fred weasley fic based on spring into summer by lizzy mcalpine (sm angst pleaseeeeđ)
SPRING INTO SUMMER || F.W
pairing: fred weasley x reader
trope: slow-burn, friends to lovers, slight miscommunication
lyrics: â I'm always, forever, runnin' back to you (you, ooh) Runnin' back to you (ooh) Runnin' back to you â
a/n: THIS IS LONG!! but first day back at school was successful but I am TIRED
âHey,â Fred says, grinning, breathless, a smear of soot on his jaw like a misplaced thumbprint. âFancy meeting you in my hour of triumph.â
âYou mean your hour of detention,â you say, because ink still dries on the ceiling above the Transfiguration corridor declaring that âFLINCH CAN KISS BOTH CHEEKSâ. Itâs dripping, stubbornly, every time Filch tries to vanish it. The letters return, smell and all. Honestly, you canât stand the man that much either, so youâre not in a hurry to snitch.
âI prefer the heroâs cut,â he replies, striking a pose that would be very dramatic if a flobberworm didnât choose that moment to wriggle out of his pocket and flop to the floor.
âHeroic,â you deadpan. âYouâre shedding.â
Fred bends, scoops the poor thing up, and hands it back to a second-year trailing behind him like a small duck, eyes shining with the kind of adoration only Weasley-level chaos can inspire. âCheers, Tommy. Keep him away from the man. He will make you wash the entire trophy cabinet.â
The kid scurries off. Fredâs grin shrinks as he looks at you properly. Youâve known him long enough to watch that change: the way his mischief-sharp focus softens into something human when heâs with people he actually cares about. Itâs like standing in sunlight that suddenly remembers how to be gentle.
âYou all right?â he asks.
âIâve been better,â he says, and the corner of his mouth fights the truth. You see it anywayâthe burn snapped across his knuckles, raw like he grabbed something too brave. You reach for his hand without thinking, tug him into the shadow of a stairwell where the noise of the corridor blurs. His palm is warm. You donât look at the way your fingers slot against his; you look at the damage.
âYou canât keep using Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and then act surprised when the lantern explodes in your hand,â you chide, fishing a small vial of murtlap essence from your bag. Always prepared. Always the one who remembers that fun still bleeds.
He blinks. âIs this why I keep you around?â
âPlease. You keep me around because Iâm a better chaser than you are a beater.â
âLies,â he says, leaning back against the cool stone as you dab the ointment on. âAbsolute slander. Iâve half a mind to beat you.â
âYouâve got half a hand at the moment,â you say, glaring up at him. âHold still.â
He does. He always does when you ask. For someone whoâs been trouble since before he could walkâMolly Weasley likes to hold up a scorched baby blanket and sighâFred is good at listening when it matters. You donât say that aloud because it sounds too much like a compliment youâre not ready to own.
He flexes, winces, then smiles at you like youâve given him a sunrise. âBetter,â he says, and doesnât move away. Neither do you. Somewhere, Peeves begins composing a limerick about toads someone else shouts while the castle hums with late-spring impatience. You and Fred make a small pocket of quiet.
His eyes drop to your mouth, just for a heartbeat. It is so quick you convince yourself you imagined it. You release his hand first. You always do.
âTry not to blow anything else up,â you say.
âDetention,â he confirms. âWorth it.â His grin flickers back. âGreasy face when the
words reappeared. Iconic.â
You snort. âGo on, then. Make your escape.â
He spins away but thenâbecause heâs Fredâhe looks back. Thereâs that fraction of a second where he could say something true. He doesnât. He winks instead, a lazy throw of a coin youâll overthink to pieces later, and runs.
You tell yourself that your heart doesnât run, too.
Gryffindor throws a party after the Quidditch win that wasnât supposed to happen. You should be asleepâexams looming, stress moulting in the air like feathersâbut the common room is a storm of bodies and music, and you are twenty paces into a bad decision before you know it. Someone levitates a tray of pumpkin pasties like a halo. Someone else starts a chant and you nearly drown in itâso loud, so alive, so that you canât hear the small, cowardly parts of you that like quiet, that like him.
You escape to the roof. Youâre not supposed to be there, obviously. But thereâs a busted latch on a hatchway the twins found in second year, and the night is a long breath you didnât realise you needed.
A minute later, the hatch door scrapes again.
