Chapter 2
"I can not eat another bite!" Alicia exclaimed loudly, pushing the plate away from herself into the centre of the table. Angelina and Prudence looked on in awe, unable to comprehend the amount of food Alicia had consumed.
"Alicia, you've had like 12 helpings" Angelina observed, her tone both concerned and impressed. Gesturing to the tally marks drawn onto her hands she continued "I've kept track.".
Alicia shrugged in their direction, but pride at her own gluttony painted her face.
"I was hungry" she emphasised with a slight roll of her eyes "You try living on my mams food for this long, and you'd be begging for a Hogwarts feast too."
Prudence and Angelina looked at each other, wordlessly sharing their memories of meals at the Spinnets across summers and breaks. It was almost unbelievable that an accomplished witch such as Elisadeth Spinnet had never truly managed to cultivate the ability to create a good meal.
The feast had completed rather uneventfully although an air of nervous energy and foreboding pressed down through the atmosphere. The students had sat eagerly awaiting what song the sorting hat would present them with this year, but as it began to croon the energy of the room shifted.
The usual upbeat messages of comradery and Hogwarts history that was shared by the sorting hat was replaced with a foreboding message that made Prudences spine tingle with anxiety. The caution of impending doom and tension sat in her mind, despite her attempts to push it out as she continued with the feast.
"I've never heard a sorting hat song like that" she murmured to Angelina as they stood from the table.
"I guess things really are changing." Angelina said solemnly, her head turned in simultaneously with Prudences towards the Hufflepuff table and the group of 7th years who sat pressed together still mourning their friend.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Prue agreed quietly.
"Should we get going?" said George standing up from the table. Lee already standing, leaned onto the table with an expectant look.
The climb up the abundance of stairs towards the Gryffindor common room threatened to give her a stitch. She noted to herself that she had definitely spent too much of the summer laying in the sun relaxing and ignoring any action that required her to partake in any level of substantial physical activity. She focused all parts of her concentration on dragging her legs up the stairs, the vast feast she'd just eaten making the exercise even more challenging. She scrunched her nose, watching Angelina, Alicia and Katie bouncing up the stairs chatting, annoyed at her own laziness.
Angelina turned back to Prue "Come on, Prudence" she laughed lightly.
"Easy for you to laugh about, you've spent all summer practising Quidditch while I was practising the art of moving as little as humanly possible."
"Come on we are nearly there" she laughed again, this time grabbing hold of Prudence's hand and pulling her up the last few stairs on to the landing.
As she caught up to the rest of the group, Lee wrapped his arms around her shoulder. Together they all continued towards the portrait entryway. Standing in front of the Fat Lady the groups chatter died down. She realised that they all sat waiting expectantly for one of their friends to announce the password to the expectant painting.
"Does anyone actually know the password?" she asked slowly, the silence giving enough of a reply that nobody needed to add anything further.
The group stood in front of the portrait, looking at each other as they considered their options to get into the room.
"Boulderdash" shouted George in the direction of the portrait, receiving only a scathing look back from its occupant.
"I guess not" Angelina laughed.
"Dilligrout" Lee suggested, joining in with George.
"Fizzing Whizzby" George shouted optimistically.
"Slithering Snivelling Severus," Angelina said, barely getting the words out as she choked on laughter.
The portrait continued to stare at them, her eyes narrowing slightly as their suggestions grew in both ridiculousness and volume.
"Are you going to give me the password or will I have to stay awake all night waiting for you to work it out?" She questioned them with little expectation of an answer.
"Mimbulus Mimbletonia" Prudence jumped slightly as the clear voice emerged from behind her.
"Very well" the door swung open.
Turning behind her, she could see Fred leaning back against the bannister as if he'd been standing there the whole time. She was sure that he hadn't followed them up to the common room from the great hall.
"Brilliant Fred, how do you even know that?" George chuckled as he led Angelina into the common room.
Turning to follow the rest of her friends into the common room, Prudence expected Fred to follow them into the warm and welcoming room. Instead, she felt his large hand wrap softly around her wrist, the strength of his hand evident even in the soft grip he held her with. His long fingers were warm against her skin, and he tugged gently on her arm, nodding his head wordlessly towards the hallway that led away from the common room.
"Are you coming, Prue?" she heard Alicia's voice ask from behind her.
"I'll catch up with you in a second," she responded nervously. Alicia nodded, glancing down at Fred's hand still wrapped around her wrist and then looked up and met her eyes. She raised her eyebrows a fraction and turned back to the rest of their friends.
As they walked wordlessly down the hallway, their steps echoed around them, producing tiny thuds that filled the space. She couldn't help but notice that he still had his fingers looped around her wrist, forcing her to walk a little faster to keep up with his long lanky strides.
