forever is my oath to you
Pairing: Fred&Rose
Prompt: Fiery
Disclaimer: Anything you recognise I do not own.
Warning: Cousincest.
A/N: Written for the Next Gen Personality Traits Challenge over at the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges Forum.
She runs to him with tears down her face and tangles in her hair and he doesn't know what to make of this girl with the stars fallen in her eyes who looks so fragile compared to the mess of blazing conviction and never-ending verbal tussles that she's normally glowing as a result of.
It's late and the common room is empty and he's not really sure why he's still awake but when she flings her arms around him, climbing onto his lap as he sits on the of the squashy chairs by the fire he thinks he knows why (he may have seen her leaving the Common Room earlier and hadn't seen her return). She cries into his shirt as he strokes her hair and he can't help thinking how much it aches to see her hurting so very much. Between sobs she tells him how she rowed with Scorpius (again). How he called her a know-it-all and she snapped because she's stressed out from work because exams are looming and how she wants to help her mother more with all the legislation concerning the pro-rights of non-magical beings, because she knows it's something worth fighting for. How she's scared that she only has a year left at Hogwarts and that she's not sure that Scorpius is really worth her time and that he kind of deserved it.
Fred isn't surprised to hear that she's argued with Scorpius (their relationship has been growing increasingly tense and he'd seen Scorpius enter the Gryffindor common room earlier looking tired and angry), Rose has always been like that.
Quick-tempered he means and she changes her mind so often, flinging from one passion to the next, throwing herself wholeheartedly into whatever takes her fancy.
From Charms Club in second year to Keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch Team for third, fourth and fifth (they won the Cup each year – just for the record) and she'd been Captain of the Chess Club since first year up until a few weeks ago as well as an avid member of the Gobstone Society for a few months at the beginning of sixth year.
What he is surprised to hear though is how vulnerable she is under all those choices she makes and obsessions she blazes after. She's always followed her heart, more so than sarcastic Molly whose always been searching for her very own fairytale or Victoire who finally fell off her throne after falling for a pretty boy with prettypretty eyes who is so much better for her then Teddy ever was.
But there, clinging on to him like she needs him to breathe, he can't help but think that maybe because she gives everything, she's made herself entirely too easy to break.
So he holds her tighter. Tells her everything will be okay because she still has him (she's always had him) and he's not sure how it happens, but somewhere between the dried tear tracks on her cheeks and the dying embers of the fire he's pressing a kiss (feather light) to her lips.
It's soft and gentle and everything a first kiss should be between two people and she licks her bottom lip as if tasting him before leaning up to claim another, eyes suddenly burning with feverish vivacity like he's something that she can pour her soul into . He feels the spark there, feels the way she shifts beneath his fingers and it's so very close to perfect, but so very wrong all at the same time and they should stop. But he just can't help himself.
Somewhere between kisses she tells him that she needs him, that part of her has always wanted this, but that in the morning it will be as if it never happened. He trails kisses down her neck as she whispers to him and when she moans quietly he's on the verge of promising her the world, and the consequences just don't matter.
He wakes up on the chair in the morning cold and alone. Hair more than sleep mussed and lips slightly swollen. People start to trickle into the common room and he pulls himself up before making his way to his dormitory, memories of her skin and her touch and her kisses, all fervour and need burnt into his mind.
Fred doesn't see her until lunch and she's glowing again, one hand tangled with Scorpius' the other pushing her auburn hair behind her ear, a flawless picture of fire, and life, and conviction as they both walk away from the Gryffindor table as he meanders towards it.
He catches her eye as they pass, and there's an unspoken thank-you-for-knowing-how-to-fix-me in her gaze and he smiles slightly in return, no worries.
Fred watches her leave as he plays absentmindedly with his cutlery, watches her hair sway as she walks, the devastated mess she was from the night before long forgotten. A voice next to him pulls him from his thoughts, draws him into conversation and as they chat about the future and what next after Hogwarts all he can think is how he could have promised her the world and so much more, if she's only let him.