CatB: Happy April Fool's, guys! (This chapter isn't a joke, though, I swear!) Haven't updated in forever, sorry about that. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own Harry Potter and am not making money off of this story.
Angelina is apparently not over last night, because this morning she walked down to breakfast with Katie and Alicia and hasn't looked my way once. Honestly, I don't know why she's still upset. She's being ridiculous, and I plan to tell her so.
"Oi, Angelina," I say, butting into her discussion with the other Chasers. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
She doesn't even pretend not to hear me. "No."
"Please?" I ask in my most polite tone, the one I usually reserve for talking with my mum.
"You're being rude, Fred. I'm trying to have a conversation here," she tells me before turning her back. I should have realized she wouldn't give in quite so easily. I'm not expecting her to keep this up for long, but she's not the type to be won over by a sweet voice.
I sigh loudly but begin to fill my plate with pancakes. I'll continue to badger her later, I decide. She can't ignore me forever.
Walking into Charms, I see that there is one empty seat left at Angelina's table. I quickly walk over with a friendly smile, but just as I reach the chair, Angelina pulls her bag onto the seat. "Sorry, this seat's taken."
I don't let my smile falter. "Well, save me a seat in Defense, then?"
"Don't count on it," she retorts.
"I'm not," I say lightly, but I'm beginning to realize that Angelina is well and truly pissed at me. Although I sit with George during the lesson, I find myself looking over at her more often than usual, trying to come up with a way to make her forgive me. I run through flowers and chocolates before dismissing them as too romantic and girly. Maybe I can make a fool of myself, that might get her to warm up to me a bit…
"Fred!" George hisses. "What are you doing?"
I've been waving my wand in little circles as I've been thinking, but the spell we're casting requires complex twirling. No wonder old Flitwick's staring at me. I clear my throat and try to copy my twin, who continues to shoot me questioning looks for the remainder of the period.
"Fred," George begins as soon as we step out of the classroom, "is something wrong? You haven't laughed at a single joke I've cracked today."
"Everything's fine," I assure him. "Just, uh, thinking about the joke shop." And wondering how to get Angelina to stop being mad at me, I add silently.
"But what does Angelina have to do with our joke shop?" George asks with a sly look on his face.
"What?" Had I accidentally said that last part out loud?
"Don't think I didn't notice you looking over at her every five seconds in Charms," George teases. "What was that about?"
"Angelina and I are in a fight," I tell him. My voice sounds more miserable than I intended.
"Tough," he says sympathetically. "What were you fighting about?"
"Just joke shop stuff," I mutter. "No big deal."
"Oh, I see what this is about. She found out about the Blood Blisterpod antidote, didn't she?"
Bugger. Didn't take him long to figure things out. "Er, well, yeah," I confess.
He shakes his head. "Bad luck, mate. What are you going to do?"
"I was thinking I might just let it blow over," I say casually. I'm pretty proud of this plan.
"You don't want to do that," George warns. "You need to apologize or something, at the very least. Her practice was ruined!"
"How was that my fault, exactly?" I say incredulously.
"If you hadn't-"
"Are you taking her side?" I interrupt. "I thought I was doing something good, I had no idea I gave Katie the wrong-"
"You just have to try and see things from her point of view," George says patiently. "As far as she's concerned, your 'help' made things worse than they already were."
I throw my arms up. "But my intentions were good!" I am not about to admit that our Captain might have a point. She's right often enough, why give her this victory, too? I think if we were keeping score, and every time one of us was right about something we received a point, the score would be something along the lines of Fred Weasley: 1, Angelina Johnson: 1000. Angelina tends to be right about things more often than I am. I'm not sure if it's a girl thing or an Angelina thing.
By the time we reach our Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, the seats next to Angelina are filled. How convenient for her. I sigh and plop down in a chair on the other side of the room. The last thing I plan to do is pay attention, however. My thoughts are still on Angelina and how I can get her to be my friend again.
When the professor tells us to split into pairs, I look over at Angelina. Normally she would partner with me, leaving Katie and Alicia to work together, but today she has chosen to work with Alicia, and my twin has paired with Lee Jordan, so poor Katie is forced to put up with me instead. I notice she doesn't seem particularly happy about this.
"Hey," she says unenthusiastically.
"What's up, Katie?" I'm trying to be friendly. It's not that I'm not usually friendly towards Katie, though, it's just that I don't talk to her all that often. Even though she's one of Angelina's best friends, she doesn't like to hang out with Angelina when Angelina's hanging out with me.
