Author's Note: Written for Round 8 of the QLFC 6 — Korean Wave

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Chaser 1

Prompt: K-Pop Song: Rumour by KARD. Theme - falling prey to rumours (either the people involved in the rumour or the listeners).

Prompts Used:

3 (dialogue) "And then I wondered… why do they need fixing? Everyone and everything is broken in some way anyway."

6 (word) belittle

14 (character) Louis Weasley

Word Count (excluding Author's Note): 2049

A/N:

Timelines are vague on HP Wiki for some of the Next Gen children, so I exploited a few of the gaps in specificity to create a scenario in which Louis Weasley and Rose Granger-Weasley are the same age and in the same class at Hogwarts.

Thanks to my mom for introducing me to the Beatles, who gave me a love for John Lennon who, unintentionally, lent me his lovely song Beautiful Boy for my title. It felt so right in so many ways for the uniqueness that is Louis Weasley.

Beta Love: Litfreak89 and Story, Please — I can't do it without ya!

Beautiful boy

"You know, if it were true, you'd probably know by now." Louis Weasley didn't need to turn around to know who it was. He did his best not to let her know she had startled him. Again.

"How can you be so sure, Rose?" He stood still his face still tilted upwards as he stared into the night sky. The moon was hidden behind a curtain of clouds, but he feared seeing it all the same. It was most certainly full.

"I can be sure because I am not afraid of you, for starters." Rose Granger-Weasley had her own set of rules, her own type of logic. She wasn't interested in what others thought — she developed her own theories despite all proof to the contrary. She was a bold mix: impulsively courageous, like her father, at times — wickedly intelligent like her mother at others. It was a dangerous combination. Louis was thinking about just how dangerous it truly was as she slipped her arms around his waist there in the dark.

"Isn't this exactly proof of what I am?" he whispered, afraid to move too much. He wanted so much to gather her up in his arms and kiss her. Her very nearness set his skin on fire. He grabbed her hands and pulled them away, stepping forward out of her grasp.

"What's that," she taunted, playfully, "an animal?" He turned to stare at her, his eyes full of hurt and confusion. Rose could immediately see her mistake in his eyes as the moon moved out of the shadows and cast its light down on them. She rushed in to soothe him, her hands instinctively rising to cup his face.

"A werewolf," he whispered, barely able to keep his composure. He was no longer certain if it was the moon that possessed him, or her. He watched as her pupils blew wide.

"Well, you are an eighth Veela," she said, rather matter-of-factly. "It's not really a wonder that people are fascinated with you. Especially girls." She grinned at him around a mouthful pudding. It was early in their first year, and the cousins had bonded almost immediately upon being the first (and second) Weasleys sorted into Ravenclaw House in recent memory. They took most meals together, walked to class and complained about teachers, and generally took to spending a good deal of their free time in each other's company. They had a rapport that, despite making other friends along the way, was comforting in ways that they could not find elsewhere. When Louis first became aware of the rumour about him, it was only natural that he brought it straight to Rose.

"It's not the Veela part of my heritage they talk about," he waggled his eyebrows at her in an attempt to elicit a snort — or better yet, pudding through the nose. Rose only covered her mouth and ducked her head down, shaking off the giggle fit that threatened to erupt. It was her last set of clean robes.

"You're not a werewolf," she picked up the conversation after she swallowed. "I've been through the library thoroughly. There's never been a recorded instance of a child inheriting Lycanthropy from a parent who wasn't actually a werewolf themselves." Louis scrunched up his face in doubt. Adolescence was tough on everyone, but Louis felt his was, somehow, different. And certainly, Rose couldn't help but notice. His hair was almost impossible to keep up with, to the point where he now wore it long because he could not seem to get it cut frequently enough and any number of hair-combing charms had failed miserably. Rose had also gone to great pains to help her cousin with his nails, which grew at an alarming rate. They spent at least two evenings a week gossiping near the fire and trimming his nails.

"I know you are right, but…"

"But, nothing. Do you think I love waking up with a chin full of spots before every exam?" Louis could only shake his head and smile. He knew that Rose was only trying to help, and in his mind, he knew she was right. But it didn't explain the strange looks, the silences that followed when he entered a room. His dad had regaled him with stories of odd happenings and secret rooms at Hogwarts, but never werewolves. It wasn't a common occurrence. It seemed, at least to Louis, that it wasn't something that happened at all. Which is why the rumours about him cut him all that much deeper.

He'd heard it whispered since before the winter break of his first year. The curse of the curse-breaker's son. He remembered that he'd even had to ask at home.

"But why, Dad?" he whined, on the verge of tears. "Why do they need to poke and pick at me?"

Bill Weasley could only shake his head; it was part disgust, part shared misery. He hadn't always been so well-liked, either. It was the part of the stories he'd left out when he shared his memories with his son. He'd hoped things would be different for his beautiful boy. Now, he'd have to find a way to make it okay that it wasn't. "Some people cannot help themselves," Bill started hesitantly. "Some people feel so badly about who they are that they need to belittle others." He reached out to wrap Louis up in an embrace. There was no lack of affection in a Weasley home, no matter which one it was. "Do you understand?"

Louis sniffled into his father's sweater, a threadbare maroon thing that looked as if it had seen many a Christmas holiday. "I — I th— think so," he sighed, trying to regain his composure.

