Sequel to "More Than Just Friends". All credit to JK Rowling and my crazy brain.
Set Aflame
By: Weaselle7
Chapter 6
Home Is Where Your Heart Is
"Let me try it," Cecille said, unrealized by her on the first time, at the same time with Fred and George. The three of them were sitting in a small circle on the floor, each facing a series of required brewing-materials and a small plate where a small piece of sweet laid. For a second, Cecille extended her hands to take the newly-perfected product, but Fred's hand snatched the sweet first.
"Cecille, we came up with the stupid idea," he said, rising to his feet and brought the sweet out of her reach.
"And I came up with the last ingredient," Cecille said stubbornly whilst hopping to reach out for the sweet on Fred's towering hand.
"That's why we owe you," said George lightly from the floor, as if he was enjoying a free show. Cecille glared at him, earning a fair knowing smirk as he raised his eyebrows. "And put you before ourselves," said Fred nobly, holding his head high like Percy.
"No, you don't understand!" Cecille panted, still reaching for that piece of snack in Fred's grasp.
"No, love, you don't understand." Fortunately, Cecille got a serious matter -namely a piece of food being injected by a potion co-brewed by Cecille herself- to worry, and it really did distracted her from the fact that Fred just called her 'love'.
"I came up with the most vital ingredient!" Cecille said, trying to make Fred and George to understand her. She backed up, slightly feeling aware of the distance between her and Fred, and decided that she would not get the sweet anyway.
"And we've spent weeks," Fred began. "Eating and looking like we've just duelled," George finished.
"I could've made a mistake," said Cecille, almost shrieking, when Fred made a slight movement indicating that he was about to eat it. Fred, noticing the panic in her voice, looked at her and sighed.
"Hey, look, Cecille, we trust you," said Fred softly. Cecille, averting her eyes from Fred's eyes before she could got lost in them, gazed down to where George was laying, and found him looking at her as sure as Fred. She trusted the twins, of course, that was why she felt sure about testing the Fainting Fancy on herself. But, the real question was, did she trust herself?
"We've made a deal," Cecille pointed out.
"Upup, our deal is that you'll test them before those first years," Fred explained animatedly. Cecille, suddenly feeling so responsible, eyed the sweet in Fred's hand nastily, as if it was its fault that it didn't get itself free from Fred's palms.
"I know," said Cecille lamely, whilst she squeezed her brain for a logical comeback. "But this is-"
"Oh, come on, Cecille," George said, "we've been through numerous uglier experiments anyway."
"Do you two ever listen in class?" Cecille demanded hysterically, after convincing the twins to no avail.
"We believe it's rhetorical," George said.
"Every single drop contributes to the brewing results!" Cecille recited, dismissing George's comment. What she really needed now was that the twins could see how important her last ingredient was.
"And that's why you should never test it before us," said Fred. "Believe us, you wouldn't want to hear our brewing process," said George.
"Please," Cecille begged, putting on a puppy face somehow effortlessly. "I'd never forgive myself if something happen."
She didn't mean it that seriously, but it somehow occurred to the twins how fatal was the last ingredient Cecille had come up with. Fred, sighing deeply, glanced down at George for a back up, and came up with nothing for a counter commentary.
"Okay, but just for this once, okay?" Fred said. He tore the sweet into two halves and gave the first half to Cecille, securing the other antidotal half in his palm. "And then, when we're in Hogwarts, we'll have Madam Pomfrey to bother. Deal?" asked George.
"Deal," Cecille said. She shoveled the small sweet into her mouth and let the sugary texture to dissolve on her tongue. Her heart hammered against her ribcage in anticipation as she anxiously waited for the moment she would collapse. And then, quicker than falling asleep, Cecille felt herself being pulled into unconsciousness.
The next moment, she was lying awoke, with Fred sitting cross-legged next to her head and George peering from the side of the bed near her.
"How do you feel?" asked Fred worriedly.
"Itching," said Cecille truthfully. Catching the panicked looks on the twins' faces, Cecille broke into laughter and finished it with "Itching to prank Filch for our upcoming free periods, I mean."
