Chapter 2
My body completely froze. What was Ethan of all people doing here? I came here to get away from him. Not spend more time with him. Not after what he did.
"Can I talk to you, Felicity?" He sounds unsure of himself. Like he shouldn't have asked to talk to me. He shouldn't have because I don't want to talk to him.
"Um... I think I was fixing to go meet with Fred and George." I lied.
"Please. It's important." I shake my head no. But he grabs my arm and pulls me up.
"Hey she said no. Leave her alone." I hear Malfoy shout from behind me. Ethan turns around dragging me with him.
"This is none of your concern Blondie." Ethan snaps.
"Leave her alone." Malfoy started to get up and I knew he was wanting to fight with Ethan. I also knew that Ethan was probably a lot stronger than him so I knew I had to keep them from fighting.
"Draco, it's fine. I'll see you later." I try to act like I'm sure but I know my confidence is wavering.
"Are you sure?" I see something in Malfoy's eyes that I've never seen before, concern.
"Yeah. It's fine." I say quietly. Ethan turned back around, dragging me with him. We stopped right outside of the hospital wing.
"Why have you been avoiding me?" Ethan asked as soon as we stopped outside the door.
"I think you know exactly why." I snapped. Ethan let go of my arm and I started rubbing the spot where he was holding.
"No I obviously don't, Felicity. With you it's like one second we are the best of friends and the next it's like I don't exist." He seemed genuinely confused but I have no idea why. Unless he's really that thick and doesn't know what he did wrong.
"After what you did, why would I want to hang out with you?" I snap.
"What exactly did I do to make you hate me? Because I am completely lost." He really is that thick. I roll my eyes at the thought. My dumbass is going to explain it to him anyway.
"Think about it. I had genuine feelings for you. And then after telling me you liked me back and talking about kissing me, I hear you got a girlfriend and that you no longer had feelings for me."
"That's what you're upset about?" He says it like it's nothing.
"Oh no. I'm not done. There was also the fact that you called me one night explaining how you found your soulmate and then right as we ended the call you said I love you. I know what you meant by it but..." It still hurt. I didn't finish the sentence. I don't really think I could.
"But what?"
"I meant it differently and you knew it too." That's part of the truth at least.
"You don't have to mean it when you say it."
"That's not the point, Ethan. You hurt me when I needed you. And you of all people should have known not to hurt me. Actually you know what, I'm not surprised that you hurt me. Because that's what you always did. I would come home with a fake smile on my face everyday because of you. I always felt like I did something wrong with you. I have to go." I turned around and walked away as fast as I could. Tears were starting to spill and I didnt want him to see that. Crying shows weakness. Weakness shows vulnerability. If you are vulnerable people take advantage of you.
Somehow I managed to walk all the way to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Well at least I walked to a semi-private place. Anyway, I walked into the bathroom and went to the end stall nearest to the wall. I didn't walk into the stall however.
"Myrtle? Are you here?" Out of nowhere the ghost of Moaning Myrtle appeared in front of me.
"Right here." Her squeaky voice says.
"I just wanted to let you know that I might be in here for a while. If that's ok with you?"
"Of course. As long as you aren't here to make fun of me you are allowed to."
"Thanks Myrtle." She nods her head, then disappears off somewhere. I stand there for a couple of seconds just staring. Then I start thinking of what happened just a couple of minutes ago. I start punching the wall in frustration. I kept punching even as it started to hurt. As my knuckles started to bleed, I pulled my sleeve down so I wouldn't get blood on it and I noticed small cuts going down my arm. I didn't notice them this morning. How did I miss it?
I stopped punching the wall and stared at the cuts. I had thought about doing this before but never had the guts to do it. I guess this version of me was more hurt. I pull down my other sleeve and reveal more cuts going down my arm. I started tearing up. I never thought that any version of me would do this.
I hear a door open, so I pull my sleeves down and wipe my eyes. I look up and see Fred stumbling into the bathroom. He noticed me right away and almost looked surprised.
"Oh I didn't know this bathroom was taken." He said jokingly.
