(HBP) CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Liquid Luck
"Who do I have to thank for always putting Quidditch games on Saturdays?"
Ellie shrieked with excitement, as she always did when Fred approached her in the Great Hall on Saturday mornings. He'd been working so hard at the Wheezes shop lately, he hadn't made it out there until the afternoon most Saturdays. Now that she knew he and George were buying a house—specifically, the one she had selected out of the presented options—she understood why.
"Pretty old tradition, mate," said Harry from his spot a table over. "But glad you could make it."
Fred grinned easily, but turned his gaze back toward Ellie. He's talking to me but not you?
He's not not talking to me. He's just not talking to me much.
Right. Can I kiss you now?
Everyone around them groaned and threw crumpled-up napkins as Fred kissed Ellie deeply enough to make her weak in the knees. When they had finished, Fred's eyes trailed to Ron—probably to congratulate him on his first match at Hogwarts.
"Bloody hell," Fred said when he saw him. "You all right, Ron? You look white as Percy's naked bum."
Ron grimaced. "Thanks for the image. I'm just a little nervous, is all."
"He has nothing to be nervous about," said Hermione. "You've been doing great at all the practices, haven't you, Ron?"
But Ellie had her doubts. If Ron played the way he looked, they were in for a tough match.
Harry reached a hand out toward Ron's pumpkin juice, and Ellie's eyes widened when she saw what was in it: a vial of the unmistakably golden liquid known as Felix Felicis. Liquid luck.
"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed less than a second after Ellie spotted it. Harry returned the vial to his robes so hastily, Ellie couldn't quite determine whether or not he had actually done anything with it.
As Hermione spewed on about the illegality of what he had done, Fred tugged at Ellie's robes, signaling for her to step away with him. She followed him out of the Great Hall and into the nearest empty classroom, where he pressed her up against the wall and kissed her so deeply, she actually heard herself release a small, breathy whimper of pleasure.
"Fred," she breathed as he trailed hungry kisses from her lips to her neck. One of his hands was cupping her face like it usually did, but the other was trailing lower down the small of her back than she was used to. "Not that I'm complaining, but what's this about?"
The wandering hand slid all the way into her back pocket and squeezed as his lips trailed up toward her ear. "It's about how much I missed you," he murmured, sinking the fingers of his other hand deep into her hair and tugging ever so slightly. "And how much I hated missing your birthday."
She let out another of those tiny noises she had never heard herself make before, and he responded with a deeper noise of his own, and their lips were back on top of each other, and both of his hands were in his back pockets, and she was pressed up against him in a more sexual way than she had ever been before, and the things she felt felt good, and—
"Shite," he muttered, pulling away from her just enough to press his forehead against her shoulder. She could feel his shallow, choppy breaths against her collarbone. "I'm sorry, El. Too far."
She snorted. "Hardly."
He laughed against her shoulder, then stood up straight, allowing himself to back away from her enough to see her clearly. His hand, she noted, was still in her back pocket. "Too far for Hogwarts, anyway. We don't want me getting my visitation privileges revoked, do we?"
Her eyes bulged, terrified of the mere thought, and she quickly reached her own hand into her back pocket to remove his. "Good point."
He grinned. "You should get going, anyway. You have a game to win. And now that Harry has successfully poisoned my brother into succeeding, you probably will."
"I'd hardly call it poison," she said with a grin as they exited the classroom. "But… you're right. See you after?"
"I'll be the one drooling hopelessly after his gorgeous, talented girlfriend."
Her cheeks burned with pleasure. She still wasn't sure exactly what had gotten into him, but she was a very big fan.
When the game against Slytherin started, Ellie decided that her little tryst with Fred had acted as its own kind of Felix Felicis.
Or maybe it was just his presence in the stands. Either way, the Slytherins didn't stand a chance.
Even without Katie—Dean Thomas was filling in for her while she recovered—the Gryffindors were on fire. Although Dean had been cross with Ellie since their kiss in the common room the previous year, he didn't show it on the field. Ginny and Ellie played together even more seamlessly than Ellie and Katie ever had, and Ron had so far managed to block every attempt at the goal that had come in.
I think this is the first time I've watched you play from the sidelines, Fred told Ellie after she streaked over to the Slytherin hoops and made a strategic goal that sent the crowd cheering. It's really hot.
She grinned as she zoomed back to the center of the field for the toss-in. Thanks, but I'd still prefer you be out here with me. Your replacements aren't nearly as good as you and George.
The Beaters were certainly the weak link on the team, but Ellie herself was so on fire, she managed to keep eyes out for Bludgers on behalf of all the Chasers—even calling out a "Duck!" to Dean that saved him from one to the head.
Before long, Harry had caught the Snitch, and the game was over.
Ellie spotted Fred heading to the field, but hesitated before going to join him. Her attention was focused on the Slytherin team—namely, on who wasn't there.
