George Weasley's hands are, like the rest of his visible body, profusely freckled. They start with uneven wrists, one bone sticking out too far because of a Bludger accident he refused to have treated for days. The palms are too long for his fingers, with a thick vein running through the outer side of the back of each. A tiny, thin tuft of ginger hair adorns the skin between joints. It makes him look like a wolf man if the right light hits the sprigs. The fingers themselves are thin and gangly, slightly bent from being wrapped around a bat.
That bat is currently busy, whacking away at the air above the Quidditch pitch. His wrists flick in solid arcs. The skin ripples, but the movement is only visible if one were to press her nose to his muscled forearms. His knuckles turn white when a hard hit comes close to tipping him from his broom. When he thinks no one is looking, the back of his hand becomes a tissue. At some points his hands whirl fast enough to blur the freckles.
The cloudy sky is a rush of wind past my ears.
"Did you just bloody hit me?" I yell. With a few quick tugs, my broom is again beneath me. The sky stops rushing past my face as I hang, unmoving, a hundred feet above the grass.
"Of course I hit the Bludger," he yells back. As he wheels around to face me again, his expression is so confused it's almost cute. The sweat pooling above his thick red eyebrows disappears as he wipes the back of his hand against his forehead. His palm looks red, the creases much too defined. The boy needs lotion. "It's my job."
"No, prick, you hit me," I say, pulling my broom up closer to him. His knee knocks against my thigh, the leather pads making an odd noise as they collide. His rough finger leaves a trail of goose pimples as it rubs against my cold skin, pushing a hunk of hair out of my eyes.
"You're not bleeding," he answers. His face is so close to mine that the freckles between his blue eyes are starting to blur. I gulp in a breath of freezing air that rakes down my throat.
"Weasley, Bell!" yells Wood. His voice echoes across the pitch from the goalposts, startling little Harry halfway off his broom. "Get back to what you're supposed to be doing, will you? Our game is tomorrow!"