Hello again, lovelies! It's been awhile, I know. I started reading Throne of Glass and got distracted for ages and then wasn't sure where to start or end this chapter. I have decided that this is about as close as I'm going to get to acceptable at the moment. I have not proofread this either — it's 2:30 AM — so I apologize for any mistakes on this one.
Also, a very belated Merry Christmas to all of you! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday.
readerfaye: Fred seriously is just carrying the torch for the Weasley twins this year. I love a no-nonsense bestie. I debated having George grovel more, but I'm more of an actions speak louder than words sort of person, and George has got a lot to prove still. I'm not 100% certain of how many chapters will be left for this school year, but if I had to take a random guess, I'd say maybe 8-10 more chapters max, depending on how I decide to handle the whole Sirius confrontation situation. I try to follow the books as closely as possible and JKR doesn't spend as much time on the second half of the year, I feel like, so the chapters end up coming quicker.
AstarothZyran: I am so happy that George has finally apologized as well! I miss writing him as not a jerk. I have about a hundred different scenarios in my head about George's first kiss with Nessa, honestly, but the time will come sooner than you know it!
Chapter Nineteen
The rest of the holiday, fortunately, was far less emotional for the four of them. Whatever residual anger Tori had toward Mr. and Mrs. Weasley was forgotten for the entirety of Christmas Day in favor of enjoying the holiday. There were moments where Nessa could see the turmoil in her friend's eyes when she looked at them, but she kept it mostly to herself in an attempt to enjoy the holiday. Other than Nessa's emotional outburst at the beginning of the day and a very irritated Tori brandishing a card that Fred had made her for Christmas (which included a sketch bewitched to show Nessa and Fred gagging her and throwing her off the Astronomy Tower for which Fred would only state that Nessa had told him to put it on her Christmas card in the first place), the holiday had passed in relative peace.
Mrs. Weasley had made a fantastic breakfast and dinner that kept them all bursting at the seams for most of the day. Nessa had given Mr. Weasley the cigarette lighter she'd been given from the Dursleys and been forced to explain in painstaking detail how they worked. It had taken at least another five minutes to get him to work it, after which they'd all sat and watched as he lit the flame over and over again, giving a delighted "Marvelous!" every single time he accidentally burnt himself on the flame that ignited. Nessa was fairly certain that the butane would not last through the entire night, but they'd awoken the next morning to him doing the same thing.
Tori had shaken her head ruefully with a fond smile at him at breakfast and muttered to Nessa, "Molly will be so pleased when he sets the house on fire."
For the rest of their break, they mostly spent time outside, throwing snowballs at Percy's window and then hastily running for cover before he could scream at them, or otherwise throwing them at each other. There had been a Quidditch game in the snow, for which Nessa had adamantly refused to join, and several days spent in the twins' room, watching in interest as they worked on order forms to circulate around Hogwarts. According to Fred, they were still working on inventing the majority of their products, but they had enough to get a start on selling the few they had. It was partially an idea to get an idea of their "market," but also an attempt to begin saving what they could to put toward a premises and future product development.
They kept the entire thing hidden from Mrs. Weasley, who the twins insisted would do everything in her power to prevent them from opening their own joke shop in favor of them getting a job at the Ministry. Nessa tried to contain her irritation at this news, as it was clear to her that neither Fred or George would be happy at the Ministry, and it seemed cruel to expect them to do something they'd hate for the rest of their lives. On one occasion, she'd had to distract Mrs. Weasley when she'd come in to gather their laundry and Fred and George had not had time to properly hide their paraphernalia before she'd come in. It had been a horrible hour of folding laundry by hand while Mrs. Weasley asked incessantly about her relationship with Cedric, and one which she'd told the twins under no uncertain terms that they owed her something spectacularly grand for an hour such as the one she'd spent with their mother. Tori had found the whole thing very amusing and had spent the rest of their vacation randomly trying to entice Mrs. Weasley into the twins' room in the hopes that Nessa would have to distract her again.
By the time the holiday was coming to an end, Nessa was not at all prepared to return to the castle. The Burrow was just so relaxing to visit — there was no drama, no responsibilities, no people trying to murder her brother. No Alicia.
She and George had been on very good terms for the rest of the Christmas holiday. George had an uncanny ability to pick up exactly where they left off as though nothing had happened at all. She'd been worried it would still be awkward between them, but, as most of her social concerns with the twins, she needn't have worried. The only indication that they'd really been fighting to begin with was George's uncharacteristically insecure smiles and the fact that he stuck to her side almost as much as Fred's, as though he were afraid that she'd change her mind about him if he disappeared too long.
But despite this ease, there was still some anxiety about returning to the castle and having it all fall apart again. He'd promised it wouldn't — and she believed that, at minimum, he would do his level best to keep that promise — but there was a part of her that wondered if he'd buckle under Alicia's pressure.
It was with a small amount of dread that she'd boarded the train back to Hogwarts for the second half of the semester, wishing Mr. and Mrs. Weasley a fond farewell. When they'd grabbed a compartment and the train began moving away from the station, Tori finally began to relax a little, as if the further she got from London, the less she had to think about her surrogate family and their hand in keeping Sirius Black a secret.
