Moon Child [Fred Weasley]

9

Outside was cold. The kind of cold that had even the brightest of students in a bitter mood. The kind of cold where everyone was forced to stay indoors. The kind of cold where the closest Teddy could get to outside was sitting in his usual corner spot in the library, lemon sherbet wasting away in his mouth, absentmindedly staring out the window at the snow-covered courtyard.

His arithmacy notes lay scattered and forgotten on the table before him. In his mind, they did not exist so simply, they were not there, right? Teddy sighed as he tore his gaze away from the outdoors, finding his work was in fact real.

He wasn't sure when the last time that he could relax and curl up with a good book in the common room was. All professors seemed to have unanimously made it their job to push as many exams on the students as possible before school let out for the Christmas break. And among them? The dreaded arithmacy.

Numbers and pattern sequences had always been somewhat of a calming practice to Teddy. It was the very basis upon which the subject was based that encouraged him to take it to the NEWT level. Now, however, he found— with a raging headache and too-tangled curls— that this was no longer the case.

Teddy felt his eyes pull down, the weight of his eyelids almost too great to bear.

"Damn it." He swore when his elbow knocked off his ink from its spot on his workspace. Black splotches flew everywhere and Teddy hastily scrambled to wipe the dark bits off the old oak before it could stain. His jumper had to pay the price and Teddy's lips drew downward into a deep frown when he saw the nice brown wool of his sleeve was replaced with blotchy discontinuities.

His head snapped up when he heard footsteps running through the aisles of books and then a moppy set of striking red hair occupied Teddy's vision.

He must have looked worse than he thought because the wide obnoxious grin Fred was always seen donning slipped for a moment, faltering before being replastered on with great determination, like he was moments away from accomplishing something so grand it was only fitting to start gloating now.

"Teddy, you ok?" Fred asked.

Teddy sighed and ran a hand through his messy curls, trying and failing to comb through the trench of brown tangles.

"I'm fine." He said.

Fred's smile truly fell away now. He came over to Teddy and placed both his hands on the edge of the table Teddy was working at. Leaning down, he lowered his voice. "You look half dead. I can stop with the pranks if they're really affecting you."

Teddy shook his head, moments of Fred's past and unsuccessful attempts of pranking flashing through his mind. Yesterday's exploding bonbons, Tuesday's pig nose prank, last week's pumpkin growing draught-- all successfully avoided by Teddy, all successfully irritating Minnie who had put the Weasley twins in detention for the rest of the year.

"No, no," Teddy said. "I've just got an arithmacy exam tomorrow. Professor Vector is expecting a lot from his NEWT classes this year." As he spoke, it became apparent that his lemon sherbet had withered away to nothingness in his mouth as he spoke. He subconsciously dipped his hand into his pocket to search for another but came up empty. He must have left the rest of them in his dorm.

Fred squared his shoulders and stuck up his chin. "All out?" He asked. "Good. I got you something." He pulled out a white parcel from his trouser pocket and placed it on the desk in front of Teddy, right where the ink pot used to be.

Teddy regarded it tiredly. "What is it?" He asked.

Fred raised a brow. "What, you can't tell with your super perceptive animagus power skills? Come on, Teddy, you can always tell."

Teddy exhaled, running his knuckle along his temple, trying to tame the growing headache flowering beneath his forehead. "Well, not today, Fred."

Fred sat down and almost seemed to fumble for words, something that wasn't particularly akin to his usual quoted confident demeanor that was lacking in no way other than its inability to run out.

"It's-- Candy." He said. "Y'know, something sweet to help you study. I know you always have one in your mouth so I just thought-- what-- what are you doing?" Fred trailed off.

"...Eating it?" Teddy said, hand pausing mid-air as he went for the case, tipping it over to see a few pale pink candies safely cradled inside. They looked normal from a distance but then again, he couldn't really trust his eyes today. Everything he seemed to want to focus on for more than a moment turned blurry or fuzzy. Just moments ago, he could have sworn he saw birds outside flying through the air when he knew he hadn't truly seen one for hours.

"Merlin's Beard you really are out of it," Fred mumbled, so faintly Teddy almost couldn't catch it. He managed to piece the words together a fraction of a second later and stilled.

"What?"

"Nothing," Fred said, a little too quickly. He smiled then, thin lips stretching up quizzingly. "Enjoy the candies. Don't let me stop you."

Teddy mindlessly scratched an itch on the bridge of his nose with his sweat sleeve and resisted the pull of his eyelids. "Fred, It's been a long week. Forgive me if my senses aren't... exactly what you're used to but-- I don't think I can walk in a straight line right now let alone tell if this is a prank or if you're being genuinely nice because honestly I never know what side of you I'm going to get so just please... just tell me, honestly. Is this a prank?"

Fred's gaze was fixed firmly on Teddy's with a  look the latter couldn't quite interpret. Because how else was Teddy supposed to know that there was now a smudged streak of ink on the tip of his nose? How else was he supposed to know that Fred was fighting an internal battle with himself? How else was he supposed to know the redhead wanted too badly to lean in and wipe that smudge off but was too scared of making a fool of himself?

"It's not," Fred said, a lie he never intended Teddy to figure out. Because he knew then that if he admitted that it was, he would never get Teddy's trust like he so badly wanted to now. "See? I'll even prove it." Fred mustered a smile and took up the bag of candies, popping them into his mouth quickly.

Teddy looked on at the boy with mild amusement as the boy enjoyed the candies. "Well, that's all and good Fred but... you didn't leave any for me."

Fred pretended to be dumbfounded. "Really?" He said, words garbled. "Oh, silly me. Sorry Teddy I'll bring you some tomorrow ok? Think you can survive until then?"

"Fine." Teddy said though it lacked any real malice.

Fred swallowed. "But in all seriousness, I think you'd better go back to your dorm and have a nap before you try studying anything more. How else is anything supposed to register in that sleep-deprived brain of yours? A good nap never hurt anyone."

Teddy looked down at his work. It had been minutes since he had contributed anything to the notes on the table before him. "You're right." He began packing up and, just as he had slung his satchel over his shoulder and rolled his ink-stained sleeves up to elbow, he paused. "Thank you Fred."

Fred just grinned and playfully poked at Teddy's nose or-- did something oddly regarding a poke or a tap or something. Whatever it was, Teddy could never be quite sure. He was sure that, even if he had been operating on several substantial hours of sleep, he still wouldn't have been able to figure it out.

"No worries at all, love!" Fred playfully called out after the brunette. Though Teddy was already so far away from Fred that not even his hearing senses could pick up on the way Freid's voice wobbled.

Because what he didn't know was that Fred Weasley had just purposefully injected his own prank previously meant to catch an uncatchable boy off guard and now stood in the corner library spot with the most unsavory taste imaginable lingering on his tongue. Rotten eggs, it was. Meant to last for several hours. The perfect prank to finally catch Teddy off guard. Fred sighed and resisted the urge to slap himself across the face as he readied himself to live with such a taste in his mouth for the rest of the day.

Above all else though, he figured that he found no regrets to be had in his actions.