"If you had the chance to change your fate, would you?"

–Merida (Brave)

"I'm so, so sorry."

"Fred, don't be. It wasn't your fault." Scarlett stopped walking and leaned against the wall, clutching her bleeding left hand in her right one. She bit her lip. Her hand was throbbing with a stinging pain.

"It was just healing, too," Fred said softly, nodding towards the cuts on her hand. "It looked a lot better after you used the murtlap last night."

"I know," Scarlett said, "but now it's like I never used it. Your hand doesn't look that great either."

"Yeah, but not as bad," Fred said quickly. "It hardly hurts."

Scarlett raised her eyebrows. "Really?"

"Okay," Fred laughed, "maybe it does hurt."

"That's what I thought."

"At least she only kept us for four hours tonight instead of eight."

"Probably because you had a detention too. If it had just been me, I bet I would have been there for eight hours again."

"You think so?"

Scarlett nodded. "She wouldn't want anyone to get suspicious about how she's treating me." She sighed. "She hates me."

"She doesn't hate you. She's just a crabby, psychotic woman."

"Face it, Fred. She hates me. She didn't give anyone else an eight hour detention or lock anyone else in a classroom."

"Did you do something to set her off?"

"No, nothing!"

"Maybe you should confront her about it."

"And say what? That I've noticed she's singling me out and punishing me more than others so I just wanted to know why?"

Fred shrugged. "Yeah, why not?"

"She'd deny it."

"Tell Dumbledore."

"There's not much he can do. Umbridge would probably lie to him about it, too and she has the whole Ministry behind her."

Fred was silent for a moment. "Look," he finally said, "at least come back to the Gryffindor common room with me."

"Why?"

"Hermione promised to have some murtlap ready for me to use. You need it, too. More than I do, to be honest. It's the least I can do after getting you into this mess."

"It's not your fault," Scarlett argued.

"It is. I feel like I lied to you. I told you I rarely get caught sneaking around after hours and then we got caught."

"I guess I'm bad luck," Scarlett shrugged. "Anyway, maybe getting caught was good for you."

"Yeah? How so?" Fred asked, leaning against the wall beside her.

"It might shrink that big head of yours down a little bit." Scarlett looked up at him and smiled.

Fred laughed. "Alright, alright. I get it." He looked down at her hand and shook his head. "You know what? I'm not even going to ask you if you'll come back to the common room with me. I'm going to tell you. You need that murtlap, Scar."

Scarlett nodded. "Okay. I'm actually not planning on arguing with you."

Fred smiled. "Come on." He grabbed her arm and dragged her practically across the school. They finally skidded to a stop in front of a portrait of a woman in a pink dress.

"This is it?" Scarlett asked.

"This is it," Fred said. He smirked as he noticed Scarlett chewing on her lip. "There's a password to get in, but I heard from a prefect—Hermione, actually—that it's supposed to change soon anyway, so you don't have to worry about knowing something you really shouldn't."

"I wasn't worried about that," Scarlett retaliated.

Fred shrugged. "I think you are, but it doesn't really matter. I know you wouldn't give out the password." He grinned at her.

"Of course not," Scarlett scoffed. Fred turned back to the portrait, but she pulled on his arm. "Wait."

"What?"

"Angelina…she probably shouldn't see us."

"Angelina's already in bed." Fred looked as if he were about to laugh. "She's fighting a cold from the last Quidditch practice that she insisted on having even though it was pouring rain and freezing." He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Anyway, she's tired. She wouldn't be concerned, though, even if she did see us."

"Are you sure? After what Justin said in the Shrieking Shack?"

"She knows you and I are friends. And giving you murtlap isn't anything to make any normal person become suspicious. She isn't as paranoid as the Finch is. Trust me on this."

"But you don't think someone else will see us and tell her?"

"Even if they did, she wouldn't care. It's not like they're going to see us doing anything we shouldn't be."

"But they might switch it around to make it sound that way. I know how people can be. They'll do anything to start drama."

