♫ sonata no.14 "moonlight" in c-sharp minor

- ludwig van beethoven, paul lewis

Content Warning at the end of the chapter.

✧

"Fred! We did it!" Priscilla cheered. "We got him!"

Nitara covered her mouth with her hands and shook her head. She knew immediately what Fred was talking about.

"So you're proud of yourself?" he asked, his tone beginning to worsen.

"He's never going to bother any of you again," she replied, her smile beginning to falter. "Wait -"

Fred began to storm away in the opposite direction, but Cilla ran after him.

Nitara stood in the hallway with the forbidden polaroid picture, now developed, still in her hand. So much was going through her mind at that moment, but she kept thinking about what she had said to Fred during the Ball, and how empty those words must seem to him now.

"Fred, it was never in the plan to -"

"What? Cheat on me?" Fred snapped back. He turned to face her, looming down from his six-foot stance. Nobody, maybe not even George, had ever seen him look so angry.

Priscilla looked at him in shock. "You knew about the plan..."

"If I knew you were going to kiss him, I never would've been okay with it, fuck -"

He began to walk further down the hallway again, but she grabbed his arm and stopped him, rushing around him so he could face her. "He kissed me, Fred. I never wanted to cheat but the plan worked, either way, we got him-"

"It was cruel, Priscilla."

She sputtered for a response. She let go of his arm as something horrible began to twist in her gut. "As if everything he's ever said to you and your family, Hermione and Nini, Harry and Neville wasn't cruel -"

"This is different, Priscilla! You don't get it!"

"Fred, she's telling the truth," Nitara tried to explain.

He spun back to face her and glared. "Stay out of this, Dayal."

Nitara looked as if she'd been struck.

Fred turned around to face Priscilla one more time, but his words died on his lips upon seeing her tear up. Despite how angry he was about what he had just seen, he couldn't find it in himself to escalate the situation after seeing her like this. Instead, he just walked past her one last time.

Priscilla didn't follow him this time. Instead, she let out a sob and fell to her knees on the stone floor.

Fred stopped in his tracks. The walls shook around him and the floor trembled beneath his hand-me-down dress shoes. When he turned around to find the source of the tremor, Nitara was screaming and Priscilla laid past out on the floor, cascaded in the black velvet of her dress.

✧

Later that evening, when Nitara returned to the Ball, it was wrapping up for the night. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students were lining up for the carriages to take them home, and the rest of the Hogwarts students were slowly making their way back to the dormitories with sore feet and tired expressions. On the stairs by the Great Hall, girls cried on their friend's shoulders and couples continued to make out into the evening.

Nitara was bloody exhausted.

She didn't even notice when she bumped into a student she didn't know, the platinum blonde of the girl's hair brushing in her face. She mumbled an apology and continued to make her way inside.

When she walked into the Great Hall to get her bag and the rest of her things, she found Cho. She was sitting alone at their table, looking around anxiously. When she finally saw Nitara, she lept up, Nini's bag in hand, and ran over to her.

"Where have you been?" she asked, worry written all over her features. "You've been gone almost an hour, Cedric went to look for you -"

"I'm alright, it's fine," Nitara assured, taking Cho's hands in hers. "Thanks for waiting up. Let's get out of here, yeah?"

Cho nodded. The two linked arms and made their way up the stairs with no destination in mind, just needed to get out of the Yule Ball chaos they had endured altogether.

✧

The girls finally decided on the Astronomy Tour to be their getaway. Nitara luckily had a little gin leftover from the party the previous month, and after a little skepticism from Cho (likely having war flashbacks from the last time she drank), the two settled down to drink and watch the stars.

"You know," Nitara slurred, holding the bottle of gin in her arms like a baby. "You wizards have the stars mapped out much better than muggles do. I wonder if NASA knows."

"Who's NASA?" Cho asked, making Nini laugh. She handed her friend the bottle, which Cho finished off with ease.

"You- You're getting preeetty good at this," Nitara laughed.

Cho leapt to her feet, newfound confidence blooming inside with the aid of the alcohol. She held her hands out to help Nitara up. The two girls backed into the centre of the Astronomy tour, still holding hands.

"May I have this dance?" Cho asked in an aggressively posh accent much unlike her own.