Nessa would have asked if she were doing okay, but she was cut short by Lee and Alicia entering the compartment. Lee greeted them all warmly and took a seat next to Fred, who immediately pulled him into a conversation with him and Tori. Nessa lost the specifics somewhere along the way because Alicia was looking between her and George, who had folded himself comfortably in the seat next to her. Nessa tensed and made to move away, but George grabbed her hand and gave her a warm smile before engaging Alicia in conversation. Personally, Nessa felt the conversation was teetering on the edge of politeness that wasn't quite warm enough to cover the tension between the two of them, but it was already awkward enough that she tried to pretend like she wasn't listening.
"I heard Oliver is going to talk to Harry about the dementors," said Lee, looking over at Nessa cautiously.
It would have been amusing that everyone had so quickly learned how protective of her brother she was, except now she was tense because she didn't know what Oliver could possibly want from her brother.
"What do you mean 'talk to' him?" she said, her voice intentionally light.
"Well, I guess he's concerned that it might hurt our chances at the Cup," said Lee with a grimace. He didn't need to be a genius to know that Nessa was not going to take kindly to this conversation. "I — er — well, I wouldn't have brought it up, but I figured you could warn Harry ahead of time. You know how Oliver gets…"
Nessa made a noise in the back of her throat that could not be taken in any other way except distaste.
"Harry is taking care of it —"
"He is?" said Fred. "How?"
"Professor Lupin is going to teach him how to cast a Patronus," she said dismissively, ignoring the gaping looks this generated from everyone in the compartment. "So Oliver has nothing to worry about, but you can let him know that I'm happy to field any concerns he might have about my brother."
Tori sniggered as Lee gulped audibly and shot her a wide-eyed look that conveyed how undesirable he found the thought of that was.
"Can you wait to kill him until after we've won the Cup though, love?" said George, winking at the exasperated look she gave him in response. "We don't have another Keeper, see —"
" — Unless you'd like to cover the missing place, of course," Fred said with a grin.
"If you cared about your chances at the Cup, you wouldn't even have considered that an option," Nessa said dismissively, crossing her legs at the ankles and continuing to read her book as if they had not said anything to her at all. "Besides, I won't have to kill him if he doesn't try to kick Harry off the team for something so ridiculous. I don't think the dementors will be too keen to come back onto the grounds, anyway, even without him knowing how to cast a Patronus."
Not if Dumbledore's anger at the previous match was to be believed.
"Patronuses are very difficult to cast," said Alicia thoughtfully. "They don't even test us on them for O.W.L.s. I'm surprised that he thinks Harry could produce one."
Nessa tensed and tried not to bristle at the statement. It wasn't an incorrect assessment — she'd known what they'd test on O.W.L.s since her first year when she'd researched everything about the Wizarding World in the library in an attempt to find a better way to blend into her surroundings. Knowing everything meant she didn't have to ask her peers for help and allowed her to remain as independent as possible. She also knew that most people who performed the Patronus Charm were unable to make them fully corporeal. So, Alicia's opinion on the situation was hardly worth getting offended about.
She was offended anyway. However irrational that was, she didn't particularly care.
"There's not much of an alternative, now is there?" she snapped in irritation. "Unless you'd prefer to find yourself another Seeker."
Fred and Tori grimaced at each other when Alicia glared at her in response. Lee coughed uncomfortably.
"Harry's done plenty of things most people can't," said George, placatingly. His voice was steadier than Nessa imagined he particularly felt. "If Professor Lupin thinks he can do it, I don't suppose this is any different."
"At any rate, it can't hurt for him to try," agreed Fred, clearly seeking a way to calm the situation further.
Nessa tried not to smirk at Alicia's huffiness at their response.
"Well, I wasn't saying I didn't think it was a good idea, did I?" she said with an eye roll and a raised eyebrow in George's direction. He tensed in response. "I'm just saying it would be remarkable if Harry can manage to learn."
Nessa opened her mouth to retort, possibly saying something snide, but George rested a hand on her knee in an attempt to quell her anger. Her eyes met his, and she might have made a snappish retort at him, but he looked painfully imploring and she couldn't bring herself to make the situation worse.
She huffed and leaned back in her seat, raising her book to read again and ignoring the tense silence that followed. She also pretended like she couldn't see Alicia's glare when George did not immediately remove his hand from her leg. Just as the silence was becoming particularly painful, the compartment door slid open. Cedric was grinning at her, but, sensing the tension in the air, he paused briefly and raised his eyebrows.
"Am I interrupting?"
"Yes, thank you," said Tori sincerely.
Lee huffed a laugh when Cedric's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline at this response and looked around the compartment as if trying to determine what exactly he'd walked into. When his eyes shifted from a seething Alicia, to a highly uncomfortable George, and then landed on Nessa, who was adamantly attempting to pretend like she wasn't irritated, despite the hard clench of her jaw.
"You wouldn't be in here threatening to hex people, would you, Butterfly?" he said casually in a poor attempt to break some of the tension.
She raised her eyes from her book to look up at him through her eyelashes, her jaw still clenched, but the corner of her mouth twitched in amusement. He grinned charmingly when she kept looking at him.
"And if I were?" she said coyly.
Alicia scoffed, but Cedric ignored her, stepping into the compartment and coming to sit next to her. She assumed he also pretended like he couldn't see the twins eyeing him dangerously, although his eyes did catch on George's hand tightening on her knee.
