That One Time I Fell In Love

(And Other Impossible Things). Fred Weasley II finally meets his match in the form of one loud-mouthed and free-spirited, Emma Terry. [NextGen GIR World!]

Chapter 14: That one time we were just friends.

Eventually, life went back to normal.

I mean, as normal as it really gets around here. Rose and Scorpius waited until the Christmas holidays before they went on their honeymoon, so naturally I avoided them and their newlywed bliss in the meantime at ALL FUCKING COSTS. "I don't know why," James had snorted at me at one point. "They literally don't act any different now than before they were married! Except maybe that they keep calling each other Husband and Wife for some reason." I'd rolled my eyes in response, but even dealing with that sounded exhausting enough for me. The month moved into December with a flurry of wind, rain and more rain, and I had bigger things going on that deserved my attention more than my insane newly married cousin!

"Seems like the wedding went off, then," Sapphire said as I spoke to her outside the courthouse.

"Oh, it went off all right," I mentioned. "Flowers and kissing and heart eyes everywhere, it was fucking disgusting. Still … you want coffee?"

"Don't mind if I do," Sapphire said. We only had about fifteen minutes before the trial went back in session, so we quickly dove through the crowd of far-too-curious bystanders and journalists and started making our way down Diagon Alley.

We were into day two of the Reddale trial. What with randomly jetting off to Vegas and the wedding, I'd almost managed to forget that it was coming up! I guess it had come around quicker than the average court trial, probably due to the fact that literally everyone wanted this bastard in jail as soon as possible. It was much to everyone's keen interest, but I still certainly wished that I could have heard about it from afar. You know, like on the radio or through Yael or someone, but nooope, I just HAD to testify, didn't I? It was even worse than the preliminary hearing since this time had the whole she-bang! Journalists and a full jury and hundreds of eyes watching and listening to me casually talk about the time the serial killer attempted to, oh you know, MURDER ME. Luckily, my part was mostly over, but I had to stick around in case I was called on again and to my surprise, Sapphire had come down to watch.

"I hope you realise that you don't have to be here," I pointed out as we hurried to the nearest café.

"Come off it," Sapphire waved this off. "It's the only way I get to watch the son of a bitch suffer … that and I fear for your sanity. I mean, you almost killed Darla last time."

"Aw, Saph! You shouldn't have."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Forget me giving a shit, all I actually care about is getting the goss about Emma! Did you see her at the wedding?"

"Would you seriously just drop it?" I scowled.

"Not a chance in hell!"

I groaned exasperatedly as we were quick to order coffee together and start sipping the scalding liquid before we had to make our way back inside the courtroom. We waited out on the cobblestone street once we had reached the building again, despite the December weather. From this end of Diagon Alley, I had a good view down the road of Gringotts on the corner. She was probably working away in there somewhere. Whatever. Not that I ever think about it.

I'm totally chill.

"Ok, fine, I saw her at the wedding," I admitted.

"Aha!" Sapphire smirked. The wind was blowing the wrong direction for the way her hair was cut, causing the white blond locks to puff up over her head. "So what happened?"

"Nothing! Fucking Jesus …" I said.

"You can't tell me nothing, it's never nothing with you guys!"

"You don't know shit, Sapphire."

"I know more than the next person," she pointed out.

True. But only because she was annoying and kept poking me until I got fed up and gave in! "God, I hate you … look, I think we've somehow become friends, ok?" I eventually decided on saying.

"FRIENDS?" Sapphire cried. "Oh, honey. Don't make me laugh."

"What? I could do it!" I countered her immediately.

"Fred! You don't HAVE friends who are girls!" Sapphire scoffed. "You either sleep with them, or they're related to you!"

"Well, excuse me, but who are you then?"

"You work with me, and if I do recall, you did try to sleep with me once," Sapphire pointed out.

"Yeah, but I don't want to sleep with you NOW, do I?"

"Really?" Sapphire asked over her coffee. "Not even a little?"

"Well, not seriously," I shrugged. "But we don't just talk about work anymore, we share personal anecdotes and drink coffee together! That's a friend, right? So you're a girl, not related to me and we're just mates. It's possible, I can do it."

"There is no fucking way," Sapphire said.

"Well, screw you, because we ARE friends," I snapped. "And just for that, I'm gonna keep doing it! We're gonna be the best fucking friends you've ever seen! YOU'LL ALL SEE!"

I mean, turns out in the long run that I wasn't, but I at least had good intentions.

