Christmas Decorations
Leigh sat on the couch, legs pulled up to her chest and arms loosely crossed upon her knees.
Fred had disappeared into his room a moment earlier, saying something about changing his shirt, which Leigh's bloody lip had stained. Normally she might've felt bad about it, but her head felt empty – filled with nothing but exhaustion.
It was oddly comforting. She had let out so much in the last hour that her mind seemed to take a break, leaving nothing but a thick fog to crowd her thoughts.
Fred appeared from his room, now clad in a green long-sleeve, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Still professional, in case any customers would enter, but comfortable nevertheless. He threw a gaze towards Leigh as he moved over to the kitchen area.
"How are we feeling?"
Her eyes snapped to his, and she shrugged faintly. "Fine." It was the truth, sort of. "Exhausted." Also true. She saw Fred nod as he turned back to the sink, placing their cups there before getting some glasses and filling them with water. She scrunched her face up as she found another suitable word describing how she felt: "Warm."
He chuckled faintly. "I can imagine. You are wearing two thick sweaters after all." He made his way over to the table and extended a glass towards her, which she accepted.
She nodded at his words, contemplating if she should get rid of one of the sweaters, or both maybe. She took a gulp from her glass before placing it on the table. She wiggled, trying to slip out of the two sweaters, instead groaning irritably when it didn't go as well as she'd hoped.
Fred, whose original plan was to take a seat, smiled and instead took a step toward her. "Can I?" He asked, receiving an exhale and a tired nod in response.
"Which one do you want to keep on?"
She didnt have to contemplate for long, the words exiting her lips quicker than she anticipated. "Yours."
He met her gaze and smiled softly. "Okay."
He pulled the sleeves and slipped Leigh out of the two warm sweaters before pulling the Christmas sweater over her head again. His arm reached into the sleeve, grasping her hand before pulling it through. He did the same to the other one, letting his hand linger on her palm a second longer before breaking their touch. Just like he had done an hour or so earlier, he leant forward to free her hair from underneath the sweater.
Leigh let out a relaxed exhale as Fred worked on her hair, giving it a last touch before leaving it lying upon the knitted material.
He stepped away. "Do you want anything?"
She gave him a polite smile and a slight shake of the head. She probably should've said yes - she had skipped breakfast after all, and dinner the day before, but the turmoil inside her had made her feel like she would throw it all up. She wasnt necessarily nauseous, just...overwhelmed. It was too much. Her insides didn't know how to navigate it.
He nodded at her answer, sinking into the couch beside her, careful to leave some space between them for her comfort.
A thick blanket of silence laid itself over them. Fred didn't seem to mind, but Leigh was never one to handle those quiet moments. Thoughts clawed at her mind, and she glanced over at him where he sat a small distance from her. She cleared her voice faintly.
"So that was...chaotic," she mumbled with a soft chuckle. Fiddling with her fingers, hoping her words would not only fill the silence, but also ease the tension, even though she might be the only one who felt it.
"Don't worry about it, Leigh," his voice was heard, trying to keep her uncertainty and worrying at bay.
She nodded at his words, leaning back in the couch and letting her head fall against the cushions behind her. She tried not to think about it. Her hand soon sneaked up to her lips, and she started biting her nail as she stared out into the room. Her gaze crept away, distracted, instead moving towards the window, watching the snow wistfully falling outside.
She had to say something. She had to.
"Fred, look, I really didn't mean to–"
She was quickly interrupted.
"You know what I think we should do?"
She paused, caught off guard, observing Fred's face, where a growing grin started forming.
"No?" She said, lost to say the least. Her words of apology and promise that it would not happen again were still nagging at the back of her head, waiting to be spoken.
"Put up the Christmas decorations." The smile lines by his eyes were prominent by now, and Leigh could see his eyes almost glimmering in the light from the window. "Come on, let's do it." He stood up, moving towards the stairs, waiting for her to follow suit. "You have the right sweater for it after all."
Twenty minutes later Leigh and Fred stood downstairs surrounded by open boxes, and Leigh almost got hit by a feeling of deja vu – except these boxes were full of sparkly and glittery Christmas decorations of varying colours rather than joke items and unidentified ingredients. Fred had flipped the sign on the door to show 'closed'. It was still morning hours, and customers normally didn't come in that much until during lunch anyway.
Fred had taken on the task of putting up branches and shrubbery along the handrails of the stairs and upon the edges of the shelves and counter. Leigh had opted to rummage through a box with different decorations, ranging from larger hanging sleighs with reindeers to miniature figures.
"This is fun," she mumbled at the reindeer item. "What do you do with this?"
Fred looked over. "Oh that one, yeah, we normally let that one fly around in the shop in Diagon Alley. Quite a popular one. The Santa in it sometimes throws snowballs on customers though." He shook his head in fake disappointment.
