Of Pranks & Princes

Over the next few weeks, if Roger sat next to, or even too near, Emily at the Ravenclaw table, Fred and George — and Lee, for that matter — were nowhere to be found. Several times she tried waiting until they sat first, but they were sure to not be around if Roger was even in sight.

And in Potions, one of the two classes she shared with Roger, they were all fidgety too. Even though nothing had changed — she still sat in her usual seat, still partnered with Violet, still cowered beneath Severus’s disdainful eye each class. She even politely declined Roger’s offer to sit near him and Cedric. But even that didn’t bring Fred and George back. It was getting harder and harder to ignore that the boys were being weird.

For two whole weeks, it went on like this, until she finally snapped, hissing her frustrations in the middle of Potions class until she and the boys were both red in the face. Severus’s glare silenced her, and she slunk back into her seat, refocused her attention on the brew she shared with Violet.

The class all worked in silence for a while, and Emily could hear the hushed whispers of her classmates amongst lit burners and stirring ingredients and the tick of the clock as it counted down the minutes until class ended. Then, from somewhere behind her, there was a Psst! noise. At first Emily attributed it to a finicky burner or an overbrewed potion, but it happened again, this time accompanied by a ball of parchment that hit her in the back of the head.

Emily spun around to find its source and caught him red-handed with two additional balls set aside on his desktop. She was practically fuming.

“What is wrong with you?” she demanded, and Fred look so surprised by her reaction — as if he had been expecting something else — that he stared wide-eyed at her and said nothing.

He opened his mouth, but she jumped in before he could say anything.

“And don’t throw things, you git.” Her eyes narrowed, and there were creases in the skin on her forehead as she shot him a glare. With a flick of her wand, the remaining balls of paper disappeared, leaving only ash in their wake. Violet stared down the cauldron, trying to ignore the discomfort that lingered in the air. “What are you, a child?”

Fred bristled before his face softened. “I was trying to apologize.”

Emily let out an aggravated harrumph, which was apparently enough to set off Severus from across the room. With a billow of his robes, he appeared, almost like he had apparated, right in front of her desk.

“Miss Prince.” His voice was simultaneously drawling and booming. “I should not have to ask that you spare the class the grating sound of your voice for a mere five minutes, but inconsideration is apparently your strongest trait.”

“I —”

“Twenty-five points from Ravenclaw,” he said, and she pursed her lips, folding her arms tight against her chest. “And since neither that nor detention seems enough of a deterrent for your insolence, I expect a roll of parchment about Polyjuice’s side-effects on my desk Monday morning — from each of you. You can thank Miss Prince for that.”

The cacophony of each individual student’s groan echoed in Emily’s ears, and she wished she could disappear. But beyond that, she was damn near furious. The clock’s ticking could not go fast enough, and she closed her eyes, waiting for it to be over — three, two, one.

As the class rushed to empty, Emily stayed back and stood in front of Severus’s desk, looking indignant. She waited until the door closed behind the last student before she spoke.

“What are you on about,” she demanded, her eyes focused on his slicked black hair, “trying to turn me into a bloody pariah?”

“Watch your tongue,” came his unmoved drawl. He did not look up at her.

Emily set her hands down hard on the edge of his desk, watched as his eyes glanced over them. Were her blood not practically boiling, she’d be bothered by the chillness of the air in this part of the room. “I’ve never done exceptionally well on the social front on my own, so I don’t need any help from you.”

“I’m certain your struggles are exaggerated.”

She let out a caustic laugh and then scoffed. “What did I do anyway? Everyone else was talking too.”

Finally, he looked up. And he only said, “You’re held to a higher standard than the others.”

“Why?” she asked, her nostrils flaring. “How is that fair?”

“It’s not; nor is it intended to be.” His eyes flickered from her face and back to his desk. “But I’m sure we’d all prefer you not be such a disappointment to your father’s memory.”

She felt the words slap across her skin as he said them, and red embarrassment welled in her cheeks. It stung — the entire sentiment, each syllable, every letter. Her jaw clenched so tightly that her mouth ached.

From behind gritted teeth and against a lump in her throat, she said, her voice shakier than she wanted it to be, “Second year prefect with nine O.W.L.s, and somehow I still manage to disappoint.”

Severus hesitated in his response, and for a moment, Emily almost expected a semblance of compassion to come from him. But when the hesitation ended, he sneered.

“There’s always room for improvement; in your case, plenty.”

