CRUSH CULTURE

♡

says Briar, looking across at Fred. Both of them are standing around, waiting for her grandpa to appear, so that Briar can hopefully try and talk some sense into him. She has visions of Harry competing in the tournament and she really doesn't want that to be the reality of it. Just because he's fought You-Know-Who doesn't mean he deserves to get thrown into danger every other day.

Fred shrugs. "I don't mind."

Briar smiles softly at him.

"Besides, after earlier..." he begins, trailing off.

"It's in the past now, yeah?" she says.

"I just wanna say," says Fred. They're leaning against the wall. He turns to her, and Briar doesn't know what's causing her to think it — whether it's the way that he's leaning closer to her, or the sheepish look on his face — but she can't help but think again, he looks so different... "I didn't really realise that you moved on from this place... Well. I didn't want you to." He pauses, trying to find the words. Briar's at a loss for words herself. She never thought he'd apologise like this. She thought they'd just move on and never speak about it again.

Briar frowns. "It's fine, Freddie..."

"No, I feel bad," he says. "Right, well, frankly, I didn't want you to move on from here, and move on from us — from our group of friends, I mean." Briar remembers what she said to Fleur this morning. She feels weird, letting him talk about this, because she already knows, she already gets it. "But I know that's shitty of me, and I'm sorry for being a dick."

"I know," she says.

"You know I'm a dick?"

"No, no!" she shakes her head, letting out a laugh. "No — I thought that was why you got weird earlier on."

"Really?" he says.

Briar shrugs. She smiles softly at him. "You forget, Freddie, how well I know you," she tells him.

Fred smiles back.

"You might wanna hide, though, when my grandpa appears," she tells him, completely switching the topic. The butterflies in her stomach stop fluttering.

Fred nods. "Thought so."

They wait around for a while. She tells him about Beauxbatons, this time in more detail; it's much less about the basic things, but more random stuff, like how she has Fine Arts last thing on a Friday, which means she's always late to get dinner. If anything she's glad they had that argument earlier, because at least now she can talk about Beauxbatons without worrying that he'll get upset about it.

Her inner eye tells her that her grandpa's about to appear, and Briar quickly tells Fred, who nods once and stands in the hallway, where her grandpa won't be able to spot him. She sees the door open, and her grandpa walk out of it.

"Grandpa!" she says quickly. He begins to walk towards her, but he doesn't look at her. "Grandpa — can you do anything, to stop them from making Harry compete? He's just a kid, it's the same as Livvy being forced to compete, he'll get killed, could you please—?"

He ignores her fully, walking straight past her.

Briar follows, and goes, "Grandpa, why aren't you listening?"

He still doesn't reply.

Briar goes silent. She watches her grandpa walk away, and she's in shock. She knows he's angry that she left, but he wouldn't ignore her, that's not who he is. He'd make a remark, he would always make a nasty comment if he was angry at someone. Why did he just ignore her? It makes no sense...

... And now, she can't even help Harry. She doesn't know what else to do. She was banking on her grandpa finally having a heart and doing something good, but that's out of the window, isn't it?

Fred walks back to her.

Briar sighs, smiling weakly. She can feel tears appear in her eyes, and she doesn't know why. Whether it's this whole ordeal, whether it's because the full moon last night, whether it's because she hasn't seen her grandfather in weeks and he treated her like she meant nothing to him... She doesn't know. "Well that didn't work, did it?" she says weakly, blinking away the tears.

"C'mere," he says quietly, pulling her into a hug.

♡

HOLLY CROSSES HER ARMS, leaning against the wall. As she waits, she pulls the diamond along the chain of her necklace, her brows furrowing. She hopes he won't be any longer — soon, her cousin will appear, wondering why she left...

Eventually she sees Potter walking towards the stairs, where she is.

"So you're the champion now," she says.

Potter looks at her oddly. "Why, are you going to make fun of me?"

Holly narrows her eyes for a second, before she shakes her head, raising her hands. "I'm not my cousin," she tells him. "I was only saying..." He nods, looking confused. "Because I was gonna offer to help you out..."

Potter's eyes widen.

"Why?"

Holly shrugs. "I would rather join the Dark Lord than let Karkaroff get any sort of victory," she tells him. "And... I like you. I think you could win this, and I wanna help." She pauses for a moment, before smiling weakly. "And I meant what I said, the other day. I don't like how my cousin treats you."

Potter still looks surprised. "What... do you have against Karkaroff?"

Holly thinks past the detentions she had to help out in, the last one where she finally refused. Her mind flashes back to her old teacher, to the way he hissed, Do you not have the stomach for this? And Holly swallows, trying to push the memory away.

"He isn't a nice man... I don't know about you, but I don't like it when headmasters turn their worship for the Dark Lord into the way they run their school," she says, plainly. Potter nods, brows still furrowed, but she shrugs. "I mean, you don't have to let me help you. I mean, it's not like I know all the dark magic known to wizards, not to mention I was the best member at Durmstrang's duelling club when I went there... It's fine if you don't want any help, I get it. I'll see you around, Potter..."

