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chapter twenty three | freddy, my love

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THE GOOD THING about the summer holidays was that you could do one thing throughout the whole day, if you really wanted to. And that was what Kaya did, after learning that the best way at coping with the loss of Cedric was to try and distract herself as much as she could.

So she threw herself into making up melodies on both her guitar and the family piano the Bennett's had downstairs, and even began writing little poems that could later be developed into songs. If she was going to actually start considering being a musician, then the best way to begin was practicing, right?

She wrote about many things - the Yule Ball, her friends... embarrassingly for her, Fred Weasley had many features - although, she had one rule about all her works, and that was the fact that nobody's name was mentioned. Ever. She saw it as a little game, to see if anyone could work out she was writing about them.

Although, if Fred ever worked out the many notes based off of him, Kaya might just die of embarrassment. She just had to make sure nobody got their hands on her notebook - that couldn't be too hard, though, she'd just put a spell on it so nobody could read it except her. Besides, all her writing needed some developing - it was all a bit shit, right now, she had to admit. But, practice makes perfect, and if she put in the work, she was sure she'd be able to succeed in making them all better.

Eventually, Kaya brought herself to write about Cedric. She thought it would be hard, but it was surprisingly quite easy - although it took many tries to get a structure, as her words had poured out like a waterfall into a river - they were messy and disjointed, and took up multiple pages before she could start fitting them all into a 'poem'.

She cried a little as she wrote about her friend, the stabbing pain in her heart resurfacing as she did so. Why had nobody ever said before that when it 'hurts' they never meant metaphorically? She'd always thought it was metaphorical, like a mental thing. She was so taken aback at learning how when you lose someone close to you it physically hurts, for real. She couldn't quite wrap her head around it. How can an emotional feeling cause such physical pain?

The girl was struggling to put lyrics like 'Take my pain' and 'everything's so heavy' into one. Perhaps she'd have to divide them into two different songs - she wasn't too sure, yet. Just getting her feelings down was what was important right now. She could develop it all when she was in a better state of mind and had more experience in writing these lyrics - because it wasn't easy, that's for sure.

However, she couldn't help but notice how comforting writing it all down was. Why had she never done this before?

One thing still playing on her mind was that she hadn't written back to Fred yet. He'd put his address under the letter so she could, if she wanted to. And the truth was, she did want to. She really did, but she had no idea what to say, or where to begin.

She'd set herself up, quill at the ready and stared down at the parchment for ages, but couldn't find any words to write down.

Kaya eventually forced herself to, because she knew Fred would be itching for a reply - even if he'd told her if she didn't want to she didn't have to.

She couldn't help but wonder how Cho Chang was doing. She never knew the girl, but to lose someone as close to you as your boyfriend, Kaya couldn't imagine the pain. If Fred had died, she wouldn't have-

Wait, what?

The girl froze for a second, the reasoning behind her thoughts sinking in, before she blinked a few times and her mouth dropped open a tiny bit.

Oh, shit.

Kaya hadn't really processed what had happened when Fred asked her to Hogsmeade, and by the time Cedric died, it had almost been forgotten. But it was now she was coming to the realisation that Fred had never been 'just taking the piss' like she'd told her friends. And, even if she had at first, she no longer saw him as 'just a friend'. Hell, she was even writing lyrics about him, that had to mean something.

She liked Fred Weasley.

Kaya really wished she'd figured this out after writing her letter back to him, because now she was even more baffled on what to write. She'd sat there for a good ten minutes before even writing his name.

Fred,

Thank you for writing, it was sweet of you. Obviously it's still a bit shit at the moment, but it'll get better. Being away from Hogwarts helps a lot more than I expected, actually. How are you all? How's your joke products coming along? I'd love to know,

Speak soon!

Your Kaya x

She chuckled to herself at the 'Your Kaya' part. She could picture Fred getting really confused and trying to work out what on earth it meant. She was a bit evil, but it was quite funny. Besides, it's not like she was leading him on - it was more or so her dropping hints.

