Chapter Two

George regarded her with an inscrutable expression –leant against the doorframe, it appeared he had been watching her for some time. Briar met his hazel eyes –fogged by the plain exhaustion he felt –she quickly dropped her eyes, troubled over his concern. She turned her back to him, fumbling for her toothbrush as an excuse to busy her trembling hands.
The silence bounced, echoing against the tiled floor, and George made no move to leave his post at the doorway –she couldn't very well brush her teeth all evening. The sting of his eyes on her back grew heavy, Briar, determined, focused on the gold painted frame surrounding the mirror. The paint was wore from the exposure of the bulbs attached to the frame and had already begun to chip. She ought to re-paint it, Briar thought, furrowing her brows at the silver metal beginning to shine through-

"–Are you pregnant, Briar?" Foam dribbled from her mouth as she sputtered, gagging at the sudden rush of menthol which came with her sharp inhale. Briar keeled over the basin, her coughing complimented with a spattering of toothpaste into the sink. George met at her side in a second, patting her back uselessly as she drew gasping breaths. Wiping the foam from the corners of her lips, she drew up and turned on him.
"What- what the hell!? What gives you that notion, you –." She cut herself short as his eyes crinkled with laughter. He was teasing her. Briar made an indignant noise, scoffing as his laughter grew at her blatant intolerance for his teasing.
Without warning, Briar's arms curled around his waist, startling his laughter into subsiding –Briar wasn't one for open affection, preferring him to initiate most contact which she would only begrudgingly comply to. Although George wasn't one to deny her –his arms encircled her, pressing her cheek against him. Since the war's completion, he had taken to Molly's meals with more vigor than usual, leaving him softer and considerably less lanky. The conclusion of the war held the opposite effect on Briar, the thinness of her wrists was proof to the matter. A speckled hand flattened against the nape of her neck, his fingers nestling themselves among the loose strands of hair. Briar forced herself to take a calming breath, clenching shut her abnormally pale eyes.
"Briar..?" George spoke tentatively, which was quite unlike his usual self, "You're all right?"

Was she?

She turned her chin upwards, peering up into his freckled face –how many times had she attempted to count the speckles which dotted his face? The speckles which covered his arms, and spattered across his shoulders and his back? A million times perhaps, and maybe, a million times more.

"Yeah, I'm all right." As the lie burned on her lips, she burrowed her face against his chest, hiding her reddening face.

The days seemed to pass by much slower –not that Briar was beginning to make a habit of watching the clock. She had discarded the gold-plated watch which she had been given for her seventeenth birthday, and hid it away in a jewelry case which was carefully tucked beneath her bed, that, and her engagement ring.
George hadn't asked, but he had periodically glanced at her bare finger with a curious gaze –she had mumbled something about 'Not wanting to lose it before the wedding,' and his queries had been solved. Perhaps it was nerves? She was excited for the coming August, and often found herself grinning despite herself –not that she'd admit that to anyone.

Briar strolled the hallways of her large home hopelessly –there hadn't been much work as an Auror since the war's end, only a few ragtag groups of Death Eaters since then, but nothing her subordinates couldn't handle. All there was to do was paperwork –which she had completed an hour ago. George hadn't been home as much recently, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes was booming with business, and as a co-owner, George was required to be at Number 93, Diagon Alley, for the majority of its opening and closing times.
Briar halted at the mahogany staircase leading up to the third floor of her home, spotting a tiny cupboard beneath the stairwell hidden by an armour stand which had occupied the same spot all throughout her youth. She recalled the cupboard as being her favourite hiding spot long ago, due to the ventilation which led into her father's old office, it allowed her to listen in on her father's conversations. Briar paused for a second longer, before drawing the armour-clad stand forward just enough to allow her room to squeeze open the cupboard door just enough for her to clamber into the cupboard. The door slid shut behind her, leaving only tendrils of light which streamed through the slim openings of a vent to illuminate the cupboard. Dust had gathered over the years in which the cupboard had been shut up, in now caked the tops of age old boxes and her trunk from the years she spent travelling with her father, and was later used to store her supplies from her first year at Hogwarts.
Briar lay her head against the trunk, ignoring the sudden gust she caused which scattered the grime, leaving the air around her thick, and unbearable. She recalled her father, much younger than her last memory of him, laying amongst the cobble of his condemned childhood home, so broken and yet so peaceful.

"…rather unfortunate I'm afraid, I needed to take my daughter school shopping –her first year a Hogwarts, mind you I'd rather she'd be off to a rule-bound school like Beauxbatons –although she doesn't speak French, so that was out of the question. But yes, I'll come along…"

"…of course, certainly, Minister Bagnold."

"Until we speak again, Ma'am."

The man of question retracted his head from the fireplace –grey ashes powdering his unshaven face, clinging to the prickly hairs and giving the illusion of being aged twenty or more years. As he turned, his pleasant look fell at the sight of her standing there.