"Wait!" says Potter, and he holds onto her hand to stop her from walking away. Holly freezes for a second, before moving her hand away from his, feeling uncomfortable. "Do you really mean it? This isn't a joke?"

"I promise I'll help you out," says Holly. "Cross my heart."

She raises her little finger, smiling softly. And, after a moment's hesitation, Harry smiles back. "Deal."

Behind him, a white cat walks into the shadows, disappearing.

♡

BRIAR AND FRED GO TO THE KITCHENS afterwards. She sits at one of the tables with some chocolate cake, picking at it. She doesn't know what to say. She hasn't spoken properly in a few minutes — the last thing she said was "Chocolate, please," and then she sat down, and she went quiet. Fred's sitting opposite her. He hasn't spoken either, probably deciding that she needed some space. It doesn't feel awkward, but she does feel bad. It must be weird for him, to sit there and watch her, in silence, sadly stab at small pieces of the chocolate cake.

"What's the strangest dream you've ever had? Non-prophetic," says Fred suddenly. He perks up, too, sitting up straight and looking at her, a nice smile on his face.

Briar frowns. "What? Why?"

"I'm trying to take your mind off of your grandpa," says Fred, and he smirks at her. "Let me impress you with my charm, Bri..." Briar rolls her eyes. "What is it, then?"

Briar tries to think back. Most of her dreams nowadays are either visions or about the full moon, and she isn't telling him that last one especially.

"Uh..." she begins. "A pink weasel ran into the Whomping Willow and there was a little nightclub for woodland creatures inside of it."

"Interesting," says Fred, looking at her strangely. "OK, I'm sorry Briar, but how on earth did you dream that?"

Briar shrugs. She looks down at the chocolate cake. "Too much chocolate before bed," she tells him, a little smile appearing across her face. He smiles back at her, and Briar thinks to herself, wow. She doesn't know what to do with herself. That was so kind of him, bless him... "What about you?"

"Oh, no, I stop eating chocolate at strictly half-seven," says Fred.

Briar manages to find that funny, and she laughs.

She thinks it's sweet of him, trying to take her mind off of it. She looks across at him, thinking the same as she had done when they first reunited in the summer. He looks different. He does look different. He grew a bit, his awful smirk is a lot less devilish and more charming... And for some fucking reason, there's something about him now that's making her heart flutter. But she doesn't get it. He changed, sure, but not that much. How on earth, since not seeing him in a whole year, has she gone from, this is my best friend Freddie, who I tell everything to, to, I... am struggling with my feelings.

The thing is — she can't like him, not like that. Because what if something were to happen? She couldn't be with someone and them not know what she actually is. It would be wrong, in her eyes, to allow someone to kiss her, and to not know what they're actually kissing. She doesn't want her friends to find out. She doesn't want her friends to look at her differently, to be disgusted by her. She wants them to be in the dark about this, for the rest of their lives. They're never going to know. She won't allow them to.

So she doesn't know what to do. If anything this upsets her, because she doesn't know, she feels as if something romantic could happen — part of her feels as if she's always thought that, even if she never liked him that way until now — but it can't now. Briar won't do that to him, let him fall for a monster.

She can still be his friend, though.

"You didn't answer my question," says Briar. "What's your weirdest dream?"

Fred shakes his head, smiling back at her. "You know, I'm gonna save it for another time," he tells her. She gives him a look, and he's unphased by it. "Do you wanna, uh, talk about you grandpa...?"

Briar shakes her head. "I'm fine," she tells him, and already he gives her an odd look, not believing her, and she pulls a face. "I'm a little upset, but I'm fine, I don't want to talk about him... If anything I'm worried about Harry."

"Well, Dumbledore said no one was going to die, didn't he?" says Fred, sitting up straight. He sits forwards and his hand moves further along the table, closer to hers. For a second she thinks he's going to hold hers, and she's conflicted. She wants that, but she doesn't, she can't... Shit. "So Harry's going to be fine."

"But, Freddie..." she says, and she pauses. Technically speaking, she isn't supposed to share visions with others — people knowing messes it up. Like, what if someone specific was meant to die, and she told them, and then they avoided it? It would catch up to them eventually... Or the universe would take someone instead... There's always repercussions when you stop big things like that.

Fred frowns. "You had a vision?"

"I'm not supposed to say," she says.

"I won't tell anyone," he says. He takes hold of her hand. Her heart skips a beat, and she looks up at him. "You can tell me, Bri."

Briar frowns. She goes quiet, and she moves her hand away from his, letting them settle in her lap. In her mind, she's trying to think it through — as long as he doesn't stop it, it'll be fine... And the vision was vague anyway, it wasn't even much of a vision, just a response from her inner eye...

"You know earlier, when I said that if they were to let Harry compete, it would get someone killed?" she says. Fred nods. She can already see it on his face: he knows where this is going. "When I said that, my inner eye sort of... replied. Like it knew... Like it was affirming what I'd just said."

