A/N: Thank you all so much for reviewing, favoriting, and following! It's great hearing from you. And on that note, I want to acknowledge Olivia, who left a guest review on that really got me thinking and actually helped me untangle a plot issue that I've been trying to figure out since forever. I genuinely mean it when I say your feedback is the best! Thanks, Olivia—this chapter is dedicated to you!

I know this chapter is a bit shorter than my usual updates. Chapter 15 should be longer and should be up by late September 2018—although I'm hoping to get it up earlier since this chapter is on the shorter side (although you can always read my other Fred/OC fic, Delicate while you're waiting…not that I'm still shamelessly plugging my own work.)

Chapter 14: In Like a Lion

The first thing I felt when I realized that Angelina and Lee were fighting was a queasy sort of dread.

The incongruity of this reaction would not strike me until much later.

At that moment, though, all I could really focus on was the fact that my stomach felt like it was trying to escape by burrowing through my toes. If this plan was working, it was surely only working for Fred. Aidan and Genevieve showed no signs of strife—and if anything, I'd put more effort into avoiding Aidan since embarking on this stupid plan. And for all our plotting and scheming, Fred and I had never even considered the possibility of one couple splitting up before the other. I couldn't very well keep Fred in a fake relationship if Angelina was available and interested, so where did that leave me?

Mixed in with that sick and sour feeling was also a sort of sadness: though I'd never admit this to him, I knew I would miss Fred, perhaps more than I rightfully should. We would still remain friends, certainly, but something about our strange fellowship of heartbreak would be lost, and that made me rather sadder than I expected. He wouldn't need to talk to me as often. We'd have no need to share secrets at sunset—indeed, if he ended up with Angelina, that's the sort of thing that would surely be frowned upon.

"Charlotte?" Fred was looking at me, his brow furrowed and I realized that I'd been staring off into space for the last few minutes. Probably, I looked a little worried, perhaps somewhat green.

I forced a smile. "Sorry. Got distracted."

Fred wasn't buying it. "Try again."

"I'd rather speak about it later." A party was no place for this conversation—there were too many opportunities to be overheard. But perhaps more significant was the fact that the prospect of our fake breakup had left me feeling much stranger than I had expected. I didn't know why, but this unexpected sadness felt like a secret that I couldn't share with Fred.

Fred, mercifully, took me at my word. "I'll hold you to that," he said, slinging an arm around my shoulders.

"I know."

He didn't notice Angelina and Lee until a few minutes later.

"Seems to be trouble in paradise," he said quietly into my ear. The smile in his voice twisted my stomach into knots and I couldn't bring myself to look at him.

"Yeah." I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. "Seems like it."

The party broke up relatively early—it was a school night, after all—and the common room emptied out until it was eventually just Fred and me curled up together on one of the couches, talking quietly as the fire burned low in the grate, my legs draped across his lap, his hands resting on my knees.

"What was bothering you earlier?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Nothing."

He sighed, folding his arms across his chest. "Lewis, can we skip this tedious business where you pretend you're not going to tell me something?" He arched an eyebrow. "You should know by this point that I will wheedle it out of you eventually. I am very good at wheedling. A champion wheedler, if you will."

"Have you ever considered that there are things in this world that simply aren't your business?"

"I don't see why that should stop me from knowing."

I rolled my eyes. He looked at me for a long moment, a sort of half-smile playing at his lips.

"So are you going to tell me or am I going to have to drag it out of you?"

I pressed my lips together and looked away from him.

He sighed. "Charlotte."

It was patently unfair that he could read me so easily. I was so good at keeping my expression neutral and keeping my secrets close to my heart and Fred had cheerfully ignored all of that since that very first night at the Yule Ball when he worked out that I fancied Aidan. The face that I presented to the world was carefully crafted and layered with impeccable poise but with Fred, it might as well been a moon made of papier-mâché or a sea made of crepe paper and silk: believable at a distance only.

"How can you always tell?" I asked instead.

"I know you're trying to change the subject," he said, "but how can I always tell what?"

"When I'm upset," I said. "I'm good at pretending I'm not, but you always know. It's infuriating."

He raised his eyebrows. "Lewis, if I had a strategy I couldn't very well give away my secret."

