Hello, lovely readers!
We're a day early, I know, but I've been sick with an autoimmune flare for the last two days (though thankfully it wasn't COVID as I originally thought) and writing just relaxes me when I'm in bed all day. So here we are! I've got a question for you all at the end, but I'm not going to put it here because it will give some of it away LOL.
Gi-L-Ha: Hahahaha, Oh, I just had to end it there though. It's the moment everyone has been waiting for. Also, if I can think of something good enough as revenge for the girl who was talking about George and upset Nessa, I will absolutely write about it. Pranking is not my forte., but I'll give it a shot for you.
Aurorab33: Thank you for reviewing! I'm so excited they finally got caught too. Keeping them a secret was torture. The majority of this chapter is, of course, George's reaction, so enjoy!
Chapter Thirty Two
Tori and Fred went careening apart immediately at the sound of George's voice, nearly flying into the beds across from them. Tori dropped the marble she'd been holding in surprise and it hit one of the maroon marbles on the floor, emitting a deafening thunder that made Nessa scream in surprise and try to cover her ears.
The rest of them didn't appear at all focused on the new sound because they were all staring at each other with wide eyes, Lee's mouth hanging open as if his jaw had come unhinged. For his part, George seemed equal parts surprised and angry, but Nessa was too awkward to get a full read on the situation and just looked between George and Fred, who seemed to be getting the brunt of his twin's upset.
"Well?" George demanded.
Fred grimaced, opening his mouth to answer, but Lee cleared his throat awkwardly behind her.
"Er — this really seems like a family thing, so I'm going to just…walk away and pretend like I didn't see anything."
Nessa still didn't move as Lee rushed down the stairs with a look of relief on his face that he didn't have to stay. She'd have gone with him just to avoid whatever altercation was about to occur, but her body was still frozen in surprise.
She didn't know why — she'd known about them snogging, she shouldn't have been entirely useless in this situation. Except George looked like he was having a difficult time with how he was supposed to feel at the moment — hurt, betrayal, shock, and anger all flickering briefly across his face before he settled on anger — and she wasn't particularly sure what to say that would make processing the entire thing much easier for them all.
"George —" Tori started, sounding weak.
George wasn't even looking at her. He didn't seem like he noticed much of her at all.
"Fred."
Fred winced, not looking entirely like he wanted to be having this conversation.
"It's a lot to explain, George," he said, looking at Tori who looked particularly distressed at the turn of events.
"Would it have been simpler to explain when I asked you directly if this was happening and you lied to my face?" George said sharply.
Nessa's gaze snapped to Fred in surprise, who looked like the words had ran him through with a knife.
"You lied to him?" she said angrily. "Why would you do that?"
She hadn't known that. None of them had mentioned it to her, though to be fair she hadn't asked Fred and Tori about what was going on since before the ball.
A stupid, stupid thing for him to do. The situation was already going to be difficult to explain without that caveat.
"George, I'm sorry —"
"Sorry?" he laughed hollowly. "That's all you have to say is you're sorry? In our entire lifetime, you've never once lied to me. You've never needed to. So explain to me when that changed, Fred. Explain to me when you decided that you couldn't trust me with this —"
"I asked him to," Tori said quietly, looking very near tears.
George didn't even move his gaze from his twin when he answered, and Nessa really couldn't tell if Fred's guilty expression was helping or hurting.
"Why?"
"I — it — I was afraid that you'd be upset," she said, flinching when he laughed again.
"George," Nessa said softly, setting her hand on his arm.
He shook her off angrily.
She didn't blame him. Maybe she might have if it was just the fact that he'd found out Tori and Fred were…whatever they were because she hadn't asked, but lying to him about it was an entirely different thing. She'd known he was suspicious about the two of them, but he'd never mentioned that he'd asked Fred directly about his relationship with Tori. And no one had said anything about lying to his face about it.
It was a sincerely poor thought-out plan for several reasons. For one, the twins had never lied to each other about anything. It was an unspoken rule between them apparently — they lied to their parents, their teachers, their siblings, occasionally their friends if they were pranking them…but they never lied to each other.
And though she knew the circumstances around this particular situation were complex and complicated, she'd not have expected Fred to break that just because Tori was too scared to tell people the truth. He'd told her when she'd asked, and she was nowhere near as important to him as George.
For another, it was horribly selfish of Tori to have put either one of them in the position to lie to each other. And though she looked terribly upset about that fact, Fred's soft spot for her had won out and he'd done it anyway. No one had forced him to. He could have said no.
And now here they were with Nessa unsure how to help them dig themselves out of whatever ridiculous hole they'd dug themselves into.
Their reluctance to answer George's questions didn't appear to be helping much.
"So is anyone going to explain or do I just have to take guesses?" He said looking between the two of them now. Fred seemed to relax a little now that his twin's gaze was at least not drilling into him, but he seemed horribly tense, like he was fighting two separate desires at once and hadn't yet decided which was the best option. "Guess then," George snorted when no one answered him. "Are you dating?"
"No," Tori said at the same time that Fred said, "Yes."
George blinked at them, clearly trying to determine what was happening. Fred turned to Tori and raised his eyebrows. She flinched.
"No, I mean, yes, it's — sorry, it was a reflex," she muttered before grimacing at Fred. "That's not going to help on the lying front, is it?"
"Not particularly, no." he said with an eye roll.
"Okay, which is it?" Nessa interrupted, looking between them. "I'm confused again, and the last I checked you weren't dating —"
"Last you checked?" George said, whirling to face her.
She froze. Shit, that wasn't about to help anything at all.
Fred scrubbed a hand down his face.
"This is going to straight shite," he muttered.
