Dreams Are Falling Short

“She's completely going to be in love with me now,” Fred said, more to himself than to the crowd or anyone else. He sounded shocked that I’d picked him – out of all the people in the room – to fall in love with (it was actually just a made you highly infatuated with the person), even though we were in a pretend relationship.

I closed my eyes for a moment, before looking back at everyone. They were all looking at me with weary eyes, waiting to see what I would do. I could feel the warmth of the Potion starting to spread through my body. I could feel the small butterflies in my stomach strengthen to full-blown eagles in my stomach when I glanced at Fred. I could feel like skin getting slightly flushed as my mind thought of things to do to him. I could feel my senses being taken over by the potion.

“I’m sorry,” I mouthed desperately to Fred, begging him to understand.

That’s the last thing I managed to get out, before the Potion took over fully. I moved slowly towards Fred, who appeared slightly frightened, but was masking it fairly well with confidence and pride in our work. I could feel my eyes widen to their biggest, and I looked up through my lashes at him.

“The beauty of this Love Potion is that the consumer is fully aware of what they’re doing, they just can’t control it,” George commented.

-

I woke up with someone poking me in the side.

“Wake up, we have to go to Quidditch practise,” Fred said from under me.

“Sssssh,” I said. “Not so loud – my head is pounding.”

“You were love drunk, my dear,” Fred said happily, “this is just your hangover.”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, before taking in where I was. I was on Fred’s bed – thankfully with wearing clothes (enough anyway) – and it looked like it was later on in the next day. I sighed as I remembered the past twenty-four hours.

“I’m sorry,” I said, placing my head in my hands.

“It’s alright,” he said. “If it makes you feel any better, lots of people advanced order them.”

We both got dressed to go down to Quidditch Practise because apparently Angelina had gone to McGonagall who she thinks might have appealed to Dumbledore to Umbridge had to give in. With the thought of our first match being in three weeks, I couldn’t help but keep the small jump out of my step as we made our way to the pitch.

The weather was miserable, and we were soaked through within minutes, our feet slipping and sliding on the sodden grass. The sky was a deep, thundery grey and it was a relief to gain the warmth and light of the changing rooms, even if we knew the respite was only temporary. Fred and George instantly started debating whether to use one of our own Skiving Snackboxes to get out of flying.

“... but I bet she’d know what we’d done,” Fred said out of the corner of his mouth. “If only I hadn’t offered to sell her some Puking Pastilles yesterday.”

“You could try the Fever Fudge,” I muttered, “no one’s seen that yet –“

“Does it work?” enquired Ron hopefully, as the hammering of the rain on the roof intensified and the wind howled around the building.

“Well, yeah,” said Fred, “your temperature’ll go right up.”

“But you get these massive pus-filled boils, too,” said George, “and we haven’t worked out how to get rid of them yet.”

“I can’t see any boils,” said Ron, staring at us.

“No, well, you wouldn’t,” said Fred darkly, “they’re not in a place we generally display in public.”

“But really, they work just as well as the love potion,” I said, rather bitterly. “They just make sitting on a broom a right pain in the –“

“All right, everyone, listen up,” said Angelina loudly, emerging from the Captain’s office. “I know it’s not ideal weather, but there’s a chance we’ll be playing Slytherin in conditions like this so it’s a good idea to work out how we’re going to cope with them. Harry, didn’t you do something to your glasses to stop the rain fogging them up when we played Hufflepuff in that storm?”

“Hermione did it,” said Harry.

“I can do it,” I said. I pulled out my wand, tapped his glasses and said, “Impervius!”

“I think we all ought to try that,” said Angelina. “If we could just keep the rain off our faces it would really help visibility – all together, come on – Impervius! OK. Let’s go.”

We all stowed our wands back in the inside pocket of our robes, shouldered our brooms and followed Angelina out of the changing rooms.

We squelched through the deepening mud to the middle of the pitch; visibility was still very poor even with the Impervius Charm; light was fading fast and curtains of rain were sweeping the grounds.

“All right, on my whistle,” shouted Angelina.

I kicked off from the ground, spraying mud in all directions, and shot upwards, the wind pulling me slightly off course. I had no idea how I would be able to see the Quaffle , let alone how Harry would see the snitch. The wind was picking up; even at a distance I could hear the swishing, pounding sounds of the rain pummelling the surface of the lake.

Angelina kept us at it for nearly an hour before conceding defeat. She led her sodden and disgruntled team back into the changing rooms, insisting that the practice had not been a waste of time, though without any real conviction in her voice. Fred and George were looking particularly annoyed; both were bandy-legged and winced with every movement. I stood by them as I towelled my hair dry.
“I think a few of mine have ruptured,” said Fred in a hollow voice.

“Mine haven’t,” said George, through clenched teeth, “they’re throbbing like mad... feel bigger if anything.”

“See, this is an advantage of being female,” I said – for the side effect appeared to only apply to males.

“OUCH!” said Harry.

“What’s up?” I asked, along with several other people.

Harry emerged from behind his towel, and everyone looked at him.

“Nothing,” he muttered, “I – poked myself in the eye, that’s all.”

He gave Ron and I significant looks, and I was going to stay behind, but the twins insisted that I helped them try and find a cure for the boils.