"How can you not have a strategy?"

He shrugged. "Intuition, I suppose. You look upset, I wheedle it out of you. It's not very complicated."

"Intuition? Maybe you ought to have kept on with Divination."

"That's a horrid thing to say," he said, poking my knee.

"It's horrid of me to want you to utilize your talents so you can achieve the highest success?"

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

I arched an eyebrow. "That's a lie and you know it."

He grinned. "Well, it gets you somewhere. But not this time." He gave me a wry look. "And don't think you've distracted me with your clever barbs. Tell me what's wrong."

My smile faded and I looked away again. I could feel him watching me as I weighed my words.

"Angelina and Lee were fighting," I said after a long moment. "So I have to wonder where this leaves me."

Fred frowned. "I'm not sure I follow."

"Aidan and Genevieve don't seem to be in any danger of splitting up so…" I shrugged. "Not that I've really made much of an effort to talk to Aidan."

Fred was looking rather confused. "I'm not…you think Angelina and Lee are splitting up?"

"I think that's a reasonable assumption." I paused, assessing Fred's expression. "…Right?"

He shook his head. "I wouldn't read that much into one fight, honestly. They're both rather quick-tempered. That's not even their first fight."

"…it isn't?"

"No. George said they had a fight at Hogsmeade, after you and I left the Three Broomsticks." He shrugged. "They were snogging each other stupid by the end of it, though, if you recall."

Mostly, I remembered that he'd gripped my hand tightly all the way back to the castle and that later he'd kissed me breathless in the corridor.

"Oh." I swallowed. "I didn't realize."

The panicked, queasy sort of feeling in my stomach had eased some, but I still didn't feel quite right. I could feel Fred watching me as I tried to sort out what it was I still needed to say.

"It did make think…" I took a deep breath. "We don't really have a contingency…you know. If Angelina and Lee split up and Aidan and Genevieve don't…or vice versa…"

"First off—" He gently pried my hands apart and I realized that I'd been twisting them in my lap. "—you're going to turn your hands into horrible claws if you keep doing that. You'll confirm all those awful Muggle stereotypes about witches."

I sighed wistfully. "Oh, but then I'd get to live in a house made of gingerbread and sweets that I'd use to trap wandering children until they trick me into roasting myself alive in my own oven."

Fred frowned. "That makes absolutely no sense." He placed a hand to my forehead. "You don't have a fever, do you? There's a flu going around Hufflepuff right now…"

I laughed and gently pushed his hand away. "I'm fine. I was joking—it's a Muggle fairy tale. I always forget that you're pure blood."

"You're going to need to explain that to me later because I have dozens of follow up questions." He looked at my hands, which I'd absently been twisting back together. He separated them again, threading his fingers through my own. "My second point, however, was that in the event that such a thing were to happen, we'll sort something out."

I eyed him skeptically as I tapped my fingers against his knuckles. "How? I can't in good conscience keep you in a fake relationship if you've got the possibility of a real one."

"Right, but I can't very well abandon you just because things start looking up for me."

I looked at him. "Fred, that's very sweet of you, but you can't let your sodding Gryffindor chivalry force you to put your life on hold on account of your fake girlfriend."

He raised an eyebrow, his mouth curling into a sly sort of smile. "And if you were in the same position, what would you do?"

I was silent because of course I'd do the same stupid thing. We'd shared too many secrets for me to toss Fred aside. My mouth settled into a firm, hard line and Fred's smile widened.

"I'm right, aren't I?"

"Shut up," I grumbled.

He was gloating now. "Haven't I always said you adore me?"

We were edging too close to a truth that I still wasn't ready to share: that the prospect of the end of our fake breakup had conjured an unexpected lump in my throat, that I would miss him in a way that I still didn't quite understand—wouldn't understand for a few months yet. And whatever powers of wheedling Fred might have, I knew that I wasn't going to tell him that. I didn't know exactly why, but it felt too strange and precious to say aloud. It was the sort of thing that was meant to be kept close to the heart.

And so I merely rolled my eyes and redirected the conversation to the practical, the logical: "So, what's our plan then?"