The words caught George's attention and he whirled on him angrily.
"You told Nessa but not me?" he said. Fred flinched.
"She guessed —"
"I guessed, Fred!" George said loudly. "I asked. She does it and you tell her the truth, but when I asked, you said 'don't be ridiculous, George. It's Tori —'"
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Tori said indignantly to Fred.
Fred threw his hands up in the air.
"One ridiculous problem at a time, please!" he said in exasperation. "You were the one who wanted me to lie to begin with — I had to say something, he's not stupid!"
"Clearly, I am," George said angrily. "Because I believed you, didn't I? Even though my gut told me there was something going on, I told myself you wouldn't have lied to me about that. Not something that important."
Fred flinched again, looking like George might have punched him in the chest.
"Georgie, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to lie to you. It was — there's — we were planning on telling you, I swear."
George snorted.
"I'd say I believe you, but that seems a bit naive of me at this point, doesn't it?"
"We were!" Tori insisted. "I — I wasn't sure what I wanted before and it — it got complicated. But we decided after the ball to tell you."
"That was weeks ago," George deadpanned.
Tori flinched.
"Okay, I might have been dragging my feet a little," she said. Fred shot her an irritated glance and a snort. She glared at him. "It's a big deal! Excuse me for wanting to find the best way to tell him!"
"Well, leaving the door open while you were snogging was a great choice," George said sarcastically.
"Sort of forgot the door was open," Fred joked. George glared at him and he sighed. "C'mon, George, can we just talk about this?"
George paused and stared at him for a long moment with a raised eyebrow.
"Depends," he said flatly. "If the situation was reversed, and I'd lied to you, would you have wanted to talk to me right now?"
They stared at each other for a long moment before Fred sighed and rubbed a hand down his face.
"No, probably not," he said.
Not exactly what Nessa wanted to hear him say, but at least he was being honest.
"Fred!" Tori exclaimed.
"Right," George snorted. "Well, I'll be off then —"
"George, please," Tori begged.
But he was gone before any of them could say anything else. Tori sobbed once and sat down on his bed with her head in her hands. Fred just sighed heavily and rubbed his temples.
"Well, that could have gone better," he said dejectedly.
Nessa couldn't decide which of them she was angriest with but it might have been him.
He'd been put in a horrible position, sure, but there was no excuse for lying to someone who trusted him so implicitly. She didn't even think that George cared all that much about their relationship — or at least he hadn't mentioned it much, seeming more concerned with the fact that he'd been lied to than anything else.
"You lied to him?" she asked again.
Fred grimaced.
"Be great if we could stop talking about that," he said, flopping back onto his bed and giving Tori a soft look. "Tori, it's going to be fine. He just needs a moment to think."
"It's my fault anyway," she said in response as if she hadn't heard him. Nessa sighed heavily and went to sit next to her, despite her irritation with her best friend. "I'm the one who asked you to lie —"
"Well unfortunately for Fred, he's a grown man," Nessa said sharply, pulling Tori's hands away from her face. "He could have said no —"
"Gee, thanks, Nessa, this is great," Fred said sarcastically but she ignored him.
" — but you should never have asked either one of them to do that."
Even saying the words out loud pissed her off. So maybe it was Tori she was angriest with. Maybe it was equal, she couldn't even tell, there was such frustration going through her head all at once.
Asking Fred to lie to his other half though…it went beyond selfish and straight into thoughtless. Tori had always been a bit self-centered, sure, but she'd never been stupid, and there was simply no other way to describe this particular choice.
Nessa didn't even want to know what it would have done to George if she'd asked him to lie to Fred for her.
"I know that!" Tori exclaimed, looking frustrated and stricken. "That's the reason I told Fred we should just be friends in the first place. It all got too complicated, and I — I didn't want to be the sort of person that would come between them like that."
"Right," Nessa said slowly, looking between her and Fred. "And that changed at what point exactly?"
Fred was grinning up at the ceiling, despite how miserable he appeared and Tori gave him an irritated look.
"Quit grinning, idiot, your best friend is mad at you," she snapped. Fred rolled his eyes, but it certainly sobered him again. Tori answered her again. "The Yule Ball. I — well, I might have thrown a fit about Angelina —"
"Might have?" Fred snorted, sitting up to look at her.
Nessa glared at him.
"You," she said. "Lay back down. You've done enough talking."
Fred grumbled to himself as he went back to staring at the ceiling.
"Anyway, we were fighting and he told me I had to decide what I wanted because he was tired of sneaking around," Tori said. "So I did — I mean, I had a minor panic attack first, you know, but then I decided that we could call it dating. Not like I've been snogging anyone else anyway, so what's the difference —"
"That we have to tell people," Fred said with a snort.
Tori ignored him to give an imploring look to her best friend.
"I swear we were going to tell George, Nessa. I told Fred I wanted him to be first to know after we stopped hiding — it hurts lying to him, and he kept saying at the ball that I could tell him anything and he wouldn't go anywhere and it — I mean, I couldn't — tell me what to do."
The last words had been said desperately as if she were the only person who might have the answers to that question.
Nessa sighed sadly. She did look horribly dejected, and she'd long since given up on trying not to cry. Fred looked like he was barely holding himself at bay to comfort her, but seemed to think that allowing Nessa to do it instead would be his best option at the moment.
But Fred knew George better than anyone and even he seemed at a loss on what to do at the moment. How in the hell was Nessa supposed to know if he didn't?
"Just give him some time to think about it, Tori," she said quietly, wrapping her arm around her shoulder. "He just needs a minute. You two have been keeping things from him for a while —" they both flinched. " — he just needs to wrap his head around everything. Maybe don't go sticking your tongue down each other's throats in front of him for the time being either."