"I was just about to leave." I quickly put my hand behind my back so he wouldn't see the blood.
"What are you hiding?" He cocks his eyebrow in suspicion. He's not going to let me leave.
"Nothing." I lie. He walks over to me and grabs my hand. When he sees my knuckles his eyes go wide. He stays silent and starts rubbing his thumb across my knuckles.
"Why?" It was all he said but I couldn't give him a good answer or any answer he'd like.
"Problems." I say feeling numb.
"That's not an excuse. Why did you do this? Did you do this to yourself or did you beat someone up?" His voice was more serious which was weird because he always had a joking tone to his voice.
"I did it to...myself. And I just got upset so I needed to take my anger out." Why am I telling the truth? I should just lie. It would be easier.
"This isn't the way to do it, Feliz."
"Fred it was more spur of the moment. It was the only thing I could think of doing." For some reason his serious voice scared me. Like bad.
"Next time come to me. Who made you do this?"
"No one." I say quickly.
"Someone did. I know you. You wouldn't do this unless someone or something really made you upset. Was it Malfoy? I swear to god if it was Malfoy.." I cut him off before he could continue. "It wasn't Malfoy. It was that hufflepuff boy, Ethan."
"I'm gonna kill him."
"No. It's fine. I'm fine. I think I'm just going to find Parker and probably skip classes."
"Well I was planning to skip class today. Why don't we hang out? We haven't seen each other in years after all." He finally looked up at me and the joke returned to his voice.
"Um... if you want to, I know just the place we could go." I say with a smirk.
"Ooh a private place?" He jokes.
"You could say that. Question: Weasley, do you know how to swim?" I cock my head to the side, challenging him.
"Yeah." He looks at me very confused.
"Get some swim trunks on and meet me at the seventh floor."
"Ok." I walk past him and start heading to my dorm. What was I doing? I wasn't even sure if what I was thinking would work.
I get to my dorm about 10 minutes later. Thankfully, the only person in the room was Parker.
"What are you looking for?" Parker asks as I start looking through my drawers.
"My bathing suit." I say with a shrug.
"Why?"
"I'm gonna be hanging out with Fred."
"What about the cuts on your arm?" I freeze. How does she know about the cuts? I just found out about them.
"How do you know about them?" I ask quickly.
"I saw them earlier. I thought you knew about them."
"I didn't until just a couple of minutes ago." She nodded her head, ok.
I went to my drawer and got a two piece bathing suit. I went to the bathroom and got changed. I also put on a black short sleeve t-shirt and some Jean shorts. I walk out of the bathroom and stop to make sure Parker is still there.
"I need to tell you something later by the way."
"Is it bad?"
"Not too bad." I reply.
"Ok. Be careful." She responds.
"I will. See ya later."
"See ya." I walk out of the room and head to the seventh floor. As I'm walking I trace my fingers across my arm and imagine the cuts disappearing. I'm hoping what I'm doing works. I look down and see that the cuts are gone. I smile and do the same to the other arm. Thankfully, the cuts on my other arm also disappear.
I get to the seventh floor about 2 minutes later. Fred was waiting there for me.
"I almost thought you weren't coming." He says as he spots me.
"What...me....I would never skip. It was my idea anyway." I brush off his statement with a laugh.
"So where does the lovely lady want to take me?" He says with a posh voice.
"Follow me and you'll find out." I extend my hand for him to take it. He does and I start leading him to the room of requirement. We stop at the end of the hall and he looks at me with confusion.
"Close your eyes and don't think of anything. Ok?"
"Ok." He closes his eyes and so do I. I start imagining a little cave that has a large circular pool of water. I open my eyes and a door appeared in front of me and Fred.
"You can open your eyes now." He does and he looks at me even more confused. I laugh a little and open the door. When I opened the door I found exactly what I imagined but way prettier and way bigger. I pulled Fred in the room and his eyes went wide. The door closed behind us and I kind of jumped at the sound.
"What is this place?" He says as curiosity gets the better of him.
