The Amazing Thing About: Growth. Chapter five.

When her parents visited Eliza's mood brightened though they often didn't spend much time with her. They were typically passing news to the order and she wasn't allowed to attend those meetings. None of them were. While Eliza knew they would tell her if Connor had been seen she hated being left out. She felt like an afterthought when her mom and dad would only stay so long. It was just long enough to make her miss them when they left. They brought her gifts, things to occupy her time and mind with but they didn't fill the hole that they left.

Summers used to be so much fun. They would be filled with her friends and camping trips with her parents. Now they'd become something to dread. Spending time with the Weasley's was nice and getting to know some of the order was cool but how could it ever compare to the way things were? When her biggest concerns were how late she and her friends would be able to stay up and binge on snacks.

Eliza asked about Luke every time they came to check in. Her dad told her that he was doing better handling Alicia's 'passing' but he wasn't out of the woods yet. He told her that Luke asked about her all the time and asked if there was anything she'd like to give to him. Eliza couldn't think of something to give him other than a message. "Just tell him that I love him and I miss him. That things are gonna be okay."

When Dumbledore made a visit to the residence the place felt very claustrophobic. No one was allowed near the first floor while he was there, the meeting taking place of a very serious nature. Trying to keep Fred and George from spying was an impossible task but of course they'd been caught and gotten an earful from their mother. When she found the extendable ears she was a shrieking banshee and so many had been tossed out that the twins had to start hiding them.

Dumbledore looked very serious when they'd finally been allowed downstairs and when Eliza saw him she could tell he was dealing with something very heavy. It was in the way he walked and the lack of smiling. It wasn't often that she'd seen him so grave and even when he'd greeted her there was very little warmth to it. He did sit her down and they had a brief talk about how things were going with her side of things. He didn't appear very proud to see her progress in her wandless magic but Eliza told herself it was because his mind was somewhere else.

The headmaster was very withheld in answering any of her questions about how things would be at the school. With two deaths the year prior there had to be changes. Nothing would ever be the same after that no matter how much they all wanted to pretend otherwise. The subject of Cedric had only been brought up on two occasions and both times were full of downcast eyes and muttering.

Eliza wanted to believe Dumbledore when he told her that he was doing everything he could to keep her safe. That she would have someone to watch over her and that he was preparing that person. When Eliza asked him who it was supposed to be the man avoided her question and she told him she didn't want him forcing someone to follow her around. When he said that the person volunteered she'd been even more confused but he told her it was too soon to say anything. That her parents would have more information for her.

As time went on the members of the order came and went more and more often. It became hard to find someone to hang out with that didn't have red hair and freckles. She spent more time with Ginny when Tonks was away. Considering they were the only girls in the house other than Mrs. Weasley they bonded over being outnumbered and would often come up with ways to annoy the boys. It was easy to get caught up and go along with her infectious playful personality. Like when Ginny had convinced George that there was something in the shower and she was scared. When he went to check it out Eliza jump scared him before running from the room leaving him cursing at the top of his lungs. It was also a great way to relieve some pent-up frustration. Living with teenage boys for a couple of months could drive anyone insane.

Once Hermione joined them the three of them would often sit around just enjoying each other's company. It was tense at first, Hermione just as careful and on edge as the others were when she saw Eliza. It took a few days for her to get passed it while Eliza did her best to prove that she was alright. That she wasn't going to just burst into tears at every little thing.

Crying was something she did in private and very rarely. She'd developed a habit of just bottling everything up and letting it build until she could have a moment to herself. Those were hard to come by but she managed it well enough.

Hermione's arrival also provided its own sort of distraction as Eliza noticed the way she and Ron looked at one another. Little glances here and there and Eliza had seen it for the last couple of years growing. By now they should have made some progress on that front. When she asked Ron about it, though, he'd denied it until he was blue in the face. So she'd tried a different tactic and asked him if he wanted to learn something that might impress his classmates. She kept it vague but he jumped all over the chance to show that he knew something that they didn't.

He didn't make it easy though and the fiasco it caused made Eliza regret ever offering.

"Coward." Eliza muttered.

"I'm not!" Ron exclaimed. "It's strange is all. Do you do this kind of stuff with Fred and George?"

"I've thought about it but they'd just make a mess of it. Now come on. Just use your fingers. You really gotta get in there."

"Eliza this feels really weird." Ron groaned "Oh, it's wet."

"It's supposed to be. That's how you know it's good."

"And this is supposed to go in there?"

"If you're going to be such a baby about it I'll do it myself!"

"No! I'll do it."

"Why are you closing your eyes?"

"It's the only way I can do it!"

"Merlin! Not so rough! You'll damage it like that!"

"What does it matter? As long as I get it done!"

"Typical boy thinking."