Fred snorted.
"You think I want to make this worse?" he said snidely. "We might have to stand ten feet apart."
"That's not helpful, Fred," Tori said, her voice thick.
Fred sighed and pulled himself to a stand, walking over to them so that he was kneeling in front of her.
"Tori, darling, it's going to be fine," he said gently, placing his hands on her knees. "He's not upset about us. He's upset we hid it from him. That's a good sign. Soon as I can figure out how to make it up to him, we'll be alright. He'll come around. He won't stay mad forever."
Nessa sighed heavily.
She couldn't believe the stupidity of the two people in front of her, she really couldn't. Lying felt like the worst thing they could have done in this situation, but pointing it out didn't seem like a good idea when they both looked ready to jump off a cliff headfirst.
"I'm sorry if George is upset with you," Tori said to her, worrying her lip.
"It's my own fault," Nessa sighed, standing up and preparing to go back downstairs and look for him. "I wasn't thinking when I said anything. It was the wrong time to bring it up."
"That's the second time you've done that, you know," Tori joked weakly. "Maybe we spend too much time together — I'm rubbing off on you."
Nessa snorted and nudged Fred aside to wrap her in a hug. She heard Tori sniff and assumed that the hug had intensified her desire to cry.
"Stop worrying," she murmured to her. "I'll talk to him."
"Thank you," Tori sniffled.
Fred huffed from beside them.
"Oh, don't mind me, you know," he said sarcastically. "My twin's just walked away from me for the first time in our entire lives. I don't need a hug or anything."
Tori met Nessa's eyes and rolled hers to the ceiling.
"He's so needy, I'm telling you," she joked.
"Oi!"
Nessa laughed and opened one of her arms to let him in on their hug.
"Come here then, you stupid oaf," she said fondly.
She was still so very upset with him for not being smart enough to know better than to lie to his twin, but it wasn't as if his alternative was much better. Either way he'd have hurt someone.
"Bit ruder than I'd like, but I'll take it," he said, stepping toward them and engulfing them both in a hug.
"I'm happy for you, you know," she said to them. "Since no one's said it."
Tori and Fred were both notoriously uncomfortable with this sort of attention, so it was not really a surprise when Fred said, "Yes, well, she couldn't resist my charm forever, could she?"
Tori huffed, pulling away from them to glare at him.
"What charm?" She scoffed. "You picked at least sixteen fights."
"Yes, well, it's not my fault that you're so easy to irritate," he said with a smirk. "Besides, you know, the snogging is —"
"I'm going to go before you end up saying something that I'm going to regret hearing," Nessa said with an eye roll and a pointed look in Fred's direction. He didn't look at all ashamed of himself. "I'll see if I can find George. Maybe don't have both of you here when he gets back later."
"Right," Tori said, sighing heavily. "He likes to hide on the pitch when he's angry."
She took the advice, but there was no sight of George at all on the pitch. He hadn't been on the Astronomy Tower or in the kitchens either. She'd walked around the castle for a while trying to find him, but he was either moving himself or he was very good at hiding.
Either could have been possible, particularly because he knew the castle so well. He could probably tell her about hidden alcoves and rooms that she knew absolutely nothing about for at least an hour straight. She'd tried waiting up for him in the common room for a bit, but by the time one in the morning hit, she could barely keep herself awake as it was, so she'd gone up to bed.
She was woken an hour later by somebody standing over her. She jumped, opening her mouth to scream, but they put a hand over her mouth hastily.
"It's just me!" George whispered hastily.
She stared at him with wide eyes, her breaths coming out of her quickly as she tried to regain enough mental acuity to understand what had just happened. When he was sure she wouldn't try and scream again, he removed his hand and gave her an apologetic look.
Jesus, it felt like her heart was going to pound out of her chest.
"George," she whispered harshly, rubbing her chest where it ached from her heart racing so quickly. "What the hell is the matter with you? You frightened me! How did you even get in here?"
He pointed down at his shoes in answer. He was dressed in pajamas as if he'd been going to bed, but his shoes were large and clunky. He lifted one and it suctioned against the floor loudly. She reached for her wand to silence the area around her bed, and looked at him disapprovingly.
"I'm surprised you didn't wake up half the dormitory," she said pointedly. "Where did you even get —"
"Can I sleep with you?"
She paused immediately at the question, looking at him in surprise. He'd never once come to ask her if he could sleep with her, though she'd done so with him several times, and it was a bit surprising to have him doing so now.
She hadn't noticed before — not seeing as she was trying to convince her body she wasn't about to be murdered in her sleep — but he was carrying a pillow under his arm, and he looked terribly miserable.
She tried not to gape at him when she nodded and moved over, letting him take off the ridiculous shoes he was wearing and climb in next to her. He turned onto his side to make as much room as he could, and looked at her for a long moment before he spoke.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. She furrowed her eyebrows in question, and he reached forward to soothe the lines with his thumb. "For being upset that Fred told you about…well, you know. He just — he tells me everything."
She didn't know what he thought he had to apologize to her for. He'd not even really said anything to her about it at all, seeming more upset with Fred than her. And it wasn't as if she didn't understand — the dynamic between Fred and George was something she'd long since become very familiar with.
"You don't have to apologize to me for that, George," she said. "I understand why you're upset."
George sighed heavily, looking away from her to focus on a strand of her hair that he was playing with idly.
"I just — I don't want you to think that I don't respect your friendship with him or something," he said. "I — I mean, I'm happy he trusts you enough to — I just wish he'd told me, you know?"
