I don't own Hellsing or Harry Potter, and I'm not making any money from this.
The next morning, Connie awoke to find four very worried looking boys huddled around her bed.
"What the bloody hell happened last night?" George demanded, looking upset and concerned all wrapped up into one.
"McGonagall told us you were down here, but wouldn't let us come until this morning." Fred added.
Ron and Harry exchanged a worried look. "What's with all the blood?" Harry asked. "It's all over your clothes!"
She was still half asleep, so it took her a minute to register what they were saying. She rubbed her eyes and pushed herself upright in bed. Mihnea wasn't there. Madam Pomfrey must have made him leave sometime after she fell asleep.
"The basilisk found us. I'm okay. None of the blood is mine." she told them. She glanced down at the stack of bloody clothes she'd changed out of the night before, then over at Hermione's bed. She didn't like the sight of her friend laying there frozen, so she looked away. "Ginny...?" she asked.
"She's fine." the twins said.
"We found her wandering around in the South Tower." Fred told her. "She's upstairs."
"Looked a little dazed and out of it." George said, still looking her over as if to make sure she was truly alright. "But she was okay otherwise."
That was good news at least. Connie turned her head and focused on Ron and Harry. "Where were you? We were trying to find you to tell you what it was..."
The two boys looked at each other. "We were down at Hagrid's when they came to arrest him." Harry said, looking around to make sure the medi-witch couldn't hear him. "Before Fudge took him away, he said something about following the spiders."
Ron made a face. "If Hagrid ever gets out of Azkaban, I'll kill him!" he hissed. "We followed them right into the middle of a nest of the bloody things. Talked to one as big as a bleeding house, and almost got eaten alive!"
Holy hell... So Mihnea hadn't been exaggerating the size of the spiders. "How did you get out?" she questioned, her eyes wide.
"The car rescued us."
Constance blinked. The car they had stolen from Ron's parents had come back to save them from giant spiders? God, could things around here get any weirder?
"Follow the bloody spiders." Ron kept on, still muttering to himself about it. "I hate spiders. Why can't it ever be follow the butterflies?"
Fred and George exchanged a look. "Since when are butterflies ever involved in bad things happening?" they asked.
"Blimey, I don't know!" their brother exclaimed. "But once, just once, it would be nice to not have to run off to have a conversation with something that wants to eat you!"
As Ron commenced arguing with his brothers about the nature of which animals were most likely to take part in terrifying events, Harry cleared his throat, looking nervous about something.
"The diary's gone missing." he told her.
"What?" she exclaimed, sitting up straighter to stare at him. "I thought you hid it somewhere! How did it go missing?"
The Weasleys stopped arguing and Ron looked over. "Someone broke into our room and trashed the place. It was a royal mess when we got back."
If the diary was the only thing that had been stolen, then someone must have thought it was awfully important. She had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with the Chamber and the basilisk, but couldn't be sure how the two were connected.
Being in class without Hermione there felt so unnatural. The two of them always sat together and always worked on homework together in their room or with the boys. Constance found herself going to the hospital wing to visit her every day. Harry and Ron would bring flowers every so often to put in a small vase on the table next to her bed. When the old ones began to fade and wither, new ones would be brought to replace them.
"How long do you think it'll be before they can make the potion?" Harry asked one afternoon during one of their visits.
Constance shook her head. She'd been badgering Professor Sprout about that to make sure she knew exactly when the required plants would be ready.
"Sprout says the mandrakes have another week or two to go before they're fully grown." she informed them. "They've just now started to sneak into each other's pots."
The boys went green in the face. "EWWW..."
That had been the girl's initial reaction as well. Those roots were ugly enough as it was without having to imagine them attempting to mate with each other. That was the sort of thought that would put one off of eating for a very long time. The consoling thing about that little piece of nastiness was that it wouldn't be very long before everyone would be fixed and back to normal.