According to the Slytherin captain, Draco had taken ill. It didn't sound right, though. The last time Draco had claimed an injury, he'd had the entire Quidditch schedule shifted so that he could still participate. Why the sudden loss of interest?
Probably because he's a Death Eater now, and has bigger fish to fry, Fred pointed out as he closed the distance between them. He slung an arm around her and said out loud, "I really hope you're being careful there, El."
She considered pointing out to him that she truly didn't think Draco would hurt her, but decided it wasn't worth it.
She only got one day a week with Fred, and she didn't want to spend it discussing Draco Malfoy.
All Ellie really wanted to do was slip into a quiet room again with Fred, but he insisted that they join the festivities in the common room.
"I still feel like you haven't fully integrated back in with everyone," he admitted to her as they walked. "I was sure that the B.A., at least, would be there for you this year."
She had thought so, too. She shrugged. "I'm really doing fine, Fred, but if it makes you happy, we'll join the silly party."
And it was a silly party—filled with Gryffindors chanting Weasley is our King to Ron, who, within ten minutes of their arrival, had started snogging Lavender.
"I believe you called that one," Fred said grimly, glancing around. "Any sign of Hermione?"
Ellie spotted the back of Hermione's bushy hair flying behind her as she stormed up the stairs and made a mental note to check on her as soon as Fred's clock ran out.
"Wotcher, Fred," said a voice from behind Ellie. "Ellie."
It took Ellie a moment to place the voice. During the prime of the B.A., Ellie would have known Katie's voice anywhere. Now, though, having spent less time with her, she had to spin and face her to place the voice.
It didn't help that Katie's voice had changed—as had her appearance.
"Katie," Fred greeted, offering her an easy hug. "It's good to see you."
"You, too." Katie smiled weakly at Ellie. "And you. Sorry to have missed the game."
"You have nothing to apologize for, Katie. How are you holding up?"
Katie glanced carefully around. Only when deducing that no one else was in earshot did she admit, "Not great. Even understanding that I was operating under the Imperius Curse, and that there's no chance of getting that stupid necklace to Filch, I can't let go of this persistent need to deliver it."
"It's fading, though?" she asked hopefully. "Over time?"
Katie nodded, but her jaw was tight. "Just not fast enough. If I'm honest, it's not even the voice in my head that bothers me anymore. It's the knowledge that someone else put it there—the invasion of my privacy. Of my will."
Ellie thought of Draco and felt a sharp pang of guilt. No harm done, she had told him after accusing him of being the one to curse Katie. But clearly that hadn't been true. Even if he had been operating off the instructions of another, did it make it okay?
No, Fred told her silently. Which is why I need you to be more careful around him.
This time, it was Ellie's jaw that tightened. She knew he was right, of course, but she also felt that she was right to try to give Draco a real chance, just as Snape had suggested. If the alternative was letting him fall deeper into the darkness that surrounded the likes of his father and Aleks, how could she not?
"I'm here for you," she said, since defending Katie's likeliest attacker was the last thing she could do in this situation. "Whatever you need."
"I know." Katie smiled weakly. "I keep telling myself we need to get the band back together—reform the B.A. and use it to figure out who did that to me and what else they're planning. But then I think about the possibility of it happening to me again, and…" She shuddered.
Ellie understood. No one in the B.A. seemed quite ready to hop back on the bandwagon—herself included. "Even without the B.A., though, I'm still here for you."
"Me, too," agreed Fred. "Every Saturday until sundown, anyway. But I'm always happy to help from afar. Especially if you'd like to prank anyone."
Katie laughed weakly as Fred winked at her, but Ellie could tell her heart wasn't in it. "Thank you both. For now, I think I'm going to get some rest."
Ellie and Fred both tried to mingle with the rest of the partygoers after Katie took her departure, but the conversation had taken its toll on both of their spirits, and it became readily apparent that neither was in the mood. Besides, their time together was dwindling, and Ellie couldn't shake the memory of the feeling she'd gotten when he pulled her into that classroom before the game.
"Fred," she said, taking his hands in hers. "Can we go to the roof now?"
He smiled softly and squeezed her hands. "Yeah—I reckon we can."
Fred had become something of an expert by then at conjuring up the appropriate blankets and bedding to keep them comfortable on the roof. Both of them had become experts by then at kissing on said roof. That day, though…
The stakes felt higher, somehow. And the electricity in the air felt sharper.
"I really like being up here at sunset," she told him. They were already seated on the blankets, though they hadn't started kissing yet. She felt her breath hitch in her throat as she spoke. "It's pretty."
He wasn't looking at the sunset. He had barely been able to take his eyes off her all day—even when they were with Katie. "You're pretty."
How did such simple words have such a drastic effect on her, even after all the time they'd been together?