"The Room of Requirements. It only shows up when people are in need." I explain.
"And this is a need?"
"I guess so. Come on, let's get in." I take off my shirt and shorts, then jump into the water. I swim to the surface and Fred is still standing there.
"Are you gonna get in or do I have to drag you in?" I joke.
"Coming." He takes his shirt off. For some reason I could feel myself start to blush. No. No. No. I can't be blushing for Fred. I just can't.
"Like what you see?" He jokes, while a smirk plays on his face.
"Shut up." I look down in embarrassment. He jumps in and stays a little longer under the water than I did. I feel him grab my legs and he pushes me up onto his shoulders. He surfaces and kind of spits out some water.
"Wanna go under water?" Before I could respond he drags me underwater with him. He let's go of me and I turn around to look at him. He grabs a hold of my waist and we start swimming to the top. If my face wasn't red earlier, it's really red now. As we break to the surface Fred pulls me closer to him. His hands are warm against my bare back.
"By the way I may have taken care of Ethan for you." He whispered. His face was really close to mine.
"You shouldn't have done anything." I whisper back. One of his hands moved up to my face and cupped my cheek.
"I wanted to. Besides he's not dead or in the hospital wing so I didn't hurt him that bad." All I could do was smile. That's all I felt like doing.
"You shouldn't have wanted to do that. Besides, you don't want to be on his bad side. He gets bad."
"I think I can handle an ikle little third year." He smirks and I nod my head and sigh. His smile fades and he tilts my head up to look at him.
"Don't worry about me."
"Ok." He starts smiling and without warning pulls me under water with him. I smack his arm and get out of his grasp. I start swimming around with Fred following me closely behind. After about a minute I go back up to the surface to get some air.
Once I'm at the surface I swim over to the ledge and pull myself up to sit down. Fred follows after me and does the exact same thing.
"It's a nice place you thought of."
"I've seen something close to this while traveling once."
"That sounds fun. Traveling to places like this. The coolest place I've ever been to wasn't even that cool." He jokes.
"Egypt?"
"Yeah." He confirms.
"I've always wanted to visit Egypt."
"Why?"
"I kinda want to try and decipher the hieroglyphs in some of those tombs."
"You're starting to sound like Hermione."
"I'm not going to respond to that." He laughs a little. I get up and think of towels and some extra clothes. The clothes end up in a corner of the room, so I walk over and get them. I hand Fred some clothes and keep some for myself.
"Do you think you could give me some privacy?"
"Oh yes, your highness." He bows dramatically and I roll my eyes. He looks away and I quickly get changed. I make sure to keep an eye on him so he doesn't look. Not that there's anything to look at.
"Are you almost done?" He shouts as if I can't hear him.
"Yeah I'm done."
"Ok. Well turn around so I can get change."
"Ok." I turn around and wait for him. After a few seconds he says he's done so I turn back around.
"Um...thanks for coming along with me. You didn't have to." He walks up to me and pushes my hair out of my face.
"Anytime. And of course I had to. Wouldn't want you to drown here. Would you?" I stayed silent. I know he was trying to make a joke but part of me wished drowning was a reality.
"Don't tell me you would've preferred that."
"No. I love hanging out with you I swear. It's just..."
"You wish you were dead." He said each word slowly. Probably making sure if I'm ok with him saying that.
"Yeah." With that he pulled me into a hug. At first I didn't know if I should hug back but eventually I did.
"Fred. I think it's about time for dinner. We should head back." He pulls away and nods his head. I could see tears in the back of his eyes.
"You've never actually hurt yourself have you? Other than you punching something today." I sigh. I don't want to give him an answer but I know he's going to find out eventually. I slide my fingers down my arms and imagine the cuts reappearing. Fred takes my arm as soon as he saw what I was doing. He looked like he was about to cry as hard as he could but he held back.
"I know that we still barely know each other but whatever you are going through. It's not worth it to lose your life. You're important to me, to George, and to Parker. And probably the trio. I'm going to make sure that you are happy and that you don't try to do this again." I felt tears threatening to spill but I held them back. I'm not going to let Fred of all people see me cry.