Thankfully, there hadn't been any more attacks after Hermione. McGonagall, who was now acting as Headmistress with Dumbledore gone, had instituted a new rule that all students had to be escorted to and from classes and meals by a teacher. The moment classes were over, students were expected to return to their dormitories and remain there for the rest of the night. Their head of house was usually the one to act as a chaperone during their daily visits to the hospital wing. She knew all of them were good friends and didn't stand in the way of them checking up on her. However, this whole 'being locked up in the dorm' thing was quickly getting old. Once homework was finished, there was absolutely nothing to do up there. They couldn't even go outside to enjoy the sunshine and nice weather. Of course, Harry and Ron didn't let that stop them. Every afternoon, and stretching into the evening hours, there would be stretches of time where no one could account for where they were. They were probably out looking for more clues about where the damn Chamber could be and who had opened it. The only thing that kept Connie from going out with them was the promise she had made to her parents. Protecting herself when the basilisk attacked her and Hermione was one thing. After living through that, she had absolutely no desire to go out and risk encountering it again.
The one thing she could think of that would pass the time was to play cards. Fred usually spent his free time hanging out with Lee Jordan or chasing after various girls in their house, but George didn't mind the extra time spent with her. They couldn't really 'go out' to do anything, so teaching him how to play muggle card games was the next best thing to an actual date. After he mastered the game of gin rummy, Connie moved on to instructing him in the rules of poker. He immediately took a liking to it because it involved gambling. She'd figured as much.
"So I only increase the bet if I think my hand is better than yours?" he asked, peering at her over the top of his cards.
She nodded as she studied her own hand. "That, or you can do it to bluff your opponent into folding." out of the corner of her eye she saw him cock his head to the side, so she went on. "Sometimes, if you don't have a great hand, you can make a really high bet to trick the other players into thinking it's better than it is." she explained. "If someone thinks that they're going to lose, they'll fold and drop out of the game to keep from losing more money."
Of course, that sort of strategy was usually implemented in a game with several players as a way of weeding people out. Constance set two cards down and drew to replace them. She had a set of three sixes and was pretty sure it was a good hand. She placed 3 extra sickles in the middle of the table.
George met her bet, and raised it by two. "Do you want to come to my house over the summer?"
Connie paused in throwing out two more sickles. "You want me to come visit your house?" she asked, making sure she had heard him correctly. The question had come out of nowhere and it took her by surprise.
"That's usually what 'coming over to my house' means, isn't it?" he said teasingly. "Mom wants to meet you."
The girl blinked. "Oh my God, you've told your mother about me?" she asked. That was kind of scary. "What on earth have you said?"
He shrugged. "Just that you're pretty, you're really smart, and you like to beat me over the head with random objects."
He shot her a mischievous grin over his hand and Connie's mouth dropped open. "You did not!" she exclaimed, reaching across the table to pop him on the head with her cards.
"Ow! See? You hit me all the time!"
"Only when you deserve it, stupid." she shot back. "And quit whining. Being hit with playing cards does not hurt."
George made a face. "Oh yeah, I told her you were bossy too." he added.
Constance was absolutely horrified. At the rate this was going, he was going to have his parents thinking she was an overbearing, abusive psycho bitch or something.
"Bossy?" she asked. "I am not bossy!"
"Yes you are." he retorted. "You do it all the time." he raised his voice to a falsetto tone to mimic hers. "We're studying right after Quiddich, so don't be late, George. Don't you dare blow up a cauldron in potions today, George. If you lose any more points, I'm going to kick your arse, George."
The girl just kept staring at him. If he hadn't been acting so playful about it, she would have found it insulting. She crossed her arms over her chest and sniffed.
"I'm not that bad." she muttered.
"Oh really?" he asked, sitting back in his chair. He pulled out a small, pocket sized notebook and flipped it open. "See? It's right here. You were bossy no less than thirty-six times last week."
"You actually write it down?" she questioned, gaping. "What kind of freak keeps track of that?"
"This kind of freak, that's who." George replied, pointing to himself. The notebook was placed back into his pocket and he put his elbows on the table to rest his chin in his hands. "So, do you want to come?"
Connie turned her head to the side and stuck her nose up into the air. "I'll think about it."