But for now, I WAS RIGHT. We could be friends, we were friends! Ever since the wedding, we'd started seeing each other around more and more, now that I wasn't actively avoiding going to stuff solely because I knew she'd be there and she wasn't ignoring me. It started with drinks out in town that we'd both ended up at, about a week after Rose and Scorpius got married. Here was me thinking that we'd all partied ourselves out, but nope, apparently none of us had crashed yet!

"Exactly what are tonight's celebrations for?" I'd asked Scorpius at one point at the bar.

He'd stared at me a moment. "I literally have no idea. Hey, you haven't seen my wife, have you?"

I'd just sighed and pointed her out for him. I think it was actually someone's birthday maybe, but honestly, do we ever really need a reason to go out? It was the first time I'd seen her since the wedding and naturally I'd panicked, but with a drink (or six) down me, I finally managed to relax enough to actually try and talk to her.

And turns out, when we're not naked we actually have a lot to say.

"What the fuck, nooooo!" she'd snorted that night over her glass. "You're not serious?"

"Completely! Nah, nah, hear me out, 'cause this ends good–" I'd barely been able to remember the story I was telling (probably some weird anecdote of my childhood involving Roxanne being annoying) but it had hardly mattered, really. The point had been to make her laugh, and I'd managed it with her bursting into hysterics over the bar.

I may have liked it.

And the running into each other had continued. There was the time I'd gone to visit The Tiny Human, and Emma was already there dropping off some paperwork for Libby. Or the time she came into the joke shop to buy Christmas presents and we'd had an existential discussion over a barrel of fake wands. Oh, and that one time we held shifts in line with several of the others to buy tickets for James' latest Quidditch match. What with Christmas drawing closer more recently, however, the amount of time we'd seen each other had dwindled slightly. It'd been a week or two now and after spending the entire day in the courtroom, I realised that I'd forgotten how exhausted standing as a witness usually made me. Sapphire had punched my shoulder and kissed my cheek in farewell after it had recessed for the day, though I'd noticed her eyeing me slightly in concern as the afternoon had worn on. Dealing with Reddale again just meant that I was not only miserable, but drained, pissed off and left me wanting to strangle something.

The last time I'd felt this way, I'd wanted Emma.

I stopped dead in the middle of the cobblestone street. YEAH, she was exactly what I fucking wanted, wasn't she? And last time this thought had gone through my head I hadn't let myself even go there, let alone fucking CONSIDER IT, but why the hell shouldn't I now? She's my friend, goddamn it! Sapphire could shove it, she didn't know what she was talking about. I was doing mighty fine so far at being just friends with a girl!

So I made the decision. I went to her building.

The last time I'd been there, I'd stood outside her flat for over an hour. This time, I pounded on the door before I could change my mind. I think a voice inside me was screaming at me: mATE – MATE – because we'd never actually sought each other out before. We always ran into each other, bumped into each other casually. This was … something else. But I was tired. My brain hurt. So I forced myself to stay and she opened the door.

"… whoa," she noted.

"Don't," I held up a finger. "Don't say anything … but will you sit with me?"

She opened her mouth and I cut in,

"I SAID DON'T SAY ANYTHING."

"I wasn't gonna," she snorted. "Come in?"

I was let inside the small flat. She shut the door behind me as I glanced around, trying not to look too curious. It was basically the complete opposite of mine – cramped, cluttered, and with nearly every single surface covered in something. There was a battered schedule of whose turn it was to clean each week up on the kitchen wall and a roll up mattress stuffed under the TV cabinet. It wasn't the flashiest place and it certainly wasn't the cleanest, but I could definitely imagine Emma living here. I noticed her hastily shoving a pile of clothes off the sofa and I scoffed, simply collapsing down onto it instead.

"Don't bother," I said, kicking my feet up onto her coffee table. "It would take YEARS to clean this shit. How do you live like this?"

"I hate that I know that you fold your underwear," Emma smirked as she sank down onto the sofa next to me, but then she glanced at my face. She sighed. "Look, I know my place isn't exactly fancy, but–"

"Nah, nah, it's cool … " I mentioned lightly. "I mean, you don't have to live with a demon dog across the hall."

"No, just the pet snake a few doors down," Emma said.

"Seriously?" I asked, turning and looking up at her.

"Yeah! I accidentally got his mail once, and he answered the door with it wrapped around him. I'm not exactly afraid of snakes, but don't think I haven't imagined it getting loose one night and strangling the entire building to death!"

She meant to be funny and I laughed, for sure. But strangling things to death made my mind go back to fucking Reddale. Bastard. I slumped down a little more, until my chin was practically resting on my chest. Emma sighed and slid down too, stretching out her legs so that we reclined side by side. Our arms nearly touched and she bumped my shoulder with her head lightly. "So c'mon then!" she said. "What brings you here in this mood?"

