This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Word Count: 785

Title: Safe

Note: Post-war fic

Warnings: Angst, depression

Beta: lun 27

Golden Snitch

[Name] Crissie

[School] Uagadou

[House] Ogyinae

Late Night Scary Times: Part 2: write about remembering the ones someone has lost.

We Shall Remember: Write about the second war against Voldemort.

Hogwarts

Assignment 9: Childcare: Autism: Task #1 - Create a home-safety zone: Write about someone going to a special/private place when things feel too much.

Yearly:

Prompt 198 [Theme] Loneliness

They thought I was acting thoughtless. I was sitting in the great hall listening to headmistress McGonagall talking and didn't even feel the need to crack a joke. They didn't know how much it hurt. They couldn't possibly know. I lost my other half, and it feels like I would never be whole again. I was lost.

I couldn't wait until we got dismissed. I had borrowed Harry's cloak, I needed to go somewhere. I needed to be alone. I suppose I should be making peace with the fact that now I'd always be alone. Harry hadn't even asked me why I needed his invisibility cloak, even though I knew every passage in Hogwarts by heart.

I didn't want to use them, I didn't think I could cope with entering those dark caves and crevices without my sidekick by my side. I needed a place to think, but I knew so many of the passages were destroyed by them. I couldn't even think about them, I couldn't break down yet. My eyes roamed the hall, seeing students in various stages of unrest. I knew I wasn't the only one grieving a loss, but I had lost myself. They had only lost someone else.

I felt the Gryffindors' eyes on me, and then I realised the headmistress had said the name… his name…

I tried to grin, but it came out as a grimace. I just needed to get through her speech, and then I could let it all out. What was missing? Could everyone could see that I was only half of me?

I didn't need to run; I just draped the cloak over me and walked towards an odd safe-haven. The Quidditch locker rooms weren't a place most people would consider to hide away, but it was somewhere we had always come to feel alive. I walked over the grass, my eyes focused on reaching the pitch. Nothing else mattered.

I didn't hear the birds singing; I didn't see the parts of Hogwarts that had fallen apart. I couldn't cope with that right now, all I could think of was the gaping hole in my soul.

No, I wasn't being selfish seeking solace by the Quidditch pitch; I wasn't selfish for trying to find a place to be close to him. I looked in the dirty change room mirror, and saw nothing. The invisibility cloak seemed to reflect my empty feelings on the inside. I took the cloak off, holding it in my arms. I could only see half myself, and the cloak wasn't to blame, the war was. He was.

I saw half a Weasley stare back at me in the mirror, his pale face holding none of its mirth. Where was the other half of me? Where was Fred? How could I move on without him? I didn't believe it was possible.

I sat down in the changing rooms on a nearby bench, knowing nobody would think to look for me here. I saw the lockers. The red and gold doors—F Weasley, G Weasley… I carefully folded the cloak, placing it beside me in a daze.

And then, I stared at the locker. I opened the door, and inside lay a puking pasty, I reached towards it and sighed. It reminded me of a simpler time. The shop Harry was going to help us fund; our joke shop. I wasn't sure if I could ever make a joke again. I finally let the sobs wrench through my body. I hadn't allowed myself to before, but now it had all gotten to a critical point. I slammed the door shut, and then my first hit the locker door, I couldn't feel anything except numbness. There was no pain in my first that could overpower the heartbreak inside me.

"I don't know what I'll do without you," I spoke, choking on my feelings. I was holding the little cream coloured sweet. I was remembering once we tricked Ron into believing it would make him smarter, using him to test the batch. The only thing that calmed me was my surroundings. The red and gold locker doors that usually held our change of clothing. The area where the showers were, curtains of a golden material that covered the communal shower area. Nothing changed in here. In here I could pretend. In here I could pretend that he was still with me for a moment. We would be laughing and joking and giving Oliver a hard time for messing up and letting a goal through. We would be clapping Harry on the shoulder, hoisting him in the air after a victorious battle against the Snakes.

Perhaps, for a minute, I could imagine we were both still safe.