âThought I might find you here,â Fred says, hauling himself up, hair a mess like he lost a fight with it. He shrugs off his jumper and tosses it beside you, not quite a blanket, more of an offering. You sit shoulder to shoulder, pretending not to notice the way your body homes towards his like itâs been trained.
âCongratulations,â you say.
âWe had good support,â he says, as if you being in the stands somehow changed the way the wind moved. He tips his head back and looks at the stars like heâs trying to learn their names anew. âAll that noise,â he says after a while. âItâs good, but itâs notâŠeverything.â
You glance over. In this light, you can read him like a map youâve walked a hundred times. âWhatâs everything?â
âDepends on the day.â He swallows, throat working. âSometimes itâsâŠthis.â
âIllegal roofs?â you ask lightly, because jokes are safer than the place your pulse is going.
He huffs a laugh. âIllegal roofs. And being here with you.â It lands in the dark like a glass dropped on stoneâsoft, then shattering through you.
âFredââ you begin, but heâs already moving like heâll run. Like he always does when itâs too honest. His hands are braced on the tiles, ready to push up and away, when you catch his sleeve.
âStay,â you say, too fast to be anything but real.
You talk about nothing. About everything. About the way he and George want something beyond pranks and pointsâa shop, actually theirs, shelves and dreams and their mum pretending not to cry when sheâs proud. About how you donât know who youâre supposed to be when no one is watchingâwhen there isnât a test or a team or a catastrophe to fix. Your knee presses into his. Your names curl in the dark.
When the castle chimes midnight, he does it againâlooks at your mouth like heâs memorising a spell.
âItâs late,â you whisper, and that is not what you meant to say.
âYeah,â he says hoarsely. âLate.â
You donât kiss. A moth flutters itself silly against a lantern and you climb down first, because leaving before you can break feels like control. He waits until your feet hit stone. You donât look back.
Summer looks like the Burrow if you squint. The garden is a riot. The house leans like itâs listening. You werenât supposed to be thereâyou never are. But then Ron blurts something about âMum said invite some of your lot!â and you get swept up by the tide. Molly Weasley feeds you. Arthur asks you questions about Muggles you scarcely know how to answer. Ginny drags you to her room to show you a stack of cursed batteries she swears are plotting her demise.
He appears in the doorway like a secret. The afternoon tries to turn him to honey and fails; heâs still sharp, still himself. He whistles low. âLook who broke into my family.â
âShould I leave?â you tease, sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor while Molly performs alchemy with a stew pot.
He leans against the doorframe, watching you like heâs got time for it, all the time in the world. âStay.â
A storm breaks and you end up inside for hours, playing Gobstones with Ginny until sheâs bored of beating you, letting Arthur show you the names heâs given every plug in the house. The air thrums with the kind of contentment people write poems about. You donât write any, but you let yourself feel it. When Molly turns on the wireless and something old-fashioned spills out, you end up at the kitchen table, tapping your fingers to the beat.
Fred appears beside you as if conjured. âDance?â he asks, eyes bright with challenge that isnât really a challenge.
âYou dance?â you counter.
âAgainst better judgement.â
You go anyway, because saying no to him feels like refusing sunlight. He takes your hand. Itâs a ridiculous, lopsided sort of waltz around the kitchenâGinny throws a dish towel at you; Molly pretends to scold but her smile gives her away. Fredâs palm splay-warms at your waist, and you canât look anywhere but at him. He spins you once, a neat little circle that opens something in your chest that will never close again.
âThis is stupid,â you whisper, breathless.
âVery,â he agrees, mouth curved like itâs not stupid at all.
The song changes and so does the space between you. Heâs looking at you the way boys in stories look at the girls theyâre about to ruin or save. You should make a joke. You should drop his hand. Insteadâ
âWe could make it not stupid,â he says. Soft. So soft you wonder if youâre hearing it from inside your own head where he lives far too often.
âHow?â you ask, your voice doing that thing where it forgets how to be anything but honest.
âBy trying,â he says simply. âBy not pretending this isnâtââ He cuts off, jaw tight. You think you might be shaking. You think he might be, too.
George barrels into the kitchen with a bag of Fainting Fancies and a yell that could wake the dead. The moment explodes like a soap bubbleâwet, pretty, gone.
You donât talk about the almost. You help Molly with the washing up. Fred sneaks you a biscuit and a look that feels like a secret handshake you havenât learned yet.
When you go home, he writes you exactly one letter. Itâs two pages of rubbish and jokes and one sentence that isnât either:
I think the shop is not just a joke, and you are not justâwell. You know.