"There's nothing to apologize for," she repeated firmly, sliding closer to him so she could wrap her arms around him. He returned the embrace, sighing heavily into her hair, but seeming to relax a little. "I was looking all over for you."
"Sorry, love," he said, squeezing her tighter. "I went for a run. Helps clear my head a little."
"Explains why you smell like a dog," she joked lightly.
"Oh, I do, do I?" he said, sounding marginally more upbeat than he had before. "Well, I suppose I should just make sure that I squeeze you nice and hard, you know. Can't have you thinking that I don't just simply adore you —"
"George!" She laughed, trying to squirm away from him as he attempted to fold his arms around her head. "That is not a hug, would you quit it? You already gave me a heart attack."
He was grinning at her when he released her, but the expression faded quickly as the silence came back, as if he couldn't quite convince himself not to think about the thing that was bothering him when there was nothing to distract him from it.
She smiled sadly at him, brushing her hand through his hair. She jumped when he shifted to lay his head on her chest, but she didn't say anything as she moved to make herself comfortable and continued with drawing her hands through his hair repeatedly, occasionally dragging her nails lightly across his scalp.
He sighed, laying an arm across her stomach casually.
"Are you okay?" she said eventually when he didn't appear at all inclined to talk. His silence worried her a little — he was so rarely this quiet unless he was working.
He hummed contentedly.
"Feels good," he said, sighing a little. But he seemed to know that's not what she'd been asking because he added, "I just couldn't sleep. I usually — well, I don't know if I've ever told you this before and it's sort of embarrassing, I suppose, but…Usually when I'm upset I climb into Fred's bed. Which is probably not really the thing you want to hear from your nearly of age boyfriend, but we've never really been able to cope without the other, you know? But seeing as I'm upset because of him, it — well, I couldn't really —"
Her heart hurt a little for him. Based on the way he was talking to her, she didn't think that he'd ever been in this position before — not being able to have Fred talk him through what was bothering him. The only times she'd ever seen them fight before, they'd made up hours later, but George seemed to be letting this time fester despite the fact that it clearly made him miserable.
"I think it's sweet," she said instead of bringing this up with him. Though she might not be happy about him upsetting himself, she did understand why he needed time to work through his feelings and she was comfortable giving him that so long as he wasn't being stupid about it. "So long as you don't invite him into bed with us, I don't really care. Though I'm sure I'm not quite as comforting —"
He lifted his head to look at her thoughtfully, his head cocking slightly to the side.
"You are, actually," he said as if he didn't totally understand it. "I mean, it's different obviously. I understand what you're thinking a bit less, but it's comforting to be near you. And you're much nicer to look at —" She smacked him lightly on the arm and he grinned at her, moving back up to lie beside her. "You smell better than him too."
She snorted.
"If he smells anything like you, that's really not much of a compliment," she said jokingly.
He chuckled, pulling her into him and kissing her lightly on the mouth.
"Keep it up, love, and I'll cover myself in Dungbombs and see how you like it."
"I'd give you the worst detention of your life, George Weasley," she said, wrapping an arm around his middle with a yawn and shifting to rest her head on his chest instead. His heartbeat was steady and soothing under her ear as he chuckled.
"Careful now" he warned, only half-joking. "The prefect thing really does it for me."
She scoffed, and smacked him lightly on the chest in reproach. He laughed a little, grabbing her hand and pressing a kiss to the center of her palm before lacing their fingers together.
"How long have you known?" She rolled her head to look up at him, hesitating a little. "Please, love," he said heavily. "I just — I want to understand but I can't look at Fred right now."
She sighed.
"Promise me you'll talk to him," she said. He tensed and she added hastily, "I'm not saying right now. Or even tomorrow. I just — he does feel horrible and he has been wanting to tell you. I don't want you to make yourself miserable over this."
He blew out a large breath, but nodded.
"I just need a while," he said, looking away from her.
"Is it the relationship or —"
"Not really," he said with a shrug. "Could have gone without seeing them snogging like that, mind you, but — I mean, I suspected it, didn't I? I don't really know how I feel about it myself, but I guess that's not really my place, is it?"
She looked at him for a long moment.
"They care what you think," she said. He didn't look like he knew how to answer that, so she answered his original question. "He never told me anything. I just noticed the way they are together — the way he looks at her. When I was upset about you and Alicia, we were talking and I asked him. He lied at first — said he didn't know what I was talking about. I stared at him until he admitted it."
George snorted.
"Sounds like you," he said. "You scared Lee out of his wits that one time he was hiding Dungbombs in his robes."
She rolled her eyes.
"He asked me not to say anything," she said. "I told him I wouldn't. Tori didn't know then, and he was having a hard time coming to terms with it. He kept saying that he was wrong for loving her like that. He was supposed to treat her the same way he treats Ginny, and he didn't know when it all changed for him.," she paused a moment. "When I asked him if he'd talked to you, he said he hadn't because he didn't want you to think he was disgusting or judge him for not seeing Tori the way the rest of you do."
George looked like someone had punched him in the stomach.
"Why would he think I would — he's my twin, for Merlin's sake," he said, sounding irritated. "What's he take me for? A prat?"
Nessa sighed, brushing a hand across his cheek soothingly.
"Of course not," she said. "You know he doesn't think that. Maybe he thinks those things about himself and doesn't understand why you'd think any differently. You agree on nearly everything —"
"Well, not that!" George said indignantly. "It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I mean, Tori's like a sister, you know, but it's more…I don't actually think she's my sister. We've just been so close for so long that it feels like an insult to just say she's one of my best friends, doesn't it?" Nessa made a noise of agreement that he seemed to take as a sign to continue. "I mean, you and Harry — you're our family, aren't you? I mean in the metaphorical sense because obviously not literally or I don't think I'd be lying here at the moment —"
She snorted, despite the fact that the words themselves shook something in her core. No one outside of Harry had ever called her family before.
"But Mum and Dad would argue that you're as good as. Isn't Tori the same? Maybe a bit different because she lives with us…This would be a lot easier to explain if it were less complicated."
"It's the sentiment, I get it," she said, giggling at how grumpy he looked at not being able to put into words what he was feeling.
She understood. She often had a particularly difficult time explaining what she was feeling in a way that would make sense to someone who didn't feel the same or didn't have the capacity to feel the same.
"Right, the sentiment," he said, nodding. "But we know she isn't our real family. Mum and Dad — they could never officially adopt her, see. Something about a Muggle family member on her mum's side who…did something bad. Tell you the truth, I wasn't really listening at that age —"
"You hardly listen now, but continue," she joked with a snort. He poked her in the side and grinned when she narrowed her eyes on him.
"As I was saying," he said pointedly, grinning wider at her growl of annoyance. "They never adopted her officially. They just pulled some strings at the Ministry to keep her with us. I don't think the family member was all that interested in taking her to begin with, but that's a different story. And we were friends for a few years before her mum died. Mum met Carla at some Ministry function she went to with Dad — said she looked lonely and she'd had to bring Tori with because there was no one to watch her. She told her that Fred and I were her age and invited her over — the way she tells it though, I'm fairly certain she didn't give her much choice. I mean it's Mum, isn't it?"
Nessa chuckled at the question, his voice layered with equal parts exasperation and affection. He kept talking, as if he were trying to think out loud rather than actually have a conversation with her. He did the same when he invented products, as if saying the words out loud made the theory more tangible for him to understand.
"I suppose I should have seen it coming," he said, rubbing a hand down his face. "They've always been different with each other. The bickering and the jealousy and the — well, he's the only one that can really get through to her when she's emotional. You saw the way he was with her after she found out about Sirius. Or when the dementors attacked her on the train. Meanwhile, he tells Ron to get over it and buy a new rat when we thought Scabbers was dead." He snorted and shook his head in exasperation. "And what kind of bloke lets a girl open their Christmas presents every year? Ron tried to help her once and he nearly lost his hand when Fred got mad at him, I mean —" He sighed heavily, running a hand down his face.
"Is it so bad if they're dating?" Nessa said quietly, lifting her head to rest it on hand so she could look at him.
George was silent for a long moment, staring above him and considering the words carefully.
"I didn't say it was bad, love," he said, sounding exhausted. "It's complicated, but it — I don't know how to feel about it when they went out of their way to hide it from me. It doesn't exactly give me faith that they've thought this thing through, does it?"
Nessa furrowed her brow.
"Thought it through? What's that mean?"
George sighed heavily.
"I mean, they're not exactly the dating type are they? Are they taking this seriously or is this just one of those one off instances and then it's going to be very awkward when it's done? You know because I'm the one that always cleans up their messes when they've gone too far, and I can't fix this if they mess it up. And who in the hell's arse am I supposed to kick if they break things off? Are they going to expect me to keep this secret too or are they going to tell Mum and Dad? It's all very convoluted in my head."
She looked at him for a long moment, and weighed her next words carefully before she said them.
"You're asking the wrong questions, George," she said softly. He raised an eyebrow at her. "There's always a chance that it won't end well. But what difference does that really make? I mean, for a man who spends his life taking risks, do you really mean to tell me that you're not okay with this because something might end badly for them?"
"No, that's not —"
"If someone told us right now that by this time next year we'd be broken up, would that have stopped you from being with me?"
He gave her a hard look.
"No," he said flatly. "And, for the record, we're not breaking up —"
"We could break up —"
"No, we couldn't," he snorted. "It's ridiculous on the face of it. Besides, we're a much better couple than they are. Strictly speaking, I think we should call ourselves the best couple. Unbeatable."
"I don't think it's a competition," she snorted.
"Everything's a competition, love," he said with a grin. "And we won a long time ago."
She rolled her eyes, despite the smile on her face, and let her free hand run soothingly across his chest.
"What I'm trying to say," she said pointedly. "Is that it's a risk we all take. If they're happy, does it really matter that it could end badly? And you know the two of them far better than anyone else — do you really believe that they'd risk losing each other if they weren't taking this seriously?"
"No," he said, sounding disgruntled despite the relief of the answer.
"The only question you should be asking, George, is if they're happy," Nessa said quietly. "No one expects you to be okay with Fred lying to you or expects you not to have complicated feelings about this entire thing. It's your twin and your closest friend. It is complicated. But if you want them to be happy, and this makes them happy…then what does all of the extra mess matter? The rest is just…superfluous."
He stared at her for a while, and didn't say anything, and she couldn't quite tell if the words had registered for a long moment. But then he sighed again, and reached forward to tuck a hair behind her ear and smiled at her gently.
"You're very wise, you know," he said eventually. "You'd make a very good Ravenclaw."
She rolled her eyes with a snort and laid back down, cuddling into him again, and preparing to sleep now that he looked far more relaxed.
"Please," she said dryly. "We both know if I wasn't a Gryffindor, I'd be in Slytherin."
"Don't make me sick," George said jokingly. She poked him in the side and he laughed, grabbing her hand and lacing their fingers together again. There was a long moment of silence and she'd just been about to let herself drift to sleep when he shifted and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "Thank you," he whispered in her ear.
She hummed and gave him a squeeze.
"I'm just happy it was you freaking out for once instead of me," she joked.
He laughed, hiding his face in her hair.
"Yes, well, by tomorrow I'm sure we'll be right back to normal," he deadpanned.
She scoffed, kicking him lightly in the leg and making him laugh again.
"Go to sleep, prat."
He tilted her face up to him and gave her a lingering kiss before he pulled back and grinned at her lopsidedly.
"I love you, did you know?"
Her chest swelled, and she slid her hand up to his check and pulled him down for another kiss.
"I love you too."
Though the conversation had clearly helped George some in coming to terms with the relationship between Tori and Fred, it certainly hadn't helped the betrayal of being lied to. Though he didn't appear to care much any time that he saw Tori and Fred together, he'd been cool with both of them otherwise. For the most part, he seemed to ignore them completely, which might have been easier if he and Fred didn't actually spend the majority of their time together inventing products or attempting to sell them to students. They appeared perfectly fine to an outsider when they were doing product demonstrations for students, but the moment it was done, George went right back to ignoring his twin.
Nessa found it particularly difficult to watch, but she'd promised she'd let him come to terms with them lying to him, so she didn't say anything.
Fred wasn't handling the entire thing well. He'd never been given the silent treatment from George before, and nothing he said was a good enough reason for having lied to him. There was a misery and a devastation that Nessa saw on his face every time George was cool with him, but it was mimicked on George's own.
If she had any idea how to help the two of them, she might have, but at this point it felt like the sort of thing they needed to figure out on their own. So she left it be, and tried to help Tori through her own mixed emotions about the entire thing.
Though Fred insisted that he and George would work things out and that Tori wasn't to blame, her best friend was having a particularly difficult time accepting this. When George had left the girls' dormitory the day after he'd snuck into it, Tori had caught him but they'd done nothing more than awkwardly stare at each other before George smiled sadly and left. Tori, for the first time since Nessa had ever known her, seemed to be taking a very passive approach to the situation, her anxiety having progressed into something that paralyzed her with fear rather than made her want to explain herself. Reminding her again that George was not going to leave her was only helpful in the fact that George's coolness was used much less when he spoke to her, though he did seem mildly irritated with her.
For the most part, his anger and betrayal seemed directed at his twin.
As far as things typically went, this was likely the worst she'd ever seen the three of them, but she tried to maintain some semblance of normality. Lee was a big help in this — despite his surprise, he himself had "suspected" that something was going on between them. He didn't seem to mind all that much, treating the new development with a casual dismissal — a sort of inevitability — though he didn't appear all that pleased with the twins arguing with each other.
"I've never seen it before," he said to Nessa when the twins and Tori had been elsewhere. "It's unnatural. It's like they've been replaced by aliens. I feel like I should be worried about being abducted in my sleep or something."
She'd had no idea how to respond to that assessment, but she'd been spared by Harry grumpily coming to sit with them. As Tori and Fred had yet to divulge their relationship to anyone else when they were both working to get George to forgive them, they'd had no choice but to drop the subject immediately.
Harry's mood had not improved since that evening either. Hagrid was still ignoring them when they went to visit him, and he hadn't been seen at the staff table during mealtimes or completing his gamekeeper duties on the grounds. Professor Grubbly-Plank had taken over his classes, which had become far more bearable in Nessa's opinion. No one had seen Hagrid at all since the article had come out, and Harry was not taking this information well.
Not to mention, she'd been arguing with him over his egg, which he still refused to take to the prefects' bath. They were running out of time in order to figure out what he was supposed to be doing in the next task and she couldn't help him if he refused to help himself. With five weeks left until the task, she was losing patience with him entirely, and her control issues were beginning to show again.
George was very grateful to get her out of the castle for the next Hogsmeade visit, if only in an attempt to distract her from the chaos that was beginning to return to their lives.
Being as it was mid-January, Nessa was not at all happy to be outside of the castle. The weather was horrific, blowing snow and freezing temperatures biting at every one of her extremities, and there was no amount of warming charms or bulky clothing that could keep her from being grumpy about it.
"It's freezing out here, George," she whined for the hundredth time since they'd entered the village. She wasn't even sure he was listening to her complain anymore at this point. "And if you've brought me into the woods to kill me, can you just do it here and spare me the dramatics? I'd be much warmer if I were dead."
George snorted, turning to face her and catching her by the arms when she went careening into him by mistake. She'd been whining for quite awhile, and though most people would have found that annoying, he mostly found it cute. She was pouting, and her nose was red from the chill, her face the only thing he could see under all the ridiculous layers she was wearing.
"I think dead bodies are cold actually," he said, enjoying the reaction he got from riling her. "There's no blood flow so —"
"I don't need an anatomy lesson, George," she griped. "What are we doing out here?"
"I told you, we're on a date," he said, grabbing her gloved hand with his own and pulling her behind him.
"In the woods?" she said incredulously, looking around cautiously. She couldn't even remember what direction they'd come from at this point, all of the snow and dead trees looking the same as the ones before them. "Behind the Shrieking Shack? Not to be overly critical here, George, but if you're trying to have me killed by a ghost, I think the Bloody Baron would have been a much easier choice."
He huffed a laugh, climbing a very rocky hill before reaching down for her hand to pull her up next to him.
"Your faith in me is truly inspiring, sweetheart," he quipped, kissing her on the nose.
"I read a book once and they said it's almost always the spouse or significant other that murders you, so the odds really aren't on your side here."
He stared at her for a long moment.
"Exactly what kinds of books do you read in your spare time?" he said eventually before grabbing her hand and pulling her after him again before she could answer. "Besides, you know very well the Shrieking Shack isn't haunted. Remus told us that last year."
"Bloody Remus," she grumbled darkly.