"You don't have to do that. I'm not worth it." He lets go of my hand and sighs. I hope he's not planning to lecture me.
"But you are." With that said he grabs my hand and we walk out of the room of requirement with all of our things. He starts dragging me to the dungeons.
"I have to talk to Parker so I will meet you in the Great Hall ok?" I say slowly.
"No, I'm waiting for you outside of your common room." Fred says, any hint of joking is gone in his voice. It's kind of scary.
"I don't want you to get in trouble and also the painting really hates Gryffindors and anything that isn't pure-blood." He nods but I know he's gonna stay. I have never seen Fred this serious. Usually he makes jokes about things to lighten the mood but he's been quiet.
We got to my common room about ten minutes later. Jeez, why does it take so long to walk around this place? I mutter "mud-blood" and the door swings open.
"That is your password?" He questions.
"Sadly. I'll see you in a couple of minutes. Also be careful." He nods and I walk into my common room and head to my dorm. Surprisingly no one was in the common room. But thankfully Parker was in our dorm.
"Parker. Is it ok that we talk now?" I ask as I walk in.
"Yep what's up?" I sit on her bed right in front of her.
"Ethan is here." I knew her blue eyes were looking straight into mine though I was looking at her hair. Her hair is naturally multicolored. Her hair kind of looks like Narcissa's hair in the movies. Except Parker's hair was long and black. Parker had two white streaks at the front.
"I thought we came here to get away from him?"
"I did too." I turned my attention back to her.
"How do you know it was him?" She questions, unsure.
"I was helping Malfoy in the hospital wing and he dragged me by the arm to go talk to him."
"Oh." She pauses for a brief second then says, "I'm gonna kill him."
"I think Fred has already taken care of that." She laughs a little. Parker and I both know that Ethan can get violent when he's protecting something. But we don't know what Fred would do other than pranking people.
"Come on, let's head to the great hall. Fred's waiting." She nods ok as I get up. I set my dirty clothes on my bed and head to the door with Parker ahead of me. We walk down the stairs and into the common room. Only Pansy was there.
"What is a Gryffindork doing outside?" Pansy squeals.
"None of your business." I say firmly. We walk out of the common room and find Fred waiting for us.
"What took you so long?" Fred asks, sounding bored.
"Well I had to get myself to look pretty didn't I?" He laughs a little.
"Can we go to the Great Hall now? I'm starving." Parker asks.
"You are starting to sound like Ron, you know that?" She punches me on the arm, while Fred is just laughing at us. I roll my eyes and start walking away.
They catch up to me pretty quickly. Partly because I have short legs. And they are both taller than me.
"Do you know how to walk faster?" Fred asks, complaining.
"I'm really fixing to take Parker and leave you behind."
"What did I do?" He asks innocently. Batting his lashes to add effect.
"I'm not going to start with you."
"That's cuz you have no argument." I roll my eyes as he puts his arm on my head.
"Hm. Good armrest."
"I am fixing to hurt you." I push his arm off and he starts laughing.
"What could ickle little Feliz do to a fifth year?"
"Lots of things." I grumbled. I hear Parker start laughing.
"Ya know I like her, she has a sense of humor."
"Whatever."
Finally we are at the entrance hall. We walk into the great hall and follow Fred to the Gryffindor table. We stop at the trio and I ask, "Is it ok if we sit with you guys?"
"Of course." Hermione answers. I nod and sit down next to Harry. Parker sits down beside Ron and Fred sits next to me. I grab only a bit of salad and start eating. Surprisingly after not eating all day I wasn't that hungry. Fred looked at me with a sad expression. He puts a bit of chicken on my plate then whispers "eat." I rolled my eyes and continued eating my salad leaving the chicken untouched. Once I finished, I push my plate away and told everyone good night. Before I leave Hermione hands me the homework I missed. I thank her, then get up and start walking to the door.
I walked out of the great hall and bumped into someone.