You do, and you donât. You tuck the letter under your pillow. You dream of shelves.
Back at Hogwarts, itâs autumn in a cruel, bright way. The lake goes dark at the edges like itâs thinking about freezing. You return to the noise, to classes that seem larger than your future. Fred returns like weather. He flirts with the girl from Hufflepuff with the glitter eyeshadow and he flirts with you without moving his mouth. You are deeply, profoundly annoyed by both.
Itâs not that heâs cruel. Heâs not. Heâs Fred, which means his attention is a warm flood and then itâs pulled away by the moon. He has a thousand people to bounce off and youâre one of them and you hate that it still matters.
So you decide to sabotage yourself with someone else. An older Ravenclaw who reads poetry like heâs the one who wrote it asks if you want to take a walk to the greenhouses, and you say yes because itâs better than sitting in the common room pretending the doorway might conjure a Weasley.
You and Fred become polite. Itâs excruciating.
In the corridors, you pass like ghosts who remember being alive.
âHi,â you say one Thursday, and it physically hurts.
âHi,â he says back, mouth smiling but not his eyes. âYou lookââ He stops. âYou look.â
âThanks,â you manage, furious with language for not helping. He nods and goes. You let the door close on the space you almost offered him. And then you think about him all through Herbology and hate yourself for it.
The problem with trying to outpace your heart is that you still live in your body. And your body knows what roofs feel like, and kitchens, and the shape of his name in your mouth. You break it off with the poetry boy because he doesnât deserve to be a weapon. You tell yourself you are fine.
He corners you after a Defense lesson where Umbridge smiled like a knife and tried to make you write sentences that ate your skin.
âWalk with me?â Fred asks. His voice is too careful. You should say no because you donât know how to be his friend without wanting to be everything else, too.
He takes you the long way around the lake, boots crunching the kind of leaves you think might break your heart if you let them. For a while, you donât speak. The quiet is weirdly not awkward. Itâs the old kind.
âAre we all right?â he asks at last, so blunt you almost laugh.
âWhy wouldnât we be?â
He kicks a stone into the water. âBecause Iâm an idiot,â he says promptly. âBecause I forget itâs not just me who has to live with my mess.â
You stop walking. âWhat mess?â
He throws his arms out. âThis!â he says. âMe. The noise. The part where I pretend Iâm notâŠnotââ
âNot what?â you press, because you are tired of the cliff-edge.
âNot absolutely useless at this,â he bursts. âAt you.â
There is a universe where you say: I know. Where you say me too. Where you say: try with me, then. But even now, even with him standing there telling you the truth, fear sits on your tongue like a coin you canât swallow.
âFred,â you say instead, and your voice cracks like a curse.
He takes a shuddering breath. He steps closer. He doesnât touch you. âI want the shop,â he says. âI want to make people laugh because most of this is rubbish and people deserve to breathe. And I wantââ He stops, shakes his head. âYou. I want you. But I donât know how to do it without breaking the parts of you that like quiet. Without breaking the parts of me that need the loud.â
Something inside you, small and stubborn and sixteen, starts to glow.
âMaybe we donât have to pick,â you say softly.
He looks like youâve just told him a secret about himself. He takes another step. The air feels like holding your breath for a miracle. He reaches up, thumb hovering near your cheekbone like heâs asking permission.
âOkay,â you whisper back.
He kisses you like a boy who has imagined it for months and still canât believe itâs happening. Itâs not fireworks. Itâs not even roof-quiet. Itâs something elseâsomething steady, like a door opening to a room you didnât know you had. You make a small, surprised sound at the back of your throat. He swallows it and smiles into your mouth. The lake goes on being a lake. The world doesnât blink. You are not struck by lightning. You are, however, new.
When you pull apart, youâre both grinning like idiots.
âHi,â he says, breathless.
âAgain?â he asks, already sheepish.
âObviously,â you say, because you will choose the loud if heâs the one on the other end of it.
Youâre halfway to kissing him again when Peeves drops a water balloon on both of you from nowhere and you shriek, drenched, and Fred laughs so hard he nearly falls into onto the ground.
It is stupid to think you can keep something lovely without the world sniffing it out. You are careful; you are not careful enough. George knows almost immediatelyâhe says nothing but gives you an obnoxious thumbs-up behind Fredâs back that you swat away. Ginny raises an eyebrow so high it could pass exams on its own. Ron remains aggressively oblivious, which is a mercy.