He chuckled, turning again to face her. She huffed when he ran into her, but he covered her mouth with his before she could gripe at him again. She gasped and he swallowed the nose, walking her backward until her back hit one of the trees. He tilted her face up more, running his tongue against her bottom lip until she opened for him.
She was panting by the time he pulled back, and looked up at him in surprise.
"What was that for?" she gasped.
"To get you to stop whining at me," he said cheekily. She huffed and smacked him on the chest in reproach, but he merely laughed and brushed his lips against hers again. "Tell you what, love," he said. "Come with me for an hour and then we'll spend the rest of the day in the Three Broomsticks where it's toasty and warm and you can drink hot chocolate to your heart's content."
She hesitated. She did like hot chocolate…It was one of the very few forms of chocolate she actually enjoyed, but that also meant she had to be in the cold for another hour before he'd let her go inside. Course, if she said no, he might just throw her over his shoulder and drag her out there anyway and then she'd have no idea how long it would be before he got her inside.
Agreeing was the lesser of two evils here, though her options were limited.
"You promise?" she said, pouting up at him again.
He chuckled and kissed her again.
"I promise," he said with a grin, pulling away from her and dragging her back in the direction he'd been leading her to begin with.
She didn't whine again, but she did huff several times as he dragged her along. She couldn't help it — she hated the cold. She'd rather have walked through the desert without water.
It was only several minutes before they finally arrived at a place that was markedly different from the rest of the woods around them. The tree line broke some to reveal a small glade with a large frozen pond in the middle. Even despite her displeasure for the winter weather, her breath caught at the sight.
The trees that lined the pond were all covered in snow and icicles, making it look like the sort of picture she might have found on a Christmas card. The pond was irregularly-shaped and clearly not man-made, and covered in a thick layer of ice that appeared a grayish-blue with the water that was still beneath it.
"You knew this was here," she said disbelievingly.
The silence around them was complete and heavy and the snow crunched beneath their feet as he dragged her forward to the edge of the pond and squatting down to look at it thoughtfully.
"Course," he said, placing his gloved hand over the ice and pressing down. "Fred and I found it years ago."
"How?" She said incredulously. "It's twenty minutes from the village!"
George shrugged and stood to face her.
"We're easily bored," he said, digging in his coat for his wand. "The village is nice and all, but it's the same shops every time, innit? We figured there's got to be something else out here somewhere."
She gaped at him.
"How is your mother even sane still, George?" she said, only half-joking. "The two of you just wander off into God knows where — wait, what are we doing out here anyway?"
"Ice-Spading," he said, waving his wand at his shoes and transfiguring them into ice skates.
"Ice-Skating," she corrected automatically before the words actually registered. "Wait, what? No, we are not —"
She squealed when he waved his wand at her own shoes and she went careening forward, unused to the change in balance. He tried to catch her, but seeing as he hadn't been ice skating himself, he wasn't prepared for the added weight and fell with her onto the snow behind them.
He grunted when she landed on top of him.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said immediately, trying to push herself up. "I didn't expect you to — George, what are you doing?"
He'd managed to pull himself up and pull her with him, trying carefully to drag her in the direction of the water. She attempted to make herself heavier but she really had no idea what she was doing in the blasted skates and it didn't make things easier for her.
"I already told you," he said, seemingly amused by her attempts to prevent him from pulling her onto the ice. "We were talking about it in Muggle Studies one year, and it seemed the kind of thing that might be fun —"
"You can't — it's very dangerous to skate on ponds you aren't familiar with, George," she said anxiously. "If the ice isn't thick enough you can fall through and —"
"We're working on your sense of adventure today, love," he interrupted gently, pulling her toward the water. She pulled in a sharp breath when her skates came into contact with the ice and she tried very hard not to move a single part of her body in case she went toppling. George snorted at her rigidity. "We aren't going to fall through, and we wouldn't be hurt if we did anyway. We have magic."
A valid point, although it still didn't calm her nerves.
"Neither one of us knows how to skate," she said, watching him struggle to keep his own balance. "What if we break something —"
"There's a spell for that," he said pointedly. "Aren't you the one studying to be a Healer with Pomfrey?"
She gave him an irritated look.
"These blades are sharp too, you know," she said. "What if I fall and you skate over my hand and — and cut it off or something?"
Wildly unlikely, but her anxiety was running rampant and she was fairly certain any cognitive ability she had had been entirely wiped out.
George blinked at her.
"I don't know how to respond to that," he said honestly. She glared at him and he pulled her toward him with a grin, only barely managing to keep them upright. She made a squealing noise under her breath but managed to withhold her scream. "Muggles do this all the time, love. Nothing's going to happen to you. If it does, I promise you can hex me into next week." It didn't really help her because that would mean she had gotten injured somehow, but he kissed her on the forehead, pulling her toque carefully over her ears, and said, "Live a little, sweetheart."
She did not enjoy how living meant going ice skating, but he was very sweet for planning the entire thing, and the ice did look thick under her skates. And people did do this all the time, didn't they? She was being dramatic as was her usual, but he looked calm as ever, though very excited. Like the prospect of ice skating was the same as if she'd gifted him a puppy for Christmas.
She couldn't look at his face and tell him no. It wasn't in her nature.
He must have seen the reluctant agreement on her face because he grinned at her.
"Okay, so how do I do this exactly?" he said.
She gave him an exasperated look.
"Well, I don't know, I've never been ice skating before," she said, eyeing her skates cautiously and wishing she had something to hold onto other than George. Standing still was making her ankles hurt, the weight of the skates pressing in on them, but she was sort of afraid to move. "Petunia isn't exactly the ice skating type, is she?"
George snorted.