"I'm so sorry." I look up and see Ethan then say, "Oh it's you."
"Ouch."
"I have to go." I try to walk away but he grabs my arm and stops me before I could walk away.
"Are we gonna talk about what we talked about earlier?" He asks. In his eyes I can see that he really wants to talk but I don't.
"No." I freed myself from his grasp and walked away as fast as I could. Memories of him started flooding into my brain. Every one of them makes my current situation look like my fault. Which it probably is. My breathing started getting heavier and I couldn't think straight at all. I could barely figure out where I was. I look up and see a girls bathroom, so I walk in and run to the sink. I turn on the water and start splashing my face with water but it wasn't helping. My breathing got worse. Almost to the point where I couldn't breathe.
"Stop. Stop. Please." Memories kept flooding into my head. I felt like I was going to pass out. I tried to keep splashing the cold water on my face but it still wasn't helping. Soon the water was replaced by hot tears rolling down my face.
"Come on. Please. Stop it." I started getting images of me growing up then dying, which made me start to freak out more. I turned off the water because I knew It wasn't going to help and sank to my knees crying. I tried taking deep breaths but my mind kept wandering to death and things that made me freak out. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my back and a male voice telling me to breathe. I turned to face the voice and I was met with a concerned looking Draco Malfoy.
"Hey. Try to take deep breaths for me. Please. It's gonna be ok. These don't last." He grabs my hand and pulls me closer to him. With his other hand he puts my head on his chest and tells me to try and match my breathing to his. I start trying to slow my breathing down to his but instead I start playing with the rings on his fingers. Slowly, my breathing got slower and I was able to take deep breaths without feeling like I was going to pass out.
"T-thank you, Draco." I turned to look at him. He had a look of sympathy on his face. Which is an expression I never thought I would see on Draco Malfoy's face.
"You're welcome." He cups my face with his hands and wipes the tears away with his thumbs.
"Do you want to talk about what happened?"
I shake my head. "Not really. I think I just want to go to bed right now."
"Ok." He pulls me into another hug and moves so that his back is against the wall. I was too numb to move so I just laid there with him stroking my hair. It was so calming. Calming enough to make me fall asleep.
I woke up what I assume was a couple of hours later with a pounding headache and I was no longer in the bathroom. I sat up slowly, not wanting to make my headache worse but sadly it did. I winced but then I heard Pansy snoring so I shut myself up before I accidentally woke her up. I turn around and look at my pillow and see a letter with the initials D.M on the front. I picked up the letter and opened it.
It read, "Felicity, I'm sorry I couldn't stay with you but I don't want Pansy seeing me with you. I think you understand why. Anyway, if it is not morning by the time you read this, you can meet me in the common room. To talk if you need to. As you know I need to keep it a secret. And again you know why. Hope to see you, Draco Malfoy." I smiled a little. In reality I really shouldn't have because it probably meant nothing. But the fact that he even left a letter to make sure I was ok made me smile because I know he wasn't usually like that.
I got up and quietly walked out of the dorm and down to the common room. I was still a little sleepy so walking down the stairs I nearly tripped. After an unsuccessful trip down the stairs, I finally made it to the common room. I see Draco sitting on the couch staring at the fire.
"You got my letter?" Malfoy asked as I walked into the common room.
"How did you even know I was down here?"
"You aren't as quiet as you think. Also I heard you cuss about five oy. times coming down the stairs." My face went red and he laughed a little. I walked over to him cautiously and sat next to him. I stared into the fire as well.
"You know. The flames dancing around like that always seemed so calming to me."
"Same. Whenever I need to think I would come down here and look at the flames."
"What would an 11 and 12 year old need to think about?" I asked jokingly.
"You'd be surprised at how many things they think about."
"I probably wouldn't. I was around 7 when I started getting panic attacks like the one you saw me have in the bathroom. I'm sorry you had to see that by the way. You probably thought I looked pathetic." The words came flooding out though I didn't want them to.