Fred grinned, still a little too smug. "Same as it always was." He raised an eyebrow. "Though you need to stop avoiding Aidan."

"I know."

"As I've told you multiple times now."

I sighed and leaned my shoulder against the back of the couch, my cheek pressed against the worn upholstery. "I know."

He traced his forefinger in a spiral on the back of my hand, brow slightly furrowed in thought. "Why have you been avoiding him? I don't think I've asked."

I worried my lower lip between my teeth. "Self-preservation, I suppose," I said after a moment. "It's hard to feel sad about the whole situation if I'm not looking directly at it."

"You realize that—"

"It's entirely counterproductive?" I looked up at him and smiled sadly. "Of course. I never claimed it was sensible."

"Fair enough."

We were quiet again.

"How do you manage?" I asked finally. "Surely you have the same sort of feeling when you see them together."

His lip twitched in a way that was a little too sad to be called a smile.

"I suppose I just pretend that I don't," he said. "Have that feeling, I mean."

"Does it work?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes."

A strange sort of shiver worked its way up my spine then. I folded my arms across my chest and shifted so I was curled up next to Fred, my head resting on his shoulder, his arm draping around me.

"You cold?"

"A bit. Fire's gone down."

"We should get to bed."

"Probably."

But we sat there for a good deal longer, Fred with his arm around my shoulder and me quietly wondering why I couldn't bring myself to say that I would miss him.

I had a stomachache for most of March.

There were two reasons for this. The first was Angelina and Lee. They made up after their fight at the party—Fred had been right about that—but then there was another fight, this time over breakfast in the Great Hall. I spent most of that Tuesday with my stomach in knots until I saw them making up during our free period, kissing in an alcove by the Transfiguration classroom. But my relief didn't last very long—they were soon at it again. In fact, it seemed like every time I turned around, they were either fighting or engaged in some sort of public reconciliation (read: snogging). Sometimes, there would be a few days of peace before the cycle started back up again.

It was a lot of uncertainty for one person to take.

The second reason for my month-long stomachache was Aidan. Specifically: I was making a genuine effort to actually interact with him.

It had never been easy talking to Aidan, even before he started seeing Genevieve. Back when we regularly traded cheap paperbacks and spent hours studying in the library, it wasn't easy because I was humming with a giddy sort of anticipation. I could never fully relax—I was second-, third-, and fourth-guessing every move I made and cataloging every look for further analysis. And even though it was exhausting in that respect, it still felt something like a miracle: here was a boy my age who liked the same things I liked, who cared about school as much as I did. He was serious and thoughtful—and he was handsome. I had no idea how he felt about me, but he'd loaned me his copy of And Then There Were None, which he'd marked up with little annotations and asides scattered throughout the book like breadcrumbs for me to find and I suppose that felt sort of like romance.

Since he'd started seeing Genevieve, talking to him had changed to a different sort of not easy. Now it was an exercise in heartbreak and a reminder of my own failure: this is what could have been mine if only I'd been more. More brave, more confident, more observant. It was pressing at old wounds, it was shopping for tiaras when you only have Knuts to your name.

But the prospect of being alone at the end of this stupid plan was more upsetting, so one day in early March, I called upon every ounce of my Gryffindor courage and sat down at a particular table in the library—one that I knew Aidan favored because it was near a window—around a time when I knew he was most likely to show up. I took out my Potions textbook and a fresh roll of parchment and began to study for an upcoming exam, trying to ignore the way my stomach was twisting.

Forty minutes later, right when I was about to give up, a familiar shadow fell over the table.

"Hey." Aidan's smile was wide as he sat down in the chair across from me. "It's been a while since I've seen you here."

"I've been busy," I said, which was mostly true. Sort of. "Been doing most of my studying in the common room recently."

"Well, I'm glad to have you back," said Aidan, looking like he meant it in a way that made my stomach flutter. "What are you working on? Potions?"

"Yeah. I've been having nightmares about next week's exam."

He opened his bag and took out his own textbook. "You always think you're going to do five times worse than you actually do." He smiled again. "You thought you weren't going to manage more than an A on your O.W.L.s and that's clearly not what happened."

"I think I got lucky in the practical," I said with a shrug. "If they'd asked for a Draught of Peace, I think I wouldn't have managed more than an P at best."