Resembling everything he was not, fair and delicate in appearance, similar to a daisy in the midst of spring. Her white-blonde hair was bundled into an ascot cap which he had brought home from his brief trip to Ireland, it did little to hide the disapproval on her face. Rurik considered his daughter briefly –she had certainly mastered that disapproving scowl, he wondered idly where she had adopted the behavior. Perhaps it was during their recent trip to Greece, and she'd been witness one-too-many public scoldings?

"Briar," he sighed, giving his head a shake to free the debris from his stark black hair. "Minister Bagnold was just discussing with me and I-""Can't take me shopping, I know," she interrupted, her tone placid. Her face fell into indifference, "it's okay, Rurik. I'll have Poppy take me."

She turned her back to him, all too aware of her father's falling face. It was a habit of hers to revert to calling him by his first name when she was displeased with him –it was something she had picked up from when a boss from the past of his scolded him –not that it was common when he was scolded.

"Oi, don't call me that," he scolded her back, "I'm your father, not a friend!"

"…yeah," she mumbled, pulling open a set of mahogany doors, and allowing them to swing shut behind her –nearly clipping her rear in the process. Although the impact of her actions was obliterated as Rurik yanked open the doors, a scowl marring his face.

"Now listen, Briar! You can't speak to me like that!" he shouted, towering over her –the contrast between the pair was outrageous, fair against dark. Her placid expression altered, thin lips tilting downwards to match his scowl, "I didn't say anything!"

Rurik's brows rose in obvious surprise –Briar rarely lashed out, Rurik prided himself on raising her to have a mild temperament, apparently that was not so.

Rurik ran a scarred hand through his hair, pulling the coarse strands from their short tress. He stared down at his seething daughter, desperately attempting to hide his knitting brows from her piercing gaze. So clearly blue, as though they pierced straight through him as though they were lightning, framed by sweeping white lashes which seemed utterly inhuman. So much like her mother.

"STOP IT! STOP IT RIGHT NOW!" she shouted, her face red with rage. "You stop it! Stop comparing me to her!"

"What'd you mean?" Rurik shot back in utter surprise.

"You always get that look on your face –that look whenever you're thinking of mum –sort of sad and puppyish –like –like –." She sputtered, floundering for words. "Like those strays we saw in Indonesia! Like you were being kicked by someone! JUST STOP IT!" Briar turned on her heel, running off around the corner of the hallway to one of her many hiding places throughout the ancient house.

"Mistress is right, Poppy thinks." A scraggly voice appeared from beside him, a house-elf, stooped slightly from age and just barely reaching his knee.

"Poppy," Rurik acknowledged her, eyeing the house-elf with mild dislike. The house-elf scrutinised him with great big, doe-like brown eyes. Poppy had been inherited along with the house, and served both Rurik and Briar faithfully –although admittedly, the house-elf and Rurik shared a mutual distaste for one another. Rurik assumed it was because he was not of the same blood as the original owners –having only married into the family. Unlike Rurik, Briar was heavily favoured by Poppy, thus often siding with her in the frequenting arguments as of late.

"Poppy, take care of Briar –make sure she gets her things too, please," he ordered loosely, rubbing his newest scar tenderly –gifted to him by an outraged hinkypunk which had refused to leave a muggle dwelling near Toluca Lake. Rurik sighed, and turned his stare down at the withered elf.

"As always, sir." Poppy quipped,, giving Rurik a final once-over, before disapparating with a crack.

It was a loud crack that woke her, Briar jerked awake, swivelling her sharply coloured eyes in either direction as panic surged up within her –remembering where she was, Briar's tension left her, her slim shoulders drooping in relief. She became vaguely aware that her name was being called from the first floor. Scrambling to a hunched stand, Briar slid open the cupboard door and shut it quickly before the dust could escape into the rest of the house –sneezing as she did.

Briar was greeted at the base of the stairs by a beaming Mrs Weasley –George stood a step behind her dressed in his magenta robe, glowering slightly at his feet and tenderly rubbing his reddened ear.

"Hello, Molly!" Briar greeted her with an enthusiastic hug –and Molly sputtered, coughing as she drew back and waved away the dust which had followed Briar. "H-Hello, dear. Where have you been? We've been calling you for ages and you're covered in filth!"

"Oh, I was er-"she hesitated, "napping in the spare bedroom, significantly quieter without the chatter from George's experiments which he's stuffed in the bedroom closet."

"They're important!" George exclaimed when his mother shot him an accusing glance.

"Well that's all very fine and dandy, but we've got preparations to make!" Molly's round face was red with her enthusiasm, and she began to shove George towards the stairs.

Briar stammered, "preparations!? Preparations for what? The wedding isn't for another two months!" Molly waved away Briar's bewilderment, and gave George a final shove. "A month and a half actually, it takes much more time than that to plan a wedding, so we're in a bit of a crunch –now go sharpen up you two, and Briar, dear, you've got a cobweb in your hair."

George and Briar shared an indignant expression, complying nonetheless for fear of agitating Molly further.