"You really worry too much," Fred laughed. "But none of what you're worrying about is going to happen. If it does, I'll handle it. Besides, it's late. The common room will be practically empty."

Scarlett pursed her lips. "Fine, just give the password and let's get a move on."

Fred laughed and turned back to the portrait once more. "Dragon scales." The portrait swung open and Fred dragged Scarlett across the room to the couch in front of the fireplace. "Sit," he said, gently pushing on her shoulders.

Scarlett sat and looked around the room as Fred took a seat next to her. Fred had been right. The room was nearly empty. The few people who were in the room hadn't seemed to have noticed her. Except Hermione, of course, who was sitting in a nearby chair, looking at Scarlett and Fred over the top of her book.

"The murtlap's right there," she said slowly, pointing to a bowl on the table.

"Thanks, Hermione, I appreciate it," Fred said cheerfully, pulling the bowl towards him.

"Fred…?"

"Hm?" he asked, glancing at Hermione.

"You do realize that you brought a Hufflepuff into the Gryffindor common room, don't you? It's supposed to be secret to other Houses." She looked at Scarlett. "Not that I don't or wouldn't want you here, but it is against the rules, and being a Prefect, I have to, well, enforce them."

"Relax, Hermione," Fred said. "It's not like she's a Slytherin and she'd have no reason to come in here on her own anyway. Besides, didn't you say that the password was going to change next week?"

"Yes, I suppose I did," Hermione said slowly.

"Scarlett needed murtlap and it's my fault she got a detention tonight in the first place, so the least I could do was help her out," Fred continued.

"Fred," Scarlett sighed, "it's not your fault."

"It is," Fred insisted. "It was my idea to bring you out after hours and show you the secret passageways, so I'm going to take responsibility and admit it."

"Wow," Hermione said. "Fred Weasley taking responsibility. He must really like you, Scarlett."

Fred rolled his eyes as Scarlett fought back a laugh and a blush. She knew Hermione meant Fred liked her as a friend. Even still, she couldn't stop herself from blushing.

"Anyway, here," Fred said, sliding the bowl of murtlap towards her. "Hermione will give me more later."

Hermione let out a puff of air through her nose, but didn't say anything.

"Share it?" Scarlett asked, slipping her hand into the bowl. "You shouldn't have to wait or end up getting more."

Fred opened his mouth to answer, but Hermione interrupted. "Are you sure that's sanitary? I mean, you both have open cuts on your hands and-,"

Scarlett smiled, fished out her wand and cast a charm over the bowl. "Sanitation…check."

Fred grinned and turned towards Scarlett so that he could slip his left hand into the bowl. Scarlett gazed down at her own hand, lost in thought. Suddenly, Fred hooked his pinky through hers, causing her to look up.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again, giving her a small smile.

"If you apologize one more time…" Scarlett threatened with a laugh.

"You'll what?" Fred asked.

Scarlett shook her head and looked away, focusing on looking around the room again.

"Do you remember pinky promises?"

Scarlett looked at Fred, who was looking down into the bowl at their intertwined pinkies. "Of course," she said, smiling slightly. "You, George and I used to make them all the time."

Fred smirked at her. "I guess they stopped being good enough. At least between you and me, I mean."

Scarlett laughed and let out a sigh. "Yeah, we moved on to the real thing. I suppose you're wishing we had simply pinky promised to get married? It would have gone forgotten after a while and there would be no pressure to keep it."

"Of course there would be," Fred said. "You can't break a pinky promise."

Scarlett giggled. "No, I suppose those were considered the Unbreakable Vows of childhood."

"To answer your question," Fred said after a moment, "sometimes I don't mind that we made this Unbreakable Vow."

"Why not?" Scarlett asked.

"Because then it makes me think that all the times we've had together since we found out about the vow wouldn't have happened. It forced us to talk to each other again."

Scarlett swallowed and looked up at him. "I agree," she said. She let out a tiny laugh. "It's kind of sad that we needed an Unbreakable Vow to talk to each other again. It makes us seem as if we were too cowardly to do it on our own."