Kaya didn't mention the return of Lord Voldemort because she was still trying to wrap her head around it herself. He was back. Harry had witnessed it himself - the dark wizard everyone had learned about, an extremely horrifying part of history had actually returned. It was all like a bad dream, and Kaya was so desperate to wake up from it.

She kept in touch with her friends, obviously, who were already arranging to meet up. Kaya already missed them, as much as she'd tell them how much she hated them. They were truly a massive part of her life, and she couldn't ever picture living without them.

If she was going to have to live through the return of Voldemort, she wouldn't want to do it with anyone else but Jae, Mais and Milo.

Kaya sent off her letter to Fred and then...

Cut her hair?

She wasn't really sure why she did it, it was quite random, truth be told. But she was going through all sorts of changes at the moment - why not change her hair up a bit, too?

Luckily, it turned out quite well and didn't end up to be one of those haircut disasters so many people have had. She actually quite liked it, at shoulder length.

Her mum had tidied it up a bit - she couldn't help herself, plus Kaya wasn't a star hairdresser, there had been a few chunks that could've been neater.

Cher wasn't too surprised, though. She'd always been told some people tend to cut their hair after a break up or a loss - and Kaya was trying her best to cope with the loss of her friend. It all made perfect sense. Plus, it wasn't a bad thing - she personally thought her daughter rocked the shoulder length hair.

Jaeden had gotten Kaya a book, identical to one he had, back in May for her birthday, of which they could both write in it and their words would appear in the other person's book. This was much more handy than having to write a letter and wait days later for a reply.

Kaya left her book open on her desk incase Jaeden ever started writing on it again.

The next couple weeks were spent meeting up with her friends and writing letters to Fred, and even George had some input, sometimes. Jaeden and Milo went to the chudley cannons game with the tickets Jaeden had gotten Milo for his previous birthday. Kaya had Maisie to sleep over for a girls night, and it helped quite a lot since they both were in the same boat when it came to the Cedric situation. Not to mention Maisie's excitement at seeing Kaya's new haircut - Jaeden was right, the girl pretty much did flip.

They'd watched many different muggle films, such as 'Dirty Dancing', 'The Breakfast Club', and of course, 'Grease'. Kaya had put on a mix of some of her a favourite muggle songs, and the two would dance around to muggle bands such as 'Take That', 'Pet Shop Boys', 'ABBA' and 'The Smiths' - some of which were a bit old, but Kaya loved them all the same. There was something about muggle music that contrasted to music from the wizarding world that Kaya just loved more. She wasn't sure what it was, but she was just a much bigger fan of the non-magic world of bands and singers. Maisie also shared that same love.

And then they put on the Grease soundtrack - when Kaya sang ever so passionately to 'Freddy My Love' and ended up admitting to Maisie she may or may not like the Weasley boy in a way that wasn't 'just friends'. The red-head had squealed extremely loudly and wrapped Kaya in a hug, the two falling back onto the floor as the brunette laughed.

It was around two in the morning when the girls started to get more tired and Cedric's death began to affect them again. They'd started to cry as they spoke, still explaining how much they missed him and just knowing he wasn't around anymore broke their hearts to pieces.

And then they fell asleep - sometimes getting it all out was better than keeping it all in.

As the summer holidays continued, the articles in the Daily Prophet seemed to get more and more brutal, stating how both Harry and Dumbledore were liars - Kaya didn't like reading these, and chose not to most of the time. It made her sick, and all she could think about was how Cedric had died and the Ministry didn't care - it did her mental health a lot more good to not read any of the newspapers. She really hoped Harry did the same.

And then, on a day where she was feeling particularly good (in comparison to those where she'd be in pieces over Cedric) she decided to write to her Fred Weasley and ask him if he wanted to meet up, considering they never got to after Voldemort decided to make a comeback and ruin their plans by killing her close friend.

He couldn't have replied any quicker.