Bookcozy: Remus is also one of my favorites! The fact that JKR killed him off kills me on the inside. Not nearly as much as the fact that she killed Fred (I sort of pretend that she didn't with Fred though), but a very close second. As for Nessa and George, I won't give anything away, but I do have a specific picture for how Nessa and George will eventually get together. It could change a little (because this chapter changed a bit without my consent LOL), but overall that picture is pretty solid. Nessa does have a very specific personality of being more mature for her age, so I do try to keep her coping mechanisms on the healthier, more rational side. But she is still young, so she'll make mistakes too.
2103: Thank you for the review! Yes, George is being an ass LOL. I have a love/hate relationship with him right now. Nessa has got some fire in her though, so she'll come through once she works out how she feels. This year will be rough on her, but she's a fighter. Enjoy this chapter and we'll be seeing more of Cedric very soon ;). In what capacity, I shall keep to myself.
RoonieTunes: Thank you for reviewing! George and Alicia are a bit chaotic, but he does certainly pull through a little for Nessa in this chapter. Sometimes I want to hug him, sometimes I want to throttle him. It's all about balance.
Chapter Eight
The month of October was flying by despite her negative feelings. Tori, the twins, and Harry were busy with Quidditch practice most nights. She had been right to assume that Oliver Wood would be intense about the upcoming season. They had been practicing most nights after classes, something which Nessa was slightly irritated about because it did not, in fact, affect their running schedule. Even if she was hating the time a little less, it would have been nice to get out of the runs on Tuesday mornings.
On the good side though, she didn't have to see as much of Alicia. By the time they got back from practices, they were too exhausted to do much of anything, which included spending a ton of time together with her. She couldn't really tell if she was relieved by this or sad. She wasn't very good at teasing her emotions apart. Or expressing them out loud to others. So, instead, she continued avoiding the issue altogether. Which included avoiding George as well. They hadn't spoken to each other in weeks except in passing and he'd been avoiding the group altogether if she were there.
Tori and Fred did not enjoy this approach.
"You have to say something to him, Nessa," said Tori after a particularly grueling practice. "He's got his head so far up his arse, I'm surprised he can't see his intestines."
"That's a very disturbing image," said Nessa with a smirk.
Fred huffed.
"Don't change the subject," he griped. "She's serious. Frankly, I'd have hit him with a Bludger on purpose except Wood would have had a conniption if we lost a Beater before the game."
Nessa rolled her eyes.
"I wish Harry and I loved each other as much as you love George, Fred," she said sarcastically. "And why is this my job? If you don't like him with Alicia, then why can't the two of you talk to him?"
Tori huffed and grabbed the hair on either side of her head as if she was praying for a reason to rip it out.
"We have tried that, Vanessa," she said in irritation. "And the issue isn't that we don't like him with Alicia —"
"- it's more the fact that ignoring you is making our lives extremely uncomfortable." finished Fred. "I told him to quit being a bloody arse, but he didn't listen to anything I said."
Nessa stared at him incredulously.
"Why would you think he would if you're insulting him?"
"Nessa, Alicia has gone off the deep end —" began Tori seriously.
"Don't talk about her like that, Victoria," said Nessa firmly.
Fred threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.
"Are you kidding? She says far worse things about you. It's very annoying when you're trying to work on products and she won't stop trying to convince George that you're a homewrecker."
Nessa spluttered and shot up from her position on Fred's bed. Tori and Fred were pacing back and forth in front of her. She found the show of solidarity between the two of them to be a little odd, considering they were typically bickering at each other. It was a true testament to their irritation with George that they were not.
"A homewrecker?" she said indignantly. "How could I be a homewrecker? I haven't talked to him in weeks!"
Tori rolled her eyes.
"That's the point, Vanessa! You haven't talked to him in weeks. Alicia is clearly just…insecure about your relationship."
"We're friends."
Fred and Tori made brief eye contact and rolled their eyes at each other. Nessa huffed and crossed her arms across her chest. The two of them had begun sharing those stupid, knowing looks with each other any time the topic of her and George came up.
She truly did not understand their insistence that there was something more between them. Sure, he'd always been sweet to her. He'd talked her down from panic attacks and comforted her when they were being surrounded by Acromantulas. He'd defended her to Malfoy and didn't like the idea of her and Cedric, but all of those things were easily explained by the fact that they were friends. The fact that he was dating Alicia did not seem to matter to Fred and Tori as much as it did her. Even though the implication of dating someone else seemed clear as day to her.
"Look, we can argue about you being friends until we're blue in the face —" said Tori dismissively.
"Feels like we already have," Fred grumbled.
"-but the point is, the two of you are avoiding the larger issue here."
"Which is?" Nessa said hesitantly.
"That you're letting a relationship dictate your friendship," said Tori firmly. "What are the two of you going to do? Continue to avoid each other? I mean, I understand that you have a hard time seeing him with her. And George doesn't want to upset Alicia. All well and good. Except this is not working. You look miserable. George is stressing himself out —"
"-and pissing me off," said Fred.
