Written for Morning Lilies' Connect the Weasleys Challenge at HPFC. Prompts: Rose/Louis; stranger
He missed his sister.
Not Vic, or Dee—those two he saw enough of at home. Not Leah Kaufman, who is fabulous and wicked and knows all the right people and could get him in any place. No—
The sister he missed wasn't like them. She wasn't Vic, who was aloof and composed and pretty without trying. She wasn't Dee, who learned how to be tough. And she wasn't Leah, because this sister, she didn't give a rat's behind about who threw the sickest parties.
She didn't give a rat's behind about a lot of things, actually. And that's what is hurting Louis.
When they both boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time, they sat in one compartment, laughing at rude joke books from their older cousins. They traded Chocolate Frog cards, talked about which house she wanted to be part of, and tried to turn her red hair black using their new wands.
He was Ravenclaw. She went on to become Gryffindor, and that was that.
When they would meet in the hallways, talk centered on school work and what they thought of the professors, and which Quidditch team was likely to win that year. He wanted to join the school paper and told her this. She barely acknowledged what he said and he let it slide. When he became a staffer of The Hogwarts Times, he waited for her to congratulate him, or even just to nod at him in the hallway. He's still waiting.
One day, they chose to stop talking. It seemed like they both knew there was a death between them, something worn and regretful, and they both didn't want to deal with that. Not with a full school year ahead. So they became strangers, shuffling to opposite ends of the castle, occasionally nodding at each other in the halls.
But he still saw.
He saw how her house-mates respected her, fiesty little first year that she is, even if she annoyed them a little. She loved playing tricks on everyone, little harmless pranks, which were tolerated.
He saw how she stood up to people like Scorpius Malfoy and his cronies, points from Gryffindor be damned.
He even saw how Malfoy's eyes follow her, after the taunting, when she has turned away from him. There were stirrings of something Louis would dare not name yet, and it unsettled him that Rose didn't seem to notice.
Noticing things, seeing in the shadows-he excelled in that. When Teddy came out with his admiration for his sister, he wasn't surprised. He knew about it before Victoire did. He was guessing he realized right around the time Teddy found out about it, because that was when he started becoming clumsy around Louis' sister.
He also knew that Dominique thought Teddy wasn't good enough for Vic, but he didn't want to ask his sister about it. Dee has been known for extreme reactions.
Merlin knows how she'd react to him suggesting that she doesn't support Vic wholly. Probably skin him alive or what.
But Louis didn't care about all of that. He just wanted to have his little sister back. But she's slowly slipping away, and all he could do was see it happen.