The next day Dell had a cold (most likely from having been caught in the rain the previous day,) and ended up having to go to the hospital wing for a potion which made her feel better, though made steam pour out of her ears for the rest of her day. Dell remembered when Roxanne had to get it the previous year, and it had looked as though her head was on fire.
Speaking of Roxanne, Fred and James and (to Dell's surprise, she wasn't his relative after all,) Tyler were still hard on the subject, and Dell stayed away from them for most of the day, spending it with the point of interest herself, Roxanne, who seemed to not want to spend it with Andrew, or her Slytherin friends.
"Well, I don't have to spend every minute of every day with him now, do I?" Roxanne said reproachfully when asked, and Dell backed off quickly. But Roxanne shrugged before sighing, saying, "Let's just say, it didn't exactly go the way I planned. And don't you dare repeat that to my brother. Speaking of my brother," Roxanne looked at Dell curiously and Dell was getting frustrated of being looked at that way. It showed clearly on her face, and she blurted out, "If you all aren't just going to tell me what you are going on about, then would you just drop it?" Roxanne laughed and the subject turned to Quidditch.
That night Dell woke up in the dead of night with a case of the chills. Her whole body was shivering. Not being able to see a thing, her hand groped around for another blanket, or something of the sorts. Instead it landed on a sweater beside her bed. Not recalling how it got there, and not really carrying since it was about two in the morning and she had classes in a few hours, Dell grabbed it and pulled it over her head.
Dell settled into bed once more, pulling the blanket over her head, warming up with the added warmth from the sweater. The last thing she remembered thinking before she drifted off to sleep was that the sweater smelt good.
The next morning Dell was awoken to the giggling of Carly and Liberty. She sat up and bed, and saw the two sitting on Carly's bed whispering and looking at her. She looked at Hailey (who was half dressed) and Kailey (just sitting up), the first who was smirking at her, and the former looking to see what all was going on and smiling slightly as her eyes landed on Dell.
"What?" Dell asked Carly and Liberty as they continued to giggle and look at her. She was totally confused. She shook her head at the two's idiocy, but then realized the twin's (they were related no matter how much they denied it) were also looking at her and acting oddly. So, she got up and looked in the mirror.
Dell looked at herself from head to toe. She noticed what they must be going on about almost immediately. She was wearing Fred's sweater. It was obviously Fred's, since it was a Weasley jumper (yes, the woman still made them, even though she had to make too many to count) and it had an F on it, something she still did, and she put a G on his fathers, a thing Fred didn't like, because it was awkward and made him feel like he was taking the place of his dead uncle that he never knew, I mean, he even looked like him (which was really only looking like his dad, except with two ears). So that's what they were going on about.
Dell tried to recall when she put it on, and it didn't take too long. She remembered waking up in the middle of the night with the chills and putting on the first thing her hand landed on, which so happened to be the sweater.
"Real mature guys," Dell said dryly as she pulled the sweater off so she could get changed into her school robes. But as she pulled it off she caught that smell again, the smell from last night. She recognized that smell. Well, it was Fred's sweater, it must be what Fred smelt like, and she had never noticed he smelt so good.
A large blush formed across Dell's cheeks at these thoughts. Luckily she wasn't facing the others and they couldn't see. Unluckily Hailey was leaving and Dell's bed was closest to the door, so she saw. She smirked slightly once more and Dell just scowled at her, which made her smirk widen. "Open your eyes, Dell, and maybe you'd notice a few things," She said before leaving. What the hell did that mean?
Dell hurried and got dressed, then headed down to the common room where the guys were waiting for her. "What went on up there, Hailey was smirking like hell when she came down, and she looked straight at us," Fred said when Dell reached them. "Nothing," Dell muttered, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. They shrugged their shoulders, before heading off for breakfast.
The one class they didn't have together was right before lunch in the morning, when Fred and Tyler went off to Muggle Studies, and Dell and James went to Arithmacy. The rest of their classes went by in a flash, and soon they were going their separate ways, and Dell was alone with James, which could be a good thing, and it could be a bad thing.
They entered Arithmacy and sat down. The whole class groaned when Professor Vector announced it would just be note taking today, and Dell slouched down in her seat and began doodling on her page.
"Aren't you going to take notes?" James hissed at her. "No, I'm not in the mood. Why don't you take them for once in your life, and I borrow yours?" Dell hissed back before smiling at the hilarious idea. James would never take notes in his life. He slouched down in his seat too, and began tapping his wand against his shoe, changing it a different color with each tap. Only about half the class was actually taking notes, a thing the teacher didn't seem to care, as it was their grade. As long as they didn't make a sound, he was fine.