"-and if Alicia says one more thing about you, I'm likely to end up kicked off the team. Or in detention. Or both." She paused for a moment in consideration. "Or maybe expelled?"
Fred grinned at her.
"I'll help. Maybe if we get expelled, George will take us more seriously."
"That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard," Nessa said immediately before the two of them could start hatching some ridiculous idea to prove a point to George. "Look, you two. Alicia has a problem with me. She's his girlfriend. I'm sorry that this is hard on the both of you, but I don't want to cause any unnecessary issues between them."
"Nessa, for Merlin's sake, you didn't even do anything!" said Tori angrily. "You comforted each other on the train, you weren't caught snogging!"
"This isn't our problem to handle," said Nessa firmly. "Clearly, George needs to have a more serious conversation with her about whatever is bothering her. It's not mine — or your — job to fix the problem he's made for himself. And I'd say I agree that she has nothing to be worried about, but I think it's pretty clear how I feel about him. I don't think her feelings are totally invalid."
Fred stared at her incredulously.
"What difference does it make how you feel about him if you aren't doing anything about it?" he said.
"So, you would be okay with your girlfriend hanging around a bloke who fancied her?" said Nessa with a raised brow.
"I've never had a girlfriend," he said with an eye roll. "After this ordeal, I think I'll stick to shagging and moving on."
"Seconded." said Tori.
"That's really more than I needed to know," said Nessa. "This is George's problem. Not mine. I'm not going to beg him to be my friend. If he can so easily cut me out of his life then perhaps he doesn't deserve to be in mine."
Tori stared at Fred with a mixture of sadness, anger, and desperation. Nessa felt a little bad for the two of them. They were both clearly caught in the middle of the entire debacle and under any other circumstances, she'd have wanted to make this easier on them. Except she was already having a hard enough time working out the situation herself without throwing their feelings into the mix as well.
She may have been largely ignoring the issue, but she was more than a little hurt that George had so completely managed to extricate himself from their friendship. Fred and Tori insisted it was taking a toll on him as much as it was her, but she didn't see much difference. He smiled sadly at her whenever they passed in the corridors and they acted the same as usual if they were ever with their group of friends at the same time, but they hardly spoke otherwise. Even in group settings, Nessa had taken to ignoring him completely unless he spoke directly to her.
The entire thing was stupid. Just the thought of it all made her want to strangle him or Alicia or both. She was not accustomed to losing friends (she'd never really had any) and the pain felt almost as bad as when she thought about her parents. Which, of course, made her feel stupid because George was a dunce, not dead.
A part of her hoped he would care enough to tell Alicia to get over her feelings about their friendship. Another part of her hoped he wouldn't because she wasn't sure she wanted to forgive him at this point. Choosing anything over her friends was something she didn't truly understand herself. A part of her was so angry with him at this point, she wondered how she could even still fancy him at all. The anger alone should have burned up the stupid butterflies by now. Sometimes she wished it would have.
"This sucks," said Tori, flopping unceremoniously onto Fred's bed. "How can someone be so unbelievably stupid?"
Fred snorted.
"He'll do something about it eventually. Personally, I'm just trying to figure out what he's getting from the whole thing. Well, you know, aside from the —"
"Fredrick, if you say shagging one more time, I will hex your nose off of your face," said Nessa in irritation.
She was growing increasingly irritated by the talk of George and Alicia's extracurricular activities. Or Fred's. Or Tori's.
He smirked at her.
"No need to sound so frustrated, darling," he said cheekily. "Maybe you just need a good snog, you know? I can help with that."
Nessa rolled her eyes and threw a pillow at his head.
"Stop hitting on me, Fred," she said in mock-irritation. "And I don't need a good snog."
Tori snorted and sat up to give her a serious look.
"Please, Vanessa," she said seriously. "You could absolutely use a good snog. For one thing, it would be a nice distraction from your current pining —"
"-and for another, you're about as uptight as Hermione is these days." finished Fred with an eye roll.
Nessa huffed at the both of them. The two of them had been closer these days — less arguing, more finishing each other's sentences, nearly inseparable as a whole. They agreed with each other more often too which wouldn't have been so irritating except they seemed to agree most on things that involved her love life. She really needed to get better friends.
Before she could tell the both of them to shove off, the door to the dormitory opened and George entered with a giggling Alicia. He froze immediately at the sight of them on Fred's foreposter. Nessa tensed and tried to look at anything other than the two of them holding hands, but she couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from it.
"What's she doing here?"
Nessa jerked her eyes away from their hands at the sound of Alicia's irritated voice.
"Clearly waiting up here to snog George," said Tori sarcastically. Nessa's head shot toward her in alarm. "What's it look like she's doing? She's hanging out with her friends."
"You should get better friends," Alicia said to Tori.
"Listen, bit—"
"Victoria!" said Nessa, grabbing onto the sleeve of her robe and pulling her back down to the bed. "Knock it off. I can leave if it's this much of an issue."
