my best friends brother - fred weasley

xl. cling

During the week there were times where I had to practically peel myself away from Fred. As the end of exams came nearer he became more and more clingy, trying to spend as much time with me as possible before he left Hogwarts. He even dragged me along to pull some final, discrete pranks with him and George. We managed to make a fourth year Ravenclaw's hair turn green, spoiled a dinners worth of food for the Slytherin table, and hide all of the furniture in the Gryffindor common room for a day. I tried to get as much study in as possible, but he couldn't care less about school, trying to distract me at any given moment. He managed to drag me out of the common room, just to wander the halls.

"I must say, you are very charismatic." I tiptoe on top of a bench, my hand leaning on Fred's shoulder. "Convincing me to jeopardise my education just to spend time with you."

"Well you can thanks my good looks for that."

"I have to thank your looks for a lot of things, actually." As I reach the end of the bench he stands in front of me, holding onto my waist with both his hands.

"Oh yeah like what?" He smirks, not letting me get down.

"Lets see... oh! They help me forgive you for not taking me on a date yet." I sneer at him jokingly. His smile drops for a second before picking back up.

"You just have to be patient, May." He lifts me up and places me on the ground next to him. He slings his arm over my shoulder and we continue down the hallway.

"When are you going to tell me your secret." I ask, keeping my eyes straight.

"What secret, I do have lots of them." His hand reaching up to squish my face playfully.

"Oh really?" I swat his hand away. "Well now I'd like to know them all, but to be specific I was talking about the one with all the paperwork."

"Oh that one." We round the corner and walk along the corridor, looking out towards the courtyard. "Well that one is between George and I, so if you want to find that one out you'll have to pry it from both of us."

"Talking about me?" George pipes up from behind us, making us both jump.

"We were actually, can you tell me-" I'm cut off by Freds hand slapping itself over my mouth, keeping me quiet. George and I follow his eyes to a body sitting down on one of the window ledges, crying his eyes out. Fred slowly uncovers my mouth as we make our way over to the boy. I notice another person up ahead, trying to hide behind one of the pillars but I decide to ignore it, running my fingers through Fred's hair as he sits down next to the boy.

"What's your name?" He ducks down to look at the boy, as George sits on the other side.

"M-Michael." The boy sniffs, trying his hardest to hide the fact that he's been crying. Michael looks to be only 11 or 12, and as frightened as one can be.

"Well Michael, I'm Fred and this is my twin brother, George. And you see the this beautiful girl?" Fred points up to me and Michael looks at me through his teary eyes. "This is Clover."

"What's happened, Michael?" I crouch down to his level, taking one of his hands in mine. I look down and notice that there are words etched into his skin, from Umbridge's detention.

"Your hand is going to be fine Michael." Fred notices, trying to comfort him.

"Yeah, look how fast ours have started to fade already." George adds on, pulling up his sleeve to show Michael the wounds from Umbridge's punishment.

"Y-You guys have got them too?" Michael sniffs again.

"Yep. And guess what?" Fred points back to me. "She had a big one on her back, and it's already faded."