"I'm not in a mood!"

"When you randomly turn up and ask me to console you, YA," she said. "you're in a mood. So what gives?"

"I did not ask you to console me," I scoffed.

"Sorry, do you prefer the term 'comfort' rather than console?"

"You're not – I'm not–" I gritted my teeth as she grinned. I glanced over at her and exclaimed, "You better not be getting a kick outta this!"

"Oh, no," she shook her head laughing.

"I hate you."

"Remember, hate is you just spreading positivity," Emma nudged me again happily and I refrained from digging my fingers into her side. I knew which exact spot would make her pee herself with hysterics, but I wasn't quite feeling that evil yet. The jury was still out on later.

"I thought I told you to never listen to what Lily says?"

"I dunno, girl knows her shit," Emma pointed out. "I met up with her for lunch the other day, by the way! We didn't really talk much the first time we met, so it was pretty cool gettin' to know her. I have noooo idea why you call your family crazy."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, Lily is Satan. You can't trust her."

"But she was so nice to me!"

"I'm pretty sure she's tried to summon demons in some far off distant country we've never heard of," I said.

"I mean, it wouldn't surprise me," Emma noted. "She's been everywhere! I got so jealous listenin' about the places she's gone to, I'd love to just pack up and ship out."

"Really?" I asked. "Where would you go?"

I think I was finally starting to relax slightly, as I could feel the tension in my neck and shoulders receding as we sat next to each other and spoke about nothing serious. We could sit here and talk and my stomach wasn't twisting in knots over it anymore. This was going ok! We were doing ok. Emma shrugged, the movement jostling my own shoulder as she answered,

"I dunno, I kinda want to go everywhere … maybe start with Europe, since we're pretty close to it all. I haven't even seen much else of England, though, to be honest."

"What, seriously?"

"My family's born and raised London," Emma reminded me. "We have other stray relatives living in different places that we'd visit, but I don't actually remember ever goin' on holiday or somethin' …"

"I guess I never thought of that," I admitted. "My grandparent's house is down south in Devon, and my family went to Cornwall a lot on holiday."

"I've never been there," Emma mentioned.

"It's cool," I shrugged. "I mean, it's just a bunch of beaches and stuff, but the weather isn't total shit most of the time if you go in the summer. I have an aunt and uncle who live out there, so we stayed with them a lot. I dunno, I was like 12 the last time we went so you can imagine how much I retained from the trip."

"Hmmm, maybe I should go some day?" Emma said. "I mean, I'm basically always saving, so I guess I could actually put it towards somethin'!"

"That'd be cool, I haven't been in ages."

"Oh, you're suddenly coming with me?" Emma quickly smirked.

Shit. I hadn't noticed how that had come out and I hastily backpedalled. "No, I – uh–"

"It's fine! Lord knows I could do with a travel buddy," Emma cut over me. "and if I get too annoyed with ya, I can just toss you off the cliffs."

"Cheers."

"So seriously!" she said then, turning to look at me. "Enough distractin' me with idle small talk. Why are you in such a downer mood?"

There really was no getting past her, was there?

"Work," I eventually sighed.

"RIIIIIGHT," Emma said, folding her arms across her chest. "That mysterious job that you still won't inform me of. Good to clear that up."

"Look, Princess, don't you ever just have a bad day?" I glanced over at her.

"All the time, mate," Emma said. "Like when that bitch, Lila, gets the best autopsies or you have to categorise yet another huge-arse diamond that you don't get to keep. Or Sarah locks you in the fridge with the remains."

"Ah, Cursebreaker problems," I noticed her still looking at me though. "Look, whatever. I'm sorry for coming here. This is probably weird–"

"It's only weird if you make it weird," Emma said. "You're … you're my mate, stupid as you are. You can always come to me if you feel down."

I felt like I should be saying thank you, but I didn't quite know how to say it without this day getting even more emotionally draining, so I uh, kind of didn't in the end. But I don't think Emma minded, or at least she seemed to get that I was grateful without actually having to say so. She kept on watching me a moment, which strangely didn't feel creepy, if a bit uncomfortable. It felt like she could read me like a book, which doesn't make sense since we all know that I actively try to remain as aloof and emotionally unavailable as possible! But still, she kept at it until she laughed slightly and said, "C'mon, I think I know what you need. Let's get some food in ya."

How does she do that?

