𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎. fred weasley

𝚒𝚡. 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍𝚢 𝚋𝚕𝚞𝚍𝚐𝚎𝚛

✦✧✦

     October comes in an assortment of cooler weather and more homework. Cress honestly doesn't know how she managed to make it all the way to October without throwing herself off the Astronomy Tower (a real challenge, mind you) but she did and she is none the better for it. Because, underneath all her bags of exhaustion and messy hair, is a girl who still wants to fling herself off the tower whenever the opportunity strikes. She thinks that death by falling would be better than death by O.W.L.s, really.

O.W.L.s are going to be the downfall of society, Cress can tell. Like, the professors have loaded her up with so many assignments that Cress doesn't even know where they end anymore; she finishes a Herbology essay and there's three more for Defense Against the Dark Arts waiting for her. It's agonizing.

Especially when their new Defense Against the Dark Art teacher is a little bit on the wild side and demanded that they use the Unforgivable Curses every time they have a lesson. Okay, well it's mostly just 'Imperio', but still. Unforgivable. And he always makes Cress do something mildly embarrassing and she always leaves the classroom with new bruises every time. Honestly, Cress just wants to know when they're going to move on from this — they learned about the Unforgivables in her fourth year for Merlin's sake — and move on to something more exciting. Like the Patronus Charm. That's something Cress could get under.

Aside from all the assignments and bruises that Cress has to endure, she is also trying to manage her time to finish these blasted spells that Fred and George asked for. At first, it was a breeze, she went through the spells like a duck in the water, but now it's a struggle. Because no matter what, no incantation or jinx or spell is bloody working and she usually ends up in the Hospital Wing once every week just so Madam Pomfrey can give her a different kind of Potion along with a very long lecture.

But no amount of lecturing or broken noses are going to stop Cress from finishing this for them. She's going to fucking finish and then she's going to shove the parchment in their faces with a gloating face. It'll be great. She has it all planned out. George will be pleasantly surprised and give her an approving nod and Fred Weasley, if all goes well, will just swoop her up right there and declare his everlasting love for her and then they'll ride a hippogriff off into the sunset. A magnificent fantasy, if she's honest with herself.

Cress shakes away from the zooming Bludger just in time. It shoots past her head and Hamlin punts it somewhere, giving her a look.

"It's like you're not even trying, Baby Diggs."

Cress wants to shout that no, she is not fucking trying because the sun's not up and she wasn't prepared to get summoned for Quidditch today. But somehow, someone (probably Hamlin because he bothers everyone) got one of the girls to wake Cress up — why Mildred was up so early is beyond her — and ask her to join Cedric and Hamlin for an early Quidditch session. Cress thinks it's ridiculous, that her brother is still insistent on practicing for a sport that won't commence this year, but she reluctantly pushed through it and now, here she is, trying to escape Bludgers and not knock Hamlin off his fucking broomstick.