Emily finally pulled herself away from the desk. She slung her bag over her shoulder and said, “Then I’ll certainly try to do better.” She was tempted to let his name — his first name — slide casually, carelessly off her tongue to make him embarrassed and angry, but she didn’t. “Sir.”

On her way out the door, she nearly ran straight into Fred, who was waiting outside for who knew how long. She didn’t know, and hardly cared at this point, how much he heard.

“What was that all about?” he asked her, body slouched and tone casual.

She shook her head and pushed past him, trying to blink away the tears that threatened to fall across her face. “Nothing. Let’s just go.”

She stormed down the corridor toward the stairs, shouldering through groups of students, and Fred trailed behind her, rushing to catch up. When she slammed open the Entrance Hall doors that led outside, Fred came to a halt.

“Don’t you have class?”

Emily stopped to look back at him, grateful for the moment of pause to take a breath. “Cancelled.”

His head cocked to the side as he stepped toward her. “So then what —?”

“Figured we can get a head start on all this Potions rubbish,” she said, and she could feel the frustration leave her body bit by bit. “Y’know, since my essay’s doubled again, so I’ll need all the time I can get.”

Friday afternoons were dedicated to knocking out all homework so that the weekends were free. Many times this manifested as a study group of sorts beneath their oak tree by the Black Lake. At this point, it was a sort of time-honoured tradition five years in the making.

Fred nodded as they made their way to their spot, as they sat down in their shade and pulled out their textbooks and parchment.

Late September brought a chill to the grounds with a foreboding wind that blew about the leaves left by the start of autumn. Many students had opted to stay within the castle’s warmth, and Emily didn’t blame them — the idea of curling up with a good book in front of the Ravenclaw common room fireplace was immensely tempting.

“So… Polyjuice is like liquid Transfiguration, right?” Fred asked as he flipped absentmindedly through pages in his textbook. Emily peered over his shoulder for a page number, but he wasn’t even in the right chapter.

“Right.”

He slammed his book down suddenly into his lap. “Why is it that Snape’s such a git to you?” He paused and then corrected, “Well, I mean, he’s a right git to pretty much everybody but to you especially. I mean, that essay? Total bollocks.”

Emily shrugged, careful not to betray any suspicion of a real answer; not that there really was an answer anyway, not that she knew. Although she had a few theories and hypotheses on the matter — an exacting sense of obligation to her mother, the memory of her father, a burden of guardianship — her shrug was not technically a lie. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a slight pang of guilt from the deceit and hoped he wouldn’t see through it.

She went back to her homework, glancing over the words on the page, though she didn’t have the focus to read.

Fred didn’t look convinced. “You have to have noticed!”

Without looking up, she said, just as offhand, “Oh, I noticed, but I’ll be damned if I know why.”

“You’re a shite liar, Princey,” he said, sitting more upright as he turned to face her. “Always have been.”

“But I’m —” she started, but he cut her off.

“And if you won’t tell me of your own volition, I’ll have to resort to… other methods.”

She didn’t much like the glimmer in his eye, the one that always showed up when he was up to no good, planning some sort of dangerous scheme. Who could even guess what he had up his sleeve?

If the situation called for it, she knew the solution that would work best…

“Veritaserum takes a month to brew,” she replied, matter-of-factly as she pulled her hair back off her face. “Not to mention it’s illegal to use.”

Fred chuckled and cracked each knuckle on his fingers. “Only you would start with that. My methods are simpler.”

Emily raised a brow at him and tried to stop the smile spreading across her face as she challenged him. “Oh, really?”

Without any further warning, he lunged at her, and she shrieked.

Fred climbed over top of her, pinning her body below his. Immediately his fingers poked and prodded her body, his hands running along her stomach, each touch increasing the pain of each tickle. Laughter exploded within Emily with each exhale — almost impossible to bear. Though she was worried about drawing attention to herself, to the two of them, she was in too deep now to do anything about the spectacle.

As she squirmed beneath him in the hopes of slipping from his grasp, he caught her again, calloused fingers hitting just the right spot on her side. In sheer reaction, the top half of her body haphazardly bolted upward in an uncontrollable fit of motion, and she felt her head slam hard against his face.

His immediate yelp was followed by a string of creative expletives she had rarely heard him use before as he sat atop her with both hands desperately clutching his nose. Apparently the padding of her thick wavy hair had done little to lessen the impact. Fred was never one to cry, but reactionary tears welled in his eyes as he continued to swear.

