None of the Slytherin girls were the sort to keep Potions ingredients lying around, and George seemed to think less of Millicent for it.
"But what if you need a Dreamless Sleep Potion at the last minute?" he asked.
"Why would I need a Dreamless Sleep Potion?" asked Millicent. "I like my dreams."
George smirked, raising one eyebrow at her in obvious innuendo. He was still sitting on the floor and leant forward to rest an elbow on his knee, as though moving toward Millicent when she spoke was the most natural thing in the world.
It had to stop. Millicent smiled at him. "I've been having all sorts of dreams about you," she purred.
He didn't recoil; only smiled back. "I don't blame you. I'm damn sexy."
Millicent laughed before cutting herself short. This wasn't how it was meant to go. She was meant to say terribly suggestive things and he was meant to crawl up the walls trying to get away. She was being suggestive, damn it. His mind should have broken and he should have been rocking back and forth under a bed somewhere.
It was clear that Millicent should have ignored George and waited until Fred was available for teasing. At least only Amortentia-Fred was hot. Amortentia-Fred also wore off to become Hilariously-Screaming-Normal-Fred. Normal-George didn't wear off; and now he was being sort of hot too.
"Do you keep spare Howlers around? We could send them to people on a prank," George suggested, curling Slug around his neck.
"Slytherins don't use Howlers," said Millicent.
"Right, not sophisticated enough for you lot."
"And also not useful," said Millicent. "If someone upsets us, we eviscerate them."
He grinned as though he approved. "Unfortunately eviscerating people on a prank isn't funny," he said. "So we'll have to think of something else."
"It sort of depends on which people you eviscerate," said Millicent.
George shrugged. "You choose a prank then," he said.
"I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we're trapped in my dorm. Pranking options are pretty non-existent."
"The problem is that you have no imagination," said George. "There's always a way."
"Sure," said Millicent. "I could send Slug through the air ducts and she could sneak attack unsuspecting Hufflepuffs and bite them repeatedly in the neck, but what's the point? I don't get to see it happening."
"Uh…I don't think that setting a snake on someone constitutes as a prank either. Especially if repeated neck biting is involved."
"Are you joking? That would be hilarious."
"Couldn't do it anyway," said George, curling Slug around his hand. "They might hurt Slugger."
"That's why you'd set her on Hufflepuffs," Millicent explained. "They have no defence mechanisms."
He laughed at her. "Alright. Pranks are out then. So what?"
Millicent chewed her lower lip. This whole thing was getting just a little too comfortable, but she didn't know what to do to reverse it. She sat up on the bed and glanced down at her hands – which were smeared with black. Millicent frowned, considered what she'd been doing the previous night and couldn't account for it. She looked at Tracey's sheets, which were as pristine white as they always were.
"Yeah," said George, ruefully as he got up and plonked himself back down on Tracey's bed. "Your mascara's a little smudged."
Millicent remembered that Pansy had attacked her with things that had felt like brushes while she'd been trying to sleep. "Hn," she said and stood up to sidle across to Daphne's mirror. 'A little smudged' was a euphemism. Mascara clogged Millicent's lashes and smeared across her top and bottom eyelids. One of her cheeks was done up in blush; Pansy must have run out of time to do the other. And her mouth was a hideous shade of red that made her look as though someone had cast a severing charm across her face.
"It's not smudged," Millicent told George, wiping her hands on Daphne's towel. "It's the smoky-eye look. That's what I was going for."
He nodded as though this was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
It was so unfair. Weasley should have been cowering in the corner and screaming like a banshee if she approached him. This made no sense.
Millicent went back to sit on Tracey's bed and held a hand out for Slug.
George unwound her from his neck and handed her over without protest. "No alcohol hidden around here?" he asked, reaching for a scroll on Tracey's dresser.
Millicent shook her head, as she curled Slug around her neck. The Slytherin girls weren't disciplined or stupid enough to keep alcohol in their dorm more than a night. Their parents would probably be able to talk the school out of an expulsion if they were caught, but a Slytherin would never live down the humiliation of being caught for something as banal as under-age drinking.
"Pity," said George, folding Tracey's parchment back and forth. "If you had Potions ingredients we'd be able to make a few doses of Demitto Dubium. It doesn't get you drunk, but it subdues inhibitions so sort of the same thing."
That was a whole new bizarre conversation that George should not have been having with Millicent. The last thing he should have wanted was to be around her with lowered inhibitions; unless he hoped that he'd be better able to dump her in that state.
"We could try something unconventional," George suggested, though he didn't sound sure about it.
Millicent perked up. She liked things that were out of the ordinary. "Like?" she prompted.
He shrugged, brow furrowed and concentrating a little too intensely on the scroll that he was folding. "Well, we barely know each other, do we? How about you tell me a random fact about yourself? And then I'll tell you something about myself."
This wasn't the sort of unconventional thing that Millicent liked; but they were stuck in a room together and would be for the foreseeable future. "Alright," she said. "What kind of random fact?"
George waved a hand as though he hadn't considered what information he wanted. That was very Gryffindor of him. Slytherins would be playing a game like this with far more cunning. "Anything. Whatever comes to mind."
George didn't have any information that Millicent wanted. Now that he was here though, she was curious. About his personality more than anything. She took a breath. "I will lie during this game," she said.
He spluttered indignantly. "That defeats the whole purpose. I'm not expecting you to spill your innermost secrets here."
Millicent smiled wryly and shrugged.
He huffed out an annoyed breath. "Fine. What's your random fact?"
"I just told you," said Millicent. "I will lie during this game."
He shook his head, a smile touching his mouth. "Bloody Slytherins. Alright, let's see. Uhm…mum used to check our room sometimes when we weren't there so Fred and I made a game of leaving incriminating things around. We scored points based on how mad she got."