"No," said Fred, looking his twin dead in the eye with a cocked brow. "You can stay. George and Alicia are free to find somewhere else to go, if they'd like. Alicia is the one with the issue, so she can be the one to leave."
Alicia gaped at him, looking stunned at this response. Nessa couldn't blame her. Fred had clearly been irritated about George's reluctance to take a stand against Alicia, but he'd never made those feelings overtly obvious to Alicia. She was stuck between feeling horribly awkward at the situation and warm because Fred was standing up for her.
Nessa stared between Fred and George, trying to determine which of them would back down. They were both equally stubborn, but George was looking more anguished than angry. This only served to anger Vanessa even more because it was a clear indication that he knew he was doing something that would hurt his friends.
George was the one who broke. He looked away from them and whispered something to Alicia that seemed to enrage her. She took off down the stairs without another word to him. George sighed heavily, but didn't follow. He turned to look at them again, his eyes landing on Nessa. She wanted to say something that would make this entire thing less painfully awkward. She wanted to say something that would erase the entire thing and return their friendship back to normal. She wanted the stupid butterflies in her stomach to go away.
"This is horribly awkward," Tori whispered to Fred. "I'm surprised Nessa's not laughing yet."
"Maybe she's forgotten how to talk," he whispered back. "She looks like she might have swallowed one of our Puking Pastilles."
"I can hear you!" said Nessa indignantly to the two of them. The two of them grinned at her rather than looking ashamed of themselves. "And you don't see me telling people you look like a troll with Spattergroit!"
"OI!" said Fred indignantly as Tori was sent into peals of laughter. "Take that back!"
Nessa raised an eyebrow at him.
"I'm not taking anything back, Fred Weasley," she said primly. "Truth hurts. Now if you'll excuse me, I've had enough insanity for the day."
"I'll go down with you."
Nessa hesitated at the sound of George's voice and looked at Fred and Tori in a panic. The two of them simply stared back at her with grins on their faces. Fred stretched out on his bed casually, resting his hands behind his head and letting a smug-looking Tori curl into his side with the Witch Weekly magazine she kept on his nightstand for when she escaped to his dorm to avoid her problems.
Nessa was very certain that she wasn't even reading it because her shoulders were shaking a little as she tried to hold in her laugh.
She hated them both.
"Traitors," she muttered to the both of them, as she snatched her bag off the floor and made her way to the exit.
It was her own fault, really, for trying to escape the room without having the hard conversation. Maybe she could come up with an excuse to avoid talking to him. She should have asked Fred for an actual Puking Pastille. Nevermind the fact that she had no idea what that was or if they'd perfected it. Given that he hadn't mentioned it before, she was going to go with no.
George didn't say anything to her at all as they walked down the stairs. It was as horribly awkward as it had been in their dormitory. God, what had happened to her life?
She made to race away from him the moment she reached the common room, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to a stop. She tried to pretend like she wasn't trying to avoid him or this conversation. She had a very strong suspicion it wasn't going to get any better.
"Look, I — er — well, I wanted to talk to you," he said awkwardly, looking anywhere but at her. Nessa busied herself with thinking about how she'd never seen him look so awkward before. It was sort of satisfying.
"George, there's nothing to say," she said quietly, pulling her wrist from his hold and taking a step back from him. She really did not want to hear whatever excuse he was going to make for choosing his girlfriend over her. She also did not really want to get into the emotional implications of that decision. "Alicia doesn't like me. She's your girlfriend. That's all there is to it. I'd really rather not get into your decision to choose her over me."
George flinched, but still refused to look at her.
"I didn't mean — I mean, I don't want to choose between the two of you," he said painfully.
For the first time, Nessa could see what Fred and Tori must have been seeing. He was clearly unhappy and he looked a little more rumpled than he would have usually. His hair was clearly a mess from having run his hands through it so many times and his eyes were heavy with exhaustion and frustration.
"Then why are you?" she said before she could stop herself. His eyes met hers again and his face crumpled at the tears in her eyes. "No, you know — I'm sorry. It's really none of my business —"
"She thinks you fancy me."
Nessa halted immediately and stared at him in surprise. The statement hadn't been accusatory, but she couldn't tell if he believed it. Couldn't tell if he'd noticed it himself. She had seriously never been so panicked in all her life.
"I — I don't — what are you asking me right now, George?" she stuttered, trying to keep her face as blank as possible. God, please let this be a nightmare, she thought.
"I'm not asking you anything," he said, his eyes still locked with hers. "I heard Tori and Fred talking about it —" she was going to kill the both of them. "- and then Alicia mentioned it and I — I don't know, I didn't want you to feel like —"
"Feel like what, George?" she said angrily. "Like an idiot? Because you've done a pretty good job at making me feel like one actually!"
"I didn't want to confuse you!"