Emily tried to control her hysterical laughter, partly left over from his relentless tickling and part as a result of some moderately gratifying schadenfreude. “Hey, serves you right.”

With his large hands covering much of his face, his reply was muffled but so loud, almost belligerent.

“Sh…” she began, desperate to try and calm him down and keep him quiet. “Sh… I’m sorry!”

As he finally caught his breath and quieted beneath her hands on his shoulders, he gently, slowly, moved his hands from their death-grip on his face. Emily looked up to see the damage.

It was already swollen and just beginning to bruise, green and purple splotching in every direction. There was a slight drip of blood that ran beneath it.

“How bad is it?” Fred asked. He moved to touch it himself but cringed under the weight and pressure of his finger.

“I’m so sorry,” Emily said again.

“That bad?”

She shook her head, but she knew her reaction gave her away. She asked, “Are you okay?”

He smirked beneath the blood and bruising. “Anything not to spill your secrets, huh?”

“What? No! I just — it’s just…” She paused to really look at him, tilting her head to the side. At this new angle, his face somehow looked even worse. The bruising was bolder, along and around the spot on his nose where the skin was split. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

He pressed his lips together for a moment and let out a lamenting breath. “I’ll be fine, I suppose. ‘less I lose so much blood I die.”

His nose had stopped bleeding at that point, the blood dried and crimson beneath his nostrils, and Emily rolled her eyes at his overdramatic play. Suddenly he began shaking, eyes spinning into the back of his head as he fell backwards and collapsed, spasming and seizing against the ground.

Emily pulled herself out from beneath his dead weight and rushed to his side. “Oh my god… oh my god!” Her hands trembled in the air above him as panic set in. What could she even do?

Her lip was quivering, and she tried to scream for help, but her throat was dry, and the words wouldn’t come out. She set a hand on his forehead, her fingers stroking his hair. It all happened so quickly, and she was helpless to stop it.

She gripped tight to cottony fabric of his shirt, and he stopped moving, and all of her breath left her body at once.

There was a stirring, a shift of weight beneath her, and his eyes popped wide open. “Gotcha!”

In the immediate, she was torn between furious surprise and stunned relief. She dropped his shirt, letting him fall against the ground in a puff of grass and dust. “You horrible prat!”

He propped himself up on his elbows. “What was it you said before?” he asked, a mischievous gleam twinkling in his eyes. “‘Serves you right?’”

“You’re the worst person.”

“It was all your fault.” He sat up fully now, shaking the dirt out of his messed-up red hair. “Least you could do is kiss it and make it feel better.”

Emily laughed, pulling a stray blade of grass from among the scraggly strands of his hair. “Yeah, okay.”

“What, won’t take a dying man’s last request?” He pouted his lips, his brown eyes large and pleading.

“It’s a bizarre request,” she replied, then added suddenly, “And you’re not dying.”

“But I could have been,” he said. And he kept looking at her like that, his eyes wide and pleading, his lip pouted. His hair had fallen across his face, splayed across his forehead

“Fine,” she said with a distinct groan. She had to sit up on her knees to reach him, careful to ensure she dodged every particularly bruised area. And gently, she set her lips against the sensitive skin of his nose.

“Oi!”

Emily spun around so quickly that her hair slapped against Fred’s skin. He let out a yelp, and she caught him rubbing against where the curls had whipped him.

Heh. Served him right.

When she looked ahead, she saw George heading in their direction with Lee Jordan and Violet in tow, the three of them chortling to themselves. George continued, “His lips hurt too, Em!”

“Oh, shut up,” Emily groaned and tried not to look at Fred.

“Yeah, mate,” Fred started with a chuckle as he sat up and moved his books back onto his lap. He wiped his sleeve against his skin to wipe away the dried blood and winced against the pain and friction. The bruise was still there but had subsided a bit, and the swelling had gone down. “Why d’you got to make everything weird?”

“I don’t know that it was George making it weird,” Violet said, crossing her arms against her chest. She stared Emily down with a disapproving motherly glare.

“You lot missed lunch, by the way,” George said while they moved to take a seat beneath the tree too. “We weren’t sure where you were.”

“But since we’re nice…” Violet said and pulled two apples from her bag, tossing one to each of them. “Here.”

Emily noticed that she wasn’t much hungry and set the apple gingerly on her lap.