She even ended up going a few steps further and cooking dinner for me, both of us deciding to top it off with some biscuits that her flatmate had made the previous night. Actually, speaking of her flatmate, I kind of ended up meeting her as well, while Emma was making dinner. I was leaning against the kitchen bench next to her, chatting I think about something unimportant like music or something, when the door slammed and Emma suddenly screeched out, "HEEEEEY, CHARMAINE!" The girl with chin-cut black hair stomped down the hallway and past the kitchen door with a disgruntled wave and barely a hello. Then, she comically reserved back and stared in amazement through the doorway.

"Hope your day was good! Oh, this is Fred–" Emma gestured vaguely at me.

"… you mean, the douchebag who wouldn't stop owling you?" Charmaine raised an eyebrow.

"Nice to meet you too!" I waved.

She raised a sceptical eyebrow before slouching off again without another word. Her eyes dragged away from mine only at the last second as she passed the doorway. "I think she likes me," I said.

Emma outright laughed. "She's protective."

"How'd you meet?"

"I needed a flatmate, she answered the ad. We had another two flatmates who lived here as well for a few years, but they got engaged recently so they moved out. We're still trying to find at least another one, but everyone's either a freak or not freaky enough."

"I don't think I've ever had flatmates."

"Seriously EVER?" Emma gaped at me. "Not even James?"

"FUCK NO, I wouldn't live with him, even if you paid me!" I cried at once. "Love the idiot, but he's a bloody slob. He never got his bond back from his old place before he moved in with Libby, because the carpet mould literally spread and became a health hazard."

"Blimey."

"You can't say he doesn't have goals."

"So you've always lived alone, then?" Emma asked. "I've never done that before. Does it ever feel lonely?"

"I dunno," I muttered. "Never thought about it."

Honestly, I didn't think I ever had felt lonely living alone. I liked having my own place, I liked having somewhere with solitude when you get to the end of the day and you find that you're just sick of people … but I have to admit, I was starting to not mind being able to come and talk to someone when I needed to. And by the time we were munching on biscuits over tomato and basil pasta, teasing each other and sniggering with laughter, I was wondering whether maybe getting to know Emma hadn't actually been such a bad idea after all.

The new routine got established.

The freaky thing of course was that it was a hell of a lot like the old one! Except, you know, with a lot less sex and a lot more talking. It started as dropping randomly by each other's flats after work, and progressed to casually hanging out throughout the week. Charmaine was still yet to take a liking to me, but appeared to adore Emma, which was a strange conundrum to see.

"Does that girl seriously EVER smile?" I'd asked at one point.

"If you put her in front of a nice juicy steak, yes?" Emma had answered.

Which was only mildly frightening. Every now and then we'd get lunch together as well, if I wasn't out working a case. Libby caught sight of us once, but amazingly the girl hadn't said anything. She was still on maternity leave, but that one day near Christmas she'd just dropped in to pick up some paperwork and noticed Emma and I talking excitedly as we made our way out the building.

"Fred …?" she had gaped at me, pausing as she carried her paperwork under one arm and a snuggly Clara in her carrier over the other.

"Hey, Lib!" I had yelled back to her over the wind, waving.

It had taken several moments, but eventually Libby had just shrugged and simply waved back.

Look, I have to brag at this point, because as much as I insisted to Sapphire that I could do it, I don't think I'd ever SERIOUSLY thought that we'd make this work. But turns out that Emma was pretty fucking awesome. Like, I know I probably already knew that deep down, but I was actually listening to her now. It seems that I used to see her, feel her, taste her, but I'd NEVER actually heard her before. This was actual Emma, the woman behind the body, and the more I heard from her, the more I liked. Yeah, sometimes I'd sit and ask myself, DUDE, are you sure you know what you're fucking doing? Because she still felt like heartburn. She felt hot and comforting and blinding and the truth is NOOOO, I've got no clue! Oh my god, Fred, you fucktard. But watch me not care.

You just fucking watch me.

There was one point near Christmas where this still slightly awkward and tentative new friendship almost crossed a line, though. I hadn't seen Emma in like a week, thanks to work, so I dropped by in hopes that she'd be free. The moment I knocked, I heard sudden yelling and feet pounding and Emma screaming, "KATIE, GET BACK HERE!" Before she could do anything, the door had been answered by a girl who barely looked sixteen. Funny thing was, I honestly thought it was Emma for a second, if albeit a rather young version of her! She had the same shaped face and frizzy brown hair, but she took one look at me and yelled back into the flat,

"EMMAAA! SOME HOT GUY IS HERE TO SEE YOU!"

"KATIE!" Emma ran into the picture, wrestling the girl away from the door, a third male voice laughing in the background. Then, she noticed who it was.

"Fuck."