Nitara laughed and nodded. She put her hand on Cho's waist, Cho put hers on Nini's shoulder, and the two waltzed clumsily around the Astronomy tour.

"We're worse than, than HARRY!" Nitara shouted, making Cho shush her as they swayed and stumbled about.

"Be quiet!! You're going to get us caught!" Cho insisted, but Nitara shook her head.

"Step one, little padawan," she slurred, "never worried about getting caught."

They stopped in place and looked at each other. Their arms had relaxed from the waltz position, but their hands still rested on each other's shoulders and waists.

"I still don't know what that is," Cho whispered.

Nitara opened her mouth to respond but was cut short by Cho crashing her lips onto hers.

✧

Priscilla woke up in the middle of the night, sweat forming on her brow. She had a pounding headache and what felt like a cold sweat.

She moved to sit up but only groaned and laid back down in pain. Her whole body felt like it had been set on fire, her joints screamed at her every movement.

Then she started to remember.

As her eyes adjusted, she could tell she was in the infirmary. It was completely empty, not even Madame Pomfrey or any of her assistants were there. They were probably at the ball still.

The ball... "Fred," she croaked, guilt and sadness washing over her.

She heard a loud snort and the creek of a chair to her left. She strained her neck to look over, and sure enough, he was sitting there next to her. He seemed to have fallen asleep too.

While the gesture was kind of him to bring her here, she still wasn't completely sure what had happened to warrant him doing so. She remembered fighting with him, she remembered Draco, but she can't remember how they got here. She began to tremble and tears trailed down her cheeks as it all came crashing down on her. No matter how hard she tried to suppress it, a sob broke out.

"Are you okay?" he asked, but he sounded so distant, so foreign. "You fainted, Priscilla."

"I-I what?" she sputtered out, beginning to panic more. Soon enough she was heaving despite the pain in her abdomen it caused. She felt like she was going to hurl or just faint all over again, she wasn't sure what.

Things had escalated too far, and Fred knew he had to do something. Without a second thought, he scooched next to her on the small cot and wrapped his arms around her. She clung onto his velvet dress shirt and heaved as she trembled. Her makeup had already smudged from when she fainted, but now it was unrecognizable as it made its way down her cheeks. Fred began to rub her back and he rested his forehead against the crown of her head.

"You... you shouldn't be here," she choked out, but he shushed her in response. "Where's Nini?"

"I told her to go back to the Ball," Fred explained, and Priscilla began to shake and sob harder. "Breathe love, breathe," he soothed, rubbing her back more purposely now and trying to get her to pace herself better.

"Be strong for me, Cilla."

"But... But I lost you," she replied.

For a rare moment, Fred didn't know what to say. It was the most complicated situation he's ever been in for him to tell a joke, and that was saying something. Finally, he settled on "just let this jackass help you. I'm here now."

✧

♫ the night we met

- lord huron

"i had all and then most of you

some and now none of you..."

✧

After a while, the two fell asleep. Fred's back was to the wall and his legs were stretched out onto the cot. It wasn't quite big enough for both of them to share, so Cilla had swung her legs over his and rested her head in his lap. She was still clutching onto his velvet dress shirt, scared that if she let go, he would finally leave her for good. His arms were still wrapped around her, resting on her back.

She began to twitch in her sleep, startling Fred awake. He leaned down and brushed the hair out of her face, watching her with concern.

He wasn't sure what he was doing. She had made him so upset earlier when he saw her and Draco... he felt so blindsided. This should be the last thing he should be doing right now but he just couldn't seem to leave her, which was growing more and more alarming in the back of his mind.

He sighed at himself, which resulted in him beginning to stroke her hair. She stopped twitching under his touch, but a fair amount of drool leaked from her mouth, making him chuckle.

His eyes trailed to where her hand was clutching his jacket. The ring he had given her was resting on her ring finger. The symbolism of its placement made him swallow hard and lean his head back against the wall.

He shut his eyes and began to think of what he should do. If he left and she woke up without him, she would be in this big room all alone. To make matters worse, they were still not completely sure what had happened and why she fainted in the first place...

The tremor he had felt definitely came from her. Fred had never seen anything like it or heard anything like it. Maybe his father would know or could inquire about it at work.