"Someone's going to—"

"They might," she says quickly. "The future isn't set in stone. And it wasn't a proper vision, so that must count for something... I'm just worried, that's all."

"It'll be fine," he tells her.

"I guess," she says. She smiles softly. "Thanks, Freddie."

Fred smiles back at Briar. "It's what I'm here for."

♡

IT'LL BE FINE, BRIAR REMINDS HERSELF as she walks into the hall the next morning. Everyone on the Hufflepuff table seems to be personally pissed off with Harry — Briar knows him enough to know for certain that he wouldn't have entered himself into the tournament. Why would he? He doesn't like fighting You-Know-Who, why would he willingly fight other creatures? Everyone at the start at that flurrying thought of maybe I should enter, but everyone thought that at some point, so does it even matter that Harry might've done, maybe, when it was first introduced?

Briar knows she has to sit with Fleur for the time being, at the section of the Ravenclaw table allocated for the Beauxbatons students. She doesn't mind, of course, she loves Fleur and she's going to support her over everyone else, but she still wants to make sure that Harry's OK. Their fathers were close friends, they've got the same godfather... She feels she has a sense of duty, to keep an eye on him.

So, at break, once she's finished her lesson with Madame Maxime in the carriage, she leaves to the courtyard, where she finds Harry. She smiles at him, and he looks relieved to see. Obviously, by the looks of the nasty stares from everyone around him, he's been having a shitty day.

"Hey," says Briar. "Are you, uh, doing all right?"

"Ron and I had an argument," he says.

"Oh," she says, frowning. "How come?"

"He thinks I put my own name in — which I didn't, but that's what he thinks," says Harry, already looking annoyed. Briar sees Fred, George, and Lee appear in the courtyard, far behind Harry, and she hopes they don't see her. She'd rather talk to Harry alone, because if they're here, too, they'll make jokes and such, and Briar really just wants to make sure Harry's OK. "And now the whole school hates me. Hufflepuff think I've stolen their glory, and obviously everyone else is on their side..."

Briar smiles weakly. "Ron will come to eventually," she tells him. She glances around at everyone looking at Harry oddly, and she forces herself to smile still. "And, look, the rest of the school might take some more time — but you know what? When the going gets tough, you've got to get tougher... Who cares that some second year doesn't like you? I know it'll be hard but ignore all of this, and focus on preparing yourself for the first task."

"Merlin, Briar, where'd you get this life advice from?" says Fred, sneaking up on her from behind. She flinches, her inner eye managing to miss a boy is about to appear from behind you in three, two... Fred pats Briar's shoulder, and she gives him a look. He's looking at Harry, though. "You'll be fine, mate. You'd dealt with worse."

"Not in front of the whole school," says Harry.

"You'll be fine," says Briar. "Do you want any help, though?"

"Thanks, but... Holly said she'd help—"

Fred's eyes widen. "What?"

Briar shrugs, and she smirks at Fred. "I didn't tell you about that vision I had, did I, Freddie?"

Harry frowns. "You've had a vision—?"

"I always do when I see someone important," says Briar. "Anyway. When did this happen?"

"Last night," he says.

Fred whistles. Briar nudges his side.

"She spoke to me after all of the teachers had a go at me," says Harry. Briar glances across at Fred, who's still got a massive grin across his face. "She said she's got something against Karkaroff...? But then she called Voldemort 'The Dark Lord' so I don't know..."

"She's a Malfoy, that's what her parents call him," says Briar.

Fred shrugs. "I guess you had nothing to worry about, did you Bri, because Harry's already managed to get his crush to help him out—"

Briar lets out a laugh.

"Girlfriend soon," says Briar.

"Then marriage," says Fred.

Briar adds, "Then the baby carriage—"

Harry doesn't look impressed.

"Do you know what you'll name your kids?"

"Will it be a big wedding? Or a small one?"

"What about the honeymoon?"

Briar frowns. "I'm sensing Hawaii?"

"Oh, that'll be really nice—"

"You know what — at least I'm not pining after someone when they're right next to me?" says Harry, suddenly.

Both Briar and Fred go quiet. Harry looks smug, as he walks away from the two of them. For a second Briar frowns to herself, and thinks, it can't be that obvious, and she moves to face Fred, crossing her arms.

"... Well that's weird," she says, avoiding looking up at him.

"He could've been talking about Ron and Hermione," says Fred.

Briar thinks that makes no sense, but she nods. "That makes sense," she says. "I mean, he's fallen out with Ron, hasn't he? So maybe because Hermione's split between them at the minute..."

"Good point, yeah," says Fred, nodding.

Briar feels awkward for the rest of break, even after George and Lee appear, and they start to talk to her about how Snape's gotten worse in the year she's been absent. Lee comments on how weird both her and Fred are acting, and quickly Fred tells him that Harry was being strange.

"Yeah," Briar had said, nodding. "No big deal."