"Confuse me? I — you — you are, without a doubt, the thickest person I've ever met, do you know that?" she said, losing her temper completely. She would like to have thrown something at him, but there was nothing near her and she knew if she used her wand, she'd likely have killed him by mistake. "You don't think it's confusing to have someone you thought was your friend pretend like you don't exist every time he's with his girlfriend? You don't think it's confusing to know that you let her insult me behind my back —"
"That's not true!" he said, anger sparking at the suggestion.
"Don't try and blame this on me, George! This is entirely your fault! I never once had any desire to get in the way of your relationship with Alicia, so don't come over here trying to use that as an excuse for your shitty behavior!"
"Nessa, for Merlin's sake, I —"
"Don't," she said dangerously and pointed a finger at him in warning. "I am this close to hexing you, George. I'm not interested in this conversation. When you want to stop acting like a coward, you can come find me. Until then, you can go on snogging Alicia and leave me the hell alone."
He said something to her as she crossed the common room to the girls' staircase, but she was too busy fuming to hear what it was. The door slammed as she entered and she was grateful that her dormmates were not there. She stomped over to her foreposter and slammed her book bag into the pillows a couple of times to relieve some of the anger.
Eventually, because she had nothing else to do, she sat with her knees pulled up to her chest and tried not to cry. God, her life was a mess. Why couldn't she have fancied Fred?
The door opened and Nessa turned her face toward the window, so that whoever it was wouldn't notice she was upset. Hopefully, they wouldn't talk to her at all and she could go on throwing a pity party.
To her surprise, the bed dipped next to her and she looked up in surprise. It was Tori. She looked somewhere between murderous and sympathetic. She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it almost immediately and wrapped an arm around her. There was nothing really to say.
Nessa lost the battle and just let herself cry.
-o0o-
As Halloween approached, the school was filled with excitement. The first Hogsmeade visit was on Halloween, so most of the students would be out of the castle until the feast. All but Nessa and Harry. Nessa had told Fred and Tori under no uncertain terms that she was not going to Hogsmeade and would not be telling Harry how to get there without his permission slip being signed. She did not care that he wasn't likely to be attacked by Sirius Black in the middle of Hogsmeade and she didn't care that the day within the castle would be terribly dull.
The quiet of the castle might actually be for the best. After her argument with George a few weeks prior, he'd stopped avoiding the group, but the two of them were still not on very good terms. George had not taken kindly to being called a coward or by Nessa walking away from the conversation. Nessa still believed he was a coward and refused to apologize for walking away from the argument before it had been resolved.
Even with their constant bickering, Alicia did not care for the fact that they were still within close proximity of each other. It didn't appear that George cared all that much about it at this point because he made no move to go back to avoiding her again. Nessa found this incredibly irritating because he'd had no problem doing so when she'd wished he wouldn't, but refused to do so now when she wished he would.
As it stood, George did not appear any closer to letting Alicia dictate who he spent time with any more than she appeared to be in accepting his position. Nessa had heard them arguing with each other in the common room one night when she'd gone down to get her Potions textbook. Alicia had been upset about him having given her a birthday present (she'd thrown it in her trunk without opening it) and thrown a few insults around on her behalf. George, for his part, had told her that friends bought each other birthday presents and told her to stop talking about her like that. She'd decided to leave it down there when Alicia had started asking him why he was always defending her if they couldn't stop arguing with each other.
Fred and Tori, for their part, were taking the bickering in stride. Nessa suspected they didn't care much that they were arguing so long as they weren't ignoring each other altogether. Neither of them commented much on what had happened after she and George had left the dormitory, though Nessa knew from Tori that they'd both been eavesdropping on the conversation (neither she nor Fred was sorry about this) and that Fred had laid into George for an hour afterwards.
She'd spent the entire day of Halloween within the common room with her brother, avoiding a particularly annoying Colin Creevey. Ginny had sat with them for a while, but she kept turning beet red every time Harry asked her a question and had eventually made an excuse to leave. Nessa did not even bother trying to hide her amusement over this until Harry had told her to shove it. By the time Tori and the twins had returned to the castle, she was feeling only marginally less irritated. George was still off with Alicia but they would be at the feast with them, so she wasn't feeling particularly relieved.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat with them this time, so Nessa and George were trying to be relatively civil to each other, although Harry kept shooting the two of them strange looks every once in a while. She did not understand how her brother could be so perceptive about her relationship with George, but so ignorant to any other thing that was happening around him.
Harry was in the middle of regaling them about his earlier meeting with Lupin. Snape had interrupted them mid-conversation with a potion that had been faintly smoking, even after Lupin had drank it.
"Lupin drank it?" Ron gasped. "Is he mad?"
Nessa huffed.
"If Snape was going to kill him, it wouldn't be in front of a witness. Or within the grounds of Hogwarts," she said with an eye roll. "What did he need a Potion for?"
"He said he was feeling a bit off-color," Harry shrugged.
"That's odd," said Nessa thoughtfully. "Most Healing potions are relatively easy to brew."
"Says the one who makes a perfect potion every class," said Tori with an eye roll. "I've half a mind to start bottling up some of yours so Snape will quit giving me zeros every time I piss him off."