He sidesteps into an alcove abruptly, she stumbles over her feet awkwardly. The hard hand he had wrapped around her wrist drops and speeds towards her waist, he grips it gently bringing her closer as he steadies her.
"Careful there, Buchanan" he murmured, her face turning up to gaze at him.
He shifted her further into the alcove, concealing them from the eyes of any passersby in the hallway. Her back pressed against the hard, cold stone of the hideaway, the chilled block pressing up against the skin of her thighs where her skirt ended. He raised his free hand smoothly. The hand he now pressed on the wall above her head holding him up and leaving him hovering over her.
She could hear the pant of his breath as she felt his chest rise and fall against her. The heat of their bodies permeating through the thin cotton button-ups they both wore. Their bodies still pushed together, the arm he left wrapped around her waist holding them tight. Lifting her chin gently, she surveyed the face that lingered above her own.
She surveyed his deep brown eyes with her own, taking in each flicker of colour that ran through them, the intensity of his gaze, causing her to shift her eyes away with a snap. As her head turned away, he dropped his arm from around her, taking the slightest step back. It added only an extra inch of space between them but left her feeling the void of his body. She knew she wouldn't have looked away if she knew it would result in that.
Prudence brings her eyes back towards him. They sweep up his tall physique, lingering for too long on his long, calloused fingers, committing the vein that appeared as he clenched and unclenched his fist with nervous energy to her memory. The muscles of his upper arms pressed up against the cotton of his shirt. Her eyes reached back up to his face, a look across his face that was made of a mixture of overconfidence and intrigue she thought. Clearly, he'd noticed her eyes searching his body.
He leaned forward slightly again, putting more weight against the arm above her head. His face was now even closer to her own. She attempted uselessly to keep her focus on his face. Struggling to stop herself from being caught up in the scent of dragon powder and citrus that pressed around her. She could smell the softest trace of sweat against his body.
"You've been a bit icy with me since I helped evacuate you from your cabin earlier" he said to her softly, a frown pressed on his brow.
"Well the thing is Frederic Gideon, we didn't really need help evacuating, I think we would have been rather happy staying there undisturbed by you" Fred's nose scrunched up a little at the extension of his name.
"Come on Buchanan, you know your life would be boring without my help"
"I could use a little bit of boredom in my life after the last 7 years alongside you and George, Fred" she laughed back in response, she could see the tension that had graced his face fading as they joked with each other. They relaxed comfortably into each other's company. "Were you really worried I was upset, though?" she questioned probingly.
"Only a little bit, I thought after 7 years of pranks I might have finally hit the limit" he replied quickly, trying to pass the last bit off as a joke. Still, she could hear the twinge of sincerity in his voice.
"This prank did feel a little more murderous than the last pranks I remember"
"Yeah it definitely didn't go as planned Buchanan"
"Well what was the plan?" she questioned, leaning back further against the wall, letting her legs drop even further back against the wall in an attempt to create a millimetre more space between Fred and me and ease the heat that had taken over her body on the stone.
"We were testing our new Weasleys Whiz Bangs" he explained vibrantly "the idea was to fill the top of your cabin with tiny little fireworks show above your heads and end with a big spectacular, but I think George was a little strong with his use of explosives this time"
A laugh tickled at her throat.
"Are you sure you want to blame George for that?" she countered teasingly.
The smell of dragon powder that clung to him undermined his attempts to shift blame, although, she thought to herself, she wouldn't be pointing that out because that would require her to admit she was taking in his scent.
Fred dropped his head down towards Prue, leaving his nose hanging right above her.
Quietly he uttered, "I'm fairly confident I have the full support of Georgie in blaming him."
As she looked up at Fred, she felt that her heart must have been pounding so hard against her chest, so hard she thought she could hear it echoing in her ears. Their eyes met, contemplating each other deeply as if the deeper they stared at each other, the more their eyes would reveal to them the thoughts of the other.
She could feel his warm breath skimming against her face now, their bodies had seemed to pull back closer to each other despite neither of them moving.
Fred shifted his free arm up onto the wall, she was now firmly placed between his two arms and her breath quickened in response. She attempted to formulate a reply, her brain overwhelmed and invaded by the closeness of their bodies.
Swallowing deeply, Prudence readied herself to attempt to break the loud silence that sat over them, but as she opened her mouth to speak, she watched Fred drop his arms from the wall around and lean down to whisper into her ear.
"Well I'm glad we didn't cause any permanent damage than Buchanan", and with that, he stepped swiftly out of the alcove.
She stood there motionless, watching him saunter away from her. Attempting to reorder her brain into something that resembled functionality now that his closeness was removed Prue took a deep breath as she smoothed her hand across her skirt nervously.
Glancing down the hallway, she could see that Fred had reached the common room and stood leaning a shoulder lazily against the wall next to the portrait. He looked back at where she stood expectantly.
"Are you coming then, Buchanan?"