“So where’d you two leave off, then?” Violet continued as she took a seat in the grass and pulled her Potions text from her bag. Straight to business, as always. “Y’know, before the nonsense.”

Fred pulled his book up from the grass where it fell and handed Emily hers. “We just got to the third part.”

The boys sat down next, and Emily tried to ignore the uneasiness in her stomach. They all matched pages, except for Lee who lazed against the oak tree.

“So, Polyjuice,” Violet started as she began to read off the page.

A voice called over from the far end of the courtyard. “Hey, Em!”

It broke everyone’s concentration — though nobody, save for Violet, had managed much focus anyway, especially not Emily. And she was torn between relief and regret when she saw that the source of the voice was Roger Davies.

As Roger approached, Fred’s body stiffened, and he growled at Emily, “What’s he doing here?”

“I invited him,” Emily replied and tapped her fingers anxiously against her thigh. “He’s in Potions with us too.”

As Emily scooted over to make room for Roger, Fred snapped, “Don’t. He can take my seat.”

He jumped up, knocking his books across the ground in a fit and flurry of papers. Emily was quick to gather them from the grass and brushed the dirt off of them as she stood too, holding the stack tight in her arms. “Where’re you going?”

Fred ripped the pile from her, pried it from her grasp. “Got things to do.”

As he headed back into the Entrance Hall, the rest of the group looked to George who shrugged and trailed after his brother. Lee soon followed. And by the time Roger arrived, there was plenty of room for him to sit. But even as he neared them, she couldn’t stop thinking about Fred — his red-in-the-face irrational anger coming out of nowhere, completely absurd.

“Hi, Roger,” Violet said, when Emily didn’t, and pressed her lips into a smile. “Sit anywhere you’d like.”

“Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t stay, but I just wanted to stop by… say hello…” He turned from Violet to face Emily directly. “… ask if you were maybe up for a bit of Quidditch tonight… or something?”

Emily held all of her breath in her throat. She didn’t answer, she couldn’t, until Violet nudged her hard in the ribs. Her face scrunched into a smile, she nodded.

“Great.” Roger’s face split into a grin, then the longer he looked at her his face became more solemn. “You all right?”

She nodded again.

“You’ve just…” Roger stared at her face, almost studied it, his brows knit tightly together as he examined her. He pointed to her mouth. “You’ve got a bit of blood just there.”

Emily’s hand flew to her face, and she saw the pink of it when she wiped her lips.

Fred.

She felt her face pale and tried to vigorously rub the residue off onto her robes. Roger shrugged and smiled and said he’d see her later. Once he left, Emily released all of her breath at once, like a deflating balloon.

“Well that was terrifying,” she said and leaned back with her arms outstretched in the grass. “And, go figure, all for nothing.”

Violet gaped at her from beneath furrowed brows. “Why did you invite Roger along? Surely you had to realize it would… complicate things.” She paused and set her books aside. “What’s going on with you two, anyway?’

Emily’s fingers ran through the split ends of her hair, absentmindedly. “Well, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I think he might fancy me.” She bit her lip coyly and tried not to let a smile break across her face.

“… And you’re happy about that?” Confusion knotted through Violet’s features as she stared blankly at Emily.

“Shouldn’t I be?” Emily asked. She pursed her lips into a hard line across her face.

Violet took a deep inhale of breath. “I guess. I mean, it’s not terribly surprising, the way you two’ve been going on this year.”

Emily’s frown cracked and erupted into a smile as she tried not to scream with joy. “I know! I’m beginning to think he’s even flirting with me.”

“Yes,” Violet started hesitantly, her face focused on Emily’s, “but what about Roger?”

“What about him?”

Violet’s arms snapped into place on her hips, and she tilted her head to the side. “I thought you fancied Roger.”

“I do fancy Roger,” Emily said, and she stumbled like the conversation had just knocked her sideways. “What’re you on about?”

Violet let out a groan and hissed, “Then what the devil is going on with —?” She stopped herself before she finished the question, staring blankly for a moment into the air. When Emily nudged her, a flash of realization crossed Violet’s eyes.

“What’s going on with what?”

“Nothing,” Violet said quickly and shook her head. She turned away from Emily as her cheeks turned a deep pinkish shade. “Never mind.”

But Emily pressed. She nudged Violet on the arm. “What were you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Violet repeated.

Emily nudged her harder. “Who were you talking about?”