Fred chuckled. "Either that or too lazy."

"So, if you could change it...if you could go back and undo this vow, would you?" Scarlett asked.

"You like to ask questions, don't you?" Fred smirked.

Scarlett shrugged one shoulder. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No, not always," Fred answered. "Anyway, I really don't know if I would go back and change it. I mean, it's really not ideal for us right now for obvious reasons, but as I just said, it helped us grow close to each other again and I like that."

"So do I," Scarlett answered.

"What about you? Would you go back and change it?"

"I think my answers the same as yours. Maybe I'd undo me moving away instead so that we'd never grow apart in the first place. I'd undo the fact that I hardly spoke to anyone after my dad died. And I'd obviously undo the accident if I could. That might just solve everything."

Fred nodded. "I'd undo the accident, too, if I could."

"Yeah?" Scarlett asked, smiling at him.

"Yeah."

"That's sweet."

"Of course it is. What, you don't think I'm capable of being sweet?"

Scarlett snorted. "No," she said, smirking at him.

"Hey," Fred laughed, nudging her with his knee. He looked down into the bowl again at their still intertwined pinkies. "So…what are we promising this time?"

"Maybe you're promising that you won't get us into trouble anymore," Scarlett teased.

Fred rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand as he looked at her sheepishly. After a few seconds, a grin spread over his face once more. "Or maybe you're promising that you won't worry so much anymore."

"That's not something I can just promise," she laughed. "It's something I'll have to work on."

"Well, get a move on, then," Fred said.

Scarlett snorted, but she had to look away to hide her smile.

Umbridge was becoming more and more of an annoyance with every passing day. In the days following Scarlett and Fred's detention, she had appointed herself the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts and had immediately started inspecting classes and issuing silly educational decrees. Banning all of Fred and George's products had been one of them, although people still used them as secretly as they could.

Besides that, she was now inspecting classes, which, according to her, meant she sat in the back of the classroom making sure the professors were up to standard. To everyone else, it meant she sat in the back of the classroom and annoyed everyone to no end while she made sure the professors were up to her standard.

If Scarlett didn't have secret anti-Umbridge meetings to look forward to, she would have gone crazy. A little less than a week after her detention with Fred, Harry had found a place to hold the meetings and the next day, everyone gathered in the Room of Requirement. They had voted on the name Dumbledore's Army, Hermione had handed out coins charmed so that they could communicate meeting times, and they had gotten straight to practicing.

"So," Erica said at the second meeting (third, counting the one at the Hog's Head), "I'm a little insulted. You've had a fair amount of time to talk. Just about two weeks, actually, and you haven't spilled the details."

"What details?" Scarlett asked, wrinkling her nose in confusion. They were practicing disarming that day and Scarlett and Erica were partners. Justin, who had partnered with Scarlett last week, was practicing with Ernie Macmillan a few feet away. Next week, they would switch partners, so Scarlett would have a chance to partner with Justin again. Fred and George were doing the same with Katie and Angelina, Scarlett had noticed.

Erica lowered her voice slightly. "Have you forgotten already? Think back to two weeks ago. What were you doing?"

"I don't know. Sitting in detention?"

"I'm talking about the night you went to go pick up murtlap from 'Hermione'." Erica made quote marks in the air before tossing Scarlett's wand back at her. "But the last time I checked, Hermione was not a tall, freckled boy with red hair."

Scarlett groaned. "How did you figure it out that I didn't meet with Hermione?"

"I've known you long enough to tell when you're lying. Ha, disarmed you again. You're not focusing."

"I know I'm not," Scarlett said defiantly, catching her wand as Erica tossed it to her. "And am I really that rubbish of a liar?"

"No, I've just known you for a really long time. Besides, Justin may have gone to bed soon after you left, but I didn't. I was up long enough to know that you didn't get murtlap and come straight back to the common room. You did something else. If you were getting murtlap from Hermione, she wouldn't hang around for fear of breaking the rules and it's not like you two are close enough where you would spend time with each other anyway."