"Well, I left Devon in the compartment, if you'd like to do me a favor when you're done here."
Nessa snorted.
"I'm starting to feel like I'm the one doing all your dirty work," she said. "You can't hex him yourself?"
Cedric shrugged, resting his ankle on his knee and leaning in to pluck the book out of her hands.
"I could, of course," he said, eyeing the book she was reading thoughtfully. "But I find that I find you rather captivating when you've got that murderous look in your eye."
Nessa scoffed, snatching the book back from him and focusing unnecessarily hard on trying to find her place again. Cedric grinned wider.
"I'm surprised you even remember us lowly peasants," she said eventually, trying to ignore the heat in her cheeks and kicking George in the leg when he made a noise of irritation at Cedric's attention to her. Cedric eyed her in confusion for a moment. "I wasn't aware a Quidditch God like yourself had the time to spare for someone as average as ourselves. Or is that just part of your blessed humility?"
She'd never seen Cedric blush in the entire time she'd known him, but she took satisfaction in seeing him do so now. He cleared his throat and still somehow managed to give her a wink despite the fact.
"I'll always make time for you, gorgeous," he said, laughing in satisfaction when the words had the intended effect of turning the focus away from his own embarrassment and caused her to become flustered instead. She was often so hard to read that he took an immense amount of pleasure in getting a reaction out of her. "Besides, I wanted to apologize for my dad. He's a bit…"
"Boastful?" she said in amusement.
"That's probably the nicest way of putting it," he said with a sheepish laugh.
"I wonder if you really do hang the moon," she said in mocking curiosity. "Should I be bowing at your feet? Ooooh or maybe —"
"Alright, you brat, that's enough," he said, rolling his eyes. She stuck her tongue out at him playfully and he poked her in the side. "As I was saying, it's better if you just ignore him, but he really can't help himself."
She nudged his shoulder with her own and smiled gently at him.
"Stop worrying," she said softly. "It's sweet — he's proud of you. It doesn't bother me."
Cedric hummed his agreement and nudged her back.
"Yes, well, I've got enough people thinking that I'm big headed because he's a little overbearing. You're the very last person I want to think that about me."
She gaped at him for a moment.
The tone he'd used was soft, if maybe a little imploring, and he didn't seem to mind at all that there were other people in the compartment with them, who were doing a horrible job of pretending like they weren't listening to their entire conversation. She was not used to such open honesty from other people, especially in terms of something they found embarrassing.
Not to mention the underlying implication that he didn't particularly care what everyone else thought of him but did seem to care what she did.
"I've never thought that about you," she said quietly.
He smiled at her with a mixture of relief and something akin to adoration. She chose to ignore the anxiety that the last emotion gave her and gave him a reassuring smile of her own. Someone cleared their throat in the compartment, and she startled, cheeks flushing in embarrassment when she realized how long they'd been looking at each other.
Cedric did not seem at all uncomfortable with the knowledge and gave her hand a squeeze before coming to a stand.
"Right, well, thank you," he said casually, grinning when she nodded shyly. "Are we still good for Wednesdays?" She nodded again. "Try not to hex anyone while I'm gone, gorgeous. It'd be a real shame for me to miss that."
He laughed good-naturedly when she huffed at him in exasperation and then he was gone, not bothering at all to say farewell to her companions. Nessa caught Tori's eye once he was gone and rolled her eyes.
"Not a word, Victoria," she warned, opening her book again and trying to ignore the others in the compartment.
Lee was smirking at her, and Fred just rolled his eyes before dragging Lee into a conversation with him. Tori went back to reading her magazine but was clearly not actually reading it because she kept shooting Nessa annoying smirks over the pages every two minutes. George was clearly trying to exercise some form of patience, his grip on her knee still harder than it likely should have been and his conversation with Alicia being snippy and flat.
"Are you trying to break my knee, George?" Nessa said quietly when Alicia eventually left the compartment in irritation with George's clear impatience and his grip still did not loosen.
"Shite, sorry," he said, immediately removing his hand as if he'd been burned.
She raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing and continued to read her book. The Scarlet Letter likely wasn't the best choice of reading material in a compartment full of noise, considering how much concentration she had to put forth in order to understand the convoluted use of the English language, but she could still feel George sitting as stiff as a board next to her and she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know why he was so irritated.
It was hard to ignore his incessant fidgeting, however, so she sighed heavily and closed her book, giving him a hesitant look when she noticed he was already looking at her.
"Can I help you with something, George?" she said in a long-suffering voice.
He stared at her for a moment, his mouth opening and closing as if he couldn't particularly decide if he really wanted to get into the conversation as a whole.
"It's probably none of my business," he said slowly, eyeing her with an intensity that made her heart pound. "But I thought you and Diggory were just friends."
"We are," she said, her tone brooking no room for argument, but he still gave her a skeptical look. "Don't look at me like that, George."
"I'm just — I don't think he's really gotten the message, Vanessa."
She wanted to throttle him all over again. Even if his tone was very carefully laced with concern, the fact that they were having this conversation at all was highly annoying.
"What difference does it make to you, George?" she said, trying to maintain her friendly tone despite her irritation. "I don't have to explain anything to you about me and Cedric."
He huffed and rolled his eyes, giving her a hard look.
"I'm not asking you to explain anything. I just don't want you to end up getting hurt."
"I appreciate your concern. Now, please go back to being miserable about Alicia and leave me alone."
He winced but dropped the subject at the tone of her voice. She looked out the window as a way to distract herself from being pulled into a conversation with any of them again. She really should have known that the easy camaraderie she had with George over the break would fall apart once they'd gotten back to school. Although, truth be told, she assumed it would be because of Alicia and not anything to do with her.
She also couldn't particularly tell if she was really irritated with him for saying something about Cedric at all or just because he was now the third person to tell her that Cedric Diggory was clearly still interested in her. It didn't particularly bother or surprise her — she'd been pining after George for months even knowing he had no interest in her beyond friendship, so she hardly blamed Cedric for wanting more from her even if she didn't. It's not as though he could help the way he felt.
But the more people mentioned it, the more she worried that she was making things worse for him somehow. That she needed to mention to him again that they were just friends. And the thought of having that entirely painful conversation again made her want to curl up into a ball and shrivel up.
Honestly, her life had been so much easier when the only person she talked to was Victoria. She was starting to miss that.
George sighed heavily next to her and pulled her into his side. She tensed and tried to push him away, but he only tightened his hold.
"Stop it, Vanessa," he said seriously, refusing to let her go even when she began huffing at him in irritation. "I'm sorry, okay?"
"I don't care, you buffoon, let me go."
He snorted and shifted so that he was resting against the entire seat, pulling her with him so that she was stuck between him and the seat. He grinned at her when she growled at him in irritation.
"I'm not letting you out of here until you listen to me," he said smugly, eyes twinkling as she continued to struggle against him. "So I'd suggest you quit acting like such a brat and let me talk or you're going to be here all night."
She glared at him and pinched him on the arm so hard that he swore. She grinned smugly when he grabbed her wrist and held it firmly in his hand, giving her an uncharacteristically stern look that made her want to start laughing.
"This is ridiculous, George," she said instead.
"Well, then I suggest you behave yourself for half a second," he said.
"That's rich coming from you," she said snidely, smacking his hand away from her when he went to poke her in the side. "When was the last time you behaved yourself?"
"A question for another time, perhaps," he said, causing her to scoff in disbelief. "I'm sorry, Nessa. I didn't mean to upset you. I shouldn't have said anything."
She sighed and tried to cross her arms despite how little room he was giving her on the bench.
"I don't understand why you hate him so much," she said honestly.
George scowled.
He'd never particularly liked Cedric Diggory. Even before all of his confusing feelings surrounding Vanessa. They'd had Herbology together since their first year and Diggory had always been…different from him and Fred. He was as smooth with women as he and his twin, and that had been irritating only because of the constant swooning they were subjected to when he was around any of the girls in their year.
Most frustrating to him was that everyone thought he walked on water. Professors thought he was just simply the smartest student in their year —- never mind the fact that Hermione Granger could outperform him, and she was two years younger or the fact that he had to ask Vanessa to tutor him in Potions, although George highly suspected that it was more a ploy to get her attention because he'd never actually heard that Diggory had a hard time in Potions anyway. Girls thought he was Merlin's gift — he was attractive, he was silent, he was smart. After meeting his dad at Christmas, the irritation was only greater because he was clearly treated like Merlin's gift to the world even at home.
Personally, George thought there had to be something wrong with Diggory. No one could be that honest or perfect in general, although everyone else in the world seemed to believe otherwise.
It had always been something irritating to him to watch people fawn over the bloke. It was likely jealousy; he knew that. Perhaps because he was the exact opposite of him and his twin — they were smart, sure, but they had to work far harder to prove it to everyone around them, including their own mother. They were loud and obnoxious, rule-breakers through and through, a force of nature. They weren't likely to become prefects or Head Boy — not that they wanted to be —- or end up with more than a handful of O.W.L.s — also by choice —- and being judged and under acknowledged was a part of the territory. So perhaps his jealousy was really rooted in the fact that life would always be just a little bit easier for blokes like Diggory because he was doing all of the things that society deemed successful. He and Fred were just visionaries — childish and unrealistic, immature and deluded, apathetic and unmotivated.
Cedric Diggory was considered to be the exact opposite of all of those things. They were about as different from each other as he and Percy. Although, to be fair, Diggory was at least not nearly as uptight.
The fact that Nessa had any interest in someone like that gave him anxiety for reasons he didn't totally understand.
Somehow explaining the entire thing to Nessa seemed ridiculous and childish — his personality was unlikely to change, and his dreams were unlikely to do so either and it wasn't Diggory's fault in the first place; he just represented ideals that he and Fred didn't possess. And, truth be told, most of the time the sacrifices he and Fred had to make didn't particularly bother him that much. Most of the time, he imagined that once he and Fred were successful, all of the people who doubted them would realize there was more to the two of them than they had realized. The satisfaction of that alone, coupled with the fact that he was doing something that made him happy and not miserable, were enough to get him through the irritation and disappointment he felt for being misjudged by others.
He could hardly stand to think of Nessa being one of those people, however. And if she liked some idiot like Diggory, how could she possibly end up liking some immature prankster like him?
"I — it's complicated, love," he said eventually. Getting into his insecurities wasn't the top of his list, anyway. "We're just different people, I suppose."
"And this has nothing to do with the fact that he beat us in Quidditch?"
George gave her a deadpan look.
"It doesn't but bringing it up certainly doesn't help."
She rolled her eyes and tried to shift so that she wasn't lying on her arm uncomfortably. George made no attempt to help her and watched in amusement as she struggled until she huffed at him in irritation.
"I don't want to argue every time Cedric says something to me, George," she said, pushing against him in annoyance when he refused to give her any room. He smirked and leaned back so that she could move around more freely. "You don't have to like him for me to be friends with him, you know. I'm sure there are plenty of people you like that I don't."
He raised an amused eyebrow.
"Yeah, like who?"
He had to bite his lip to keep from grinning when she paused in her irritated shuffling to consider the question.
"Well, your girlfriend, for one thing," she griped after she couldn't think of anyone else. "You're missing the point anyway."
He made a sarcastic noise and rolled his eyes.
"I understand the point, hellion —"
"Hellion?!"
He ignored her completely, but his grin widened at her obvious indignance.
"Now, as I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me —"
"I am going to kill you, George."
"That's very sweet," he said casually. "Now, focus, Vanessa. This is very serious, you know —" she huffed again and crossed her arms across her chest. With the small amount of room she had on the bench, it looked entirely ridiculous, but George only grinned and didn't acknowledge it. " — I'm trying to say that I'm sorry for being a prat —"
"Which time is this now?"
He gave her another deadpan look and she smiled sweetly at him until he poked her in the side and she jolted in surprise.
"Is this how you treat all of your best friends?" She rolled her eyes at the smug look on his face. She never should have told him anything about being her best friend. He continued before she could respond. "Look, I don't have the right to tell you who to be friends with. Or, be snogging, as the case is here —"
"That is not the case here at all. Do you even listen to me when I talk to you, George?"
He ignored her again.
" — especially considering how much of a prat I've been lately," he said, poking her in the side again when she made an agreeing noise. She glared at him. "I just — you're important to me, you know. Even if I have a very lousy way of showing it lately. And I don't like him, which is likely part of the issue, but I don't want you ending up upset a month from now if he ends up hurt because he didn't listen to what you wanted from him and ends up with his heart broken."
She stared at him for a long moment.
"It's his own fault if he ends up with his heart broken, isn't it? I told him I wanted to be friends."
George gave her a disbelieving look.
"Nessa, love, you blame yourself for everything. No matter what you told him, you'll be miserable wondering if you should have done something differently, so he didn't end up hurt."
She opened her mouth to argue and then closed it sharply. She did, in fact, blame herself when other people ended up hurt — Harry followed the spiders of his own choice and she'd blamed herself for not talking him out of it, would have told herself it was her fault if they hadn't all gotten out alive; she'd blamed herself for Ginny being taken into the Chamber of Secrets because she should have known sooner. No matter how open she'd been with Cedric, if he ended up under the impression that she wanted something more than she did, she'd blame herself for that too.
She hated him for knowing her so well. Instead of saying so, she changed the subject entirely.
"He could always break my heart, you know."
He snorted derisively.
"Not if he'd like to continue breathing," George said harshly. "If Tori doesn't kill him for that, Fred and I will be more than happy to do it ourselves."
"How selfless of you, George," she said sarcastically.
He grinned at her and gave her a wink, ignoring the giddy feeling that erupted when she blushed in response.
"Anything for you, sweetheart," he said honestly. "I just — I know it's been…weird between us lately, but you can tell me anything, you know. Even if it is about some prat like Diggory. I don't want you to think that you can't just because I say the wrong thing when it comes to him."
She sighed lightly.
"I just don't want to fight anymore, George. We haven't been lately and now we get back and we're right back to getting angry with each other for the same reasons as before."
"I can't pretend to like him, sweetheart. I don't and that's just the truth of it," he said honestly, squeezing her tightly when she looked like she was going to argue. "But he's your friend and I should be better about respecting that. I'm sorry that I haven't been, but I'm trying here, love. And I'll do my best to be better about it moving forward."
"Thank you," she said quietly. "I — well, for what it's worth, I'm sorry I picked a fight with Alicia earlier. I should have just let it go and I — I don't want to make it worse for you."
"I know you don't," he said, pushing a stray strand of her hair out of her face. "Besides, you were far nicer than she's been to you in the last few months. I don't think I blame you."
She hesitated a little, chewing on her cuticles nervously. George grabbed her wrist immediately to stop the habit.
"I just want you to be happy, George," she said softly.
He stared at her for a long moment, weighing the words in his mind over and over again. Mulling them over to attempt to figure out why the words made him feel so melancholy. Trying to decide if he really was happy in the first place. When the answer didn't immediately come to him, he released a slow breath.
Smiling gently at her, he said, "Right back at ya, love."
-o0o-
Arriving back at Hogwarts triggered Nessa's stress and anxiety almost immediately. They'd had a full day before classes began again, but she'd spent the majority of it trying to figure out what the hell was going on between Harry, Ron, and Hermione. The boys were refusing to talk to her and Hermione ran off every time they came anywhere within her vicinity. No matter how many times she'd badgered the three of them, they refused to tell her what was going on — although Hermione had tried to tell her on several occasions but had gotten too emotional and insisted she didn't want to upset Harry further by "tattling on him." Nessa would have told her that it wasn't "tattling," but she had every intention of ripping her brother a new one if it was something ridiculous and she was fairly certain that Hermione knew it.