"Fine. I'll do it your way." He took a deep breath.

"There you go. That's better. A little deeper. You're almost there."

Ron screamed as the door burst open and someone shouted "Locomotor Mortis!" which only caused Ron to scream again and hit the floor sending the jar of slugs crashing alongside him. He'd been so close, too! Hermione's face was a deep red, flushed as she stood in the doorway behind Fred and George, wands pointed. She couldn't tell who'd just jinxed their younger brother but she glared at them both.

"What is the matter with you?!" She yelled and whipped out her wand to reverse the curse. Ron scrambled to his feet away from the slugs on the floor. Eliza crouched and started scooping them all up. "Such a waste." She sighed. She turned to her kit and rummaged around for an extra jar. "I'm going to have to use these before they dry out."

When she turned to the twins again they had their wands at their side and were both trying very hard not to laugh.

"What's so funny?" She asked and Hermione turned on her heel and bolted down the hall. "What is going on?"

The twins lost it. Fred was bent over, wheezing while George was wiping a tear from his eye. Their faces were red as they laughed and George motioned between Eliza and Ron who was hiding somewhat behind her. "We thought.." He tried but he just couldn't stop laughing. "We thought you two were.." He doubled over and Eliza stared at them both thinking they'd lost their minds.

"Thought we were what?"

Fred was taking deep breaths and running his hand over his face as he tried to collect himself. Eliza looked at Ron as if he might have an idea of what they were going on about but he looked just as clueless as she felt. She wiped her hands on her pants and set them on her hips waiting for an explanation. George tried again and failed but Fred managed a few words. "We heard..And you two.." He wasn't making any sense.

Ginny poked her head in, her face a bit flushed. "Were they doing it?" She asked and the twins nearly collapsed on one another as they began to laugh anew.

"Doing wh- Ew!" Ron exclaimed and Eliza looked to him for an explanation. His face was screwed up in disgust and she looked around at all of them.

"If someone doesn't explain to me what's going on I'm gonna start hexing." Eliza threatened.

Ron shuddered. "They thought we were.." He cleared his throat and refused to look her in the eye before whispering in her ear. It had her jaw dropping open and she stuttered and stammered while the twins struggled to collect themselves.

"Take that as a 'no' then." Ginny said and shrugged before heading off.

Eliza stared after her, thoroughly disturbed, before throwing herself into the chair in front of the desk. She busied herself with her kit adjusting the burner and adding a few things to the small cauldron trying to keep her hands steady. "You two are just.." Eliza didn't have a word at that moment to properly describe them and stuck with "Idiots." How dare they turn her passion into something twisted and perverted?

Ron didn't seem to want to get too close to her when she told him to watch the cauldron and not to add the porcupine quills before removing the cauldron from the burner. "Don't be stupid. Ignore them." She said at his hesitance.

Fred was the first to calm down and he sat down on the bed heavily. When she turned to him with a glare he was struggling not to laugh again. "What? You were in here with the door closed." At the look she gave him he cracked a bit. "And something was wet." He was fighting a losing battle and was back to laughing but at least it wasn't the tear-jerking kind anymore.

"There was talk of fingers and things going deeper." George said as if that explained everything. "Anyone would have thought the same."

"Not if they had any brains." Eliza snapped. Poor Ron looked like he was going to be sick.

"Hermione was convinced."

"Ugh." Eliza wanted to slam her head against the wall and Ron nearly knocked the cauldron over on his way out of the room. With the tension between Ron and Hermione there was no question what he was off to do. "You two are foul." She muttered as she turned back to the cauldron.

"Well why were you two in here being all secretive?" Fred asked as he got up and checked out the kit.

Eliza slapped at his hand when he reached for one of the jars. "We weren't being secretive." She said but that wasn't entirely true. "At least not in the way you thought."

"Door was closed." George shrugged and joined them.

Eliza stirred the potion and put a lid on it before killing the burner. "People close doors sometimes. They are capable of that function. Sometimes people even knock on them instead of just bursting in." She said sitting back and crossing her arms.

"How were we supposed to know it was just a little potions lesson?" Fred was looking over the kit but was keeping his hands to himself. "Where'd you get this stuff anyway?"

She closed up the box of ingredients and locked it just in case he got the idea to mess around with anything and checked the clock on the wall. "It was a gift from my parents. They gave it to me on their last visit. Something to keep me occupied." She said. "And yeah, it was a lesson. Ron struggled a bit last year with potions. I think he wants to impress Hermione but he wouldn't say it. I just wanted to help."

"Here we thought there was something going on between them but it was just Saint Izzy trying to help our stupid little brother." George said leaning against the table and smirking at Fred.

"What were you showing him?" Fred asked lifting the lid on the cauldron and looking inside. He grimaced at the sight of it.