You and Fred find spaces. Library corners where Madam Pince is distracted by a cursed bookmark. Empty classrooms that smell like chalk and old spells. Once, disastrously, the stairwell to the Divination tower where a portrait clears his throat and informs you that your aura is âunhelpfully incandescent,â whatever that means. Mostly, it means this: you are learning each other in pieces.
He tells you about his fear that nothing he makes will matter. You tell him about the way you stand in front of mirrors and sometimes donât recognise the person who stares back. He kisses your temple like youâre breakable and your collarbone like you arenât. You learn the cadence of his laughter so well you can hear the crack forming a second before it does. He learns how to spot your spiral from the curve of your mouth.
It isnât perfect. It isnât even tidy. You argue about the twins skipping class to test fireworks. You argue about how many detentions one person can reasonably rack up without it meaning something else. You argue because you care and because this isnât a joke, and you both know it.
And then spring crowds in again. The castle gets restless. Magic prickles in your fingertips like youâve grown an extra sense for him. The twins start whispering in code about leavingâabout a blaze of glory that will make everything tremble and, maybe, create a space for something real.
âWhat if you go?â you ask, the night before an exam youâre pretending to study for. The common room is midnight-close, everyone at that strange hum of nerves. Fred is sprawled sideways in an armchair, one ankle hooked over the other, quill tapping a rhythm you know he thinks is subtle.
âWhat if I go?â he echoes. Heâs been circling it for weeks like a dragon around treasure. âWhat if I stay? What if we rot here trying to make sense of a system that writes detentions into childrenâs hands?â
âI know,â you say, and you do. You do. But wanting him to be brave and wanting him to be safe have never been the same thing, and you are greedy. âIâm not asking you not to. Iâm asking what happens to us.â
He sits up. The entire armchair squeaks a complaint. âUs,â he repeats, like a taste he wants to chase. âI want you to come,â he says, then winces. âNot outâMerlin, not to leave school. I meanâafter. Next summer. Weekends. When weâve got the place. I want you there. Youâreââ He touches his chest, frowns, as if the word is stuck. âYouâre home, a bit.â
Your breath evacuates your lungs with no intent to return. âYou canât say things like that,â you whisper.
âYou shouldnât unless youââ
âUnless I mean them?â he says, soft. âI mean them.â A beat. âI mean you.â
It would be ridiculous to cry. You do not cry. You stand and lean over the back of the chair and kiss him quick, like a stolen sweet. He catches your wrist, pulls you around, and kisses you not quick at all. The noise of the common room falls away. The world is a red armchair and his hands bracketing your face and the terrifying, breathtaking fact that you can want something this much and not die.
âWeâll figure it out,â he says against your mouth. âEven if weâre stupid.â
âWeâre very stupid,â you agree, smiling.
âSpeak for yourself.â
The day they go is a hymn you donât know the words to. The twins raise chaos like a flag. Fireworks split the sky indoors, gleeful, ungovernable. Umbridge runs like angry jam. Everyone laughs. Everyone roars. You want to laugh, too. You want to climb into Fredâs pocket and go where he does and you want to keep him tethered to a school heâs already outgrown. Both things can be true. Both things are.
He finds you in the corridor that looks over the courtyard, smoke curling past the windows like the castle is a dragon finally exhaling. Heâs electric, eyes bright with joy and something like terror.
âCome on,â he says, grabbing your hand. You go, feet pounding, until youâre outside, under a sky that claps with light. âWeâre doing it,â he says, almost shocked. âWeâre actually doing it.â
âI know,â you say, breathless for every reason at once.
He cups your face with both hands. âIâll write,â he says, childish and sincere.
âIâll send you the worst sweets for testing.â
âI will hex you if you do.â
He laughs, then swallows it, then leans in. The kiss is quick and fierce and tastes like smoke and sugar. âThis isnât running away from you,â he says, forehead pressed to yours. âThis is running toward.â
âI know.â You donât, not really, not yet. But you will.
George yells something about brooms and brilliance. The courtyard explodes with whistling rockets. Fred presses another kiss to your mouth like heâs memorising. âSpring into summer,â he says, half a joke, half a promise. âSee you home, lovely.â
You nod, even as your throat closes. âGo,â you manage.
He goes. He doesnât look backâhe canâtâso you look for both of you. You watch him rise on a broom with his brother at his shoulder like they were made to be a matched set. You watch two boys become something more. You watch the sky hold them and think, with a terror that is also love: I will always, forever, run back to you. Even if itâs only in my head, even if it breaks me. Especially if it saves us.