"I mean it," he whispered, taking her face in his hands and smiling softly. "I never get tired of looking at this beautiful face. I swear, I see it when I close my eyes at this point."
She knew what he meant—and not just in the literal sense of them seeing each other in their dreams. She saw that smiling face of Fred's everywhere, even when they were apart. "Fred," she said softly, crawling into his lap and straddling him. "Kiss me again."
She didn't just mean kiss me; she meant kiss me the way you did earlier today.
It was different now, though. They had real privacy now. They could go further, if that was their wish.
Fred seemed to sense it, too.
"We said we'd talk about it," he said, running his hands up the skin of her back beneath her shirt. The callouses and muscles in his fingers from all his time working on joke products felt incredible against the smoothness of her skin, and she felt a shiver of pleasure escape her.
"Okay," she said, leaning forward so that her lips were pressed against his ear. "I'm of age now, and I want you. Do you want me?"
His fingers tightened against her skin, and this time, it was his breath that hitched in his throat. He brought his own lips to her own ear and murmured, "You know I do."
Until recently, she hadn't. Of course it had been a reasonable assumption, given the intensity of his love for her, but he had never actually given her much reason to believe sex was something on the forefront of his mind. He had simply been too careful around her.
Now, though…
He brought his lips to hers with a renewed sense of vigor, then pressed her down flat against the cushions and blankets, lowering himself on top of her. His hands were trailing up the skin on the front half of her now, and they found her bra, and then they slipped beneath her bra…
She let out an involuntary noise she had never heard herself make before, then wrapped her legs around him and pressed herself up against him. Her back arched upwards, pressing her chest further into his hands, which felt so good against the skin he had, until then, never touched…
He let out a noise, too, and at first she thought it was one of pleasure, like hers, but when he pulled away from her and removed his hands from her chest, she realized that it was a noise of frustration, instead.
"Fred," she whispered breathlessly. Her chest was rising and falling quickly. The temperature in the air between them seemed vastly hotter than everywhere else around them. "Please don't stop."
He allowed her a reluctant chuckle at that, but ultimately shook his head, rising to a seated position. "Not like this, El."
"Not like what? We're alone, aren't we?"
"I have to leave any minute now. And we're at your school. When it happens… I want to be able to stay with you, El. To fall asleep with you and wake up with you afterwards."
His words made her heart swell with love, frustrating as they were. And yet… "Not that I'm an expert, but I think there's a small checklist of things we could knock off between what you're talking about and what we just did."
He laughed, but his expression was guarded. "I know. But those things on that list…" His jaw tightened. "Are they still firsts for you?"
She rose to a seated position, too, looking curiously up at him. Did he really not know the answer to that question?
"I didn't…" He ran a hand through his hair, looking pained. "I couldn't listen in with him, El. With Oliver. Not when things got…"
It wasn't hard to follow where he was going. "But you said you heard our conversation afterwards—the one about you."
He nodded. "I sensed the change of emotion in you and checked back in."
She wasn't sure what was harder to believe—that he could sense her emotions without even listening in or that he had spent all this time wondering how far she had gone with Oliver. She certainly would have been driven crazy with envy and curiosity if their roles had been reversed. "What's the last thing you saw before you pushed it out?"
His jaw clenched tighter still. "You taking your shirt off."
A pang of guilt hit her at that. She had almost forgotten about that. "That was it, Fred. As soon as I did that, he asked me if I was sure, and I hesitated. That was enough for him to call it quits."
The relief in his expression was clear, but it wasn't the only emotion he was giving away. "That git makes it really hard to hate him, doesn't he?"
She laughed. "I reckon he does."
He sighed, putting an arm around her and drawing her in close to him. "I don't want those firsts to happen like this for you, El."
She appreciated the sentiment, but what other choices did they have? "Fred, I appreciate you taking my opinion under consideration in the purchase of your new home, but we're nearly two years away from Dad ever agreeing to let me live with you—and that's minimum. Are you really suggesting that we wait that long?"
"Certainly not." He grinned. "You really think my powers of resistance are that good? Have you seen yourself?"
She laughed, though her cheeks reddened as they always did when he complimented her. "When, then? How?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. At the Burrow, maybe, or at Grimmauld Place. I'll sneak into your room and slip back out in the morning before anyone notices. Wouldn't be the first time."
He was right about that, she supposed. She didn't quite understand what made that so different from this, but if it meant that much to hold her through the night, she wouldn't fight him on it.
After all, Christmas was only a month and a half away.
I know Ellie's still young, but she IS technically of age by wizarding standards, and these feelings do start to hit at that age... I know things are escalating to a mature status than the rather PG source material, but I think this direction is only realistic for our two leads to be going in. Hope you're enjoying the progression, and hope you're excited to see what happens come Christmas! Don't forget to leave a review if you're enjoying the story!