"Not much," she replies, looking at me suspiciously.
"Nose doing okay?" I joke, hoping she doesn't think I'm being insincere by making light of it.
"Yeah, it's fine now," she says.
"I'm sorry about that. I thought I was giving you something else."
"No worries," she says with a small smile. "Angelina's still angry about it, though."
I roll my eyes. "Trust me, I'm well aware of that." Unfortunately.
"At least your heart was in the right place." She pats my arm.
"Well, why can't she see that?" I complain.
"She's just been really upset about some stuff lately," she says quietly.
"Stuff?" I furrow my eyebrows. "She hasn't told me about any problems."
"Yeah, well, she wouldn't tell you, I expect," Katie laughs.
I bristle at her response. "What is that supposed to mean?" She's doing that thing that girls sometimes do where they get really cryptic and you can't help but wonder what they're talking about and why they won't just tell you, for crying out loud.
"Nothing," she says quickly. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"But you did," I remind her. I'm not letting her off easy. "So what's she been talking to you about that she doesn't want me to know about?"
"Girl stuff," she says evasively.
"Ah, I see." I don't, though, not really. 'Girl stuff' could mean any number of things, couldn't it?
"We should start practicing," my partner says suddenly.
"Sure," I agree, but my heart's not in it. I quickly mutter the spell and flick my wand towards Katie. Thick, black smoke begins billowing out of the tip of my wand. I immediately run over to Katie, who has started coughing, to make sure she's okay.
"Are you okay?" I shout, intentionally blocking out the looks I'm getting from the rest of the class. I notice our teacher looking particularly unimpressed, but I ignore him, too. Bad marks don't bother me. Besides, if I somehow manage to kill Angelina's best friend, we'll never make up.
Katie gives me a strange look. "I'm fine, Fred," she says. Is it just me, or is there a suspicious tone creeping into her voice again?
"I'm so sorry," I apologize. "I guess I was distracted. You all can get back to work," I add for the onlookers' benefit. "There's nothing to see here."
She giggles a little. "Yeah, just a lovesick idiot and his unfortunate partner."
"Har har," I say sarcastically, for two reasons. First, I'm not in love with Angelina. I like the girl, sure, but I don't love her. And even if I did, there's no way Katie Bell would ever know about it because she can't keep her mouth shut. Second, Katie is not what I would call "unfortunate," even when paired with the genius who made smoke come out of his wand instead of a spell. She's actually quite pretty (though not as pretty as Angelina), and she's a great Chaser to boot. This would probably explain why George fancies her, actually. He's never said anything to me about liking her, but I've picked up on his looks and whatnot. Maybe it's a twin thing.
Speaking of George…he looks miffed about something. What is it with everyone today?
I let Katie practice the spell, smoke free, for the remainder of the period. I know better than to attempt it again while I'm fretting about Angelina's anger. It's not like her to hold a grudge this long. The last time she was this mad at me was way back in our second year, when I tricked her into thinking that she was playing Quidditch all wrong. I don't know why she believed me, knowing that I enjoyed a good joke, but she did. That was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made, though; you don't mess with Angelina when it comes to Quidditch. If it's anything else, she takes it in stride, bless her. She's usually such a good sport, which is why it's still hard for me to grasp that her anger hasn't dissipated.
As I leave the classroom, I expect George to attack me about my behavior again, but he's nowhere to be found. I blink, wondering where he disappeared to so quickly. He's not in the Gryffindor common room (Angelina is, but she sends me such an icy glare that I think it best to leave her alone), nor is he in the library. I peek into the Great Hall, but he's not there, either. Whenever I see one of our friends, I ask if they've seen him, but apparently no one has. I need him to tell me how everything is going to work out with Angelina (I hate to admit it, but I'm having serious doubts), but of course he can't do that if he can't be found.
I return to the common room and plop myself down in a cushy armchair. I'm in no mood for studying, though, so when a group of book-minded youngsters comes traipsing in, I vacate my spot and head upstairs to my dorm with the idea of having some quiet thinking time or perhaps a nap. And that's when I finally find my elusive identical brother: he's busy snogging Katie Bell like there's no tomorrow.
And maybe there won't be, when I'm through with him. Git.
CatB: Reviews make my day! If you loved or hated anything about this, PLEASE let me know. What are you waiting for?