"Why don't you just stop pissing him off?" said Nessa as though this were obvious.
"Lupin does look a bit peaky, doesn't he?" said Fred, looking up at where he sat at the staff table.
Nessa followed his gaze. Lupin looked cheerful. He was talking animatedly with Professor Flitwick, but he was looking a bit pale. He'd been looking more and more tired as the week had gone by, but he didn't look much worse than he had on the train when she'd first met him.
"He was sick last month, too, wasn't he?" said George. "Bit of a sickly bloke."
He had been sick last month. Toward the end of the month. And he'd been missing from class the day prior. McGonagall had filled in for him.
"What did the potion look like, Harry?" she said, still staring at Lupin suspiciously.
"I didn't get a good look," he said with a shrug as he ate his pudding. "It had blue smoke. He didn't seem to like the taste much, but he said sugar renders it useless."
"What are you thinking, Nessa?" Tori inquired.
Nessa forced her gaze away from Lupin and shook her head.
"Nothing, sorry," she muttered. "I just like Potions, that's all."
Tori shared an eye roll with Fred, but George was looking at her with narrowed eyes. She resisted the urge to snap at him.
The rest of the feast passed without anything more spoken about Snape and Lupin. The feast finished with entertainment provided by the Hogwarts ghosts. They popped out of the walls and tables to do a bit of formation gliding; Nearly Headless Nick had a great success with a reenactment of his own botched beheading.
It had been a pleasant evening and Nessa was grateful that she and George had managed to stop arguing for the day. A sentiment he seemed to share as he smiled sadly at her as they were exiting the hall behind Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
The seven of them made their way to the Gryffindor common room, and Nessa could not stop thinking about how nice it would be to get into her pajamas and curl up in bed with a book. But when they reached the corridor that ended with the portrait of the Fat Lady, they found it jammed with students.
"Why isn't anyone going in?" said Ron curiously.
Nessa couldn't see anything because the people in front of her were much taller than her, but the rest of them were trying to stretch and get a look.
"Here, munchkin," said Fred, placing his hands on either side of her waist. "How about I lift you up and you tell us —"
"Don't you dare, Fred!" she said sharply, batting his hands away as he grinned at her.
"Let me through, please," came Percy's voice, and he came bustling importantly through the crowd. "What's the holdup here? You can't all have forgotten the password — excuse me, I'm Head Boy —"
Nessa and Tori scrunched their faces up comically and mocked "Excuse me, I'm Head Boy," at each other. Fred snorted and pulled the two of them into his sides. George scowled at the three of them.
And then a silence fell over the crowd, from the front first, so that a chill seemed to spread down the corridor. Fred's hold tightened when they heard Percy say, in a suddenly sharp voice, "Somebody get Professor Dumbledore. Quick."
People's heads turned; those at the back were standing on tiptoe.
"What's going on?" said Ginny, who had just arrived.
A moment later, Professor Dumbledore was there, sweeping toward the portrait; they were forced to squeeze together to allow him to pass, but they caught a glimpse of the portrait hole as the crowd parted.
Nessa gasped. The Fat Lady had vanished from her portrait, which had been slashed so viciously that strips of canvas littered the floor; great chunks of it had been torn away completely. Dumbledore took one quick look at the ruined painting and turned, his eyes somber, to see Professors McGonagall, Lupin, and Snape hurrying toward him.
"We need to find her," said Dumbledore. "Professor McGonagall, please go to Mr. Filch at once and tell him to search every painting in the castle for the Fat Lady."
"You'll be lucky!" said a cackling voice.
Nessa looked above her to see Peeves the Poltergeist bobbing over the crowd and looking delighted. He was a particularly difficult poltergeist to tolerate and his glee did not bode well for what was to come.
"What do you mean, Peeves?" said Dumbledore calmly, and Peeves's grin faded a little. He didn't dare taunt Dumbledore. Instead he adopted an oily voice that was no better than his cackle.
"Ashamed, Your Headship, sir. Doesn't want to be seen. She's a horrible mess. Saw her running through the landscape up on the fourth floor, sir, dodging between the trees. Crying something dreadful," he said happily. He reminded Nessa a little of Moaning Myrtle in that instance. "Poor thing," he added unconvincingly.
"Did she say who did it?" said Dumbledore quietly.
"Oh yes, Professorhead," said Peeves with an air of one cradling a large bombshell in his arms. Nessa tensed as she waited. "He got very angry when she wouldn't let him in, you see," Peeves flipped over and grinned at Dumbledore from between his own legs. "Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black."
Nessa felt her stomach drop out in horror as she stared at her brother in shock. The students around them began whispering fearfully about this news.
"All of you, back to the Great Hall," said Dumbledore calmly over them. "Please gather the students from Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff."
Nessa held onto Fred as they were ushered back in the direction they'd come from. She couldn't decide how she felt. There was panic there, but it wasn't as bad as it may have been had Harry not been with them at the time.
