Chapter Fifteen

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Selena's cauldron was bubbling violently, but she didn't even notice it. She was far too lost in her thoughts to notice anything going on around her. It was only when Fred rushed from his workbench to hers and removed the potion from the heat that she finally noticed the heavy tang of sulphur coming from the liquid, and the dark stone grey colour it had taken on, as opposed to the pale creamy blue it was supposed to have been.

"What's the matter with you?" Fred asked her, and though he was trying to reprimand her for her lack of attention, his voice was still gentle as a friend's. She hardly heard him, she had been lost so deep in the recesses of her mind, but his hasty movements and the realisation that quite a few people were staring at her brought her fully back into focus.

"Sorry. I was thinking." she told the redheaded boy, wincing at how stupid she sounded. Of course she had been thinking, a blind man could have seen that, given that if she had been concentrating, it was highly unlikely her potion would be stained the flagstones of the floor as she spoke. Feeling her cheeks flame with embarrassment, Selena bent down to clean up the mess before it became any worse. She could not help but smile when Fred did the same.

"What were you thinking about?" he asked her quietly, ducking his head low so as to try and avoid the notice of their Potions professor, who was unobservant at the best of times, but extremely strict at the worst. The girl did not attempt to answer the question, instead choosing to concentrate on the task at hand, wishing she had never made the comment. But she did not have to answer in the end, as the boy answered his question for himself. "Your brother. He's alright, Lena. He'll be fine in Gryffindor."

It was as if his words had broken a dam, as once Selena began to respond, her words came out in a torrent that she had no power to stop. "I know. And I know it's the House he wanted to be in, but more than that, he wanted us to be together. And it's been weeks since the Sorting. I mean, it's almost Hallowe'en, and then it'll be time to go home for the holidays and I can spend two solid weeks with him. And he has no friends yet, really, and I know I've got you, but I've never been separate from him for this long in my life and I don't know if I can bear it anymore!"

Silence fell between the two, and reigned in the classroom for a long while after, as Fred returned to his own bench and continued his work, leaving her to start hers again, to try and achieve the same results in the next forty minutes as others would reach in an hour. For someone who had no particular talent in Potions, this would be difficult, and for someone who's mind had been occupied once again by thoughts whizzing round like a hive of bumblebees, it would be near impossible.

Towards the end of the lesson, Selena had come up with a liquid that appeared more of a sky blue than a pale one. She doubted it would do what it was supposed to, but in all honesty, she was past the point of truly caring. She poured the potions haphazardly in a glass vial and turned it in to the professor, before gathering her things in a rush and fleeing the classroom, hoping to avoid Fred.

It was lunchtime that followed, but instead of going to eat, Selena decided to go to the Common Room, hoping that it would be busy and that the crowds would give her some shelter from the Weasley boy. However, she soon discovered that she was wrong. When she stepped through the doorway, silence reigned, and the only person sat in the room was the one person she had been trying to avoid.

'Maybe I can get away before he sees me,' she suggested to herself. 'That way, I'll have some time to think about what I'm going to say to him.'

Deciding that would be the best course of action, she moved to leave the room again, before she noticed the redhead's eyes on her. He had noticed her; from the look of it, he had noticed her some time ago.

"I'm sorry." she sighed, turning completely away from the door and taking a tentative step toward her friend, smiling a little when the boy moved over on the sofa to allow her space to sit down beside him. In truth, she did not know for what exactly she was apologising, but she wanted to clear the air all the same.

"Me too." he told her, shrugging his shoulders slightly. From the slight frown creasing his forehead, Selena imagined that he did not know of the nature of his offence either, but merely wished not to aggravate her when they were just being reacquainted.

"I wasn't trying to get to you or anything, it's just that-" the young girl attempted to explain herself, but Fred raised his hands, stopping her in her tracks.

"No, I understand." he told her. "You're just protective of your twin and you miss him. My dad's the same; his twin brother, the one I'm named after, was killed in the last few hours of the War. It was almost done, and then he died."

"My parents lived to see the sunrise, just about. If they'd managed to defeat the Dark Lord just that little bit faster, then maybe they'd all still be here." Her voice had become laced with tears that choked her and caught in her throat and before she knew it, Fred's arms were wrapped tightly around her and their tears melded together, falling and wetting the cushions of the sofa on which they sat.

It was not long before people began to arrive and the pair decided to take a walk past the monument which had been erected in honour of those who had fallen in the Battle of Hogwarts, laying a bunch of hand-picked flowers beneath three names; Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin and Fred Weasley I. They could hear people laughing and screaming as they ran round the grounds, enjoying themselves immensely, despite the bitter temperatures, but they remained silent, though the quiet was not uncomfortable in the least.

It was only when the professors swept into the grounds to tell the students to go to their next lesson that Selena realised Fred's hand was clasped around hers.

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