George gave her a playful smack on her shoulder whilst Fred threw himself backward as he fell next to her with a deep thud.
"You gave us a heart attack, you know it?" Fred said and chuckled.
Cecille smiled to herself as she wheeled her trolley through the crowded King's Cross Station. She was ahead of her parents, leaving them talking about whatever the Order were fussing about. She felt satisfied, happy, proud, cheery but also fairly worried after perfecting Fred and George's product. She knew Mrs Weasley wouldn't be happy upon finding out the twins' business (the twins never told her, but she felt unreasonably sure). But everything about the prank was almost everything that mainly kept her from wallowing herself in self-pity since her twin, Cedric died.
The fact that Fred and George -that two twins that happened to be her best friends, that gave her the clearest reminder of what she and Cedric were- could make her in the possible happiest state, was so miraculous, wonderful, important and irreplaceable to her. They managed to bring their old times back to life; of times when they were just a band of mischievous pranksters that had nothing but a life involving around flicking dungbombs to Filch's office or setting the whole Slytherin Common Room in fireworks.
She really missed those old times. She could still recall of times she screamed like a crazed banshee when they fled from Filch, crouched into a ball as the twins tickled her and times they pushed each other to the Black Lake. Cecille smiled sadly to herself; she couldn't do things like that anymore. Not when she should be studying harder now with high-standard Healer academic expectation, not when she still felt depressed and somehow jealous sometimes that Fred and George still had each other, not when she was in love with Fred-
Love.
Cecille felt herself heated up in the face at the thought. Love. Was it really love that she felt for Fred?
"Cecille, where are you going? The barrier's here," suddenly Dad's words found a way to penetrate her jumbled mind. Cecille blinked, taking herself off her reverie and realized she was standing at platform 10.
"Oh," Cecille said and shook her head, as if it could cast away the blush in her cheeks. "Yeah, right, how stupid of me." Cecille tried to sound amused, but ended up expressionless. Cecille wheeled her trolley back to the space between platform 9 and platform 10.
"Are you alright? Anything troubled you?" asked Mum. Cecille sighed deeply. It always hurt when her mother asked her this. Of course there's something troubling me, Cecille thought to herself, nothing is right since-
"I'm okay. Just- just NEWTs," Cecille partly lied. Cecille felt sad for lying to her mother and ashamed for being a lovesick puppy with NEWTs matters in front of her face. And scared too, now that the realization of NEWTs struck her. They were walking in silence when Lee showed.
"Hey Lee!" Cecille greeted, nudging one of her mates on the shoulder. It might be a very awkward move, but Cecille wanted her friends to treat her like normal (instead of treating her like a ticking-bomb) if they wanted her to be happy.
"Ah, Cecille!" Lee said, grinning and punching her arm friendly in return. "Good holiday?"
If Lee weren't a close friend of hers, Cecille might've glared at him or sent him an eye-piercing look. Besides, Cecille did not have a good holiday, to be frank. But Cecille knew Lee was trying to act as conversational and normal as he could, so Cecille played with his rules. "A very nice holiday, indeed. Imagine, a pile of summer papers! How beautiful can it be?"
They laughed. Cecille looked back and saw that her parents were engaging a warm conversation with Lee's parents.
"Oh, look, it's Harry. The Weasleys shouldn't be far away. Harry!" Lee suddenly called out, bringing a dark-haired boy's attention to them. Harry, Mrs Weasley and an elderly woman approached them. The old woman nudged down someone's trolley when she waved and winked at Cecille, and then Cecille realized it must be Tonks (whom she had known from her weekly visit to the Grimmauld Place). Cecille waved at them.
"Hey Lee, Cecille," Harry greeted.
Out of the sea of crowded feet, a bear-like black dog appeared and barked playfully. Cecille's eyes widened as she examined the dog, not hearing Lee complimenting Harry on Snuffles or Mrs Weasley complaining on how skinny she got. Yes, she knew Snuffles. One night, Cecille and her parents were invited to a dinner with Mrs Weasley and Sirius had bursted out from the kitchen in his animagus form, apparently wanting to beat his niece (this was one of the facts she discovered after joining the society, that Tonks was Sirius' relative) to entertain them.
Cecille cast a worried look at Harry, blushed as Snuffles sniffed through her fingers and wagged his tail frantically. Cecille looked at Harry worriedly, screaming a message of 'Why is he here?!'
Harry, though it was quite obvious that he was suprressing a grin, lifted his shoulder in a non-committal way.
"Ah, Fred, George! Care to explain why hadn't you two owled me back?" Lee bursted out.
Cecille, pushing away her feelings towards Fred, spun around and greeted her two mates cheerily.
"Ah, that one. Ron's owl really broke your owl's wing," Fred said (and Cecille couldn't help but roll her eyes), "and it's been traumatic ever since. Wouldn't bother to fly."
"But, here's your owl. Probably, he'll get normal after he sees you," said George and he handed Lee a cage with a large brown owl hooting happily inside of it. Lee accepted his owl cage from George. "But guess what, same thing happened to Alicia's owl."
"Really?" Lee responded, though Cecille guessed that he was trying to sound non-chalant. Even a blind guy would notice the spark between Lee and Alicia.
"Yeah. She owled us, asking whether or not you're coming back to Hogwarts," said Fred as he sniggered along with his twin. Cecille's stomach churned and sank, thinking about Alicia believing every nonsensical and disdainful bits of Prophet made her felt betrayed. Cecille had lost a twin and to think that she had already lost another friend was the last thing she would ever wish.
Maybe she is just a lovesick puppy, asking everything about Lee and everything, Cecille thought hopefully. But, after all, it had a point. She could picture Alicia lying on her bed like a common schoolgirl, smiling as she spent forever to stare at a photograph of Lee. Taking a mental note to tease Alicia as soon as they met, Cecille smirked. "And she doesn't seem to ask it to you herself," George teased.
"You're making that up," Lee said and he rolled his eyes. "Why would Alicia think I'm not going back when she's got you two to compare?" Fred and George grinned the identical grin, looking as though they were torn to tackle him to the floor for speaking of it in front of their mother or to behave well whilst Mrs Weasley taking care of the others.
"No, we aren't," said Fred and he pointed to another cage in which a peaceful owl perching.
"Come on, you better get aboard," Mum suddenly appeared from the sea of crowd along with Lee's parents, who had caught up with their son and were lecturing something about Quidditch. Mum enveloped her in a tight hug and Cecille knew what was on her mother's mind.
Cecille, her parents' last now-only child, was now going to leave her Mum and Dad to themselves as they probably grieved over the death of Cedric. Cecille felt a pang of guilt in her heart. But she should go back to Hogwarts, mustn't her? She wanted to make her parents proud; no one else would have the chance to do it now but Cecille. Cecille smiled lifelessly at her Dad above her mother's shoulder.
"Mum, it will be okay. Everything's going to be okay," Cecille said, stroking her mother's long hair that was identical to hers. Mum laughed and let go of Cecille. Sending soothing words and comfort was always Dad's thing, it would always turn awkward if it came from Cecille or her mother.
"Now, now, behave well. I don't want to see you sending a letter saying you got a detention again," Mum said.
"And study hard. You don't want to see your mother's bad side just because you bring along your Trolls this Christmas," said Dad. Cecille laughed and gave her father a huge bear-hug.
She shook hands with Mr and Mrs Weasley, Professor (she found this addicting to tease her former teacher) Lupin, Moody (but not this particular should-have-been Professor) and finally gave an awkward hug for Tonks (she grumpily hugged old-Tonks but Tonks hugged her back like a teenager). Cecille then unloaded her trunks, her owl cage and her broom from the trolley with a swish of her wand. Her possessions levitated themselves in the air and lined behind her.
The engine rumbled to a start and an ear-piercing whistle filled the air. Cecille was squeezed in the sea of students and their possessions so hard the atmosphere suddenly seemed to be airless (that, and she was pushed to Fred). After the mop got thinner and Cecille got more spaces to move, they found themselves of compartment and stowed their stuffs to the luggage rack.
They literally spent their train ride teasing Lee with Alicia. Fred and George seemed to have observant eyes when it came to relating things to tease people. And Lee, nothing too special, never bothered to deny those things regarding how stunning or funny Alicia was. The last time she was involved in their conversation, they said they were going to hold a game of Exploding Snap. Cecille, afraid of getting paired with Fred by Lee, decided to read a book from her small library at home through the ride.
They didn't bother to look for Alicia and Angelina for Lee's peace. That, and Cecille could catch pieces of conversations involving their pranking products that would make Alicia and Angelina launched up a session of debate (let alone interest them).
When the train slowed down, the four of them slipped on their robes and bussied themselves with their stuffs. Cecille volutereed to take care of Alicia's owl. They scrambled through the crowd of students (that seemed to have no conversation topic more interesting than irritatingly mocking Harry and the like) as soon as possible. Cecille could no longer stand them and decided to take the nearest carriage that was thankfully almost empty except for a girl.
"Hey, Katie, do you mind if we join?" Cecille asked. Katie, who seemed to enjoy the silence that filled the carriage before Cecille came, tumbling on the door, looked up from her lap with a quill on her right hand.
"Oh, no. It's okay. Join, please," said Katie politely. Cecille climbed up and settled herself next to Katie, followed by Fred, George and Lee, who sat across from the girls. They greeted each other warmly.
"Oh, still in touch with Oliver, I see?" Lee asked, gesturing to an owl on Katie's lap as she magically tied the letter on its foot. Katie didn't answer right away. She retied and rechecked the knot thrice and then opened the carriage's window for the bird to fly away, effectively killing good five minutes.
"That's a letter to my parents, you idiot," said Katie playfully and she rolled her eyes.
"Oh, come off it, Katie. We know there's something about you and Oliver," Lee pushed the topic.
"Lee, just because you spent the whole train ride being teased about Alicia-" Cecille started but Katie squealed and cut her off.
"Alicia?! Oh, I knew it! It's about damn time anyway," Katie triumphantly exclaimed.
"I could've said the same thing about you and Oliver," Lee pointed out, avoiding to confirm the statement.
"What about you and your ridiculously commentary when it comes to Alicia?" Katie teased.
"I can't believe you actually bother to listen," Fred joined the battle.
"Are you saying you never listen?" Lee said, mimicking an irritated expression.
"Not in our own match of course," George backed his twin, "not with those bludger to deal with."
"Not with you commentating Alicia doing hair-flips," Fred corrected and the twins laughed out loud.
"Well," Lee coolly ignored the twins' laughter, "of course we're all curious why did Oliver's owl hang around the table of Gryffindor thrice a week last year."
"Oliver's owl?" Cecille burst out, remembering her last year, "but Katie, you said it was your penmate from other magical school!"
"What a good story for a cover up," George muttered, earning a glare from the sixth year.
"It's not like you actually know Oliver's owl," Katie said.
"Of course I know his owl," Lee mused, "I've been his housemate for years."
"I'm his housemate too!" Cecille said, feeling utterly dumbfounded that she hadn't noticed the thing between Katie and Oliver in the first place.
"You won't even know if it's your owl if we don't tell you," Fred joked. Cecille whacked him playfully on the knee. True, that was why she needed to train Aguilo, her owl, to answer to her voice so that she wouldn't get the wrong owl. Cecille blushed at the fact, and Cecille tried her best to plant the thought that it was because of the fact instead of the breath-taking smirk on Fred's face when she whacked him.
"Not to mention that we didn't have Quidditch last year," said George, snapping Cecille back from her thought. "Hmm, hmm, I was wondering..."
Katie gave a deep unnaturally long sigh. "Was it that obvious?" she asked desperately. Cecille had a brief impression of Katie yearning over the moon as she repeatedly calling for Oliver.
"Of course not! I don't even get the vaguest clue that a particular reserved Puddlemere Keeper is dating his old teammate," said Lee rather sarcastically (though playfully) whilst the twins were chanting 'KATIE'S DATING OLLIE, KATIE'S DATING OLLIE' loudly. Katie's cheeks reddened and it was a bit hard to distinguish the reason behind it between embarrassment and annoyance. It turned out to be the latter.