The boy pouted. "Please? I'll make sure we have strawberries and everything."
She never should have told him about the damn strawberries. That was his way of coaxing her into doing things. Constance wasn't really sure what to think about this whole 'meeting the boyfriend's parents' thing. That had... implications attached to it. Mihnea's warning while she was in the hospital had gotten her thinking. Was this really what she wanted? The fact of the matter was that both of them were still young. She was thirteen, and George had just turned fifteen. Relationships at this age rarely turned out to be something that lasted forever. But... if she were truly honest with herself, she liked him. She liked him a lot. George Weasley was funny, smart, and seemed to know all the right things to say and do. Well, maybe he didn't say or do the right things all the time, but he did seem to know when she wasn't in the best of moods and could figure out exactly how to pull her out of it. It helped that he was actually good looking and could pull off being goofy without making himself look like a complete idiot. He listened and paid attention to her, didn't blow things she said off as being stupid, and he treated her with respect. Always playful and mischievous of course, but he never pushed things too far. Her father would like him, she decided. She could imagine the two of them getting into a debate about which explosive materials were better than others.
But no matter how much she liked him, she still felt torn about how close to get. Was it safe for her to get invested? And if it wasn't, would it be cruel to him to get attached then break things off? For now, their 'relationship' for lack of a better word was based entirely on fun. They enjoyed each other's company and got along well. Truthfully, it felt like they were just a small step up from being good friends. But if it got more serious than that... God, this was getting complicated very fast.
Across from her, George had set down his cards to study her. "Uh oh. You're doing that thing."
Connie blinked. "What thing?" she asked.
"That thinking thing." he replied, pointing at her. "You go all quiet and look like you're trying to figure out how to keep from getting caught in a trap or something."
The girl's brows knitted together. Did she really look that way? "I'm figuring out logistics." she told him.
One of George's eyebrows went up. "Uh huh." he said, sounding like he didn't believe the excuse. "You've got to be the most complicated person I've ever met. I can wait."
She blinked at him again. "Wait for what?"
"For you to clamming up as tight as a drum every time I try to get close to you."
Did she really do that? Constance knew that she was being cautious, but she hadn't thought about it looking like she was 'clamming up'.
"I... I'm sorry." she told him, not sure how to handle this sudden change in conversation. "I didn't realize I did that."
George shrugged. "I didn't think you did." he said. "And it's not a big deal. Just something I noticed." he paused, his expression changing slightly. "You don't have to come if you don't want to. It was just an offer."
Now that just made her feel worse. He was asking her to come visit him over the summer holiday, and he looked so crestfallen at the thought that she might not want to. Constance didn't like the sinking feeling that was beginning to curl up in the pit of her stomach. She did want to go to his house. It was just a really complicated situation. Her bottom lip found itself buried between her teeth. A complicated situation that she couldn't explain for the sake of making him feel better. She wasn't rejecting him, but he looked so down... but maybe it wasn't the best thing to do... but...
To hell with it. I deserve to have something for me. "I'll have to ask my parents." she told him, caving in. "I don't know what sort of plans they have for the summer. If they say it's alright, then I'll come."
It would be interesting to see what the Burrow looked like in person. Her owl had been there so many times, the idea of what it might be like prickled the imagination. With it being the home of a huge family, it was bound to be an fascinating place. And probably a bit chaotic if Fred and George made their home there. And it looked like her statement had just made George's day. His whole face brightened up and he gave her a wide smile that looked like happiness mixed with a tinge of relief.
"Awesome! Well, it's kind of small, but we're used to making room for lots of people so it shouldn't be a big deal." he began, going into a detailed description of his house. "There's the poltergeist in the attic that likes to bang around, but you get used to it after a while. And we've got this big garden outside with this pond that's full of frogs..."
It was both sweet and funny to witness this new excitement in him. She might have to get on her hands and knees to beg for it, but she was going to get this visit. It sounded like it was going to be fun.
A.N: I apologize for not updating the past couple of days. Last weekend was really busy. Enjoy!