Dell doodled on her page the whole class, not paying attention to what she was doing. The class went on and on. Oh, when would it end? A couple of girls were watching James change his shoe different colors (why he was doing it, no doubt) and he was even adding designs with some taps, some of the girls names. She just rolled her eyes at him, and he eye smirked her, (you know, a look with your eyes, like smirking, that says everything a smirk does,) as he was pretending he wasn't noticing the girls. Dell just continued to doodle as she starred ahead, not even noticing what she was doing. If she had, she would have long stopped.
Finally class ended. Dell sighed and began gathering her stuff as James returned his shoe to its normal color. She glanced down to the page she had been doodling on before freezing, horror struck. James looked at her curiously, before going to look at her page to see what had made her freeze.
So, she shouldn't have done it, but she couldn't let James see the page, could she? She could have just pulled the page away, but he could have still gotten it in the end. Plus, it was the first thing that came to her mind. So before he could see it, Dell pointed her want at it and said quietly, "Incendio," setting the page on fire. James looked at her surprised, and others looked her way in shock. Dell looked down as she murmured "Aguamenti," Setting the fire out. There was nothing left of the parchment but ashes which Dell quickly swept away into the garbage, ignoring the classes eyes, and especially James.
Dell walked out of the class starring at the floor, feeling James close behind her. She waited for him to ask what she knew he would, trying to gather together her jumbled thoughts, trying to figure out what she was going to say. But what she had written – or doodled - without realizing, kept on popping into her head. What did it mean? Of course, it had to mean that. But, could it really? And how could she draw something without even realize she was, without even knowing she felt it? Oh, it was all so confusing.
"What was that about?" James finally asked as they turned a corner. Dell closed her eyes and let out a breath before looking up into James eyes. She shouldn't have done that. He usually could read right through her, so she shouldn't have even bothered saying, "Nothing," He already knew she was lying.
"Bullshit," James said shaking his head. "What had you written?" Dell bit her lip as he stopped her and stood in front of her, looking her straight in the eyes. A few people looked at them as they passed. James could read her pretty well – as well as he could read any other cousin, though not as well as he could read Fred. It was lucky Tyler wasn't there. If he was, he would have seen the confusion in her, the jumbled up feelings, the thing that James had said a couple of days ago coming back to her. He would have figured out a great deal of it, though who he wouldn't have been able to, but knowing that much, he could have coaxed it out of her. But James couldn't read her that well. And by the time Tyler got there she would make sure she was fully composed. She just had to practice on James.
"It's none of your business. You should have asked before you looked," Dell said, walking around him and continuing on her way. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down more, thinking straight. OK, that was OK, but not good enough. It wasn't getting James off her back. He was continuing to ask her and she was just ignoring him.
Dell continued to think hard. Then she found it, the thing that would defiantly get them off her back. Get them off her back, hell, it would even let them give her alone time and never bring it up again. But she had to wait until the others got there too. Yes, it was perfect. God, she couldn't wait to see their faces.
Soon Tyler and Fred joined them, just as James was saying, "Dell, it was obviously something big if you burnt the paper." "What? What happened?" Fred and Tyler asked at the same time looking between James and Dell knowing they had missed something important. James told them what happened, and their eyes widened after each sentence, though Tyler's thinned suspiciously at her back after her excuse.
"Dell," Tyler said, obviously wanting her to look at him, knowing he could read her better. This was the perfect moment.
Dell turned around in a flash stopping dead, making them stumble back a few steps. "Look," She said, looking all three boys straight in the eyes separately, Tyler last and staying on him. The confusion was gone for now, it was at the back of her mind for later, she knew what she had to do. "A while back, sometime in the first year, something happened, something that made things between us awkward, and I've never brought anything like it up again. Lots of things like it happen, but I never mention it. This was one of those things." All three boys looked confused at her words.
Pretending to be frustrated, though having known they wouldn't have gotten it, Dell ran a hand through her hair and looked around as though looking for words, though knowing exactly what she was going to say. A few people were glancing at them as they passed, and finally Dell looked back at the three confused boys and gave a frustrated sigh before 'deciding' to just say it.
"What I'm saying is it's a girl thing." Dell said simply and straight out. She got the reaction she had expected. All three guys froze in shock, and stood there starring at her. Then they stumbled back a few steps, looking awkward, mumbling about who knows what, though the word 'sorry' was heard a lot.
"OK, so can we just, drop all this?" Dell asked, hiding the smirk that was threatening to come on her face at the boy's awkwardness. It wasn't like what she had said was a total lie. It was a girl thing. They nodded. Good, she'd gotten them off her back, now she just needed to figure out why she had written it all over her page.
As they continued to walk, Dell still a few steps ahead of them, this time not by her choice, but by the boys hanging back, still feeling awkward (it would last for a bit) Dell thought about what she had written. It would explain her actions this morning. Or maybe her actions had started it. She didn't know.
Dell glanced back at the boys who luckily weren't paying any attention to her, landing on one in particular. What would they say if they knew the thing she had written was Fred's name all over the page – alongside her own?