Pancakes for Dinner|Fred Weasley

Twenty-Six

By the time Maddie finally came out of the dorm room the entire house was deserted. The Christmas Feast was now going on. Cedric told her that he would be back to take her to it but he needed to check up on everyone first. So, she sat on the couch with in her burnt orange sweater than felt like it was suffocating her. She didn't even bother to take off her glasses or her hair down from her low bun. She was far from caring about anything.

She looked up at the clock, the feast had started by now. Cedric opened the portrait hole and looked her way, "you ready?" He asked Maddie nodded getting up.

Maddie followed behind Cedric closely down the silent corridors. Her nerves taking over she didn't want to see anyone. The only person she could even think about was Cedric, he was the only one who didn't hurt her in the past twenty four hours.

Much to her dismay, Maddie found herself standing in front of the Great Hall seeing all the of her classmates eating and chatting. Cedric looked over at her seeing she was standing still he sighed. She blankly stared at the Gryffindor table where she saw her brothers sitting far away from the Weasley's. Cedric took her hand and pulled her towards the Hufflepuff table.

Caroline looked up from her empty plate ignoring the people around her and saw Maddie. Even the mere sight of her made Caroline feel nervous. After the Yule Ball fight Caroline had finally decided to stay out of everything. She briefly yelled at Fred for being such an idiot but Cedric soon escorted her to the Slytherin house. She had barely had enough energy to change into decent clothes for the feast. Daphne and Pansy kept asking if she was okay and if she wanted to open presents together with the rest of their Slytherin friends. Caroline wanted to be far from all of them, opting to open her gifts alone.

Her brown eyes went straight for Maddie's hands noticing that they were completely bare. She frowned knowing Maddie hadn't put her new gift on. Caroline twisted her own ring around her finger with a sigh.

"You don't need the Hufflepuff anyways," Pansy rolled her eyes, "you have us."

Caroline looked over at Pansy with an annoyed expression, "that's my best friend you're talking about." She muttered taking her knife and stabbing Pansy's chicken, "watch your mouth." She said before getting up and walking out of the room.

Pansy looked over at Blaise who was just as shocked as she was. Daphne looked at Caroline as she walked away with a sigh. While Draco just laughed, they all seemed to enjoy Caroline's deteriorating friendships.

"Maybe this will teach her where her blood truly lies." Draco said with a smirk.

Blaise rolled his eyes, "she isn't a pureblood and her parents weren't on his side during the war, you should know better than anyone else." He said.

Daphne laughed, "I'm sorry I didn't realize cheaters defended those they cheated on, why don't you mind your own business, all of you." She said looking around the table.

Maddie on the other hand hadn't even noticed Caroline left until Cedric had looked over at the table. She turned to see she was in fact gone but her eyes stayed looking over at the Gryffindor table. At the same time Fred's head lifted and their eyes met. His lip was busted and his cheek had a nasty bruise on it. His continued to look at her with a sad expression lining his face, he didn't want to stop looking. Neither of them looked any better than the other one. Maddie was the first to look away trying to hide her face from him.

He looked down as George leaned closer to him, "can we end this now? You two go your separate ways?" He asked quietly, Fred nodded not looking at him. He kept looking at Maddie hoping she would give him a single sign to keep trying. There was nothing.

Parker and Max both got up from their seats and walked over to the Hufflepuff table. They took a seat on either side of Cedric who had been sitting across from Maddie. Maddie noticed Parker's black eye along with his bruised cheek and visible marks on his neck. Those bruise marks had been left by Fred from his tight grip on his neck during their fight.