"Just a cure for boils." Eliza shrugged and ignored what George said completely. How they'd thought anything along the lines they had was beyond her. In what world would it make sense for her, with a murdered boyfriend and childhood friend, to be interested in getting down and dirty with anyone much less Ron Weasley?

"That's a sixth-year potion." Fred said with a pointed look.

"Right. And if he wanted to impress a certain book-smart girl knowing something a little advanced would be a good way to get her attention." She returned his look with a coy one of her own.

"You're devious." George prodded her shoulder with a grin and she felt something akin to pride before she stamped it down.

She was reminded that it technically wasn't allowed for Ron to be practicing potions outside of school. But as long as he wasn't doing the actual brewing it was a loophole. She'd just been having him handle the ingredients and quizzing him on the steps after all. And as far as the Hermione thing was concerned she was just trying to help out a friend. "I'm not."

George rolled his eyes at her denial. "It's a compliment."

"Being called 'devious' by the dynamic duo of destruction and chaos is not a compliment." She said and added a few notes in the margins of the textbook. She wouldn't be needing it anymore so she'd leave it with him to use. With all the notes she'd made in it the year prior he should have an easier time in class. At least she hoped he would. They weren't great notes, just little tips and tricks and answers to random quiz questions Snape had popped on them throughout the year.

"Dynamic duo of destruction and chaos?" Fred smirked.

"Bit of a mouthful but it's got a nice ring to it." George shrugged.

"The DDDC?"

"Too many D's" George shook his head.

"If you think about it there are three D's and one C if you count Lee." Fred said.

"Clever."

Eliza felt her eyebrow twitch and she took the cauldron off the burner. "Are you calling me a cu-"

Fred slapped a hand over her mouth with a nervous laugh. "Chaos. You're the chaos. Obviously, Iz. Mind out the gutter."

She took him by the wrist and pulled his hand away with a flat stare. "That's what I thought. Just needed some clarification." She said narrowing her gaze at him. She set the cauldron to the side and packed the burner away while the two muttered to each other. She added in the porcupine needles and then left the potion out for Ron so he could see the finished product. "And we'd been so close to finishing too.." She sighed. "Shame." She finished putting away her things and took them from the room.

Hermione looked embarrassed at dinner and Eliza wondered how her conversation with Ron went. From the way they weren't making eye contact it was hard to tell. That could have been from a very good talk or a really really bad one. Table talk focused on how Harry had been attacked by a dementor with his cousin which sucked the fun right out of the room. There were talks about him being expelled and for the rest of the meal that was all Eliza could think about.

Eliza, Ginny, and Hermione hung out in the sitting room that night. When Ron brought her cauldron down there was a definite awkwardness in the room as she asked him if he thought he could do it on his own without her help. With a nervous glance around he shrugged and said he'd rather practice with her a bit more. When he started the potion over Eliza told him he could do it a few times if he needed to. She had slugs to get rid of after all. He asked what other potions had the slugs in them and Hermione, ever the fountain of knowledge, began listing them off.

She moved over as Hermione joined Ron on the couch and Eliza sat in front of Ginny's chair. It was kind of perfect. Hermione, interested in the fact that he was trying to learn something new over the break, had pulled the book from him and was going over the notes in the margins with him. She'd occasionally ask Eliza about one of them but for the most part, they were sucked into their own world, the cauldron forgotten.

Eliza and Ginny talked quietly as Ginny began braiding her hair. "Nicely done." The girl whispered but Eliza shook her head.

"I didn't do anything."

Ginny giggled and tugged on her hair. "You gave them something to do together."

Eliza smiled to herself. Hermione was sitting very close to Ron and the book was shared on their legs. Ron was asking her questions and some of them sounded intentionally stupid as if he only wanted her to keep talking or to make her laugh. "Pretty sure they don't lack in that department. They just need a push." They shared a laugh that caused Ron and Hermione to look their way.

"What are you talking about?" Ron asked.

Eliza felt her lips twitching into a smirk and she fought it. "Chemistry." She said. Ginny flicked her in the back and Eliza cleared her throat motioning to the kit. "The way the ingredients work together. It fascinates me. I'm just glad to see other people enjoying it." She recovered quickly. When the two returned to what they were talking about Eliza sat her hand on her shoulder palm up and Ginny slapped it.

"Smooth."

Eliza watched Hermione and Ron get along for the next couple of days. For once she was in a gambling mood and she and Ginny made a bet that it would be the year that the two finally got together. Ginny bet against them saying there was no way that Ron wouldn't mess that up somehow. It became a game between the two girls. While cleaning the house up Eliza would often try to get them in the same room while Ginny would try to separate them. Meanwhile, Fred and George were watching it all transpire with mild interest and she had a feeling they had a bet of their own.