As far as classes went, nothing felt too horribly different, although she was avoiding Adelaide Murton like the plague. Something which seemed to amuse her to no end, although she'd stopped making snide remarks about it because, after a particularly hateful comment, Tori had gotten so angry with her in the middle of Potions that she'd thrown her entire cauldron full of Ageing Potion at her. Although seeing Murton screaming at her hair turning gray and her skin becoming wrinkly, Snape's rage had been near catastrophic. Tori had gotten detention every day for the rest of the month and Murton had had to go to the Hospital Wing to have Madame Pomfrey correct the effects. She'd been there for a week.
When Nessa had told Tori to ignore Murton altogether, she'd gotten an earful and another lecture about how she should tell a teacher what had happened before break. She'd had to drop the argument when Tori pointed out that she couldn't even look at Murton and her friends without shaking. She still refused to tell a teacher, however, which seemed to enrage not just her best friend, but the twins as well. She'd caught them whispering to each other angrily on several occasions, but they refused to say what they were planning. She'd dropped that too, if only because she had other things to be worrying about.
Her brother had started Patronus lessons with Lupin, and seemed to be feeling much better about the dementors, although he looked terribly exhausted and limp after each one of his extra lessons. His exhaustion was not helped as the weeks continued. When Ravenclaw had lost — very narrowly — to Slytherin, Gryffindor was placed back in the running for the Quidditch Cup. Which, of course, meant that Wood had lost all semblance of control and was now having practices five times a week. Not only was Harry looking exhausted from dementor lessons and Quidditch, but the professors were piling on the homework as well and he had only one night a week to complete any of it. She'd had to stop badgering him about what was going on with Hermione because she was taking pity on the amount of work he was dealing with.
The twins and Tori were clearly feeling the strain themselves and had spent many a night ranting to Vanessa about Wood's insanity. She'd had to help Tori ice her shoulders on several occasions to help with the muscle strain from having so many practices back to back. Her runs with Fred had also become a time for him to complain vehemently about how much his own arms were hurting and how much Wood had yelled at him when he'd purposely hit a Bludger at him the night previous.
She hadn't seen much of George — although he did make it very clear to her one morning that it was not because he was avoiding her again. She hadn't thought he was — between Quidditch practices, trying to circulate their WWW order forms to select groups of students, and Alicia, she was surprised he had much free time at all. The only time she saw Fred was on their runs and at mealtimes, so she'd suspected as much. She'd found it endearing, nonetheless, to see him so frantic at the idea that she'd think he was avoiding her.
He'd stuck to his word about trying not to be too harsh about her friendship with Cedric, although she could tell that it took a great deal of restraint on his part and he still eyed the two of them closely if Cedric came to talk to her while she was with the twins. He'd also maintained his word about attempting to keep Alicia from causing problems for her. There had been several occasions where he'd had to ask Alicia to leave if she wasn't going to be polite — none of which had ended very well. And one situation where Alicia had accused Nessa of sleeping with George behind her back and called her a slut. George had come into the common room that evening to see Nessa and Alicia arguing so vehemently that Nessa had had to hand her wand to Tori — who had been simply watching the exchange with a grin as though she were watching a comedy show — to keep from hexing the older Chaser.
Although George had laid into Alicia for causing the argument in the first place, he had also not been very happy with Nessa on this occasion — for which she understood, considering how volatile the situation had been and the fact that both Fred and Lee had had to hold her back in an attempt to prevent the argument from escalating. Truthfully, she'd hated herself a little for getting so angry about it because it was so very obviously untrue and really wasn't worth her time to get so worked up over. Alicia had clearly enjoyed enraging her so completely, which, of course, only made her feel worse about the whole thing — she didn't want to give Alicia any form of satisfaction at all.
The relationship appeared to be devolving more and more quickly into chaos, and having to see her so often during Quidditch practices did not appear to have been making the situation any better. Nessa refrained from saying anything about it to him, however, unless he spoke to her about it first, which was very rarely and usually only in passing.
As the end of January neared with no sign that the workload for any of them would be slowing any time soon, Vanessa was losing every ounce of control she possessed. The weather was bitterly cold and windy, which seeped into the castle and made her close to miserable. She'd spent the majority of the day in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, watching a very miserable looking Hermione, whose immense workload appeared to have caught up to her. She was seated in a corner of the common room, surrounded by books that towered so high she was nearly impossible to see. She barely spoke to anyone and had snapped at her when she'd dared to interrupt to ask if she was doing okay.
Her brother and Ron were sitting in the opposite corner, clearly working on something that brought them a great deal of frustration — she assumed Potions based on that alone, but couldn't be sure. Ron kept sending Hermione scathing glances, although he looked confused every time that he looked back down at his work. Nessa could not tell if it was something to do with Hermione or if he just was that unclear about whatever essay he was supposed to be working on. Harry, for his part, looked so stressed that he was barely responding to anything his best friend said to him, and looked extremely irritated when Oliver Wood came to speak with him a moment later, gesticulating wildly.
"What's his problem?" she asked the twins and Tori.
Tori looked up from the side of the coffee table, where she was working on a Charms essay for Flitwick, and rolled her eyes.
