It always started with him.

You’d be minding your business — genuinely — sitting cross-legged on the Burrow floor, playing Exploding Snap with Ron, Harry, and Hermione, trying not to burn your fingers, when he would pass behind you.

Not just walk by — pass. That slow, barely-there brush of his shoulder, the breath on your neck as he leaned in to grab something from the shelf behind you, acting like it was all an accident.

It wasn’t.

It never was.

Fred Weasley had been annoying you since your second year. Back when he and George used to enchant your ink bottles to scream when you opened them. Back when he called you “Ron’s little friend” with the same grin he used when throwing a Dungbomb into a corridor. Back when he once hexed your parchment to sing Celestina Warbeck during a Potions essay.

You’d hated him. Loathed him. He was arrogant, too tall, too loud, too charming for his own good. He always had some snarky comment ready, some joke that made Ron snort and you grit your teeth.

But then… things changed.

You got older. He got taller. The mischief didn’t stop, but the jokes shifted. Less mean. More pointed. His teasing took on new weight. A kind of focus. Like he wasn’t just being a pain for fun anymore.

And maybe—just maybe—you didn’t mind it as much as you used to.

You told yourself it was still hate. You told yourself it was just Fred being Fred. But then there were the nights at Hogwarts when he’d appear beside you in the corridor, walking with you like it was no big deal. Or the times he passed you a note during lunch, a dumb pun scribbled in messy ink. Or how, when you were studying for OWLs and stressed out of your mind, he’d left a chocolate frog on your bed with a note that just said, “Don’t explode. Yet.”

And now… here you were. Back at the Burrow. Summer heat, windows wide open, Molly’s baking in the air, and Fred bloody Weasley always two steps behind you.

That night, you couldn’t sleep.

Too much laughing. Too many stories. Too much Fred. His laugh at dinner, the way his eyes crinkled when you tripped on a garden gnome, how he sat back in his chair like he owned every room he walked into.

So you snuck downstairs for water.

Of course, he was already there.

Leaning against the counter in pajama pants and a too-tight t-shirt, like the universe had personally decided to test your self-control.

“Midnight cravings?” he asked without looking up from the biscuit he was munching.