Déjà Vu

Chapter 8

Now ~ Fred

Waiting for Evelyn to walk into Ancient Runes is the worst part of his day. He doesn't want to look at her, and he always tries his very hardest not to, but for some unknown reason, they always make eye contact whenever she walks in. He always gets there first—again, unknowing as to why—and when she walks in the door, his eyes are always, always drawn to her. He hates it.

He's tried everything that he can think of; he's drawn weird figures on a scratch of parchment to distract himself, he's tried reading, he's simply tried avoiding looking at the door at all costs, and yet a day hasn't gone by where they haven't shared a moment of painful eye contact when she enters the room.

She'd smiled at him the first couple of times, a shy, sheepish smile, but he'd kept his face blank and had just looked back at her coldly.

If she thought that everything would be fine after their little conversation the other day, she was wrong. He should have just let her get other friends as she'd suggested, it certainly would make his life easier, but he doesn't have the heart to let her do that. He knows that she wasn't just offering for show, just for him to turn her down so she can feel less guilty about it because he knows her. He knows that she had been fully serious about potentially ruining her next year at Hogwarts so that he could be more comfortable. That's the worst part about it.

He doesn't hate her enough to let her do that, which is why he'd told her that she was fine keeping her friends, but that doesn't mean that he's just ready to be nice to her, to act like he doesn't have a single bone in his body that hates her.

She seemed to catch on after a few days and their short moment of staring had become routine: a blank stare from him and a tightening of the lips paired with a curt nod from her. He should have felt guilty at the look of disappointment that had flashed across her face when he didn't return her wordless greeting, but he never did.

He's still gripping onto the anger that he feels for her deep inside of his chest, so hard that his knuckles should be turning white by now. He doesn't ever want to lose his hold on that feeling, he doesn't know what would be left exposed if he does. He figures that if he avoids her enough, he shouldn't have a problem.

Today when she walks in, she doesn't even give him the awkward, tight smile. She just looks at him once and flits her eyes away quickly, hurrying to sit next to Ginny at their shared desk. At least she can't seem to avoid looking at him, either.

She and Ginny are stuck in a fit of giggles when the professor walks in, but at least they're able to quiet down once they see him. He rolls his eyes at them anyway. How obnoxious.

Professor Babbling clears her throat at the front of the class to get the student's attention. "As I spoke about in our previous class, we will be beginning our first project today," she says, resulting in a few groans from the class. "Oh, stop your whining," she scoffed. "It's going to be a partner project and before you ask, no, you cannot work alone and no, you cannot choose your partners." This is followed by even more groans, the students of the class looking around warily to see their potential partners.

He watches Ginny lean over to Evelyn in front of her, whispering something into her ear that makes her hand shoot up to her mouth, covering her laughter. He rolls his eyes at them again. What could be so funny right now?

"Now, for the project, you and your partner will be translating an ancient runic scripture that I give you to English. As we've discussed, different runes can be interpreted in different ways, sometimes in ways with dramatically different meanings derived from them. This is why we do not use them in the present day. Your assignment is to create two translations, one person for each, with a different overall message from each. I want you to highlight the different results we can get from runes, proving why it is a dead form of communication. This means discussing each and every word you pass and choosing which of the possible translations you will use for each, which is why you must work with your partners on this. I do not want to see any group splitting off to work on their own, it will be obvious if you do. Is that clear?"