"Things like used contraceptive charms?" asked Millicent.
"Please, we were only twelve. We pilfered a half bottle of Fire-Whiskey and let her find it though."
"That sounds like a terrible idea," said Millicent. "You would have been grounded for months. And what kind of dumb twelve year old wouldn't drink the Fire-Whiskey?"
George smiled at her, stretching out like a cat. "Well, obviously there's more to the story than that, but I've given you my fact. Your turn now."
Millicent stared at him. "You can't leave it there," she said.
"Watch me," said George. "Now, what's your fact?"
He was trying to draw her in and leave her wanting more information than he gave. Millicent wondered whether this was payback for her saying that she'd lie. Either way it was not to be borne. She pressed her lips together and considered what random fact would most upset the Weasley. "Okay, I've thought about this for a long time, and discussed it with most of my friends and we think it would be best to have sex after the ball."
His mouth fell open. "What? You..? You discussed this with your friends?"
"Such a romantic idea, don't you think?" cooed Millicent.
"Not really," said George. "What if I don't feel like it after the ball? Or you don't feel like it after the ball? It's not exactly spontaneous."
Millicent really didn't know what had gone wrong, but it was obvious that her prank was broken. If George was insisting on talking to her like she was a rational being and acting like his invitation to the ball had been real then there wasn't much she could do about it. She sighed and slumped back against the foot of Tracey's bed. "Your turn."
George ran his gaze across her. "You're not how I thought you'd be," he said, voice soft, and strangely content.
He was insane. She had been wearing clown make-up and trying to force him into a relationship every time she had seen him for the past week. He shouldn't have been looking at her like she'd surprised him – and like he approved. It was mental. Millicent wriggled uncomfortably. "How did you think I'd be?" she asked.
That made George smile; a quick, sharp curl of the mouth that made Millicent brace herself. "Your turn."
It killed Millicent that he was playing the game fairly without lying and was out-doing her when she had lies to fall back on. She lifted her chin. "I have a birthmark shaped like a butterfly."
"A butterfly?" George sounded deeply sceptical.
"Pink butterfly," said Millicent morosely. "Don't tell anyone."
"I call bullshit," said George. "There's no such thing as a butterfly-shaped birthmark."
"Seriously? Why would I make up something as horrible as a butterfly birthmark? That's something a Hufflepuff should get. I'm going to tattoo over it as soon as I legally can."
"Show me," said George.
Millicent sighed, but spun so that her legs were over the edge of the bed and began rolling the hem of her nightrobe up. George moved over to sit beside her, watching her curiously. The birthmark wasn't far up. It was on the side of her knee, no larger than a Galleon.
"Huh," said George, reaching out a hand. He brushed the rough pad of his thumb across the rose-tinted skin. "That really doesn't suit you."
"Tell me about it," said Millicent. "Butterflies are so…"
"Delicate?" suggested George.
"I was going for stupid, but same thing."
"I have the Orion constellation set into my freckles," said George.
"With the sheer number of freckles you have I'd be surprised if you didn't have all of the constellations set out somewhere," said Millicent.
"You're welcome to check." George's voice was languidly amused rather than suggestive so Millicent didn't scream in horror and rush to hide under her bed.
She smirked instead. "Nice try. Does that line work very often?"
George stared at her before snorting. "Precious, I don't need any lines. I just take off my shirt and do a little peck dance and the witches start lining up. Some wizards too, usually."
Laughter spluttered out of Millicent. There was nothing she could do about it, and when she tried to stop she ended up laughing so hard that her eyes started watering. Then George started taking his shirt off to show her the peck dance and she thought that she would never breathe again and would die of laughter.
She must have scared him too, because he stopped unbuttoning his shirt and reached out to stroke her hair. "It's okay. You should really – uh – breathe. Breathe, Mill." He was too close and when he ran his fingers through her tangled hair she wound up in the curve of his arms. That stopped her laughter when nothing else had, but now she was breathless for a whole other reason. He let her sag against him and she dragged in a ragged breath.
He sighed in relief, resting his chin on her head.
This had to stop. Millicent had never let a prank pull itself out of her control before, and she wasn't about to start now. She drew in another breath and George rubbed her shoulder soothingly.
Before she could freak herself out, Millicent turned in his arms and kissed him.
He froze, fingers going rigid on her shoulder and body tensing against her. Thank Merlin. He was going to flip the hell out and the prank would be back on track. Millicent grazed her teeth across his lower lip. He leaned into her, mouth opening to allow her access.
She almost lost herself to mindless panic but his hand curved to her face, the other one trailing along her spine. The boy knew how to kiss. Hell, the Weasley knew how to kiss. It was wrong and unnatural and Millicent would put an end to it…soon.
She nipped at the corner of his mouth and he made a soft sound – like a purr – that reverberated through her. She figured she'd give it a few more minutes.
There was a commotion outside the door and Millicent jerked away from George. He was wearing her scar-red lipstick and Millicent's first thought was that he looked adorable when she really should have thought that he looked stupid.
She pulled her wand and his eyes went wide. "Hey!"
She cast a cleansing charm before he could finish the thought. The lipstick vanished just as the dorm room door opened.
"Greengrass!" Pansy was wailing as though someone had cheated her cruelly.
"No! I'm not wearing lingerie to Hogsmeade, Pansy! It's snowing out." Daphne stalked across to her dresser, still dressed in her frothy nightie.
"I'd better go," said George. He didn't sound as though he regrated anything and Millicent wanted to strangle him for ruining a perfectly good prank. He turned to her. "I'll see you before the ball," he said, then tilted his head. "Pink corsage?"
Millicent licked her dry lips and nodded numbly. It was official; this prank was screwed.