But there was also some confusion. Why would Sirius Black have come on Halloween if his target was Harry? Sure, the majority of the school and teachers would have been busy with the feast and it would have been easy to sneak into the castle. But wouldn't it stand to reason that that would mean Harry would be in the Great Hall as well?
"What are you thinking?"
She jumped at George's voice in her ear. She eyed him hesitantly before speaking.
"It's just odd that he attacked now," she said slowly, keeping her voice at a near whisper, so that only the twins and Tori could hear. "Why would he wait until the Halloween Feast? Harry wouldn't have been in the dormitory. He had to have known that. He attended Hogwarts himself."
"It would have been easier to sneak in now with all of the teachers preoccupied with the feast," said Tori, echoing her earlier thoughts. "Maybe he figured he could get in now and just wait for Harry in the dormitory."
Nessa rolled the idea around in her head. She supposed it could make sense.
"Seems risky," said George thoughtfully. She'd always appreciated the way his mind worked in the same pattern as hers. Course, realizing that now when she was trying to hate him, irked her like no other. "Was he just going to kill Harry with witnesses around —" Nessa flinched. "Sorry, love — I mean, he'd have a hard time getting away if all the other third years saw him and alerted someone."
They were forced to stop speaking about the subject as they came into the Great Hall and Alicia made her way over to George. Nessa made herself small as they spoke quietly to each other. Fred wrapped an arm around her shoulder and rotated her so that she was facing Tori instead.
"The real question," said Tori. "is how he got in here in the first place. How did he get past the dementors at the gates without them noticing? Dumbledore said they aren't fooled by disguises or Invisibility Cloaks."
"They aren't," Nessa agreed. "I read up on them a bit after the train. They're attracted more to emotion. I don't think they can even see us, really. Not clearly at least. They just sense human emotion and use that as a guide."
"How can they tell the difference between us and Sirius Black then?" said Fred.
"I'm not entirely sure, but I think they get an idea of the memories they invoke in a person once they feed off of them," said Nessa with a shiver. "They've been feeding off of Black for so long, I'm sure they're very familiar with what he feels or sees when they're around."
"That's not disturbing at all," muttered Tori.
"He couldn't have Apparated," said Fred, as George made his way back over to them looking distinctly more irritated than he had been prior. Nessa shot a glance at Alicia, who was surrounded by Angelina Johnson and Katie Bell, and sending her murderous glances. She sighed heavily and focused on what Fred was saying. "Hogwarts has enchantments for that. You can't enter by stealth at all."
"The secret passageways?" said George. "Filch knows some of them, but there's some that we were always fairly certain that none of the teachers knew about."
"The teachers and I need to conduct a thorough search of the castle," interrupted Professor Dumbledore as they were joined by the other Houses. "I'm afraid that, for your own safety, you will have to spend the night here. I want the prefects to stand guard over the entrances to the hall and I am leaving the Head Boy and Girl in charge. Any disturbance should be reported to me immediately," he added to Percy, who was looking immensely proud and important. "Send word with one of the ghosts."
Professor Dumbledore paused, about to leave the hall, and said, "Oh, yes, you'll be needing…"
One casual wave of the wand and the long tables flew to the edges of the hall and stood themselves against the walls; another wave, and the floor was covered with hundreds of squashy purple sleeping bags.
"Sleep well," said Professor Dumbledore, closing the doors behind him.
The hall immediately began to buzz excitedly; the Gryffindors were telling the rest of the school what had just happened.
"Everyone into their sleeping bags!" shouted Percy. "Come on, now, no more talking! Lights out in ten minutes!"
Tori rolled her eyes.
"There's someone else who could clearly use a good snog," she said with an eye roll. Fred sniggered as Nessa glared at her for this remark. "I think you can actually see the stick up his arse."
Nessa bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing and smacked Tori on the arm in warning. The four of them grabbed sleeping bags and pulled them over to the corner where Ron, Hermione, and Harry were whispering. Harry threw her an irritated look — likely with some understanding that she was trying to stay within his proximity out of concern — but she ignored him.
She tried to keep her distance from him otherwise but she would have had a hard time going to sleep if they weren't relatively close. And she imagined Percy would not take kindly to her standing up to check on her brother every time she felt anxious. Why was she a basket case? She really needed to pull herself together.
With an eye roll and a huff, she turned to situate her sleeping bag only to find George on the other side of her. Nessa stared at him incredulously. Tori smirked and smacked Fred, who was on the other side of her, on the arm, and nodded at the two of them. Fred grinned and sat on top of his sleeping bag with his legs crossed. The two of them were looking at them as if they were watching a really exciting movie.
That did not add to Vanessa's irritation. It absolutely didn't.
"What are you doing?" she said when George pretended not to notice her expression.
"I'm getting comfortable," he said in an innocent tone that grated on her nerves. "What are you doing?"
"Wondering why the hell you're not over there with Alicia instead of irritating me," she snapped.
George rolled his eyes.