"They are jealous, Louis," Bill said with fervour. He grabbed the boy's arms, pushing him back so he could kneel down in front of him and look in his eyes. Bill paused to swallow back his own tears. It upset him so to see the strain on his son's face. "You are everything they can never be!" he squeezed Louis arms tightly. "You are handsome and talented and smart!"

The boy only cried more.

"But I only want to be liked, Dad," he sobbed. "I just want to be normal."

Bill could only gather him up in his arms again and let him cry. "That I cannot give you," he sighed, more honest than he intended to be. "You are different. You are special." He hugged his son all the tighter. "It will be okay, Louis. I promise, it will."

And it was Bill, too, who set his son off on his fateful path.

"Don't you have anyone you can confide in?" he asked Louis on the bright and sunny Boxing Day while they awaited breakfast. "Someone you feel comfortable with?"

"Well, sure, Dad," Louis said. "I hang out with Rose all the time."

"Our Rose? Really?" Bill feigned his surprise long enough to catch his lovely wife's eye and give her a wink. After all, it had been her idea to encourage their youngest to bond with his cousin.

"Yes, dad," Louis mumbled, the pink climbing up his neck and to his cheeks as his older sisters giggled at him. "You know we were both sorted into Ravenclaw — sort of makes us oddballs as it is. At least for Weasleys."

"Yes, well," Bill tried hard to hide his smirk, "it is good that you have each other."

Louis could only wonder what his parents would think now as he looked over at the body of his cousin lying next to him, the moonlight cascading over her body.

He probably didn't notice it right away. He was terrible with things like that; but Louis did notice eventually, and that mattered.

It was a regular day, like any other in the midst of their fifth year. If you had asked him about it again later, Louis could not have said if anything particular had stood out. Yet somehow, over the course of a long dinner, he found himself staring.

"Okay," he said, closing his Potions book. "O.W.L.s can wait. Something is going on with you."

"What?" Rose looked up at him from over the rim of her eyeglasses, confused.

"Something is different," he said again. "Spill it. Is it that Malfoy brat?"

"Jealous?" she teased, setting down her book.

"No!" he answered too quickly. He looked back down at his plate and pushed some chips around trying to distract.

"It's not Malfoy. Or any other boy," she smiled. "It's just me." Louis looked up at her face and squinted. Something was different, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Rose pulled her glasses off and leaned in. "See?"

"Um...no?"

"Freckles," she said. "A lot of them."

"Yeah? But you've always had freckles."

"True," Rose admitted, "but I'm not covering them up today." She leaned in a bit closer so he could see, but now that she had said it, it was so obvious. When had she started covering them? And why?

"I don't get it."

"You wouldn't," she sniggered.

"What do you mean by that?" he shot back, instantly defensive. He was getting worse with that.

"Only that, as striking as you are, when would you ever need to consider a beauty charm?" she raised a defiant eyebrow at him. How did he always manage to make it about himself? He felt awful.

"You don't need a beauty charm, Rose."

"And on that, we agree," she nodded. "At least we do now. But I didn't always feel that way." Louis watched her face intently; he saw her hurt very plainly. He knew that feeling too well to miss it. "I thought if I fixed my hair, I'd be better liked, so I smoothed it." Her hand went, unbidden, to her long, fat braid. "And then I thought maybe my skin was too blotchy, so I was washing it a ton, and charming it every morning…"

Her eyes sunk to her lap as her voice faded. Louis could tell she was struggling, but he kept quiet. He wanted to be there for her; the way she had for him. All he really needed to do was shut up and listen.

"Until I woke up one day and I didn't have a freckle left — I didn't recognize myself." She looked up at him and screwed her face up into a crooked smile. "And then I wondered… why do they need fixing? Everyone and everything is broken in some way anyway. It's the way we were meant to be." She reached out across the table and grabbed Louis' hand and squeezed.

"Broken is beautiful," he whispered.

"I hope you see that in yourself, too."

"Did you hear it?" a small boy asked his companion as they rushed down the stairs.

"Hear what?" his friend asked through a lazy yawn.

"All that noise from the Shrieking Shack?" the first boy said before grabbing his friends robes to bring them in close. "Sounded like…" he paused to look around and caught sight of Louis, all long legs and blue eyes, his golden hair flowing out behind him like a Greek god. "A — a — were—wolf—" The young Gryffindor stammered, his mouth falling open. He grabbed his friend's collar even tighter and veered away from Louis's approach. "A werewolf," he gulped.

"We've been discovered," Rose whispered in his ear, startling him. It only made her giggle harder. "No self-respecting werewolf would ever allow me to sneak up on you as often as I do!"

"I'm starting to think you are part Kneazle," he griped half-heartedly as he grabbed her hand. She was just too lovely to be annoyed with this morning. They stopped, for just half a moment — the sea of bodies parting around them as they blocked the progress of the morning rush. All he could see was her.

Rose raised their intertwined fingers up. "Is this a thing now?" She bit her lip in that crooked way she had that made her look simultaneously adorable and devilish. It made Louis blush.

"Yes," he replied, pulling her on to restart their progress, "it is most definitely a thing."

"Good," she smiled, her head tilting up defiantly at the stares they were getting. "Let's give them all something to really talk about."