"Shit," Fred whispered, as he turned around and looked out the window. It was already dawn, they had slept through the night. Priscilla had to leave soon to go home with Nitara and he had to catch the train to go back to The Burrow.

"Priscilla," he whispered, gently nudging her awake. It wasn't working, so he pushed a little harder.

She groaned in pain from where he poked her in the side. "Fuck, that hurts," she grumbled.

She wiped her puffy red eyes and slowly leaned up as best she could. She was still sore all over, but sleep had helped considerably. Fred helped her sit up onto the cot carefully as not to hurt her again.

"Morning," he said quietly.

Her eyes would've filled with tears at the sight of him if she had any left to cry. "You... you stayed with me?"

"Yeah," he shrugged.

"After everything, you stayed," she said again, not believing it, and he nodded. "I..."

"You what?"

"I..." she was at a loss for words. There was something she really wanted to say, but the memory of what had happened made those words die on her lips. Fred looked exhausted. He had bags under his eyes from lack of sleep and it looked like he might've been crying a bit as well.

They looked at each other deeply, not quite sure what to say.

Fred swallowed. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fucking sore," she said with a groan, making him smile a bit. "How hard did I fall?"

Fred took a breath. "You made the walls shake-"

"Are you calling me fat, jackass?" she joked, but he chuckled and waved her off.

"Of course not. However, when you fell, it was strange. This huge wave of energy came from you, you made the castle shake. It was magic, I've never seen anything like it," he explained.

Cilla's eyebrows weaved together in confusion. How was that possible? "What time is it?"

"That's why I woke you up. We have to get going... are you okay to walk?" he asked, swinging his legs off the bed and getting up to help her.

She finally, if not reluctantly, let go of his suit jacket. The fabric was wrinkled there where she had gripped so hard. She was reminded of everything she had felt yesterday, which had now faded to a numb yet ever-present roar.

She slipped the ring off of her finger and held it out to him. "I don't deserve this," she stated bluntly.

"Keep it," he said, closing her palm and helping her off the bed. Once she was standing, he had to step away and let go because of how close they were. "I need time to think... And that ring was for you, anyways."

She nodded at him but didn't put it back on her finger. "I'm so sorry, Fred," her words came out broken and cracked. "It was an accident, but you're right. It was cruel. I never wanted to hurt you."

"Right," he whispered. He wanted to do something. He wanted to hug her, kiss her, tell her everything would be okay, but he wasn't sure if it would be.

"Happy Holidays, Priscilla," he settled on, and walked away, out of the Hospital Wing.

It terrified him how much he cared for her. She would be the death of him, for sure.

✧

Priscilla must've been one of the last students to get on the Hogwarts Express back to London. She poked around the cars and finally found her friends. Nitara's eyes were bloodshot and Cedric was looking out the window. When they heard the door to the compartment open, they nearly leaped out of their seats.

"Cilla, are you okay?" Nitara asked. She threw her arms around her friend a little too tightly, causing Cilla to wince with pain. She wreaked of alcohol. "Sorry," she threw in.

Nitara began to examine Cilla's face to make sure everything was alright like a concerned mother, making Priscilla smile and grab her hands. "I'm alright," she assured.

"What happened with Fred?" Cedric asked, getting straight to the point.

Cilla sighed and sat down next to him. She put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "I have no idea. He said he needs time but he didn't leave my side all night."

"That would be romantic in other circumstances," Nitara said sadly.

There was something off about her today, and Cilla couldn't tell what.

"At least we all get to have a fun break together, right? Between Nini's birthday and my parent's party, we're going to spend so much time together away from school," Cedric said with a smile, giving Priscilla a pat on the shoulder.

Nitara crossed her arms. "Exactly, we've barely spent any time with you so far this year. Too cool for us now that you're a Champion, ya meathead?"

Priscilla's eyes went wide.

"I am not a meathead!" Cedric laughed. He leaped across the compartment and began to tickle and attack Nitara.

"Cilla! Cilla! Help me, NO!!" Nitara giggled. She seemed back to normal in an instant.

"This meathead is going to make you pay, Nini!" Cedric laughed.

Oh my god. Cedric sent me the dress, she thought with alarm.

Content Warning: Underage Drinking & An Anxiety Attack