Golden (FRED WEASLEY)

Chapter 12

My eyes open, and fall on Fred slipping on a button down. I sit up in bed, and he turns around. His shirt is unbuttoned, his bare chest exposed, and my eyes shoot up to his face after realizing I was staring at his exposed abs.

"Happy halloween!" He exclaims, as he continues to button up the shirt.

"What are you supposed to be?" I ask, groggily.

"George." He lifts up George's sweater with a G knit on to it, and I smile.

"Adorable. I have all my costume stuff here, can I just get ready in there?" I ask, pointing towards the bathroom.

"Yeah. Also, you can keep the sweatpants," He laughs, and I look down to realize I'm wearing sweatpants that are about three times my size.

I grab my bag, and walk into the bathroom, making sure the door is locked. This year, I wanted to do something a bit more simple, so I decided to be a black cat. I pull on the tight black dress, and look at myself in the mirror.

My hair is crazy frizzy around my face, but the dress actually looks kind of good. I pull the bottom of it down a little bit, since it's pretty short, but otherwise it looks good.

Digging through my bag, I find my makeup things, along with my cassette tape. I completely forgot that was in there. I pop the cassette my parents got me inside, and start dancing along with the music as I do my makeup.

I draw on big eyeliner, just like I did on Carson yesterday, and check it in the mirror. Perfect. I add a couple finishing touches, and I'm ready.

My favorite song comes on, and I bop my head to the beat. I dance dramatically in the mirror, and open the bathroom door quickly as part of my routine before shutting it once more.

It gets to the buildup of the song, and I'm dancing low. The beat drops, and the electric guitar goes off. I start jumping around dancing, and I spin to face the door. To my horror, Fred is standing in the doorway, an eyebrow raised and his mouth hanging open.

I freeze, and stand there for a moment before my instinct kicks in. I shove him backwards, and slam the door shut. I slide down the door, and crouch on the floor, music blaring.

I bury my head in my arms in embarrassment. How did he even get inside? I think back to my dancing, and remember opening and shutting the door. I guess it didn't fully shut, and he could hear the music and came in to see what I was doing.

I press the off button on my tape, and look at myself one last time in the mirror. I look like a cat with the whiskers and nose I drew on, so I accept it and head down to the common room.

As I walk down the stairs, I glance at my friends costumes. George is wearing the F sweater, just as I presumed, Maya is dressed as a witch, and Jocelyn is dressed as a fairy.

They turn to look at me, and I smile. "How did you sleep?" Jocelyn asks.

"Oh, just horribly," I joke, glancing over at Fred who winks at me.

•

We walk outside to the lake after lunch, and I sit down beside Maya and Jocelyn as the twins whisper to each other about something.

"Do you like the party?" Maya asks, brushing her bangs out of her eyes.

"It was so much fun. Thank you again," I laugh, looking out over the lake.

"Of course."

"Hey, I heard about this muggle thing called a thrift store, would you guys wanna go to one on the next Hogsmeade trip?" Jocelyn asks, and I whip my head around to face her.

"Yes!" I exclaim. I love thrifting. When I was little, I grew fast and a lot so my Mom would take me thrifting since the clothes were cheap and I would grow out of them in a month or two.

Jocelyn starts explaining to Maya what thrifting is, and I look over at the twins. They're both skipping rocks, and I walk over to try.

I pick up a random rock, and try to throw it like a frisbee. It doesn't work, instead of skipping the rock falls straight into the water.

"Let's unpack what was so horribly wrong about what you just did," Fred says, and I laugh, "first of all, that rock was not smooth at all. Try to find a rock that is as flat and smooth as possible. Next, you're positioning was all wrong."

He walks behind me, and grabs my hand with a new, smoother, rock in it. He guides me how to skip it, and I'm blushing the whole time. At one point I look up at George standing near us, smirking. I roll my eyes, and go back to focusing on the rock.

"And...toss!" He says, and I slide the rock out of my hand into the lake. It bounces on the surface two times before plopping through and sinking.

"Yes!" I exclaim, spinning in a circle before high fiving Fred.

I glance over at the school, and spot someone familiar. Staring for a second, I realize it's Carson. I grab my stuff, and swing my bag over my shoulder.

"I gotta go now, talk to you guys later?" I say, and they all tell me goodbye as I walk back towards the school.

I stand beside Carson, and she looks over at me in confusion.

"You like George?" She questions, glancing down at the twins throwing rocks as hard as possible into the pond.

"No, why would you ask that?" I reply, laughing.

"Because, he went over to help you skip that rock and you were obviously blushing." I realize she doesn't know the boys have switched sweaters, so of course she thinks Fred is George. So she doesn't know it was Fred helping me skip the rock.

"How can you even see that far? And that's Fred, he's just dressed as George for halloween," I laugh, leaning against a post.

"Ohhhh, gotcha. So you like Fred."

"It's really that obvious?" I bury my head in my hands, laughing.

"Yeah, very obvious. He can't tell though. I can feel it that he doesn't know," she says, and I glance back over at him, "love the makeup. It so does suit you."

"Thank you, I felt it fit the black cat aesthetic."

      I look over at the group by the lake, and see Maya start to walk up the hill towards us. My head snaps to the side to glance at Carson, and she gives me a nod. I speed walk away and into the castle, holding my bag tightly as a burst of wind almost knocks me down.

Happy belated Halloween! I was going to post this on Halloween, but the day got away from me so it's a bit late. I hope everyone had a fun (and safe) Halloween!
written-November 6th
1114 words