"If you were just crying I would've said yes, but no I didn't. I get them too." My jaw dropped. Not from surprise, well kind of. I knew he got panic attacks when he was in his 6th year but I didn't expect him to get them in third year. I have a feeling though that his panic attacks have something to do with his father.
"I'm sorry if I'm wrong but do your panic attacks have anything to do with your father?" My words came out slowly. I hope I didn't offend him or anything.
"It's really none of your business." He snaps.
"I'm sorry." I apologize quietly.
"Can I ask why you have them?"
"When I was little one of my family members passed away and at night I would start thinking about death. I tried to talk to my father about it but after a while he just concluded that I was trying to keep myself from going to sleep. As I got older, it got worse. I would zone out and memories would flood into my head and show me that I'm a horrible person. My head makes me think everyone is mad at me." I heard him inhale a sharp breath. He put his hand on my leg and gave me a sympathetic glance. He then put his arm around me and pulled me into a hug, laying down while doing so. I nuzzle my head into his chest, letting out a sigh. I don't know why I told him. Maybe I need someone who doesn't know me to know.
"We can't stay like this." I comment.
"Who says?"
"Our bloodlines." I quip.
"Eh. I'll hex anyone who judges us. Though I do wish you weren't a halfblood."
"Wow. You really know how to make a half-blood feel special." I look up at him and I see him sticking his tongue out at me. I stick my tongue out at him and we both start laughing.
"Ya know. I think you were born to be a Slytherin."
"Oh yeah. And why's that?" I challenge.
"Well. I noticed you have a forked tongue just like a snake. You have green eyes."
"Is that all you have?" I challenged again.
"Pretty much." I smiled and pulled my feet up onto the leather couch so we wouldn't be hanging off the couch. He does the same thing, then pulls my leg over his, so that I am halfway on top of him. He keeps his hand on my thigh, probably so I don't move. I can feel my face get red. I look away from him and start staring at the fire.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For helping me earlier. You are one of the few people who have helped me through one of those."
"And who are the other people?" He questions.
"Parker and that Hufflepuff guy that you met in the hospital wing."
"Can I ask why you seemed scared when you saw him? By the way I did hear a little bit of that conversation between you and him outside of the hospital wing." I laughed a little bit.
"I wasn't scared I just wasn't expecting him to be here."
"Oh." He doesn't press on which I'm glad about. I really didn't want him to. Thankfully all he did was start playing with my hair. He started humming that tune you hear on tiktok that people think is him humming. Which that sound does sound like him except his voice is a little deeper. With him humming and playing with my hair I fell asleep pretty quickly.
I'm running through a dark forest. I feel the rough ground against the soles of my feet. I am completely out of breath. I look over to the left and see Draco running with me. He has a look of terror on his face and I realize I have the same expression on my face. My heart is pounding in my chest. I try to speak but no words come out. Suddenly, I feel someone grab my arm and pull me backwards, stopping me from going any further. I tried to get out of the person's grip but they hit me in the back of the head to get me to stop. Suddenly, people start coming out of the forest making a circle. In the middle of the circle my dad from my CR appeared out of nowhere. Tears started forming in my eyes as I saw him. I heard someone yell Avada Kedavra and a green light flashed into my vision. The green light hit my dad and he fell to the ground. Gone. Slowly, the body on the ground morphed into Draco. There were large gashes across his chest like the ones he had when Harry cursed him in Half-blood Prince. Except instead of 6th year Draco it was 3rd year Draco. I felt tears trickling down my face. The person holding me let me go and I ran down to Draco. I started crying harder.
Then I was jerked awake. I was soaked in sweat and my breathing was heavy. I was crying hard. I felt arms wrap around me and pull me back down.
"Breathe, Felicity. It was just a nightmare." I got up again and so did he.
"I'm sorry. I'm going to go up to my dorm. You need sleep and I'm stopping you from sleeping."
"It's fine." He wiped the tears off my face with his thumb.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't say I'm sorry. It's fine. Do you want to talk about it?" I shook my head no, so he pulled me towards him and laid us back down. He started rubbing my back and soon I fell right back asleep.