"Alicia's fine," he said, clearly trying very hard to contain his irritation. "She'll survive without me."
Nessa looked over at Alicia, who was still glaring at her.
"It's not Alicia I'm worried about," she said. "How am I supposed to sleep when I'm worried she's going to slit my throat?"
"That's a good question," whispered Fred to Tori, who hummed in agreement.
Nessa pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath in an attempt to ignore them. She was going to kill them. She really was.
"Why do you have to make this difficult?" George snapped. She huffed a laugh of derision.
"I'm making this difficult?" she said incredulously. "You're the one acting like a git, George!"
"How am I acting like a git for sleeping next to you?"
"How about you mull that over somewhere else? Like over there with Alicia."
George raised an eyebrow at her in challenge. She was going to throttle him.
"I'm not moving," he said stubbornly. "So you can either stand there pouting at me all night or you can get in your bloody sleeping bag and save yourself the trouble. You're a right pain in the arse when you haven't had any sleep."
"I am not pouting," Nessa said with a glare. George smirked at her.
"What are you doing then?"
Nessa opened her mouth to say something, but she was interrupted by her brother, who had been watching the two of them gripe at each other in surprise.
"What's going on with you two?" said Harry in confusion.
"Nothing," they snapped in unison, although both of them were still glaring at each other. Harry kept looking between the two of them slowly. Hermione was smirking at them.
"Just a friendly debate, Harry, don't worry," said Tori with a grin.
"I don't think there's a risk of murder in a debate," muttered Ron to Harry, eyeing the two of them seriously.
"The lights are going out now!" Percy shouted. "I want everyone in their sleeping bags and no more talking!"
Nessa grumbled as she moved her sleeping bag in between Tori and George, ignoring his satisfied smirk. Tori and Fred were snickering on and off as they laid down on her other side and she kicked Tori hard in the leg when they wouldn't stop. Tori swore and kicked Fred, who started grumbling at her.
The candles all went out at once. The only light now came from the silvery ghosts, who were drifting about talking seriously to the prefects, and the enchanted ceiling, which, like the sky outside, was scattered with stars. What with that, and the whispering that still filled the hall, Nessa felt more like she was on a camping trip with her friends. It was odd considering the real reason for their location.
Sirius Black had broken into the castle. To kill her brother.
It was a feat that seemed to be so impossible. The walls of Hogwarts felt so impenetrable, safe. She had never even considered that someone so dangerous could so easily have broken in. But he had somehow. Even with dementors stationed at every gate. How was he getting past them? It made absolutely no sense. If they were drawn to human emotion, then how could he pass them without notice? He was human, wasn't he? Maybe he was turning his emotions completely off…
That seemed near impossible. She was overly emotional herself, so maybe she was just dramatic, but even if she weren't there was no way it was possible for a human to feel nothing. Even at her most depressed, she hadn't felt absolutely nothing — numb, sure, but there was still a flicker of something. It made not an ounce of sense that he could manage to escape them not once, but now twice.
All to kill a thirteen-year old boy. It seemed like a lot of work for such a flimsy motive. I mean, what did he really have to gain? So, he would have become Voldemort's number two. That's all well and good, except Voldemort was nowhere to be found other than among the whispers of sketchy people in the back of pubs or in dark alleyways. What use would killing Harry serve? To put him back in Voldemort's good graces should he return to power? To pave the way for Voldemort's return? To prove he could?
It made very little sense to her. If she was going to resort to murder, she'd have assumed it would be for a much more solid reason.
Great, Vanessa, she thought derisively, Now you're considering what would be a plausible excuse for murder.
Clearly, she was taking a nice dive off the deep end.
"Stop thinking, Vanessa," George whispered from next to her. She jumped in surprise.
"How did you know I was awake?" she whispered back. Mostly just to be difficult because she was still annoyed with him. If he noticed, he didn't mention it.
"Because you've been wringing your hands for the last ten minutes," he said. "He'd be mad if he were still within the castle."
"That's not what I was worried about," she said, rolling her eyes at the ceiling. "I just don't understand why this is happening. What does he get out of it?"
"I don't know, love, but I don't think you're going to find out if you drive yourself mad. Go to sleep."
She huffed and shifted on the sleeping bag below her. Once every hour, a teacher would reappear in the hall to check that everything was quiet. Nessa spent most of the time tossing back and forth, curling into herself to avoid shivering from how cold she was.
"Why are you on top of the sleeping bag if you're cold?"
Nessa huffed this time when George's voice nearly caused her to jump out of her skin.
"George, would you go to sleep, for God's sake?" she snapped quietly. "Why are you still bothering me?"
She heard him heave a deep breath as if he were praying for patience. She thought she heard Fred and Tori laughing from the other side of her, but George spoke again before she could ask if they were still awake.
"Answer the question, Vanessa."
She huffed.
"I'm claustrophobic, alright?" she snapped in irritation. "Sleeping bags make me feel trapped."
He didn't say anything for a moment before he was sighing loudly and moving to stand up.