"You three will pay for it!" Katie yelled in a volume Cecille had only heard from Katie in the Quidditch Pitch. The twins ceased down with their faces read artificial horror.
"Oh no," Fred muttered and gasped.
"She's going to tell her Mr. Boyfriend," George said and he trembled on his seat.
"SAVE YOURSELF FROM THIS CRAZED CHASER," Lee suddenly shouted as if Gryffindor just scored their first goal against Slytherin. And with that those three fled from the carriage and opted to run to Hogwarts. Katie rose from her seat and opened the window; she slithered out the window until it was only her waist and her legs that stayed inside. Cecille could hear Katie clearly shouted, "COME BACK HERE AT ONCE YOU LOT BAND OF GARDEN GNOMES!"
Cecille couldn't help but laughed too. She could still hear Fred, George and Lee laughing out loud from afar. Katie grumbled and muttered things to herself before she slid back down to her seat.
"Cool down, Katie, I volunteer to give them some lessons," Cecille said. "Congratulation for you and Oliver, though. Sorry, it's a bit late, I'm such a big troll."
Katie laughed.
"Thank you, Cecille!" Katie said and she giggled. "And as for the late things, no. We just got together recently. Ooh, I know right! It should've been ages ago, but I was a great cowardly idiot I didn't know how obvious the thing was!"
To be frank, Cecille was a huge dolt idiot when it came to a girl talk. So she simply laughed and smiled happily for her fellow Gryffindor. Katie looked so happy. Suddenly an image of herself, Cecille, giggling with Alicia and Angelina as she told them that she recently got together with Fred. Cecille snapped herself from the mindless trance.
"Oh, and speaking of Oliver which is to speak about Quidditch," Katie started again, "I heard Angie is made Quidditch Captain!"
"Oh, really?" Cecille responded enthusiastically. "Where did you hear it?"
"From a bunch of excited juniors that I bet will show up for our tryouts," Katie explained, her face that was flushed after talking about Oliver reddened at the topic, "I thought they'd take Harry for the Captain. I mean, he's such a good flyer. But I thought they wouldn't bother to push him especially after-"
Cecille's body went rigid, the enthusiasm that flowed on her blood dissolved into a dull sorrow. She didn't know how easy people got to that topic. She remembered pieces of conversations she heard on the train corridors and from the platforms. Katie's eyes widened and she bowed her head guiltily. Cecille wanted to burst out and say that it was okay, but that meant that she was lying to herself. And that wasn't going to straighten everything. Cecille averted her gaze to the window.
"I'm sorry, Cecille. I didn't mean to bring that up," Katie said tentatively. Cecille nodded her head and forced a wan smile.
"It's okay," Cecille whispered back, almost not trusting her voice to take over. Katie sighed. When Cecille pulled her gaze back from the window, she found out Katie was eyeing the casing on the door that contained newspapers disdainfully.
"It's disgusting, you know, what they do," Katie said nastily as she signaled for the untouched Prophet by her chin. Cecille nodded but she couldn't help but burst out into her question.
"You don't believe it?" Cecille asked.
"Of course not! Prophet is a pile of useless crap now. I've stopped reading it," Katie said. Out of nowhere, Cecille felt a warm strong rush of gratefulness towards Katie and she hugged her fellow teammate from her side. Katie, as if she had predicted it, hugged her back. Cecille knew Katie would probably the only one in Hogwarts not to believe the Prophet.
Before they knew, their carriage stopped gently to a halt.
"It's alright now, Cecille," Katie said comfortingly, though quite pointless now that there was nothing to do since Cedric was gone, "we better get in quickly, before Peeves gets us."
Cecille, smiling and now grinning, nodded her head and followed Katie into the Great Hall.
A/N: Oh, I didn't know it was you, Fei! Hahaha, sorry, the title said guest. Oh, I mistook the genre just again *smack my forehead*. Thanks though for the feedback. Good luck for your college studies, by the way. Oh, and another guest! Thank you so much! Oh, and y'all can give me feedbacks, you know! :D