"How did you know that it was Fred I was with, though? I could have gone to do something on my own."

Erica shook her head. "Normally, I would have assumed you were alone, but now that I know about what's going on between you and Fred, it would make sense that you two would hang around each other."

"Are you mad that I didn't say anything?"

"No," Erica said slowly. "It's not like you were doing anything you shouldn't be with Fred, but I don't like that you're lying to Justin."

"I don't like it either, trust me," Scarlett answered.

"You should really tell him the truth about everything."

"I want to, but I can't."

"You can," Erica insisted. "It's not that hard."

"It is. You don't know because you aren't in my position."

Erica looked at her best friend. "Fair enough," she sighed, "but really, please tell him soon. He deserves to know, don't you think?"

Scarlett nodded.

"And," Erica continued, "I'm sure he'll understand."

"He won't," Scarlett groaned. "It's a terrible situation in the first place and on top of it, he's not exactly fond of Fred."

"I know," Erica said. "You really are in way over your head, which is why I think telling Justin sooner rather than later would be best."

"I know and I said the same thing about a month ago, but that was before things got so complicated. Expelliarmus." Erica's wand flew into Scarlett's outstretched hand. "Got you that time," Scarlett grinned.

Erica returned the smile and shook her head. "So, what did you do with Fred when he gave you the murtlap?" She glanced at Fred and George, practicing across the room.

"He wanted to show me all the secret passageways he knows so that the next time I felt like sneaking out, I could use them and not get in trouble. That's really why I was out after hours that night."

"Yeah, I figured your detention was related to being out with Fred," Erica said. "You were ever so vague when I asked why you had another detention."

"I just told you I was out after hours," Scarlett laughed.

"On the same night you were going to get murtlap, a task you said would only take a few minutes," Erica smirked. "That was another thing that led me to believe you were lying about who you got the murtlap from."

"I didn't expect to actually spend time with Fred," Scarlett giggled. "He wouldn't give me the murtlap unless I went with him."

"Went with him where?"

"We hung out by the lake until it was officially after hours. Then we came back inside and Filch caught us." She paused. "He also took me to the Gryffindor common room on the night of our detention."

"More murtlap?" Erica guessed.

"Yes, more murtlap," Scarlett said, exasperated. She paused for a moment. "Erica?"

"Yeah?"

"What happens if somewhere down the road, well, what if I do start to fall for Fred?"

Erica looked taken aback by the question. "What do you mean 'what happens'?"

"Well let's just say that one day I wake up," she glanced at Justin and lowered her voice, "and I like Fred. I mean, I know if it were serious, I'd have to end things with Justin, but maybe the feelings for Fred won't even be real. Maybe I'll be tricking myself into thinking I like him because I know I have to marry him anyway. I mean, knowing who you have to marry before you marry them changes things."

"So, you're worried you'll fall in 'fake' love with Fred and think it's real so you'll end up breaking up with Justin for nothing?"

"Yeah, something like that," Scarlett said with a shrug.

"Well, you have to marry Fred anyway, so either way you'll be breaking up with Justin at some point," Erica said reasonably. "As for the love thing, well, I don't think there is such a thing as fake love."

"You hear about it all the time," Scarlett said. "Two people think they're in love, but it turns out they aren't."

"See, I think of it as they were in love-some kind of love, anyway, because there are all different kinds—and then they realize that they don't feel the kind of love for that person that they thought they did, or they find someone that they're more compatible with."

"So, you're saying if I fall in love with Fred or start to feel anything for him at all then it's the real thing?"

Erica nodded and smirked. "Yeah, why are you asking? Something you're not telling me?"

"No, just wondering," Scarlett answered with a shrug as Harry dismissed them for the night. Justin came and took her hand and Scarlett drove all thoughts of Fred out of her mind. Erica was right—there were all kinds of love and Scarlett loved Fred like a really good friend. However, the bigger issue seemed to be the prospect that she would probably never see him as anything more.