"Get up," he said, staring down at her, with an outstretched hand.
"What, why?"
"Because I asked you to."
"Actually, you didn't ask," she said with an eye roll. "You told me to, so I think I'll just —"
"For Merlin's sake," he said angrily and leaned down to lift her up from the ground and set her on her feet.
"George!"
He ignored her and grabbed the sleeping bag from the floor, unzipping it completely so that it was completely open. Pointing his wand at the floor, he whispered "Molliare" and waved at her to lay back down. She stared at him a moment, but when he just stared back at her with a raised eyebrow, she huffed and took her spot back. The floor was surprisingly soft and did not feel nearly as uncomfortable as it should have. Before she could say anything, he took the sleeping bag and threw it over her as though it were a normal blanket.
She gaped at him as he laid back down in his own sleeping bag moments later. It really was something she should have thought of herself. There was a long moment of silence as he settled back into a comfortable position to sleep.
"George," she whispered quietly. He hummed in response. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, love," he said.
Despite the fact that she was now warm and comfortable, she couldn't find it in her to sleep. She stared up at the ceiling and tried to count the stars above her to keep herself calm. She wouldn't be able to sleep until she knew one way or the other if Sirius Black was still in the castle. He'd murdered thirteen people with a single curse, and they were all trapped here like a bunch of sardines in a can. Nothing easier than him waltzing right in and killing them all.
She sighed at her own dramatics and shifted to her side so that she was facing George. His eyes were open still so she felt a little better about not being able to sleep herself. He had already been looking at her and did not seem at all ashamed to have been caught. She sighed and was getting ready to say something — apologize maybe or ask him what he'd wanted to say to her when she'd run off after their argument. It was nearly three in the morning and most of the students were asleep. Maybe the lack of sleep had gone to her head or something, but she really hated how quickly their relationship had devolved.
Before she could say anything, Professor Dumbledore came in. George lifted his head a little to see what was happening. Nessa did not need to hear Dumbledore's footsteps to know he was coming toward them because George shot down about as fast as he'd lifted it and he shut his eyes immediately. Nessa followed his lead and did the same.
Dumbeldore stopped near them, in the spot Nessa thought she'd seen Percy standing last.
"Any sign of him, Professor?" asked Percy in a whisper.
"No. All well here?"
"Everything under control, sir."
"Good. There's no point moving them all now. I've found a temporary guardian for the Gryffindor portrait hole. You'll be able to move them back in tomorrow.
"And the Fat Lady, sir?"
"Hiding in a map of Argyllshire on the second floor. Apparently she refused to let Black in without the password, so he attacked. She's still very distressed, but once she's calmed down, I'll have Mr. Filch restore her."
Nessa heard the door of the hall creak open again, and more footsteps.
"Headmaster?" It was Snape. "The whole of the third floor has been searched. He's not there. And Filch has done the dungeons; nothing there either."
"What about the Astronomy Tower? Professor Trelawney's room? The Owlery?"
"All searched…"
"Very well, Severus. I didn't really expect Black to linger."
"Have you any theory as to how he got in, Professor."
Nessa was nearly holding her breath to make sure she could hear them.
"Many, Severus, each of them as unlikely as the next."
"You remember the conversation we had, Headmaster, just before — ah — the start of term?" said Snape. Nessa's interest piqued both at how quietly he was speaking, but also by the startling contempt in his voice.
"I do, Severus," said Dumbledore, and there was something like warning in his voice.
"It seems — almost impossible — that Black could have entered the school without inside help. I did express my concerns when you appointed —"
"I do not believe a single person inside this castle would have helped Black enter it," said Dumbledore and his tone made it very clear that the subject was closed. There was nothing more said for a moment. "I must go down to the dementors," said Dumbledore. "I said I would inform them when our search was complete."
"Didn't they want to help, sir?" said Percy.
"Oh, yes," said Dumbledore coldly. "But I'm afraid no dementor will cross the threshold of this castle while I am headmaster."
Nessa was thankful for his stance on the creatures who had been so horribly depressing. She truly did not comprehend how the Ministry could station them at Azkaban where there were people. Criminals or not.
She remained totally still until she heard Dumbledore, and then Snape left and the doors in the Great Hall closed with a snap. She opened her eyes to see George staring at her with a look of confusion that matched how she felt. She heard Tori shift from beside her and she moved so that she was on her back and could see her and Fred as they both sat up to look at them.
"What the fuck?" mouthed Tori.
What the fuck, indeed.
-o0o-
Yeah, so, honestly, the confrontation with Nessa and George? Or half-confrontation because Nessa walked away in the middle of it. That was definitely not within the original plan LOL. The original plan was to have George be an ass and ignore her until near Christmas and then finally pull his head out of his ass.
But as I was writing this chapter, it just sort of took shape on its own. When that happens, I just run with it a little. I have missed writing a supportive George though and even though his relationship will continue to cause problems, those little moments where he's there for her give me a little life that he isn't totally oblivious.
Up next: Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff