We are not feeling our best at the moment, and I've got a ton going on this weekend, so I'm going to stick with the Friday evening updates before the chaos hits for the weekend. You are all beautiful and I appreciate each and every one of you! We've made it through another week. Enjoy your weekend and I'll see you soon!
Bookcozy: Enjoy your vacation! Thank you for reviewing as always! I am of the belief that all three of them are being a tad ridiculous about the tournament at this point, but it's a toss up between which of them is more ridiculous than the other with every new chapter LOL. We are taking a small break from the bickering with this one though, so we can appreciate that at least! George and Nessa have been through worse so far in my opinion, so they can handle a little strife. All the jealous girls will just have to continue to be jealous…
Chapter Twelve
McGonagall advising that she'd need to manage her time well had been the understatement of the century.
She was drowning, really.
Her professors had gone mad — she'd thought so from the beginning, but this was — this was nearly unmanageable. She'd no idea how Fred and George and Cedric had done it. She'd not even an idea how anyone had done this before. As the days passed, the workload only grew — she'd spent too many days to count staying awake to the early hours of the morning finishing essays just to wake up early the next morning for her daily runs with Fred. They'd been meeting before six before, but she'd insisted he change the time. He was still irritated with her — he refused to use the word mad for reasons unbeknown to her — and had refused at first, but she'd broken down one morning from lack of sleep that she'd screamed at him for ten minutes and then broke down in tears.
She wasn't entirely sure if he'd chosen, at that point, to concede to running later because he was alarmed by this response or because he pitied her, but she didn't particularly care. One extra hour of sleep a day was hardly enough, but she wouldn't take it for granted regardless.
Madam Pomfrey had agreed to let her come into the hospital wing to shadow her once a week, with the promise that, should she do well, they could increase this to twice a week. Once a week had felt like barely any time when she'd agreed, but it was just as exhausting having Pomfrey lecture her about magical illnesses and ailments as it was to do her coursework. Not including the fact that spending three hours in the hospital wing was three hours less that she got to keep herself caught up with her classes.
Add on prefect duties — made worse by the fact that McLaggen was almost entirely useless — and her tutoring sessions with Cedric, which now frequently included Tori because, much to her chagrin, McGonagall had recommended that she continue with Potions to go into Magizoology, she had little to no free time at all. Tori did fine in Potions as far as Nessa was concerned, so long as Snape wasn't in a foul mood, but she wasn't near getting an 'Outstanding' in order to continue, which only added to her stress. The plus side of these sessions was that she could at least count it as studying and Tori was forced to cooperate now.
Tori herself seemed to be feeling the strain as well. She and Fred had a tendency of getting into volatile arguments every evening because he couldn't help himself when it came to irritating her. She'd also gotten very tired of her three friends arguing still about whether or not the twins should be attempting to enter the tournament, and refused to acknowledge which side of the debate she fell on because she had far better things to concern herself with. She had even started behaving in the majority of her classes in an attempt to keep herself from getting detentions — a behavior she promised was only temporary, and served to make sure she wasn't falling behind in classes herself, not because she had any desire to mature.
The two of them were fairly close to losing it as it was, and that was without the added stress of the Triwizard Tournament. When they'd come down from a particularly grueling Charms lesson, there had been a large crowd gathering around a large sign in the entrance hall. It had taken them several long minutes to push their way through to see what the deal was.
TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT
THE DELEGATIONS FROM BEAUXBATONS AND DURMSTRANG WILL BE ARRIVING AT 6 O'CLOCK ON FRIDAY THE 30TH OF OCTOBER. LESSONS WILL END HALF AN HOUR EARLY — STUDENTS WILL RETURN THEIR BAGS AND BOOKS TO THEIR DORMITORIES AND ASSEMBLE IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE TO GREET OUR GUESTS BEFORE THE WELCOMING FEAST.
The appearance of the sign in the entrance hall had a marked effect upon the inhabitants of the castle. During the following week of its arrival, there seemed to be only one topic of conversation, no matter where Nessa went: the Triwizard Tournament. Rumors were flying from student to student like highly contagious germs: who was going to try for Hogwarts champion, what the tournament would involve, how the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang differed from themselves.
The twins and Lee had been spending less time with her and Tori, in an attempt she assumed was because they were trying to avoid enraging either girl with their continued planning. Truthfully, Tori did not appear to care whether they tried to enter or not — when Nessa had asked, she'd simply said "The twins have always done things their way. You get used to it." — but was more irritated by them scheming when they knew it upset Nessa. She'd also readily admitted on a number of occasions that the twins, while intelligent, were no Dumbledore, and she had severe doubts that they would manage to dupe him.
"The man is like three hundred years old," Tori had griped at them one evening over dinner. "Whatever the three of you are thinking, he's seen it probably six hundred times in his whole lifetime."
Nessa also noticed that the castle seemed to be undergoing an extra thorough cleaning. Several grimy portraits had been scrubbed, much to the displeasure of their subjects, who sat huddled in their frames muttering darkly and wincing as they felt their raw pink faces. The suits of armor were suddenly gleaming and moving without squeaking, and Filch was behaving so ferociously to any students who forgot to wipe their shoes that he'd terrified a pair of first-year girls into hysterics. It had taken Nessa nearly an hour to soothe them enough to leave the common room again.
The tension within the castle only seemed to be increasing as Nessa's birthday came upon her, and she was so caught up in the stress of it all that she hadn't immediately noticed it was her birthday at all. She might not have if Fred and George had not been so nice to her — not that they'd been mean to her before. They'd been snippy and short, but she was the one who seemed to be cruel to them as opposed to the opposite. At any rate, the morning of her birthday, the two of them had resorted to their usual banter and friendship that she'd stared at them for a long while before all of the pieces had clicked.
It hardly mattered, really, because she had a full day of classes and then homework, so she was nowhere near prepared to be asking them questions about why they were suddenly treating her as if nothing had happened. Nor did she want to get into another argument about the tournament when the best part of her day was going to be going to sleep for the evening.
Despite her desire to avoid whatever antics the two of them could be up to, George flung himself onto the couch behind her late that evening. She paused in her ferocious scribbling for a moment before deciding not to ask what he was doing. The History of Magic essay she was working on was grueling enough without adding socializing into the mix. Tori had given up trying to speak to her an hour ago and had gone to work next to Fred and George instead. Nessa didn't much understand it, but Tori seemed totally unable to work in silence; she always needed some form of background noise to concentrate fully.
"You shouldn't be working on your birthday, love," George said after several moments of silence.
It took a great deal of effort on her part not to huff in frustration. She'd heard this from Harry, Ron, Fred, and Tori on multiple occasions today, but it changed nothing about her current workload.
"So I've been told," she said, her tone clipped and her scribbling never ceasing, her eyes glued to the parchment in front of her.
George sighed and sat up to look at her, but she made no indication that she was paying any attention to him at all. He hesitated for a moment — debating with himself if his next move was in her best interest or his worst — before he reached over and plucked the quill from her fingers.
She whirled on him immediately.
"George, what do you think you're doing?" she snapped, making a wild grab for the quill in his hand which he moved well outside her reach.
"You need to take a breather, Vanessa," he said firmly. "You're driving yourself mad and we've only been back for a month."
"I don't have time to take a breather, George," she said in frustration. "I'm barely keeping up as it is. Give me my quill back."
"No."
"No?" she gritted out between her teeth.
"That's what I said," he said with a raised eyebrow. "I'm staging an intervention —"
"George, this is ridiculous —"
"Exactly my point actually, thank you!" he said, grinning at her despite the ferocious glare on her face.
She'd been running herself into the ground more and more by the day, and, despite the fact that they were often bickering these days, his concern for her was growing just as quickly. He strongly suspected that the Calming Draught she took daily was the only reason she'd lasted so long without having a breakdown, but she was clearly nearing her limit. With tutoring Diggory, lessons with Madam Pomfrey, prefect duties, and classes, he hardly saw her doing anything that wasn't working.
And she wasn't the only one within her year having such a difficult time. Tori had broken down in he and Fred's dormitory a few nights before because Snape had given her a detention for distracting Bletchley with her 'abnormally loud breathing.' And one of the Hufflepuff students had been sent to Madam Pomfrey after she'd taken a Wideye Potion to stay up to complete a particularly brutal Arithmancy assignment, and had begun laughing uncontrollably for hours from the lack of sleep.
Truthfully, fifth year felt more like a punishment than a help, and he'd hardly cared about how many O.W.L.s he'd have walked away with. He could hardly imagine what it would be like for someone who actually cared about their coursework. Although he supposed he was looking in the face of it right now.
When she continued glaring at him, he sighed heavily, keeping the quill outside her reach, and pulled her up from the floor to sit on the couch next to him.
"The homework will still be here tomorrow, Vanessa," he said softly, tucking an errant strand of her hair behind her ear. "You need to relax —"
She snorted derisively.
"I don't know how to relax," she said. "I think that's been proven quite clear in the time you've known me."
This was true. She'd always been a little more uptight than him, a little more tetchy, a little more tense. Most of the time these things hardly bothered him at all, as he typically was able to balance that out, loosen her up a little, lighten her mood. Lately, however, she'd been growing so irritable that people were avoiding her entirely. Even Fred — who had cared very little about angering anyone the majority of his life — had been walking on eggshells around her.
"Well, I happen to be very skilled at relaxing," he said, keeping his voice casual despite the slight fear he had that she might just tackle him for the quill. She was staring at it rather intently, and he could see the thoughts racing behind her eyes. "I'll teach you."
"I thought we were fighting still," she huffed, crossing her arms across her chest. It took a great deal of effort on his part to maintain a calm facade. She'd been driving him as mental as he was sure he'd been driving her, and neither one of them appeared to be able to find a middle ground at the moment. "And I'd really rather be working than arguing with you about —"
He cut her off by placing a finger over her lips and shaking his head at her.
"Hush," he said firmly, moving to lay back on the couch and forcing her with him. She was stiff as he shuffled them both so that she was forced between him and the back of the couch. She was still glaring at him, her face millimeters from his own, but he could see the hesitation in the back of her eyes. He hated a little that he'd put it there, but now wasn't really the time to get into the big, long, horrible conversation they'd both been avoiding. "No fighting, love. That's counterproductive to relaxing."
"I don't understand what's happening," she said slowly. "You're still —"
"I'm still mad at you, you're still mad at me," he said. "Nothing's changed on that front, I know. But we're going to take a break from that for the time being —"
"A break?" she said doubtfully.
"Yes," he said. "A break. We're pushing pause on the arguing. If you'd like to continue tomorrow then by all means, love, but you're going to pretend — for the rest of the evening anyway — that we're not."
"Why?" she said, confused.
The point of it made little sense to her. If they were still angry with each other, then they were still angry with each other. What was the point of pretending otherwise and ignoring the issue altogether?
"Because it's your birthday, sweetheart," he said seriously. "I don't want to fight with you on your birthday. And because we don't appear any closer to agreeing on the entire thing than we were three weeks ago, and I miss you."
It was an odd thing, really — missing someone who he still spent the majority of his day with. Truthfully, they weren't always arguing about the issue — he tried to avoid the topic altogether and Tori seemed inclined to help him with this, which helped a great deal. There were moments when the four of them could all coexist without snapping or griping at each other, and he preferred those moments, but it wasn't the same as being with her and only her.
Between her constant workload and their bickering, they hadn't had much time at all together. Part of that was his fault, he knew — if he wanted to, he could cave and decide not to enter, even though Bagman had given them Irish gold, therefore cleaning them out of their savings, and they were now even further from making their dream a reality. He hardly cared about the glory of the tournament, so long as he could win the gold and finally do what he loved doing. Finally prove his mother wrong for her doubt in him and his twin.
He wanted that so much that he practically ached for it.
But he'd not yet told Nessa about Bagman — both because it was just another thing she'd be upset with him about and because they still weren't entirely sure if it had been an accident or not. There'd been a lot of Irish gold flying about and he wouldn't have been entirely surprised if he'd switched it out, not knowing that the gold disappeared. Most wizards didn't realize it. Although the fact that he was refusing to meet with them was odd enough that they were beginning to doubt that it was an accident at all.
And, while he'd made sure that she knew the arguing changed nothing between them in the grand scheme of things, it took a toll. He was bordering on miserable at this point — unable to focus on product development, utterly useless at being charming enough to sell anything to students, and almost entirely unable to do anything other than stare at her every time she was in the same room as him and fighting the urge to just apologize and give her exactly what she wanted so that they could end the insanity, regardless of whether or not it made him miserable. Really, if he'd thought fighting with Alicia had been a nightmare, fighting with Nessa was pure hell.
Fred kept saying he was a sap, and he was starting to feel like one himself, but he hardly cared at this point. He needed a break from the arguing as much as she did.
"I —" she blinked at him, a little bewildered herself and trying to ignore the stinging in her eyes. She cleared her throat roughly. "I miss you too, George, but —"
"No buts," he said, brushing his lips against hers lightly. He grinned at her when she sucked in a breath through her nose. She'd always been responsive when he kissed her, no matter how many times he did it. Despite their bickering, he kissed her every time he saw her — partially because he couldn't really help himself where she was concerned, but also because he refused to let some silly argument impact their relationship to the point that they avoided each other entirely — and every night before he went up to bed. It was starting to feel more like an addiction by this point, but it felt less ridiculous thinking so when she so openly enjoyed it.
"I really do have to work, you know," she said, giving him a long look of disapproval.
He pursed his lips to keep himself from laughing at her because she really did look very cute when she looked like that. Telling her so would only irritate her, though, and he was working on going the opposite direction for the moment.
"Tomorrow, love," he reminded her.
And because she was already opening her mouth to argue with him, he covered her mouth with his own before she could mount much of a protest and insist that she go back to working. There was a moment where she seemed like she might pull away from him, and he would have had to think of another plan of attack, but she relaxed against him a second later.
There was a moment of relief that he'd managed to get her off of studying — for the moment at least — before it turned quickly to surprise when she began insisting with her lips. As far as snogging went, he was typically the one who took the lead. She was always just a little hesitant, a little shy, and he'd yet to figure out how to get her to let go of what was left of her typically reserved nature. He'd not an idea what he'd done to get her to let go of it at the current moment, but he certainly wasn't about to complain.
It wasn't exactly the most comfortable position to be in for this sort of thing, but he really didn't care about that either. He had a hard time thinking through a great deal of things when she was this close and the smell of mangos was fogging his head. He could typically play off the effect she had on him, but it'd been so long since he'd kissed her for longer than a handful of seconds and whatever arrogant self-assuredness he typically possessed went directly out the window the moment she pushed her lips harder against his.
He let her take control, the movement of her lips over his soft and tentative, as if she wasn't entirely sure if she was doing the right thing or if she should have just let him take control instead. She was soft against him, despite her obvious hesitancy and it took an immense level of self-control on his part not to pull her as close as he could get her or to insist too much with his own lips in case it deterred her from ending the kiss entirely.
Really, the fact that they weren't doing this more often was beyond him and he was seriously considering —
Before he had any idea what was happening, her hand slid from his side to his wrist and to the hand that he had loosely holding the quill he'd taken from her earlier. He'd entirely forgotten about it until she was yanking it free from his grasp and breaking their kiss at the same time with a large grin.
"Thanks, George," she said, her lips tugging into a smug smirk and her eyes dancing with mirth at the surprised expression on his face. "I think that counts as an adequate 'breather', don't you?"
It took him several long seconds before his head finally caught up to the fact that she'd tricked him to get her quill back. So long, in fact, that she had nearly managed to extract herself from between him and the couch and was rolling over him to get back to her spot on the floor. He managed to stop gaping for long enough to grab her around the waist and pull her back over his side and use his body to press her back into the couch firmly before she could make any sudden moves to get herself out again.
She made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat when he leaned over her with a large grin.
"Where do you think you're going?" he said with a raised eyebrow.
Her eyes narrowed at the challenge in his voice and she struggled against his hold.
"George Weasley —"
His grin widened at her scolding tone, and he managed to free one of his arms enough to wrestle with the hand that held her quill. To her credit, she didn't give in very easily and it took him several long moments before he managed to wrest it free from her grasp. She was laughing by the time he managed to get hold of it, and he did himself the favor of throwing it somewhere behind him to spare himself the hassle of fighting her for it again.
"That wasn't very nice, love," he said, working very hard to keep his face in a stern expression, despite the warmth in his chest when she laughed like that. It was the closest to carefree she'd sounded in weeks.
She was still giggling when she grinned up at him.
"It's not my fault you're so easily distracted," she said, raising one eyebrow at him, her eyes sparkling up at him in a way that was entirely distracting. Which really just proved her point. "Besides, you didn't specify how long of a break I needed to take, so I guess I'll just go back to —"
"Not a chance, Vanessa," he replied with a grin. She gave him a long suffering look, but before she could protest, he pulled her up with him and kissed her again, lingering only a moment before he pulled back to grin at her. "If you'd stop arguing with me, I could tell you that I have something for you."
She hesitated a moment, looking at him for a long moment.
"You do?"
His lips twitched at the sound of eager curiosity in her voice, despite her obvious reluctance to leave her studies.
"Of course," he said, trying to look as affronted as possible by the suggestion that he wouldn't have gotten her anything. "It's downstairs."
"Downstairs?" she said, the curiosity morphing to suspicion. "Why would it be downstairs?"
"Well, if I tell you that, it would ruin the surprise, now wouldn't it?" he grinned, pulling her with him to a stand.
She followed him out of the common room reluctantly, and looked like she might argue, but he ignored it entirely. It was close to curfew, so very few students were still roaming the halls — a factor he'd put much consideration into prior — but he still had to wait for the Entrance Hall to clear and then several more minutes to make sure there were no professors lingering as curfew hit. He'd become quite familiar with where they started patrols for the evenings, having dodged them for years, and they were nowhere near any of the common rooms or the library. It did not stop Nessa from protesting when he pulled her in the direction of the Great Hall.
"What are you doing?" she whispered harshly, tugging against his hand when he pushed at the large double doors. "What could possibly be in the Great Hall at ten o'clock at night?"
He shushed her and pulled her into the cavernous room before she could manage to put up too much of a struggle. The moment the doors had shut behind them they were plunged into thick darkness other than the light that came from the ceiling above them. He'd gotten lucky tonight — the sky outside was mostly cloudless, so the stars were bright against the blackness, twinkling in the same way they would have had they been outside or in the Astronomy Tower. Both locations he'd strongly considered as well, but denied for various reasons. Outside was too open, should they get caught, and he strongly suspected that if she got detention added to her current workload that she'd kill him on the spot. The Astronomy Tower seemed a very poor idea only because it was where he'd taken Alicia and where Nessa had found them together. Which was a real pity, considering how much she liked stargazing and it was her favorite place to go when she had the free time.
So he'd opted for next best to all of those things, and a location that none of the professors or prefects ever checked on their rounds. He assumed because they didn't imagine anyone would want to be in the Great Hall after curfew as there wasn't a whole lot a person could do in a big empty room. The tables were always folded up against the wall until the next morning when the house elves would come to set everything up for breakfast. As it was, the only thing taking up the space of the room was a large fluffy blanket he'd transfigured from one of the candles that typically floated above them. Coercing one of the house-elves to get rid of the rest of them had been one of the easiest endeavors of his life. They'd practically fought over who could be the one to help him set the entire thing up.
"Are you seducing me right now, George?" she said dryly, spotting the blanket in the middle of the room.
He smirked at her, and opted to fluster her for her snark.
"I thought I'd already done that, love," he replied smoothly, chuckling when she huffed at him and smacked him on the arm with her free hand. "We're just looking at the ceiling, darling, but if you've got other ideas in mind, then I'm all ears."
She rested her hands on her hips and looked down at him with a stern expression when he settled himself on the blanket and folded his hands behind his head. He grinned up at her — he was certain that she expected that expression to be sufficiently disapproving, but he really found himself withholding the urge to kiss the frown right off her face. To his own surprise, the disapproving prefect thing really did it for him — not that he'd tell her so. And it never had before so it was likely just the fact that it was her, but the specifics weren't really of importance at the moment.
"What if we got caught in here?" she said when he continued grinning at her and made no move to get up.
"We won't," he said, leaning up enough to pull her down next to him. "They never check in here during rounds. Or didn't you know that, miss prefect?"
"Don't be a smartarse," she said with an eye roll. "It's unbecoming."
"Besides, I figure if we get caught, then it's a good thing I'm with a prefect, is it not?"
"You're pushing your luck, George."
He laughed, the sound echoing in the empty room, before they lapsed into a comfortable silence. The ceiling above them was clearing of some of the earlier clouds, larger portions of the sky beginning to sparkle with new, brightly colored stars. He could see why she liked looking at them so much, although the fact that she could do so for hours at a time was a little beyond him, considering they all stood in the same spot.
She seemed fairly content next to him, though, which was really the state he was going for. Other than the fact that he couldn't afford to get her anything for her birthday, he'd really been thinking for weeks what to do to help with whatever stress she was letting pile on her shoulders. There was so little that truly relaxed her, which made the entire thing entirely difficult, and didn't leave him with many options. Not to mention, he'd had severe doubts that he'd get her away from her homework to begin with.
Because she didn't seem inclined to speak, he busied himself with looking for constellations instead. He wasn't a huge fan of prolonged silences, truthfully — they were hard to come by in his family, and the only time he and Fred weren't talking was when they were focusing on product development. Something that challenged him enough to require his full focus. The stars weren't particularly enough to hold his attention for very long, it seemed, and he apparently hadn't paid very much attention in Astronomy because he could only manage to recognize Ursa Major, despite the hundreds of other stars twinkling above him.
Wasn't there a smaller one?
"George," Nessa said from beside him, her voice thick with amusement. "It's hard to relax with you moving around so much."
He hadn't even realized he'd been shuffling restlessly and he stilled the movement immediately. He chanced a glance over at her, and found her looking at him, clearly trying not to laugh. He smiled sheepishly at her.
"I have no idea what I'm looking at," he said honestly and she laughed at him, the sound pulling a grin from him. "I didn't pay much attention in Astronomy apparently."
"Imagine that," she said dryly.
He poked her in the side in reproach and she gasped in surprise at the tickling sensation. He smirked at her when she gave him a reproachful look.
"You don't need to know Astronomy to appreciate the stars, you know," she said, her voice sounding so particularly swotty that he had to bite his lip to keep himself from laughing. "Astronomy just teaches you the constellations, the placement of stars, the planets. It's interesting, but there's far more interesting things about the stars than their placement."
"Oh? Enlighten me, O' Wise One," he said mockingly, laughing again when she huffed and swatted at him for his teasing.
He grabbed her hand quickly before she could retract it, bringing it up to brush a kiss across the pads of her fingers, before lacing his fingers with hers. He smiled charmingly at her when she blinked at him in surprise before she cleared her throat and looked back up at the ceiling.
"Well, we look at the stars as wizards to predict the next eclipse or some asinine attempt to predict the future, but many Muggle cultures used to believe that the stars were their God's way of telling stories," she said. "So they learned to recognize patterns in the sky and give them names and stories."
"So they made things up," George said slowly.
Nessa snorted.
"Well, I don't think they'd appreciate you saying so," she said, looking back at him and raising an eyebrow. "Especially not when you lot are trying to convince them that Mars' positioning means they're going to find love in the next five years."
"That's hardly what we do," he said indignantly. "It's a bit more complex than that or I imagine I would have paid more attention in class, now wouldn't I have?"
She grinned at him and rolled her eyes before pointing up at the sky above them.
"Pick a constellation."
He looked back above them, but he had no idea why because he could only recognize the one.
"I only see Ursa Major," he said.
If she found this amusing, she didn't say so. Instead she traced the constellation with her finger and sighed contentedly.
"Ursa Major is the Great Bear, named after Callisto, who was turned into a bear after she offended Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, wild animals, and the moon," she said, laughing at the doubtful noise he made in the back of his throat. "In Greek mythology, Callisto was a nymph — in their stories, nymphs are considered very beautiful creatures, inferior female deities that were tied to protect specific parts of nature —"
"This isn't another disturbing story of men being lured to their deaths by beautiful women, is it?"
"No," she said, laughing. "Although, sirens do have a place in Greek mythology, but they're entirely different. Anyway, Callisto was a nymph who was devoted to Artemis. Artemis was a protector of all girls and women who were not married, and had taken a vow never to marry. Callisto admired her for this, and vowed to do the same. Artemis loved her for this thoughtfulness and devotion, and the two became close friends. But Callisto was a very beautiful nymph and ended up attracting the attention of Zeus, God of the sky and considered the father of all gods and humans. Callisto knew of Zeus, of course, who was not known for being kind to the women he was supposed to protect, and she had no intention of breaking her vow to Artemis. So she convinced herself that she wouldn't fall in love with Zeus, no matter how hard he tried to woo her —"
"Ah, a forbidden romance," George said, wiggling his eyebrows at her and causing her to roll her eyes at him. "This is more my style."
"You're ridiculous," she said with a snort, before continuing as if he'd said nothing. "Well, Zeus was persistent — he showered her with gifts and wishes and compliments, and, eventually, Callisto started to let her guard down and fell in love with him, despite knowing she shouldn't. She expressed strongly to Zeus that Artemis — who couldn't be bothered with the idea of love — could never find out about the two of them. Artemis was known among all of the gods and humans for her anger and over-the-top punishments, and if she found out about them, it would be good for neither of them. Unfortunately, another nymph by the name of Amlia told Artemis that Callisto had become pregnant. She was furious — she could not have maidens who were bearing children, and her best friend had betrayed her —"
"Wait, how?" George said, totally bewildered. "She didn't marry him, did she? I thought that was the point of the vow."
"Greek gods were fickle," Nessa said. "Artemis didn't believe in love and never wanted to marry, and Callisto should have believed the same. Even if the vow had been more specific, it offended Artemis all the same —"
"This is mad," George muttered to himself.
"So Artemis made her pack all of her things, but she asked who the father was before Callisto could leave. Callisto felt that she owed Artemis the truth, so she told her it was Zeus. This enraged her further as she and Zeus were enemies, and this felt like an even bigger betrayal. So, enraged, she picked up her bow and arrow and prepared to kill Callisto right there, but Callisto begged her not to — until the baby was born. Artemis considered it — she was the protector of all women and children who weren't mothers. In her mind, Callisto still fell under this protection until she gave birth. So she let her go with the warning that it would only be until the baby was born. A few weeks later, Callisto gave birth to a boy named Arcus. In the time since she'd banished Callisto, Artemis had had time to think — she didn't want to kill Callisto, but she still wanted to punish her for her betrayal. So instead, she snuck into the cabin Callisto was staying in with her newborn, and turned her into a bear, taking the baby to a human family to be cared for and leaving Callisto in the forest until she died. Years later, when Arcus was a grown man, he went into that very forest to hunt, and came across a bear drinking from a small creek. The bear, obviously, was Callisto, and, even in bear form, she recognized him as her son immediately. She started toward him at the same time that he took aim —"
"He kills her?"
"No, he doesn't," she said, laughing at his exasperated expression. "Zeus was watching from his place in the sky and decided that he couldn't allow his son to kill his own mother. So he came down from Olympus — where he lived — and told Arcus to stop. Arcus was not sure why a God would care if he killed a bear, but he obeyed and left the forest. Even though Zeus had managed to stop Arcus from killing Callisto, she was still devastated — she had been so close to her son and yet she couldn't tell him who she was, would never be able to do so. So she stopped eating or drinking, losing her motivation to live completely. Eventually, she passed away, but Zeus was heartbroken by this, and wanted her to be remembered for the loving and kind mother that she was. So he placed her in the stars as the bright constellation, Ursa Major. When Arcus passed away years later, he placed him among the stars as well, as Ursa Minor —" she traced the Little Dipper with her finger, only a small distance from the larger one. "Now, the two are in the sky together, watching over Leo, Virgo, and Cancer."
She traced each of these constellations with her finger as well. George gaped at her.
"None of that makes any sense."
"How so?" she said, amused by the disbelief on his face.
"Well, he — Zeus is supposed to be the father of all of the gods, isn't he?" he said. "Why didn't he just stop Artemis from turning her into a bear at all?"
"It depends on which rendition of the gods that you believe," she shrugged. "Zeus was supposed to be omnipotent, but his powers were given to him by a higher power and he was under a specific agreement not to abuse those powers for his own whims. Callisto made a vow to Artemis, broke it — in Artemis' eyes anyway — and therefore, deserved to be punished. Zeus wasn't within his right to put a stop to that punishment, no matter how he felt for her —"
"She didn't marry him, though," he said indignantly. "It makes no sense —"
"She didn't," Nessa agreed. "Other renditions of the story state that Zeus is the one who turned her into a bear because he didn't want his wife, Hera, to know of his feelings for Callisto. Others say that Zeus tricked Callisto into bedding him by turning himself into Artemis, and when she fell pregnant, Artemis expelled her from her hunting group, but did not turn her into a bear. Hera was the one who did it when she found out of Zeus' affair with the nymph. The story becomes lost to specifics when it's passed down the years or told differently in different regions."
He gaped at her for a moment longer, trying to wrap his mind around the absurdity of it.
"So, you like looking at the stars because you think they tell a story?"
"I don't believe the stories, if that's what you're asking," she said, laughing lightly. "But, yes, partially. The stories themselves are interesting and they give insight into other cultures. It's no different than when you look up at the clouds and try to find shapes in them. Or telling children fairy tales. But I also just like looking at them because they're…relaxing, quiet, pretty. It's hard to explain," she said when he smirked at her, hitting him on the shoulder with the hand he didn't have laced with his own. "Your problems seem smaller when you're looking up at something so vast. The stories just pass the time."
He sighed, shaking his head, but pointed up at the ceiling again, and said, "Tell me another one then. Hopefully one that's less depressing, if you don't mind."
She did, although whether it was less depressing, he couldn't quite say. Cancer was at least more interesting, if for the fact that he found the idea of a battle and twelve labors far more interesting than a backwards belief that a vow had been broken. He'd not have admitted so, but he did find the stories mildly interesting, even if they were insane on the face of it.
By the time she'd finished, she was yawning every other sentence and had migrated from her side of the blanket into his side in an attempt to ward off the chill in the room. There was a large part of him that sincerely considered not mentioning that she was clearly exhausted because having her so close to him made him feel content and giddy all at once. But he forced himself to do it anyway — she was hardly getting enough sleep as it was, and he'd managed to relax her enough that he hoped she'd manage to sleep easier instead of worrying about the hundred other things in her head.
"C'mon, love," he murmured, pushing her gently up to a sit. "Before you fall asleep in here."
"I'm not that tired," she griped, but it was greatly diminished by the yawn she let out immediately after.
He refrained from his usual approach of teasing — she tended to be very grumpy on little sleep — and instead pulled her up from the floor and vanished the blanket with a wave of his wand. She came willingly when he pulled her toward the double doors again, her feet dragging a little more than they usually might have if she'd been fully awake. He listened as closely as he could to make sure no one was patrolling the corridor outside the doors before he opened them and dragged her out with him.
Sneaking back to the common room was much more difficult than sneaking out of it — the patrols were underway by this point, and it was impossible to tell which corridors the teachers and prefects would be in until he'd rounded the corners of them. There had been several close calls by the time they'd reached the fourth floor corridor, but, thankfully, Nessa appeared much better than Harry at sneaking around the corridors at night. She was lighter on her feet and reacted quickly to his signals to hide before they were seen. George had always had suspicions that Harry's lack of sneaking around had been developed because he'd gotten too comfortable hiding under his Invisibility Cloak and had not developed the skills to do so without one. A real shame, in his opinion, and exactly the reason why he and Fred had never bothered getting themselves one, even when they'd had the money to do so. Their skills at sneaking around the castle were truly unparalleled, if he said so himself.
As soon as he'd thought it, the universe seemed intent on proving him incorrect in this arrogance because not a moment after the smug thought had crossed his mind, someone from behind them yelled, "Hey! What are the two of you doing out after curfew?"
Both he and Nessa froze completely halfway down the fifth floor corridor and at least another ten minutes from the common room, considering they'd have to be cautious the entire way back. Nessa was looking at him with wide eyes when he met hers and neither one of them responded to the prefect that had spoken from behind them. He hadn't looked — he wasn't stupid enough to try when the moment they saw his face, they'd know exactly who they were — but it hadn't sounded like a professor. Whoever it was didn't seem in any hurry to catch up to them, their footsteps were slow and still far enough back that he had the time to consider the next move. He found that most prefects tended to be arrogant about their position — a fact that amused him and Fred to no end — and thought that everyone they stopped in the hall would listen to them on principle. It was a sure mistake in this prefect's case because, as far as he saw it, they had two options: they could turn around and accept the detention (or he could because Nessa would have to get a detention from McGonagall the next morning) or they could make a run for it before the prefect behind them recognized either one of them.
And because Nessa would kill him if she got detention from McGonagall the next morning when she'd been advised that one of her prefects had been out after hours, he really only saw the one option as being viable.
So he grinned at her mischievously and, before the suspicious look could fully develop on her face, he linked his fingers with hers and took off at a sprint.
"OI! Stop this instant! I'm a prefect and —"
He'd expected Nessa to put up more of a fight, honestly, but he'd sincerely underestimated her desire to avoid detention because she was running as fast as he was, despite her shorter stature. The footsteps behind them were racing after them as they rounded the staircase onto the sixth floor. They still had at least another floor to go and they couldn't exactly lead them straight to the Gryffindor common room. And whoever it was was gaining on them quickly.
Swearing, he took a sharp left, pulling Nessa so suddenly with him that she tumbled into him and sent them stumbling into the wall behind them. There were no passages on this section of the floor and no hidden alcoves, so he really should have considered going the other direction. The sharp change of direction would only buy them a minute at best. Thinking quickly before either prefect could round the corner, he spun them hastily into an empty, unused classroom, and shut the door as quietly as he was able.
He sidestepped, dragging her with him, so that they weren't directly in front of the door, and tilted his head to listen carefully to the movements outside. It took a great deal of control on his part to manage this without getting distracted by the smell of mangos clouding his senses or the feel of Nessa standing so close to him that he could feel her harsh breaths against the hollow of his throat because she was looking up at him and waiting for him to signal the all clear.
He heard the rushing footsteps of the prefects passing by the classroom outside before they gradually disappeared down the corridor. He couldn't quite believe his luck that they hadn't considered checking the classrooms when they'd rounded the corner and couldn't find them, but he wasn't in a position to be complaining.
"Are they gone?"
He looked down at her at the sound of her hushed whispering, opening his mouth to provide her with the affirmative, but he paused at the expression on her face. He'd expected her to be irritated at their near miss. She'd always been very particular about getting caught for breaking the rules, and, while he didn't entirely understand it himself, she'd not once had so close a call when she'd been out after curfew with he, Fred, and Tori. At minimum, he'd expected the irritation; at worst, he expected her to be anxious or disapproving or outright angry, considering the amount of stress she'd been putting on herself and how easily it was to irritate her under those circumstances.
He had not, under any circumstances, expected to find her grinning at him as if she'd just had the time of her life. They'd convinced her to break a few rules since they'd known her, and she appeared to have enjoyed it each time, but she'd always been overly anxious the entire time. He'd expected this occasion to be no different, and he wasn't entirely sure if the studying had gone completely to her head or if it was just the adrenaline, but she appeared on the verge of laughing, the emerald of her eyes dancing with something akin to playful excitement.
He stopped breathing entirely because, Merlin, she was beautiful when she looked like that. She was always beautiful, really, but it was almost painful when she looked so carefree and happy. It was no wonder he couldn't focus on anything where she was concerned.
"George, what —?" she started, looking at him in concern when he remained silent for several seconds.
He cut her off completely by covering her mouth with his own. She inhaled sharply and he swallowed the sound, tangling a hand in the soft silkiness of her hair, his other coming to rest over the span of her waist. He pulled her toward him, attempting to get her as close to him as he could, until she was flush against him, the softness of her against him making his head spin a little. Her closer proximity forced him to angle her head further back, and her hands tightened on his uniform sweater, using it as leverage to help close some of the distance in their heights.
Everything about her drove him mad, and it had been entirely too long since he'd snogged her properly. Not to mention, the only time they'd ever really been alone to enjoy the entire thing had been over the summer when he'd kissed her by the pond at the Burrow. Every other time had been either too chaste to be considered snogging or around too many people for him to get too far lost in the entire thing. His own fault, really, because he should have tried harder to get her alone. The fact that he hadn't was a sure sign that he'd lost his senses.
As it stood, he was not about to take advantage of the current moment. He forced her backward a step without removing his lips from hers, and she went willingly until he'd managed to back her against one of the desks and she jolted in surprise. He separated from her only long enough to anchor his hands on either side of her waist and lift her to sit on the desk in front of him. She was so much shorter than him that even with her pulling herself to stand on her tiptoes, he'd still had to crane his neck a little. They were on much more even footing with her on the desk in front of him.
He stepped between her knees and covered her mouth with his again, and became immediately distracted with the feel of her once again. Her lips were so much softer than his and she was so much smaller and daintier than he was, but she could have ended him in an instant and he'd have let her. Gone willingly, even. Truthfully, the disturbing siren story she'd told them at the World Cup was becoming more and more understandable with every slant of her lips over his.
She pulled away from him with a gasp, and he was momentarily mesmerized by the look of her. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes burning brighter than he'd seen them do before, and her lips a little more red and swollen than they typically were. It took a great deal of self-control for him to refrain from kissing her again.
"We could get caught in here," she said, her breathing still coming out fast and unsteady.
She was quite clearly trying to be the voice of reason — and she wasn't entirely incorrect in the statement — but she had one of her hands wrapped loosely around his tie, which had somehow come free from under his sweater, and she did not appear to be anywhere close to letting it go.
"We could," he agreed, tilting her head back again and hovering above her lips for a long moment. He smirked when she made a frustrated noise and tugged on his tie in warning when he made no move to kiss her again. "I suppose we should head back to the common room then, shouldn't we?"
She huffed at him in irritation, but he found her quite amusing when she was annoyed with him, so he kissed up her jaw instead, deliberately avoiding her lips. She gasped sharply when he kissed a particular spot behind her ear, and he filed that away for later with a smirk.
"George," she whined when he traced the same path on the other side, skipping over her mouth again. He chuckled lowly, enjoying himself far too much, but, in his defense, she'd been the one to stop the kissing to begin with. She huffed at him, tugging on his tie again in an attempt to get his attention. "Have you always been this irritating or is this just for my benefit?"
She jolted in surprise when he nipped at her lip in retaliation.
"Behave, Vanessa," he said, grinning against her when she released a shuddering breath and did them both the favor of ending his teasing because she was distracting him again, and he'd no idea when he'd get the opportunity to kiss her like this again.
She melted into him immediately when he captured her lips with his again, and he hummed appreciatively in response, tilting her head back again and setting the same slow, languid pace he'd set before, and she made a small noise in the back of her throat.
Gods, she'd kill him one day. He'd let her, of course, especially if she did him the favor of kissing him like this for the rest of his life.
When he flicked his tongue against her lips, she tensed a little, and there was a moment of hesitation before she opened for him. He took the small moment of hesitation to mean that she wasn't entirely familiar with that level of kissing, so he gentled his movements and waited for her to become comfortable with the movement before he deepened the kiss further. If he'd been a smarter man, he'd have known this was a huge mistake.
She distracted him already, but this was much, much worse. The smell of her somehow flooded his senses even more until all he could feel or sense was her. And she tasted like strawberries, somehow, or maybe he was just going mad because she'd wound her arms around his neck at the same time that the thought had crossed his mind, and pulled him so close to her that he couldn't quite remember where they were or what they'd been doing before this, every thought he'd ever had falling so completely out of his head, made worse when she made another pleased noise and he swallowed the sound again. She was everywhere and the world was slowing around him, or maybe it was speeding up because he was getting dizzy as he pulled back a little to catch his breath and ran a calloused thumb slowly over her cheek, watching her eyelids flutter softly, and wondering why every single thing she did mesmerized him beyond belief.
He'd kissed plenty of girls before her. Dated a handful of them, too, but something about her made the rest of them pale in comparison. She made his heart race, but calmed him all at once — like the sort of relaxation he felt after a long run, despite the fact that his heart was racing from the exertion. She made him feel so intensely happy that any time he'd ever thought he'd been happy before now was laughable at best. He ached for her even when she was directly in front of him, so excited to catch a glimpse of her at breakfast in the morning that his heart lurched in his chest.
Was it even healthy to be this enraptured by another human being? He couldn't quite tell anymore. Any rational thought he'd possessed before her being swept away like pollen on a summer's breeze, and he couldn't quite tell if he cared all that much.
The entire thing was getting away from him. He'd known he'd been in trouble from the moment she'd helped his dad with those matches at the World Cup. He'd always thought his father a bit mad, truthfully, but he'd watched her smile so brightly at him, the fondness softening her features and brightening her eyes, no matter how many times his dad had broken the matches in his hand. He'd told himself then that the feeling of his heart swelling was merely giddiness at seeing her again, but he'd felt it again when she'd so readily admitted that she believed he'd open his joke shop as if there were no other alternative. She'd said it in the same way he'd have told someone that the sky was blue or that the Earth was round. As if it were merely fact, and he was the one who was insane for having thought she'd believe otherwise.
The same warmth he'd felt in his chest on those two occasions was bubbling up now as her eyes opened and met his. He'd yet to put his finger on what exactly the feeling was, but it was soft and warm, filling him with the same sensation that he had when he drank hot chocolate on a cold winter's day. It warmed him from the inside out, and brightened everything around him, and, even though he hadn't quite figured out what it all meant, he savored whatever it was all the same.
She was maddening. She was beautiful. She was definitely, absolutely, positively going to be the death of him.
He rested his forehead against hers, smiling gently when her eyelashes fluttered again when he ran his thumb across her cheek again.
"C'mon, love," he said quietly, and took a step back despite the fact that he wanted to be doing anything else. "We probably should get back."
She sighed, but nodded in agreement and slid down from the desk to stand before him. Because he couldn't help himself, he leaned down to brush a kiss over her lips again. She sighed happily as he pulled back and he smiled at her, that warmth spreading again.
"Happy birthday, sweetheart," he said, grinning widely at her when she smiled up at him, her eyes brightening again.
"Thank you, George," she said, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek.
Yeah, he'd no idea how to name the feeling yet, he thought as they snuck up one more floor to the common room, but Fred was right about him being a sap because he did know that he positively adored her.
A break from the angst because I just adore them even if they are both a little stupid. They kill me a little inside. Love them, love them, love them!
Also, I have very odd interests that I just sort of pass on to Vanessa — Greek mythology is apparently going to be one of them. It was not within the original plan, but it fit in too well, so that's exactly what direction we took.
Up next: Imperius Curse and decorating the dungeons