“No one!” It was a lie — that much was obvious, but it wasn’t worth pressing anymore. “Besides, don’t you have a date to get ready for?”



That evening, Emily met Roger down at the Quidditch pitch. It was hardly night at all, the sun still illuminating the whole Hogwarts grounds, but it had gotten chillier. She was grateful Violet had let her borrow a nice coat so she wouldn’t be traipsing about in a slobbish jumper.

“I’ve got the go-ahead from Flitwick and McGonagall, so we should be completely covered.” Roger lugged the chest of Quidditch balls onto the pitch. There were two brooms set aside on the ground — a well-worn Cleansweep Seven which she assumed to be his, and an old clunker pulled from the Hogwarts stores for her. “No detention for you on my watch.”

“Oh, thanks,” Emily said and let out an awkward chuckle. The gesture was sweet, if a little heavy-handed, but she knew Roger was just trying to be nice, maybe joke a bit about her propensity for trouble.

As they started the play, they had an agreement. Emily would try to play Keeper, guard the posts, and Roger, going easy on her, would play his normal Chaser’s role. That worked for maybe twenty minutes while Emily gained her bearings on a broom, but it quickly became apparent that Roger was bored. He wanted to play Quidditch, though she was far from a challenge for him. Even she was getting bored of missing nearly every shot he took.

“Score’s like a hundred to none,” she called to him after catching the Quaffle for the first time all night.

Roger smiled and zoomed over to her. “You’re doing great, if it’s any consolation.”

“I’m just glad I haven’t fallen off yet.” She stumbled a bit and gripped the broom with white knuckles. “Yet.”

“You want to take a break?” he offered as he hovered beside her.

She shook her head. “But we could switch it up,” she suggested, struck with a burst of clever inventiveness.

“How?”

“Well, I already know you’re a hell of a Chaser,” she said, holding the Quaffle beneath her arm. “Now let’s find out if you’re a Keeper.” Her body was brimming with newfound confidence as she punctuated her joke with a wink.

“That was clever,” said Roger, fighting off chuckles until he couldn’t anymore.

She was so used to a constant barrage of mockery for her corny jokes and puns that Roger’s genuine laughter caught her completely unawares. At first, she wondered why it was he was laughing at her. Then she realized that perhaps without the contrast of Fred and George she was sort of funny.

Roger flew over the goal post, and Emily tried her best to do just as he did, though with much less grace and finesse. It made her feel better to see that Roger’s skill as a Chaser fat outpaced his skill as Keeper.

They played that way for a while — and Emily even managed to score a point or two — before they agreed to stop. It was getting dark anyway.

But they weren’t done talking, so Emily brought him to her favourite spot on the grounds, and they sat along the edge of the Black Lake with her oak tree behind them. The sky was a rich red overhead, smattered with deep pinks and oranges and a dark Ravenclaw blue following it.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Emily said as she crossed her legs and gazed out at the scene set in front of her. “Especially just at the right time of night.”

“Never realized you could get this view here.” He let out a pacified sigh.

She turned to face him and marvelled for a moment at the way the moonlight hit his figure. “You’ve never been this way?”

“’Round this time’s usually patrols or prefect meetings, or if not then it was Quidditch,” he answered and leaned back on his elbows. The grass left stains on his sleeves. “You have?”

Emily nodded. “Oh, yeah, always.” She paused, glancing out again at the Black Lake, watching the sun fall below its horizon. “And sometimes if you’re patient enough and you’re really quiet, you can maybe see the Giant Squid.”

“Wicked.”

“Yeah,” she said, breathlessly, and turned to Roger with a grin. “You know, I like to imagine we’ve become friends by now.”

Roger’s brow furrowed, and he looked slightly taken aback. “I thought we’ve been friends since the train at least.”

“I was talking about the Squid.”

“Oh.” Roger’s face went flush. “Right.”

“But I agree with you,” she said, careful not to meet his eyes, “about us being friends.”

“I was hoping for more than that,” he said, shaking his hair from his eyes. He inched closer to her, and she could feel her pulse thicken in her veins, like her blood was made of gravy.

What did he just say?

And he leaned over and kissed her.

The motion in itself was surprising, but even more so was the speed at which he pulled away. She’d barely had any time to realize what was happening.

“If that was too much, or too fast…” he started and let the sentence falter.

Too stunned for words, Emily shook her head, and Roger smiled.

“Good,” he said and kissed her again — longer this time and with increased fervour.

