BITTERSWEET ; FRED WEASLEY

SIXTEEN

Lydia Carter avoided Fred Weasley for the rest of that day, evening and night. She couldn't stop thinking about him, but she couldn't help but be at least twenty metres away from him. It felt wrong, someone who has claimed to hate - or in Fred's words, dislike - her for the last six years but it felt so right in a way.

She spent her Friday afternoon with Angelina, which was filled with them throwing a Quaffle around the room, playing a game of Quidditch, without the Quidditch part. That didn't last long though, it ended with the lamp on Florences bedside table broken and a dint in the bathroom door - it was covered with a signed poster of Gilderoy Lockheart, personally given to Angelina from the man himself, from their fourth year.

When dinner came around, Lydia insisted that her and the two girls went and sat at the end of the Gryffindor table, near the seventh years, far away from Fred as possible. It caused chaos between Lydia, Florence and Angelina but they gave in and sat further down the table as Lydia wished.

After dinner and everyone was back up into the Gryffindor table, the boys questioned and questioned why the girls didn't sit with them. Angelina and Florence just shrugged and Lydia headed up to her dorm, claiming she was feeling ill and wasn't up to their usual Friday night antics. She lay in bed writing letters to home, which she was supposed to do earlier but that plan was ruined.

There was a point during the night where she heard someone knock and the door and call her name. It was Fred, but Lydia thought she would sit and ignore the knocks until he went away, but Lydia saw the door knob nob turn and she panicked, getting under her covers and pretending to be asleep. Fred called her name a few times until he realised she was 'sleeping' and he left, Lydia kept her eyes closed until she heard the door shut, meaning he left.

It was now the next day - 24th November, the day of the first task. Lydia started her morning as she usually would on the weekend, wake up, take a shower, put some clothes on but today, since she was going to spent the majority of her day outside she had layered up. After Lydia got ready, she left her dorm with Angelina and Florence and headed to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"You feeling better today?" Florence asked Lydia, "Yesterday you missed Fun Fridays!"

"Yeah" she nodded, eating her food, "Just needed an early night, I guess."

"You didn't miss a lot" Angelina shrugged, "only the fact, George has a girlfriend now?"

"Yeah" said Lydia, and the two stared at her, "What? You two didn't know?" she pointed her fork at them, they shook their heads, "Oh"

"How long have you knew?!" Angelina gasped

"Like? Three weeks? Almost four?"

"A MONTH?!" Angelina just couldn't come to terms with the fact that Lydia knew for this long and didn't tell anybody,

"Sorry I thought you two knew!" Lydia put her hands up in surrender, "Flo what's wrong?" Lydia noticed Florence was quite quiet, playing with her food and her eyes slightly watering.

She shook her head and wiped a single tear going down her face, "Nothing!" she smiled, which was clearly fake, "Just tired! Barely got any sleep last night because of how late we were up with the boys- speaking of the boys, they're here!"

Lydia shot a soft smile at Florence before turning her head to face the three boys heading their way. Unfortunately for Lydia, one of them three boys included Fred. She thought she would be able to handle it, until he slid onto the bench and sat right beside her. Lydia cursed to herself, mentally, and shot a thin lipped smile to the redhead as he looked at her, with a smug look on his face.