"No, suppose not," he said. "So I guess we're winging it then, are we? Those are my favorite plans."
"That makes one of us," she snorted. "You go first, I'm going to stand here and question my life choices for a minute."
He gave her a disbelieving look, but released her arms slowly and held them out on either side of himself. She bit her lip to keep from laughing, but lost the battle when he took a step forward and toppled immediately.
"Are you okay?" she said, watching him flail before he hit the ice.
"Whatever you do, don't do that," he said, attempting to get back up and glaring at her playfully when she erupted into laughter. "Let's see you try then since you think it's so funny."
To his amusement, that shut her up immediately. She eyed the ice apprehensively and it was a surprise to neither of them when she toppled just as quickly as he did.
It took a great deal of time before either one of them managed to figure out how to skate for long enough without face-planting, and Nessa was still not sure that he hadn't brought her out there to kill her. He caught on to the movements much faster than she did, and it was a bit embarrassing that he had to hold her hands to keep her upright when both of them had no idea what they were doing.
"You're very uncoordinated," he said teasingly, trying to steady her when she started to topple forward. "It's like watching a baby deer."
She rolled her eyes at him.
"Don't be insulting," she said, focusing very hard on her feet and not bothering to look at him. She'd learned the hard way to stand as tall as possible, but she couldn't quite get herself to stop staring at her feet.
She'd gone roller skating once at a party of Dudley's and she'd done okay then. Course, there had been four wheels and not a rocking blade so she'd felt more stable. And they'd only done it the one time — Dudley had fallen and started screaming at another little boy for breaking his concentration by "talking too loudly" and making him fall. And Aunt Petunia had always been dramatic, and had of course thrown a fit. They'd never gone to a rink again after that, and she'd certainly never been on the ice before.
It was somewhat similar except the ice was much more slippery — which of course felt stupid to think because it was ice, wasn't it?
"It's not insulting if it's true —"
"That's the worst logic I've ever heard," she scoffed. "The truth can still be insulting. If I told you your head is the size of a cantaloupe, do you find that flattering?"
"I think you might be projecting there, love," he smirked.
"Projecting —" she began indignantly, her head snapping up to look at him, affronted by the suggestion.
The sudden movement, however, teetered their already precarious balance, and there was no amount of flailing that could stop them from falling this time. George went backwards, groaning the moment that his back hit the ice. He groaned louder when she toppled on top of him, his grasp on her hands causing her to come with him.
"That's going to bruise," he groaned painfully, trying to shift on his back with her on top of him.
"Oh God, I'm so sorry, George," she said, her face flickering with concern. "Are you okay? I wasn't thinking and it —"
He laughed lightly, closing his eyes and waiting for the full ache to leave before he attempted to get up again.
"I'm alright, Vanessa," he soothed, running his gloved hand up her side. "Might have been a bit of a smoother landing if your head wasn't weighing me down —"
"I hate you," she said with a snort, watching his face carefully for signs of pain when he moved under her.
He opened his eyes and grinned at her lopsidedly.
"You're looking at me with a lot of concern for someone who hates me," he said.
"Perhaps I'm concerned that you're going to make me get up and skate again."
"Or perhaps you're concerned because you looove me," he said exaggeratedly, laughing at the smile she was attempting to hold back. "Admit it, Vanessa, you love me. You can't imagine a world without me in it. You're so smitten with me that you follow me around in the halls and giggle —"
"Please," she scoffed. "I love you, but I'm not an airhead."
"I'll say," he said. "If you were, that fall wouldn't have hurt so much."
"Do you wish to be single, George?" she said with an eye roll.
"Not particularly," he grinned. "And I don't see how you can break up with me out here anyway, seeing as you can hardly skate without my help. Far as I can tell, you're stuck with me."
She snorted, but didn't bother agreeing. He was far too arrogant about the fact that he'd caught on to the activity sooner than she had and she was not going to help him.
"Get me up off this ice, George Weasley," she said instead. "You promised me hot chocolate and you're going to get me some before I throw a fit."
"Yes, ma'am," he laughed, coming to a wobbly stand and helping her up.
They fell a great deal of times more before they actually managed to both get to their feet, and she poked him in the chest when she came to a stand, looking at him seriously.
"And let's get one thing straight," she said pointedly. He raised both his eyebrows in surprise. "I am not stuck with you. I chose you, even if you are a big-headed, unfairly talented, wildly chaotic buffoon, so you had just better wipe that smug smirk off your face and get me off this ice before one of us breaks our necks."
He did, of course, wipe that smug smirk off his face, but only because it was replaced by a wide grin.
She had chosen him, hadn't she? And didn't that just make him the luckiest bloke alive?
HELP:
Okay, folks so here's the question I have for you: this story is told from Nessa's point of view obviously (at least the majority of it). As far as George making up with Tori and Fred — my original plan was to write that portion and post it on Chasing Rainbows (as that story is about the two of them so it fits). However, I also recognize that not everyone reads that story, and they've played an important role in this story as well, so I'm leaving this up to a vote for you guys.
Should I post a chapter here as well (from George's third person POV)? Or just post it in CR (that would be from Fred and Tori's POV instead) and then let you guys know what chapter it is, and you can go over there and read it? I don't want to just gloss over it, and I can always post in both, so give me a consensus with your thoughts.
I can post a poll in my profile for anyone who doesn't want to review as I know those take time to do — it's up already, but as a fair warning for anyone who reads on their phones, you have to request the desktop version of the site in order to see it in my bio. It's at the very, very top of the bio and very easy to miss if you choose to go that route. I'll take the consensus for that and any response in reviews to determine how to do it.
See you next weekend!