Aidan chuckled. "Well, I haven't seen any smoke coming from your cauldron this year, even despite Weasley being your partner."

"He's actually quite good with the practical part of the class," I said. I wasn't sure why, but I felt the need to defend Fred, even though he made no attempt to distinguish himself academically, nor challenge anyone who suggested that this was the case.

"Oh, I don't mean he's not talented," said Aidan quickly with a smile. "I meant that he doesn't usually turn down the opportunity for a minor explosion. Neither one of them does."

I had to concede that point. "You're not wrong."

"I have to say, I'm impressed that you've managed to keep him in line," he said. "You and Bea both."

Idly, I wondered if he could tell the difference between Fred and George. It wasn't exactly uncommon for people to get them confused—I certainly hadn't been able to do so until we started talking at the Yule Ball, but I suppose I'd become rather used to it, to the point that it seemed strange to not be able to tell them apart.

I shrugged. "I'm rather good at being a terrifying authority figure. I suppose that's why I made prefect."

Aidan laughed and my resulting smile felt a little too bright, a little too telling. He wasn't someone who laughed all that often—he was so earnest, so serious that humor sometimes went over his head—and making him laugh always felt like a victory. It was evidence that I was really clever, that I could be the sort of girl that he might fancy.

"Well, you've certainly improved the quality of my educational experience," he said.

I had a flicker of a strange feeling, so quick that I almost didn't notice it. I didn't really know what it was or what it meant, but suddenly I felt a strong desire to change the subject.

"What have you been reading lately?" I asked instead. "I'm in between books at the moment and it's been a while since I've had a good mystery."

Over the next few weeks, I slowly worked myself back up to my previous study schedule. It didn't exactly get easier, but I suppose I started to feel more confident smiling my way through conversations about lectures and exams.

The hardest was when Genevieve would join us. I think most girls wouldn't have approved of their boyfriend studying with another girl—most girls probably would have insisted on tagging along to these study sessions as a chaperone, offering overt displays of physical affection as a sort of thinly veiled threat. Genevieve was not concerned about this, at least not that I saw. She seemed perfectly at ease with the situation—and in fact, she commented more than once that it was nice that I would study with Aidan because it saved her from having to spend so much time in the library. She'd say this fondly and with a soft smile, her hand often resting on the back of his neck, fingers curling into his hair—not as a threat to me, but as a genuine expression of affection.

It made me feel rather sick and I'd have to focus to keep my expression calm. Possibly, she didn't think of me as a threat—and why would she? If I looked like Genevieve, if I was as sweet and gentle as she was, I wouldn't worry about a girl like me stealing him away. And then I'd start to feel sick because wasn't I the villain in this story? What kind of selfish, awful person would try to tempt a perfectly nice boy away from a perfectly nice girl? What kind of person was so terrified of being alone that she was pretending to be in a relationship with someone else?

Usually, when I got to this point, it led to me leaving the library feeling like I was millions of miles away from myself. I'd find Fred and drag him into some dark corner or empty classroom and kiss him until I felt something, until we were edging up against activity that was perhaps too intimate for our fake relationship—my fingers creeping under his shirt collar, his fingers fiddling with the hem of my shirt. Then I would crash back into myself and tears would prick at the corners of my eyes. I would lean into him then, pressing my cheek against his chest, trying to anchor myself with the steady beat of his heart. He'd hold me, rubbing circles on my back and saying nothing because he knew what it was like.

"Sorry," I would say after a while.

"Stop apologizing," he'd say.

I'd pull back to look at him and we'd stare at each other for a moment until he made some sort of joke and I'd laugh. We'd walk back to the common room together, talking quietly about nothing important, but my spirit would feel lighter than it had before.

It occurred to me in these moments that this is why I would miss Fred—because of these quiet moments that meant everything even though we were talking about nothing.

Three weeks in, Aidan loaned me a copy of a Muggle mystery that his dad had sent him for Christmas. I devoured the book and savored the notes that he'd made in the margins of the page, reading them over and over, looking for a clue or a sign or something.

And then, in the margin on page 294: Charlotte would like this.

My heart squeezed with a feeling that felt a little like hope.