"Who knows?" she said shortly. "If he comes over here next though, I'll break one of his legs."
"As long as he doesn't add any more practices, I don't care what he's doing," Fred groused. "I haven't been able to feel my fingers since we were at the Burrow."
Nessa snorted and rolled her eyes at his theatrics.
"I'd have expected you lot would be more excited to practice now that we're in the running for the Cup."
George made an irritated noise from where he lay behind her, sprawled over the couch, ankles crossed and resting on the arm, throwing an orange he'd taken from the Great Hall into the air repeatedly. He'd been morose for most of the day, and deep in thought about something she could only assume had something to do with Alicia, although he hadn't said anything to any of them about what was bothering him.
"We could win the Cup if we went down to three practices a week," he said seriously. "He's one poorly aimed Bludger away from losing his marbles completely, if you ask me."
Nessa reached a hand back to hit him lightly on the leg with a laugh. She imagined he would know, considering he and Fred were the ones trying to hit him with a Bludger most days. Although she knew very well that they were not being "poorly aimed."
When Oliver left Harry and Ron at the table and did not come over to speak with the twins and Tori, her interest peaked more. The fact that her brother looked even more morose than he had before Wood had come to speak with him was only another reason for her to interrupt. When he looked like he was going to give up for the evening and head up to the dormitory with Ron, she waved them over. George groaned when he had to sit up to make room for them on the couch, but settled behind Nessa with his legs on either side of her, leaning back into the cushions and throwing the orange up in the air again without a word.
"What was that about?" Nessa said when Harry and Ron had settled.
"Wood wants me to order a new broom for the Quidditch match. The same one as Malfoy."
"The one he's got is good, isn't it?" Nessa said idly, twirling her quill in her hand as she proofread the essay she'd been working on for Sprout.
"I don't want anything Malfoy thinks is good," said Harry as if she had said something offensive.
Nessa rolled her eyes. The two of them were ridiculous about their rivalry at this point. She hardly understood what difference it would make if he and Malfoy had the same broom, so long as they won the match. She wasn't going to waste her breath saying as much, however.
"You shouldn't have to buy a new bloody broom anyway," Ron said angrily, sending another scathing look at Hermione. Harry stomped on his foot.
Nessa might not have found the remark odd at all, considering how he'd lost his previous broom anyway, except Harry stomping on Ron's foot was clearly deliberate. Brows furrowing, she looked between the two of them and then at Hermione before focusing on her brother again.
"What are you talking about?" she said, narrowing her eyes when Ron sat back and started whistling up at the ceiling. Fred sniggered and rolled his eyes at the poor attempt at nonchalance, which caused Ron to give him a vulgar gesture. "Do that again, Ron, and you'll lose the finger. What is he talking about, Harry?"
"I got a Firebolt for Christmas," Harry said after a moment of silence.
Fred gaped at him and Tori dropped her quill in surprise. George sat up quickly, completely forgetting about the orange he was toying with, and it ended up hitting Nessa in the head on the way back down.
"George!" she scolded, rubbing her head and smacking him on the knee in reproach.
He ignored her completely.
"A Firebolt?" he said, awestruck.
"A real Firebolt?"
"You're joking!"
"Who gave it to you?"
Nessa's confusion was the question that her brother focused on and he gave her a hesitant look before he answered.
"There was no tag."
Nessa stared at him for a moment in silence. Who in the hell would buy him a Firebolt and not address the gift? It was horribly expensive — and that was coming from someone who had no shortage of money to spare. She'd not have bought the thing for him and she was his family. The Dursleys wouldn't have bothered; the Weasleys couldn't afford it; Tori would have sooner bought it for herself before she bought it for Harry.
Of course, the only other person she could think it could be was absolutely ridiculous. Possibly entirely irrational. Because for one thing, how would he have gotten the broom in the first place if his photo was plastered everywhere? Not to mention, why give a gift to Harry, but not his own daughter? Perhaps because his focus wasn't on his daughter at all at the moment.
"It could have come from anyone," said Ron with a roll of his eyes when Nessa continued to say nothing.
"Who would give a gift like that without saying who it was from?" Nessa said huffily in response. "You don't think that's odd at all?"
"Not you too, Vanessa," Harry said in irritation, removing his glasses and rubbing at his eyes. "It isn't from Sirius Black."
Tori shifted uncomfortably at the mention of her biological father, but they all ignored the movement completely.
"Sirius Black?" said Fred in confusion. "Who thinks it's from Sirius Black?"
"Hermione," said Ron with another glare in the bookworm's direction.
Nessa sat up straighter and glared at her brother.
"Tell me right now that this stupid broom isn't the reason you two aren't talking to her."
"She told McGonagall!" said Ron indignantly. "They — she — she took it from Harry and said that they're going to — to strip it down."
He said the words as if the idea of the Firebolt being subjected to that kind of treatment was a criminal offense. The twins and Tori paled at the words. Harry just looked morosely into the fire and refused to look at his sister, who rolled her eyes at the others' theatrics.
"The charms won't hurt it, for God's sake," she said in exasperation. "For another thing, it is a broomstick. You are not talking to your best friend because of a broomstick. I've never heard something more ridiculous."
Ron gaped at her and threw his arms up in the air.
