𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎. fred weasley

𝚡𝚡𝚟. 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍, 𝚔𝚛𝚞𝚖

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

Nothing changes after that. Cress gets released from the hospital wing with a warning from Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey to come back immediately if anything seems out of sorts — if her temperature suddenly drops her or her legs give out. You know, normal stuff to address after one's been taken by a merman to the depths of the unknown.

Cress promises she will with crossed fingers and hightails it out of there, relieved as a toad that's realized it's not going to get boiled alive, and goes to her dormitory where she sleeps for twelve straight hours without waking up.

Her mum leaves a day before she's discharged, claiming that she needed to return to her own job before the head Healer decided to fire her for taking too many days off. Cress let her leave with dampened spirits, hugging her, arms wound around her so tightly she feared her mother would lose all air to her lungs.

She thought, in that moment, how weird it was going to be to adjust to not seeing her mother every day compared to her mum doting on her whenever she got the chance.

On the other hand, she thinks it might be nice to get back into the usual routine of things.

Which, it is, at first. Cress goes to class on Thursday morning with a smile on her face — not the kind that's excited about having to go to lessons, but the kind that shows she's relieved to be back on her own two feet, no matter how bothersome classes are.

Then. . . it starts to get annoying.

First, Snape calls her out in Potions because he's a fucking arsehole who obviously knew she was absent from classes for the past few days due to strenuous circumstances but doesn't care either since he loves to belittle teenagers for fun. He tells her to recall the potion they made the Friday prior and when she can't recollect the memories because she was in the fucking hospital wing, lay off, he takes twenty points from Hufflepuff and threatens her with detention.

(Cress was considering levitating her cauldron over to him at a speed so fast it was sure to give him brain damage.)

Secondly, she misses lunch. Fucking misses it. And sure, okay, it's not as bad as it seems but Fred fucking Weasley wanted to eat with her — as in, spend time with her consensually. As in he asked her. And she missed it, all because Professor Flitwick demands her to stay back and work on some of the things she's missed because apparently, "You have wonderful marks in here, Miss Diggory and I would hate for them to be altered because of all the lessons you have missed, even though I know the circumstances weren't your fault. . ."

(Which, okay, thanks for looking out for her, Professor Flitwick, but this is Fred Weasley. Probably the love of her life; she needed to attend lunch because it meant seeing him.)

(She ends up having to tell Axel and Mallory to relay the message to him, sulking at her seat because she's not above being petty and pouting about it.)