Chapter 3: Unexpected Night-time Companions
"Where do you reckon we'll be able to meet then?" Luna enquired as they crossed the bridge back into the Hogwarts grounds.
"Well it can't be anywhere where we could be spotted or overheard. The last thing we want is for Umbridge to find out about this," Hermione responded.
Harry thought for a moment and then spoke up. "I actually think I know just the place. Follow me."
Twenty minutes later, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Esmerelda, Ginny, Ron, Luna, Neville, Fred and George were standing in a corridor on the seventh floor of the castle, waiting for Harry to elaborate.
"You see, Dobby, the house elf" - he explained for those who weren't familiar with Dobby - "told me about this place a few days ago. Apparently it can transform itself into anything you want, so it could be perfect to practise in. As far as I know, none of the students are aware of its existence, and I doubt Umbridge would be either."
"Where is this perfect room them?" George enquired once Harry had finished explaining.
They were all staring at the expanse of brick wall in front of them, confused.
"The room's hidden. It only appears when you've walked past it three times, saying or thinking what it is that you require from it."
"So, say you really needed the toilet..." Ron enquired curiously.
"Charming, Ronald," Hermione interrupted. "But I'd assume it would provide you with what you need, right Harry?"
Harry smiled and nodded. "I guess so. We don't need a toilet now though. What we need is somewhere to practise. Let's try it out."
Together, they strode past the vast stretch of wall between the two candelabras, focussing on what they wanted to find behind it.
At first, Esmerelda didn't think it had worked. When she glanced up after three turns of walking past, the wall was as solid as it had been previously. However, a few seconds later, she heard a muffled shifting of stone which suggested, even before she'd glanced back up, that a door was appearing from within the wall.
Finishing his pacing, Harry reached forward towards the embellished brass door handles and pushed the heavy doors open.
They all stepped inside, eyes wide, and shut the large wooden doors behind them.
Looking around, Esmerelda could see that it was plenty big enough for what they needed, and the grand room had even furnished itself. Around the walls were mirrors for practising in front of, and there were stations set up for duelling. The room also seemed to have created dummies to practise spells on, soft bean bags for landing on, and a bookshelf full of defence books for them to study.
"This is wicked," Fred exclaimed, slouching down into one of the beanbags.
"It's perfect," Hermione replied, and Esmerelda could only agree.
…..
11 o'clock that evening saw Esmerelda, Harry, Ron, and Hermione working on their Charms homework in the common room. They were the only ones still up, and Esmerelda could feel her eyelids drooping, but she was determined to carry on.
"Right, I think I need to head upstairs to bed now. I can't manage any more of this tonight," Ron stated, yawning as he said it. "I'm pretty sure I've just written the same sentence down three times."
Hermione snatched his parchment and looked it over.
"You have as well," she replied. She waved her wand over his essay and the last two lines erased themselves. "There you go, Ron. I think I might leave it there too actually. I'm exhausted and it's been a long day. Esmerelda, you coming?"
"Not yet. I might just finish this paragraph off before I lose my train of thought."
"Okay, see you in the morning then. Goodnight Ron. Night Harry."
"Harry, are you staying?" Esmerelda enquired.
"No, I think I'm going to try to get some sleep. Although I may struggle. I've already got ideas running through my mind about what I might teach for the first lesson. Do I go for stunning spells or defensive spells? Ooh, or maybe I should go right back to basics first as it's important to get those solid before we build on them."
Esmerelda left him to his rambling.
"See you tomorrow then. Try to get some sleep." Harry wandered up the stairs to the dormitory, and with that, she was alone.
Despite her tiredness, she didn't think she'd be able to sleep if she went up now, and despite her best efforts to continue her essay, it wasn't going well. I'll take a walk to clear my head, she thought to herself. A short walk in the castle often helped clear her mind. Sure, it was technically against the rules, but once you'd figured out Filch's night-time patrolling schedule, you were very unlikely to get caught. It was also a bonus having two best friends who were prefects, as a quick glance at their schedule could also inform about which prefects would be where and when.
Esmerelda often let her mind wander as she herself prowled about the castle. She also thoroughly enjoyed studying some of the paintings and their occupants as she passed them. Growing up mostly in the muggle world, she hadn't experienced moving portraits until she had come to Hogwarts. Even now, they fascinated her. She was studying a particularly intricate painting, down a fifth-floor corridor, of a woman riding a unicorn into battle, when she heard a noise coming from one of the disused classrooms. She paused and stood stock still as she listened for what the source of the noise may be. A minute later, she heard it again. It sounded like somebody crying. A male somebody. Esmerelda debated if she should quietly walk back in the direction that she had come from, head back up to bed and pretend that she hadn't heard anything. However, she was a bit too nosy for her own good, so instead figured she would at least investigate the source of the crying.
What she saw as she peered round the door of the classroom was not what she had expected. She didn't actually know what she had thought she would see, but she certainly didn't expect for it to be Fred Weasley, head in his hands, trying, and failing, to hold back tears as his sobs escaped him.
Esmerelda tried to back out of the room quietly, and without drawing any attention to herself. But as she did so, she tripped over an upturned chair and banged her head on the door frame behind her.
"Shit...I mean ouch...um hi."
Fred jumped a bit upon being startled. "What are you doing here?" he asked in surprise. "And how did you find me?"