You wait. You study. You visit the joke shop before itâs properly a shop, just a half-painted space with boxes that might as well be promises. You stand in the doorway and he looks up from the counter, and itâs all thereârelief and rightness and the stupid, giddy rush of seeing your person where they belong.
âHi,â he says, softer than the first time he ever said it to you, like he re-learned the word.
âHi,â you say, stepping inside, letting the bell above the door announce you like it matters.
He vaults the counter. You do not pretend you donât know how his arms feel. He smells like sawdust and sugar and something that must be joy. He drags you across the room to show you a shelf where nothing is straight and everything is perfect.
âSee?â he says. âThis is the thing. I wanted it so badly I thought it would make me smaller when I got it. It didnât. It made more space forâŠother things.â
âFor us?â you hazard, bold because youâve earned it.
âFor us,â he says. He kisses your knuckles one by one like an idiot, like a prince, like a boy whoâs figured out that wanting and having are different muscles that can be trained together.
âFred,â you whisper, overwhelmed suddenly by how ordinary the moment is. A bell. A half-painted wall. A boy you chose who chose you back.
âDonât forget to send Molly a chair for fainting in when she comes in here and sees your shelves arenât level.â
He grins. âI love you,â he says.
You freeze. The words hang there like a dare. He goes redâtruly red, not just hair, not just jumper. He looks, briefly, like he might bolt.
âI didnât mean toââ he begins.
âI did,â you interrupt, eyes stinging. âI mean it, too.â You swallow. âI love you.â
He breathes out, a laugh tangled in it. âGood,â he says, shaking. âThatâsâgood.â
You kiss him against a box labeled PROTOTYPESâDO NOT OPEN, which you absolutely, definitely open with your back by accident, sending miniature fireworks skittering across the floor. You both yelp and you both laugh, and itâs ridiculous and loud and the happiest you have ever been.
Later, you sit cross-legged on the counter eating a pastry that George says was meant to be for âpaying customers, you parasites.â Fred leans against your knees and talks about signage and suppliers and the way success scares him almost as much as failure. You talk about exams and essays and the shape of the future, which looks less like a road and more like a city youâll learn together.
âWhat if we mess it up?â you ask into the comfortable hush.
âWe will,â he says cheerfully. âAnd then weâll fix it.â
âThen weâll try again.â He nudges your ankle with his thumb. âIâm very persistent, you know.â
âIâve noticed,â you say dryly.
âAlso, you keep running back to me.â
âYou keep giving me reasons.â
âGood.â He smiles, not the grin he gives the world but the smile he built for you. âStay. As long as you want.â
âI will,â you say. âAs long as youâll have me.â
âForever sounds like a laughably long time,â he says, eyes bright. âLetâs start with today.â
âToday,â you echo, and for once the word feels big enough.
Years later, the first shelf you helped him level still refuses to be, and Molly does faint, and Arthur names the register. You are not always kind to each other; you are not always brave; sometimes the loud drowns you and sometimes the quiet scares him. You fight in whispers. You make up with tea and a hand pressed to the back of a neck. You run away and then you run back, and each time you make a new path between you, some small, stubborn trail that refuses to be overgrown.
On another spring night that leans into summer, you climb onto the roof you shouldnât be on with the boy youâre allowed to kiss. He points at a star and tells you heâs named it something ridiculous. You shake your head and tell him the real name and kiss him anyway. He laughs into your mouth and you press your forehead to his and breathe like you didnât know how before.
âStill want me?â he asks, unnecessary.
âAlways,â you say, answering the question underneath the question. He nods like he knew but needed to hear it out loud. You keep giving each other that gift, over and overâa chorus you never tire of. You kiss him until the breeze changes, until the night smells like grass and hope and the first sweetness of summer fruit.
If your lives are a loopâspring into summer, summer into autumn, laughter into quiet into loud and back againâthen this is the part where you choose again, and again, and again. Where you stitch the days together with silly things and earnest ones. Where he is the boy who leaves and the boy who returns, and you are the girl who waits and the girl who walks toward him, and the two of you meet somewhere in the middle with armfuls of fireworks and a steady match.
He slides his fingers between yours and squeezes once.
âReady?â he asks, like thereâs anything to be ready for except the next morning.
âAlways,â you say, because some truths are supposed to repeat. Because you know youâll spend a ridiculous, laughably long time running back to each other and calling it home.
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