. Her mind was still foggy from the lack of sleep and food but she was shocked at her own response. She would've normally gotten defensive saying it wasn't that late or that she didn't sneak in.

"How do you even know how to get in?" He raised his eyebrow at her, smirking as an elf brought him a plate of a humongous piece of chocolate cake. Rosalie could do quick math and there was no way that boy could finish that cake but she didn't make a comment on it.

Rosalie scrunched her face a bit but still had a friendly look, "how do you?" She asked him back.

The Weasley twin on the other hand, which she had guessed was Greg, was taken aback. Not in a bad, rude way but in a once again shocked way that she was joking with him and especially, the fact that Rosalie Evans — the smartest girl in school — had snuck into the kitchen after hours.

Sunny looked between the two and gave Rosalie a look. Rosalie gave her a stern one back, Sunny had known Rosalie for several years and she knew this look meant "shut up".

"Rosalie, right?" He asked, confirming her name but he knew.

"Yeah, Rosalie Evans," she stook her hand out across to the table that he was sitting at. He somehow smirked and smiled all at once while shaking it back.

"Fred Weasley."