Cherry Wine: Professor RJ Lupin

Chapter Eight: A Promise

The sun rays are poison to Emma's eyes the next morning, making Emma turn over in displeasure and pull the covers over her head in hopes to alleviate the pounding in her head. In an attempt to remember the events of last night, she recounts her walk down the hall and her run-in with Professor Snape, but it seems that after that her memory is scattered across the rest of the night.

"Bloody hell Em, get up would you, its almost noon!" she hears Ginny exclaim far too loudly as she enters their room, "Freddie's been asking 'bout where you've been all morning,"

Emma groans and pulls up the covers even further in response, and she suddenly feels them being pulled from her grasp in a quick jolt from the end of the bed. Ginny stood at the foot of the bed with her arms crossed and a look of determination of not leaving until Emma was out of bed.

"For Merlin's sake Gin, alright. If it means you'll lower your voice, that's all that matter," Emma responds, slowly sitting up and swinging her feet over the bed letting them dangle slightly.

The sunlight fills the entire room, possibly the most revolting thing to Emma at that very moment and she hears the voices of Fred and Ron travel up the walls. 

Ginny just laughs and shakes her head as Emma gives extra attention to the way the ground feels against her bare feet, "Don't forget Fred is looking for you. Oh and good to see you alive and well on this Sunday afternoon," she giggles slightly and grabs her own books off her desk and walks out the door taking one last glance at Emma to ensure she had gotten out of bed.

Looking in the mirror at her disheveled appearance, she runs her fingers through her hair and wipes the remainder of her mascara out from under her eyes. Ignoring the pleads of her body to just crawl back in bed, Emma makes her way down the steps and enters the common room. 

At the smallest table in the room, Fred sat next to Ron and Harry his arms folded in front of him leaning back in the chair intently listening to their conversation. It doesn't take long for Fred to notice her presence and he immediately gets up to greet her, almost knocking the chair backwards.

"Mornin Em, took you long enough to get up. Sent Ginny up to get you out of bed. How you feeling?" he yawns mid-sentence, and a pale color is washed over his face indicating he was feeling similarly to Emma.

She just groans in response and walks back over to where he had previously been sitting, her head still pounding, though significantly less painful. 

"Em wait for a second," Fred reaches out for her arm and pulls her back so their conversation is not to be overheard by the ears of Ron or Harry. 

Emma notices that he has tensed up when he touched her arm, and is rolling on the balls of his feet, "What's up Freddie?" she says with concern, worried for what he might say. 

"Well the Hogsmeade trip is coming up, and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me? You know, just the two of us?" he rubs the back of his neck, refusing to make eye contact as he spurts out the entirety of his sentence in one breath. 

Emma confused by his proposal, as they always went together, "Yeah, that would be fun! 'course Freddie," she responds, thinking of it as just another weekend with her best friend at Hogsmead.

What Emma failed to realize was the number of times Fred had practiced asking her about a dozen times over in the mirror that morning. How he had asked George a dozen more times if it was a good idea and then another 20 more how he would ask her. He knew it was her last year, and he had to ask her one of these days otherwise he would have regretted it for the rest of his life.

"Brilliant," he beams from ear to ear and proceeds to make his way back to his previous spot, Emma one step ahead of him. 

Before Emma can even take a breath, a very anxious Harry looks at her, "Emma, I was wondering if we could meet later tonight about our lesson, you know the one we talked about?" Harry spurts out, just as she sat down next to him.