"Well, of course, you wouldn't understand. You don't play Quidditch —"
"Neither do you, moron," she snapped, causing Tori to snort indelicately. "Unless you count throwing apples at your brothers over the summer as testament to your unbeatable Quidditch prowess."
She'd never seen Ron's ears turn that color of red before, but she found herself smirking in satisfaction anyway. Even as George reached down to squeeze her shoulder in placation.
"Don't be rude, Vanessa," said Harry with an eye roll.
"Don't call me that, Harry," she snapped back. "And I'll do whatever I please if the two of you are going to act like you've got no common sense. What kind of friends would treat someone like that?"
"So you think it's Sirius Black then?" said Harry in clear irritation. "This is exactly why I didn't want to tell you. Why would Sirius Black give me a broomstick?"
She took a deep breath in an attempt to cool the anger she felt at his admission of secrecy around the subject. Truthfully, one day she was going to kill him herself.
"He can't just walk into Quality Quidditch Supplies and buy it, now can he?" Ron continued smugly as if he'd uncovered some irrefutable argument and she'd have to concede their victory.
"He wasn't supposed to be able to get past the dementors, either, now was he?" she said with an eye roll. "And yet, somehow he's done it twice. I don't care how he got it. And the why seems fairly self-explanatory. And at any rate, the entire point isn't about the stupid broomstick —"
"Stupid?" Fred said indignantly.
" —- It's about the fact that you aren't talking to Hermione for trying to make sure you were safe. If there's nothing wrong with it, McGonagall will give it back."
"No one is going to kill Harry with a broomstick," said Ron huffily. "Honestly, the two of you act as if the idea of that isn't completely barmy."
"Yes, because no one has tried to kill Harry during Quidditch before," said Nessa sarcastically. Tori grinned when Ron's ears turned red again. "I can't remember a time that Harry was ever dangling from his broomstick because of a lunatic professor or a cursed Bludger trying to kill him —-"
"Dobby was only trying to grievously injure me," said Harry defensively.
"Yes, much better, Harry," Tori deadpanned.
"So you agree with her then?" said Ron angrily. "You're on the Quidditch team!"
Tori rolled her eyes and picked up her quill again.
"I'm just as excited about the broomstick as you two are, Ronniekins," she said snidely. "But it's not really my place to tell Nessa what she should be concerned about when it comes to Harry —"
"Even if she's being crazy?"
Nessa flinched at the word choice and tried to pretend like it hadn't bothered her. Tori, the twins, and Harry did not have the same restraint.
"Watch your mouth when you talk to her, Ron," George growled immediately.
"She isn't crazy," said Harry angrily, despite his own irritation with his sister for taking Hermione's side.
Fred looked as though he might swing at him and Tori shot up from her seat so quickly that Ron didn't have any time to shield himself before her wand was pointed in his face. He paled and swallowed audibly.
"Call her that again, Ronald, and it will be the very last thing you ever say to anyone," she said dangerously. Fred reached up to grab her arm, but Tori jerked it free of his hold. "Just because you have your head so far up your arse, you don't know which way is up, doesn't mean she's crazy for worrying about her brother. If she says you're being a prat then you are, and you're just going to nod your head and smile for the rest of this conversation, are we clear?"
Ron nodded hastily and Tori let Fred pull her back away from his brother, although she still eyed Ron dangerously and did not put her wand away. Ron eyed it nervously as he spoke again.
"Sorry, Nessa, that's not what I meant. It came out wrong."
George made a disbelieving noise, his glare just as harsh as Tori's. Nessa took a shuddering breath in an attempt to ground herself in the conversation again, even as she choked up a little at her friends' immediate defense of her.
"It doesn't matter," she said, her tone as close to dismissive as she could muster. Tori opened her mouth angrily to disagree completely, but she continued speaking before she could say anything further. "The point is that the two of you are treating one of your best friends as if she doesn't matter to you at all. I've seen you treat Malfoy better than you've been treating her, for God's sake. All because she had the audacity to be concerned for your safety. Is the idea of Sirius Black buying you a broomstick ridiculous? Maybe, but what harm is it to check that it's nothing to be concerned about if the alternative is that you end up dead?"
"That's one helluva guilt trip," Harry muttered with a frown.
Nessa snorted.
"No, a guilt trip would be me telling you that the only reason you two idiots are still breathing in the first place is because of that girl over there," she said harshly. The two of them grimaced in response. "If you two want to treat her like trash, that's your prerogative, but you should be ashamed of yourselves because I can tell you for certain that she'd never do the same to either of you if roles were reversed. And, frankly, if anyone deserves to be angry, it's certainly her — I've never in my life met someone so willing to forgive the two of you for every stupid thing you put her through. Between the stupid broomstick and your dumb rat, I'm surprised she bothers talking to the two of you at all at this point."
Harry sighed heavily and rubbed at his eyes again.
"Look, Nessa, I understand the point, but the concern is misplaced and I don't have the time or patience to get into the whole thing right now because I've got a hundred other things to do. Just — can I just be angry about it right now and worry about the guilt later?"
She eyed him in disapproval.
"I suppose," she said eventually. "But I don't want to hear a single thing about it if she ends up being right about the broomstick being cursed."
"Yeah, well, I get to say 'I told you so' if there's nothing wrong with it," said Harry with an eye roll.
"You've got a death wish, mate," said Fred with a shake of his head.