charmed//fred weasley x oc

six

MAVIS LOOKED DISHEVELED WHEN ADELAIDE BURST UNCEREMONIOUSLY INTO THE DORMITORY. She jumped in surprise when she saw Adelaide, to which Adelaide's forehead creased with suspicion. "What's that about?" she asked Mavis. Mavis shook her head, her cheeks red and flushed. "Nothing--I just got back, and I'm trying to get myself together at the moment," she rushed. Adelaide moved forward to pull off her damp sweater and set it on her unmade bed. "Got back from where?" she inquired. "I said it's nothing." Mavis' tone was absolute. Adelaide knew better than to push where she shouldn't, with Mavis at least. "Alright then," she conceded.

Adelaide gathered up her school clothes and went to the washroom to get dressed. Breakfast had already started, but she wasn't that hungry due to the big dinner she ate the previous night; she could afford to waste a few minutes.

It wasn't like Mavis to act that way. Secretive. Defensive. Rushed. Mavis was never rushed; she didn't procrastinate. Adelaide turned over the short scene in her mind, pondering it. Mavis' hair had been unkempt, and she'd looked like she'd just run a lap around the Quidditch pitch. She'd been asleep when Adelaide left for practice, and what could she have done in that short span of time? She had no clue.

Adelaide tied her tie, loosely, because she hated the feeling of it being around her neck. She hated wearing a tie at all, but she didn't have much choice. Wearing a tie was better than being at home in her room, or going to school with the Muggles from primary. She didn't think about them often, but when she did, there were two in particular. Nathaniel and Wendy.

Nathaniel had been her neighbor to the left, and Wendy to the right. Her parents lived in a row house, and her bedroom shared opposite walls with Nathaniel and Wendy's bedrooms. The three of them had been friends since birth practically, and they went to school together every single year until Adelaide went to Hogwarts. Adelaide's father, a teacher, stayed home during the summer holidays and taught all of them Morse code, so they could tap on the walls and communicate. The summer she turned twelve was when everything changed.

Her letter had come on a Tuesday morning, the barn owl perched on top of her mother's car. That night, her parents sat her down at the table and explained everything to her. Well, not everything, just what she needed to know. She was a wizard, no, it wasn't common. Yes, she'd be moving schools. No, she couldn't tell anyone. Not even Nathaniel and Wendy.

That was the hardest part of it all. Keeping secrets from the two of them. Adelaide had to start making up excuses for lost time. That summer when they should've been preparing for their first year of secondary school, she was shopping for wizard supplies, poring over books that blended together after weeks of reading them too much. She stopped having time to tap on the walls with them, and after a while they stopped trying. When Wendy asked why they weren't going school clothes shopping together that year, Adelaide said her parents had decided to send her to a different school, where they had to wear a uniform. Nathaniel had asked the name; Adelaide had lied and said she couldn't remember.

In the summers since then, Adelaide stayed in her room or went to visit Mavis' family in the country. On the rare occasion she saw either of her old friends, they merely exchanged pleasantries at best, a tight smile at worst. It was painful, but it was gradual. At least that way, it felt more like a dull ache instead of a sudden heartbreak. In hindsight, Adelaide couldn't figure out which was better.

***

Breakfast that morning was uneventful, Mavis over-filling her mouth with food, which, Adelaide presumed, was so she wouldn't press her about her abnormal behavior. Mavis glanced at Adelaide many times over breakfast, but Adelaide just shook her head in response.

"If you don't want to tell me what's happening, then don't," Adelaide said. "I'm not going to push you. But just know, that I'm not an idiot and I know something is going on, whatever it is." Mavis chewed her lip, mulling it over.