He quickly wiped his eyes in an attempt to hide his tears. It was an unsuccessful attempt, as his eyes remained puffy, and even with only the moonlight outside to light the room, Esmerelda could still see the streaks of tears left on his freckled cheeks.
"Fred, I'm sorry I didn't mean to. I was just trying to clear my head and I happened to hear...I just accidentally stumbled upon this classroom." She was pretty sure that Fred was aware she had heard him crying, but she didn't want to bring any attention to it nonetheless.
"Are you alright, only you look a bit upset is all?"
Comforting upset people wasn't really Esmerelda's forte, she normally left that kind of thing to Ginny, or Hermione at a push, but she felt she couldn't just leave when Fred was very clearly upset about something. She sat down beside him, shuffling back onto the table, her feet dangling off the end. Fred's feet on the other hand were planted firmly on the floor, Merlin he's tall.
"Yeah, honestly, I'm alright. I normally don't get upset like this. It's not like me. Only it's just, this girl I was kind of seeing she…never mind, I don't want to trouble you with all that. I'll be fine."
"It's okay to not be fine, you know Fred. There's nothing wrong with being upset sometimes. Just because you're the jokester and you and George are always making everyone else laugh, doesn't mean that you can't have feelings. It doesn't mean that you can't get upset every now and again."
He shrugged.
"I'll tell you what, if you're upset because the girl you've kind of been seeing has acted like a right dick and ended things with you, then you've certainly come to the right person. I've had plenty of bad relationship experiences." He looked at her and raised his eyebrow.
"Remember when I was dating that Ravenclaw for a while last summer before fourth year?" Fred nodded. "Well, I found out when I got back to school in September that he actually had a long-distance girlfriend at Beauxbatons that he had neglected to tell me about."
"Arsehole," Fred muttered.
"And remember when I went out with that Slytherin in the year above last year who then dumped me because his mum didn't like redheads?"
Fred snorted.
"That one I was unaware of," he replied. He picked a strand of hair off of her shoulder and tucked it behind her ear. "You and I both know that redheads are elite."
"Exactly," Esmerelda replied, a quick swooping feeling appearing in her stomach at the sudden and unexpected physical contact.
Esmerelda continued, mind taken off whatever was going on inside her stomach. "That girl, whoever she is, doesn't know what she's missing. Her loss." She smiled at Fred, and he smiled back.
Esmerelda realised they'd never really spent much time together one on one before. She'd spent plenty of time with Fred of course, but it had always been in a group setting, or with at least one other Weasley present. She found that Fred had all of the qualities that she appreciated most in Ron - his sense of humour, wit, mischievousness - but there was something else there too. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on yet. Something that intrigued her.
"Thanks, I needed that." Fred said with a chuckle.
"Needed what?" she asked earnestly, giving a little shrug in response.
"Needed to know that you're even more of a loser than I am," Fred replied with a smirk.
Feigning mock anger, Esmerelda shoved him with her shoulder, knocking him slightly off balance.
She smiled as he managed to steady himself. "No worries. Anytime you need cheering up again, I'll be there. Maybe I can regale you with even more disastrous stories about my pathetic dating life. Or maybe I should just write a memoir. Then you wouldn't even need to talk to me because you could just read about them all in one place. Bit of light bedtime reading. Might cheer you up?"
"You're ridiculous, you know that right?" Fred was grinning. "We should probably head back to the common room now. Don't really fancy getting caught by Filch and Mrs. Norris tonight."
"Oh, no need to worry about that. It's midnight so they'll be prowling the third-floor corridor on the east side of the castle right about now. Won't be back up to this part for at least an hour."
"And how exactly do you know that?" He asked incredulously.
"This isn't my first late-night stroll around the castle, Mr Weasley. What do you take me for, some kind of amateur?"
"I am impressed. Maybe we're more alike than I thought."
"Have you memorised Filch's schedule so that you can track his every movement? I think not. I'm starting to think maybe I'm more like you than you are, Freddie." She flipped her hair over her shoulder dramatically and strode out of the room. She turned back at the last second. "You coming then?"
They got back to the common room ten minutes later, having narrowly dodged a rogue Hufflepuff prefect who had strayed outside of his predetermined patrol zone.
"Well goodnight then, Esmerelda. Thanks again for the chat, I genuinely feel a lot better."
"She doesn't deserve you, you know. The girl, whoever she is."
Fred shrugged and looked down at his feet. Despite his height, at that moment, he looked very small.
"I mean it, Fred, any girl would be lucky to have you. I mean, what's not to like? You can reach things off the top shelf, your hair makes you easily identifiable in a crowd, and you have a world-record sized school report against you in Filch's office. I mean sure you do have to use a lot more suncream than the average person due to, you know, the ginger thing, but still, it's a sacrifice some girls will be able to make."
"Good night, Esmerelda," Fred replied with a chuckle as he made his way up the stairs to his room.
"Night Fred," she replied. She found that she couldn't wipe the grin off her face all the way up to her dormitory.
Once in her dormitory, Esmerelda quietly tiptoed over to her bed and collapsed onto it, drawing the hangings around herself. She had gone on that walk to clear her mind, but as she lay there, staring up at the canopy that stretched over her four-poster bed, her mind was racing with thoughts of a particularly tall, freckled, redheaded boy.