She waited for the ‘spark’ she had read about in books and seen on the telly — the moment where she would melt into the kiss, where Roger’s lips would feel like home, where she could live wrapped in his embrace forever and still find it too little time — but it didn’t come. Instead, she was focused on the moistness of his lips as they pressed against hers. His hand sat awkwardly on her lap as if there were no better place for it. And she nearly choked on his tongue as he used it to probe her throat.

After a brief struggle, they found a suitable rhythm, and his lips no longer felt rough against her own. He became gentler with each movement. Still not the dream, necessarily, but nice. When he finally pulled back, his body still hovered over her, and she tried to smile.

“I should be getting back,” she said, standing up from the grass at the Lake. Moonlight rippled against the water’s surface.

He reached for her hand. “I’ll walk you back to the common room if you want.”

“Actually…” she started, darting her eyes away as he stood up to follow her, “I’m not heading back right away.”

“Why not?”

Something in his tone, the sharpness of it, was a bit unsettling to her. She slid her hand from his. “Just want to take a detour on the way.”

She didn’t have to say any more for him to understand, and he kissed her again before leaving himself.



“Where the hell were you?” a voice demanded as Emily made her way up the stairwell towards the Ravenclaw common room. Out in front of her, an arm jutted across the way to block her so she had to stop, and she looked up to see Fred.

“Just out for a stroll, Mum,” she said and let out a sarcastic laugh. “Ice your knickers.”

He looked borderline manic. “George and I got snitched by Allison Alden!”

Blind-sighted and still reeling from Roger, Emily could only stare at him and stutter, “W-what?”

He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his pants. “Remember our ageing potion upstairs? Yeah, well, guess who caught us going that way since you weren’t around.”

“She and I switched patrols for tonight,” Emily explained. It was a common enough occurrence amongst the prefects that she hadn’t thought anything of it when she made the request, and Allison was more than gracious about going along with it. She didn’t even consider such unrelated consequences.

“Why?”

This time Emily avoided his eyes. “I had things to do.”

“Oh, yeah?” He leaned over her in a challenge. “Like what?”

“Like a date with Roger,” she snapped back. The sentence left a taste in her mouth that wasn’t altogether pleasant.

“Oh.” His face fell, and he scrunched up his nose a bit but tried to perk up before looking at her again. “You know you’ve got to tell us these things beforehand.”

“Didn’t think it’d matter. Sorry.”

Fred shuffled around until he rested his back against the wall. “With Davies, though? Doing what?”

If he were Violet, she’d maybe have gushed about every detail — the way Roger spoke, the way he smiled at her, the way he kissed her, though it still seemed strange to accept as her reality that Roger Davies fancied here. If Violet had asked what she got up to, she’d be honest and direct in listing the night’s activities: Playing. Talking. Flirting. Snogging.

But this was Fred who already proved himself to be less than enthusiastic about her relationship with Roger. So she kept her answer simple: “Quidditch.”

“I thought you didn’t like Quidditch,” he said with a raised brow, and Emily wondered whether it was a question.

Her eyes met his. “I don’t.”

“Well, you seem to like it plenty for Davies,” he said and scoffed.

“He asked me, so I went.” Her lips pressed into a hard line.

“I’ve offered to teach you for the past five years, and you’ve always said no.”

She scanned his face for any indication that he was joking, but he seemed serious — even a bit hurt — and she was left dumbfounded staring at him. “You don’t see how this is different?”

“Not really, no.”

Emily let forth a frustrated huff that burst from the darkest depths of her being. Arguing with Fred was like banging her own head flat against the walls of an empty stairwell, with his replies serving as the resounding echo of each smack against the stone. He never listened, always had some clever snappy retort stowed away for use when the time came. He knew how to press every button, even ones she didn't realize she had — like insisting that him offering to teach her Quidditch was the same as Roger, even in spite of the situation. Ridiculous.

“Well, it is,” she said with a deep breath. It was too late to waste so much time and energy arguing about, of all things, this. “I am sorry, though, about you getting caught.”

“Guess we’ll get over it.” Fred shrugged, rolling his shoulders with a stretch. “Walk back with me?”

She was tempted to decline, if only for the quiet that the solitary walk back to the common room would afford her, but now that things had settled, now that Fred was… okay, now that she had a chance to process what happened with Roger, she’d be lying if she said she didn’t appreciate the company, even if did bring her to the wrong tower.