"Sup?" I said.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, handsome sir–" the girl who was obviously Katie began with a grin, but Emma shoved her unceremoniously back into her flat and slammed the door in her face. "Hey!" Katie's muffled voice complained, but Emma ignored it.

"What're you doing here?" she asked, looking a little blindsided.

"Uh …" I suddenly stumbled over words. "I'm Fred? Remember me?"

Emma stared. I only just noticed then the way that she was standing with her back to the door, hands splayed flat against it. It told me that she was rather fearful or maybe protective of what was inside.

"That was my little sister," she said then, jerking her thumb over her shoulder in what appeared to be her explanation.

"Fair enough," I shrugged. "Little sisters – can't live with 'em."

"Her and my brother just got back from Hogwarts for the holidays," she added. "Our parents are still working, so they're hangin' out until they finish."

"I didn't even know you had siblings," I mentioned. Well, I vaguely did, but I didn't know anything about them.

"I've got four," Emma said. "I'm in the middle. Two older brothers, but Katie and Henry are several years younger than me. I help look after them a lot."

"Right," The sudden onslaught of information was making me slightly uncomfortable, but Emma looked worse than I felt. I realised that I couldn't have picked a worse time to swing by even if I tried, and I had absolutely no idea why my stomach was suddenly burning. I knew it wasn't my fault, I'd had no idea, but I still felt like I should just go and live like a troll in a hole in the ground. Was this because it felt like she was rejecting me? BITCH, PLEASE. I'm way better than that!

I'm too good for troll life.

So instead of scarpering, I gritted my teeth and said, "Right! Well, I guess I'll just head out then–"

"Fred," Emma called after me.

I paused.

"Come back in an hour?" she suggested.

I came back in an hour.

"Thank the lord!" Emma cried, collapsing onto her sofa with a flourish. "I love my siblings, but teenagers fucking take it out of me."

"How old are they?"

"Katie's 17, Henry's 15," Emma sighed. "I forget how ridiculous Hogwarts dramas are until they're around again, and I suddenly remember."

"Yeah, I mean I know I haven't been around much lately, but I didn't expect to get hit on by a 17-year-old …"

"Ignore Katie, she likes handsome, unattainable men," Emma snorted.

"The compliment is heard and taken."

"I didn't compliment–"

"I heard handsome," I said. Then, I glanced around and added, "Charmaine's not in, is she?"

"Nah, you're safe," Emma rolled her eyes. "There's never enough room when they stay with me, so she goes and lives with her girlfriend until the Crazy Ones have gone back to school."

"Girlfriend?" I said in amazement. "You're telling me that the Emotionless Rock actually gets FEELINGS? Enough to maintain a relationship with another human being? And here was me thinking she had to plug herself in and re-charge every night!"

"I am not laughin' at that," Emma complained, although she was struggling to contain a giggle as she smacked my arm. "Nope, underneath her tough exterior Charmaine is a loving, caring person and does not deserve your teasin'!"

"Stop giggling, then."

"I'm nooot," she whined, even as she cracked up into my shoulder.

Blimey.

See, out of all the lines we'd crossed so far, the physical one seemed to be the only one still left. I know, of ALL things, but as good a mates we were becoming, we had never really touched since after starting this hesitant friendship. I'd tried reaching out, but couldn't seem to without the fear that it would spark something. So we sat on opposite ends of the sofa. We never hugged. Punching each other seemed to be the only mark of physical affection between us and the fact that she had now stifled her giggling into my shoulder, pressing her face against my shirt, said a lot. It's your shoulder, YOUR FUCKING SHOULDER, YOU IMBECILE, my brain screamed at me, but did I listen? Oh, noooooo!

It still freaked out.

Afraid that I was about to spontaneously combust, I awkwardly pulled back from under her and her head was forced to snap back upright. Her laughter died out pretty quickly and I panicked a moment, trying to find anything to say that would simultaneously apologise and allow us to just plough on without addressing the awkward.

"SO!" I eventually decided on. "What were you doing before I turned up?"

Emma glanced over at her TV, which was currently obscured from view by a load of blankets. It appeared that her and her siblings had made a fort around the TV, a broomstick holding up the tented roof and the other end attached to the armchair that had been moved to the middle of the room. "TV wasteland," she answered.

"I don't watch a lot of TV," I admitted.

She eyed me for a moment before asking,

"Have you ever seen Star Wars?"

I hadn't, and it soon became clear to me why. When I told her I so, Emma instantly dragged me under a flap and inside the blanket fort, where we found piles of pillows and cushions. We ended up sitting lounging on the floor, leaning back against the soft armchair next to each other as Emma insisted on putting on the strangest film I think I've ever seen in my life.