"Really?" She looked back down at the sleigh, zoning in on the Santa Claus looking incredibly immovable in the box. "But you're the one controlling it, aren't you?"
He grinned cheekily. "Perhaps."
She smiled slightly as she rolled her eyes.
Fred focused back on his branches, stretching his arms up to reach the edge of one of the taller shelves. She bit her lip as she looked back down into the box, coming face to face with a few giant hanging red globes. Deciding that these would be pretty hanging over the till, she grabbed one of them in her hands and lifted it out of its protective packaging. She moved a chair and used it to make her way up upon the counter, where she reached up towards the ceiling. A few hooked screws were already placed there, she assumed because the previous owners had had hanging signs or similar. The big globe hung in place, shining back at her, and she nodded in approval.
"Leigh, which one?"
As ridiculous as it sounded, she was still not used to hearing the way her name rolled off his tongue. Yet she didn't miss the days when he only referred to her as Conway. Something jerked in her chest at the sound of him saying her name, and she deliberately waited another moment before turning to look at him, hoping her face didn't expose her reaction.
Still standing on the counter, Leigh looked down towards Fred, who was for once shorter than her.
"Which of what?" She asked as she sat herself down on the counter, eyes glancing back towards the other big globes on the open box slightly to her left on the floor.
"Which of these two." He took a step forward towards her, showing the two smaller globes which resided in each of his palms. He had opened the box with Christmas tree ornaments with the intention of hanging some of them in the branches. Leigh leant forward to take a closer look at the two globes. One was smooth and glossy, the other more sandy and a bit more glittery.
She shrugged. "The shiny one has a more traditional vibe. The glittery one is more..." she wiggled her fingers in front of the globe,
"...disco."
He smiled humorously in response, wiggling his own fingers. "Disco, she says. Well I can't not hang some of those up now."
His gaze lingered on hers for another second, enjoying the bashful shyness which crept up on her cheeks, before he turned and made his way over to the shelves again.
Leigh jumped down from the counter and walked to get the next big globe, soon returning to the counter.
"Have they put up decorations in the castle yet?" Fred asked mindlessly as he was intently trying to hang some globes and figures onto the branches.
"Not yet." She shook her head faintly, lowering the globe in her hands from the ceiling. It wasn't heavy, but all of a sudden her arms felt weaker than they should. At the mere mention of the school something stared to nag at the back of her head. She reached up to scratch her neck uncertainly. "I don't wanna go back," she spoke quietly, her lips twisting to the side as if she's just now considering that she would have to go back in a few hours.
Fred stopped his movements momentarily, looking towards her with his arms still raised in the air. They froze for a second before he again resumed the action of hanging ornaments.
"Really? Why?"
He asked so effortlessly that Leigh almost wanted to spill everything on the spot. She hated speaking about herself, let alone emotional things, yet he made it seem like it was the easiest thing in the world – like it was any other casual conversation. He just made everything seem so easy.
"I don't know," she murmured in a sigh, placing the globe in one hand while she raised the other to her lips, biting her nail. She shrugged, spoke again. "I don't know."
Somehow it felt like Hogwarts wasn't her place anymore. It reminded her, and she assumed others, about those horrifying moments they had experienced there – the memories forever etched into the walls. She had tried to transform it into something, not disregarding the past but attempting to focus on her studies to try to create new memories, new pride and new strength which could suffocate the old pain. However, that effort seemed to have fallen flat. Shame and guilt now coursed through her veins every single moment she spent in there. A space she once loved now petrified her so deeply.
"You can stay here tonight?"
Leigh blinked, once, twice before her eyes snapped up to Fred, who was still hanging ornaments upon the shrubbery.
She broke out of her thoughts and dazed state, speaking finally. "What?"
He stopped his movements, meeting her gaze. "You can," he said again, scratching his chest. "If you want. A break from the castle can be good?"
For some reason she had no clue what to reply, the words had ran away, leaving her mind blank. The only word she could muster up was another "What?" Did he just say she could stay overnight in the flat?
"Maybe it's good to stay away from the castle a bit. You know, a new efforts kind of thing," Fred went on, but Leigh was too stuck on his initial offer to really register any words which followed.
She spoke her dismissive thoughts. "I wouldn't want to bother you and George."
Fred rolled his eyes in front of her. "Come on, you know we love having you here." His arm stretched up to hang a snowflake ornament onto a branch. Her silence prompted him to speak again, knowing she saw her own presence as a burden, when that was far from the truth. "We grew up in a house where Harry, Hermione and basically any acquaintance was able to stay over and spend whole summers with us. We're used to a packed house."
He dipped his hand in the ornaments box as he gave her a genuine look. "There's always room for friends, yeah? You're more than welcome to stay over. From the burrow to this? It's almost too empty," he continued in the efforts of making her smile, giving her a wink when he saw her consider the offer.