"… oh good GOD, what am I watching?" I asked, unable to tear my eyes away from the screen.

"A cinematic classic," Emma handed over the bowl of half-eaten popcorn.

"It looks like a bunch of guys shooting at each other with fake wands," I pointed out.

"Shush! This was known as one of the most aweing and greatest movie openings of all time," Emma slapped my arm as we followed the action on the screen through two robots and a whole load of shooting bad guys. I just rolled my eyes, shoving a handful of popcorn in my mouth.

"The effects are horrible."

"It was made in 1977!"

I thought I would get utterly lost in the sea of ridiculous sci-fi and cheesy effects. Let's face it, I'm not exactly well-versed in Muggle movies AT ALL and this was one I'd always heard of but never actually seen. But at its bare basics, turns out that the plot was fairly simple. Evil Empire. Rescue the princess. Blow up Death Star. Save the galaxy. Typical day, right?

"Exactly how many films are in this series?" I hesitantly asked once my mind had been blown by the ending of the first one we watched.

"That's a good question," Emma said. "It started with just three, then six … then nine … then shit went crazy. Feel like you can go down this rabbit hole?

"Put the next one on."

So I'm going to admit to two things that happened that very long night in the blanket fort. The first was that I totally got into Star Wars. I KNOW, but we ended up watching the entire original trilogy that night, as Emma called it! Six hours of blasters and aliens and spaceships and getting totally sucked into the story of good and evil. I don't know how the hell it happened, but it was comforting being able to just sit there with her and not have to think about anything else. I could sense Emma getting giddier every time I mentioned something or exclaimed, "LOOK, I already knew that Darth Vader was Luke's father, because every fucking eejit on this planet knows it at this point … but I'm still going to say OH MY GOOOOD!"

We ended up in a very intense discussion between the second and third films that we watched, somewhere around two in the morning by this point. After the revelation that Darth Vader was Luke's father (DUDE SERIOUSLY, who came up with this shit?) and mourning the loss of Han Solo as he was encased in carbonite, we had argued the very important debate of when exactly him and the princess had first got it on.

"They don't say it, but that trip to Bespin obviously took a long time with no lightspeed," Emma had argued. "Potentially weeks locked up together! Somethin' had to have happened on the way. It explains how they act when they're in Cloud City."

"Nah, nah, they were still all awkward and shit once they got there," I had countered back. We had both been practically lying down at this point, heads level against the cushions and armchair we were leaning against. Emma was curled on her side facing me as she flicked her wand absently to look up the next film for us to watch. We still weren't touching, but you can fucking bet that I was thinking about it. "She's got to rescue him in the next movie, right? PLEASE say she rescues him and they have hot reunion sex?"

"We'll just havta watch the next one and find out, won't we?" Emma had smirked.

We'd ploughed through Return of the Jedi just as fast as the other two until suddenly, we'd found ourselves arguing over whether to watch another movie, seeing as it was now about four in the morning, or whether I should just go home. And in that moment came the second thing that I have to confess. The line that was almost crossed.

We almost kissed.

It was as she had rolled over to face me and continue arguing after having leaned up to move the empty bowl of popcorn out of the way. We were suddenly face to face and her leg had bumped mine. She didn't pull it away. It had to be the most physical contact I think we'd had since … that morning we woke up together. Jesus fucking Christ. I KNEW THIS WAS A MISTAKE! We couldn't be friends, who were we fucking kidding?! She was right there in front of me and I was going to kiss her any second now, or she was going to kiss me, I could see it in her face! She was thinking about it and so was I, but if it happened, there would be no going back. I suddenly snapped upright before she could even move.

SHAKE IT OFF, MATE.

Friends. Boundaries. Don't you fuck this up now!

"Weeeeelp, I guess we'd better sleep at some point, right?" I said loudly. "You win, I'll go home. But we're watching the next ones later!"

I chanced a glance back at her, terrified that she would be glaring or something worse. However, she had a half-hearted smile on her tired face and thankfully seemed to accept that I was attempting to move past this situation with as much dignity as possible. I think she agreed with me: it would've been a bad idea.

"I'll hold ya to that," she said. "Goodnight, Fred Solo."

I just snorted at her. "Night, Princess."

"Have you heard anything about Al and Bea?" Emma asked me sometime late December. The two of us sat together outside the front door to her flat. The council estate that she lived in had that large concrete courtyard in the middle of the complex, surrounded by residential buildings and decorated with rubbish skips and graffiti. We sat up on the third floor, our legs dangling through the railings as we ate fish and chips out of newspaper that sat between us. Down in the courtyard, several kids were playing with a Muggle football.

"Not really," I shrugged at her. "Should I?"

"They're your family!" Emma protested.

"Aw, c'mon, they're Al and Bea," I just rolled my eyes, stealing a chip out of her hands. "There're fine."

"You're totally guessing."

"Look, I dunno!" I insisted. "I love 'em, sure, but we don't hang out. I guess I saw them at Christmas last week … they seemed ok."

"They're living together again, right?"

"Oh, yeah," I snorted. "Couldn't keep 'em apart."

"That break up didn't last that long, did it?" Emma grinned.

"Nothing's gonna break them up," I shoved another chip in my mouth. "The world might just implode."

"Did they ever say what exactly it was that they were fighting over?"

I swallowed my chip carefully. I wasn't sure how much to say. I mean, I've said it before and I'll say it again: nothing stays secret in my family. A fair chunk of us knew now, as far as I was aware. I heard Auntie Ginny talking quietly to Aunt Hermione at one point during dinner, and Scorpius had hugged Bea very hard when he'd gotten his Christmas present from her. It wasn't everyone, but it seemed that slowly, Al and Bea were getting more ok with other people knowing. I knew that James and Libby both knew now. I weighed it in my head until Emma eventually cut in,

"Ok, never mind, clearly it's not your place to say if you know–"

"Nah, nah, it's not that," I said. "I dunno, Bea told me not to say, technically, but they're slowly letting other's know now, sooo …"

"It's fine, seriously," Emma wrinkled her nose against the bitter wind. "'sides, I think I can kinda guess."

"Really?"

"She can't have kids, right?" Emma asked. "It's justa feelin', I don't know if it's true but …"

I sighed. "Yeah, that's basically it."

"DAMN, I was hoping I was wrong," Emma said. "I was thinking it was either that or she miscarried. I actually don't know which scenario would be worse."

"Yeah, well, it's cause she has Endometriosis," I said. "So there's like, that on top of everything."

"I'm afraid I don't know what that is," Emma said.

"I'm willing to admit that I looked it up," I told her. "Basically, her uterine lining develops outside of her uterus, where it's usually supposed to. It can cause severe pelvic pain, among dozens of other chronic symptoms, including infertility. Rose's Healer textbook had some rather vivid diagrams, believe me."

"Blimey," Emma sighed.

"STILL," I tried to inject some positivity on what had turned into a complete downer of a conversation. "They're Al and Bea! They'll be fine. Besides, they could like, adopt a bunch of kids instead and have enough to form their own Quidditch team!"

"There's enough of you and your cousins to do that already," Emma smirked.

"True," I shrugged. Determined to move on, I asked, "What 'bout you?"

"You know I've only got four siblings."

"Yeah, but what about cousins?"

"Both parents are only children," Emma shook her head. "It sucked at family reunions."

"How was your Christmas?"

"I loved the London snow globe you got me!" Emma stole the last piece of fish from the newspaper with vinegar-soaked fingers. "Trust me, I'm going to treasure it for all time. Perhaps put it on my bedside table. Sleep with it at night."

"Well, it was either that or the Darth Vader socks."

"Oooh, that would've been cool," Emma sighed.

"I'll get 'em for your birthday then," I suggested. "When is that?"

"Tenth of July."

"SHIT, you serious?" I grinned. "I'm the tenth!"

"No way!" Emma cried.

"Yeah, tenth of July, 2005!"

"I'm 2004!" Emma laughed. "I'm exactly one year older than you! Oh my god, I can't believe we actually have the same birthday."

"How dare you, the tenth is mine!"

"Hey, I was born first, technically you stole the tenth off me," Emma pointed out with a shove to the shoulder.

I just grinned. How had I not KNOWN that? Although, to be fair, turns out that there were many things I didn't know about Emma until recently. She'd been right all those months ago when I realised that I didn't actually know anything about her that didn't have to do with her body. I still didn't know her favourite colour, but I knew her last name now. I knew how old she was now (26, she's 26 years old) and I knew that she liked copious amounts of vinegar with her fish and chips to the point where it barely tasted like anything else (it was disgusting, but whatever). It was freezing cold out there on that third floor balcony, Emma's front door still behind us and frozen flakes starting to fall from the sky, but I was enjoying myself. I liked sitting next to Emma in a fuzzy hat and talking about everything.

I was starting to get into this friendship.

"Ok, next year," I pointed out. "we are totally celebrating together! Giant party. One night. It'll be BRILLIANT!"

"It's happenin'!" Emma laughed. "But in answer to your question earlier, Christmas was fine. I got to see my nephew, I got to hang out with my older brothers, it was cool!"

"What did you get?" I asked.

"I told you," Emma said. "I got a lovely snow globe from this random bloke that I hang out with every now and then–"

"Nah, I mean besides what I got you," I snorted.

But Emma's face fell slightly. I didn't understand why she was suddenly turning away, wrapping her arms around the railings in front of us. This woman is fucking complicated sometimes. I frowned and asked,

"What?"

"Nothin'," she said.

"Why won't you tell me what else you got?"

"'cause, Hotshot, I didn't get anythin' else," Emma admitted, pressing her beanie-covered forehead against the railing. "My family don't have a lotta money, we never have. I'm struggling to get on myself with just one flatmate. And we've got little Lockie now, so for the last few years, it's been about him. He gets the presents, the rest of us make do. There's never any pressure to buy things for each other."

I suddenly felt like an idiot for getting her a fucking snow globe.

"So did you … not get anything?" I asked, trying not to sound too aghast.

"Aside from a scarf that Libby bought me and some chocolate that my brother gave to me … no, not really."

"But that's not ok!"

"Fred, it's fine, it really is," Emma said, throwing me a look.

"But it's Christmas!"

"I think you'll find that most Christmas cards preach the idea of spending time with family and yuletide joy over presents," Emma smirked.

"Fuck that!" I burst out. I scooted backwards, pulling my legs back in and bending down to scrunch up the fish and chips wrappings. Emma hastily climbed to her own feet as I shoved the rubbish under my arm and exclaimed, "You need a proper Christmas present! I know it's a coupla days late, but we're doing something, so come on!"

Emma protested, but she still let me drag her after me as we left her building. I didn't exactly have a plan as we headed out, but this was London! We were bound to find something to do in this insane city. Making sure that we were still wrapped up in magically-heated jackets and gloves, we caught the underground into the middle of the city, and I impulsively chose Westminster Train Station to get off at. It was late afternoon, but it was already starting to get dark with flakes still falling persistently even though it wasn't cold enough for any of it to stick. The street was packed with Londoners and tourists, Big Ben looming up in front of us and the London Eye in the distance across the Thames.

BINGO. IDEA.

"C'mon, I know what we're doing!" I insisted, tugging on Emma's sleeve and making her follow me.

We stuck close together as we walked across Westminster Bridge. The lights of London were starting to blink on as the sunset sunk into dark blue and the Palace of Westminster glowed behind us. Uncle Harry told us all that he got to fly past it once when he was like a teenager or something, but I never know whether to believe his stories or not. Because she is apparently more technologically adept than I am (I probably don't even know where my cell phone is) Emma had thought to bring hers with her on this impromptu outing and at one point, asked someone if they'd take our picture with the palace and clock in the background.

"Ok, I knew I was short, but compared to you I'm bloody tiny!" Emma complained when she looked back on the photos halfway down the bridge. I peered over her shoulder.

"Eh, you look fine."

"I'm a midget! MIDGET!"

"I think that's insulting to midgets."

"FRED."

"Do you want me to bend down?" I asked in exasperation. "Put you on my shoulders? Pretend I'm–"

"Good idea!" Emma planted an elbow on my shoulder, digging it in so that I was forced to recoil and bend down. She held the phone in front of us, the camera flipped so that I could see her stretching on her toes over my head, the tall one for a change. I tried not to look ridiculous in the photos.

My plan, of course, was to get her on the London Eye. "Yeah, it's touristy and shit, but you're from London, you've gotta do it at some point," I insisted as we waited in the queue. "I did it with Libby once, it's actually not that bad."

"You did this with Libby?" Emma laughed.

"It was her idea," I rolled my eyes. "This was back when I barely knew her and she'd only just started going out with James. He forced us to hang out for the day so I'd get to know her."

"And did you?"

"I figured she wasn't that bad," I shrugged.

And later, when we were at the top of the Eye and fighting for a view at the glass, she asked, "So … how are you gettin' to know me?"

I considered. "You're not so bad."

A/N: You have no idea how much I want to scream, 'FRED. HONEY. Y'ALL ARE DATING. SERIOUSLY. YOU AND EMMA, YOU'RE DATING. JUST ADD SEX. PLZKTHX' It's like, they can do one or the other, but not both at the same time! I hate them. I love them. I hope you enjoyed this giant friendship montage of a chapter (just imagine some pop music playing in the background).

Thank you so much for your love and support, for me and for this story. My lil heart glows and grows. xx

I'm not entirely sure how much of an idiot Fred is being at the moment. He could be better than '1: only mostly in pain', but he's not exactly at '10: SET ME ON FIREEE' either. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

I LOVE Y'ALL.

- Moon. xoxox