Drama, fluff, drama. That's the pattern of this chapter and the pattern of the next. I so love a school dance.
Bookcozy: Thank you so much — your review was so sweet, and it made me feel so much better. I've been so adoring writing the fluff between George and Nessa lately. I'm posting this one early because I just can't get enough of them at the moment. And OMG, aren't the Marriage Law ones simply the best? I used to go feral for those. I'll eventually make my way toward making one, for sure.
Platelmintes: Thank you so much! Your review made me smile. I'm glad reading my stories can give you some comfort. I can only imagine how difficult and scary it would be to move to another country. This chapter's for you!
Gi-L-Ha: Thank you! We're hanging in at the moment, but I appreciate the words. I'm glad that I was able to help bring up your mood — sometimes I laugh when I write the chapters and I can never tell if that's just me having a weird sense of humor. I hope you're having a much better week — hang in there!
LoverGal2024: Thank you so much! We've been trying to remain positive — he lived a very full life. I'm glad that you've been enjoying the romance. I just adore the two of them together and they're such fun chapters to write during the in-between. I also laugh so hard every time Harry interrupts them — little brothers are so dense, it amuses me to no end. Enjoy!
Chapter Twenty Eight
Nessa was grateful she'd spent so much time in the last several weeks trying to break even on her heavy load of homework because the week leading up to Christmas was a rowdy one within the Gryffindor common room.
Some of the first through third years had gone home since they were unable to attend the ball unless they had dates, but it was hardly less crowded now than it was at term-time, and its occupants seemed to be rowdier too. Fred and George had had great success with their Canary Creams, and for the first couple of days of the holidays, people kept bursting into feather all over the place. Before long, however, all the Gryffindors had learned to treat food anybody else offered them with extreme caution, in case it had a Canary Cream concealed in the center, and George had confided in her and Harry that he and Fred were now working on developing something else, though he hadn't confided what exactly that was; it was a new idea and they were keeping it under wraps until they could get an idea of whether or not it would work.
The moment George had waved them off to join Fred for more testing, Harry had turned to her with wide, horrified eyes.
"Remind me never to accept so much as a crisp from them in future," he'd said, appearing deathly serious and sending her into a fit of laughter.
Snow was falling thickly upon the castle and its grounds now. The pale blue Beauxbatons carriage looked like a large, chilly, frosted pumpkin next to the iced gingerbread house that was Hagrid's cabin, while the Durmstrang ship's portholes were glazed with ice, the rigging white with frost. She wasn't much a fan of the weather, but the house-elves in the kitchen were outdoing themselves with a series of rich, warming stews and savory puddings that made her feel a bit more warm and comforted.
By the time Christmas morning had arrived, Nessa had made her peace with the snow, and rose from her great pile of blankets when the blinding sunlight reflected off of it to wake her. She'd have been far grumpier about that had she not seen a pile of presents at her bed. She grinned, stretching languidly, and pulling herself to the edge of her bed to eye the presents in interest. Peanut, predictably, curled herself in the warm spot Nessa had been laying in before and eyed Archie with judging eyes as he started squealing excitedly to get Nessa's attention.
Tori was still asleep, buried under far less blankets than Nessa had been. Nessa smirked, forcing Peanut aside to grab her pillow and chucked it at Tori's head with all of her strength. She awoke immediately with an enraged scream, swiping her arms out as if she were trying to hit something.
"Fred Weasley, you ridiculous, foul-mouthed, prat, I am going to —"
Nessa erupted in a fit of laughter as Tori paused, blinking sleepily and clearly realizing that she was not in her room at the Burrow, and in her dormitory in the castle.
"What's happening?" She grumbled, glaring at the Puffskein on Nessa's bedside table. It was a ridiculous little thing, and had clearly mistaken her scream of rage for delight and was attempting to mock the noise. "You should get that thing checked."
Nessa hummed in a lovesick sort of way, opening his cage and letting him roll into her hand and up to her shoulder.
"He's sweet," she said pointedly. "Unlike you, screaming your head off at ten in the morning."
Tori glared at her.
"You've never woken me up like that before," she groused, rubbing sleep from her eyes and coming to sit at the edge of her bed to eye her own gifts. "I thought Fred was trying to suffocate me again."
"Suffocate you?" Nessa laughed, tearing into whatever ridiculous gift her relatives had sent her; she preferred to start off disappointed and end on a high note. She snorted — it was a single tissue, an all time low for them.
"That's my version," Tori said, rolling her eyes. "He makes up some ridiculous excuse about how he was just trying to fluff my pillows so I don't get a crick in my neck."
Nessa laughed loudly, shaking her head and focusing again on her gifts. Harry had given her a vast box of sweet with all of her favorites: white chocolate, Exploding Bon Bons, Fizzing Whizbees, and sugar quills; Mrs. Weasley had sent her a large quantity of mince pies and her usual Christmas sweater; Tori had given her a large quantity of white chocolate and a set of beautifully woven bookmarks; Fred, a bulging bag of Canary Creams; Remus, a copy of the Scarlet Letter which she'd mentioned wanting to read on their last Hogsmeade visit.
She was grinning widely by the time she'd pulled Cedric's present toward her. She grunted in surprise at the weight to it, and she raised an eyebrow before opening it carefully, afraid that whatever was inside it was breakable. She gaped at the gift nestled inside the wrapping paper, trying to wrap her head around what she was seeing.
No. They couldn't be…They would have been horribly expensive…
"Your face is going to freeze like that in this weather," Tori said dryly. "George would be horribly disappointed."
She frowned when Nessa didn't immediately respond, blinking down at the box in her hands as if she didn't understand what she was seeing.
"You're freaking me out," she said, climbing to her feet and walking over to her best friend to see what she was seeing. They were books. She nearly rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Vanessa, this is a bit over the top, even for you. What are you gaping at a bunch of books for?"
Nessa shook her head, pulling one of them out gently, and gingerly flipping to the first page.
Sixth edition, July 1905.
"Tori, this is —" she said, looking up at her best friend in a panic. "These are — this is a sixth edition."
Tori clearly did not understand what that meant — and why would she? She didn't read. She certainly didn't read Muggle literature, though she knew that Cedric did because they'd spoken about it on occasion.
Things between them had been awkward of late, and she'd not made a ton of time to talk to him since the Witch Weekly article had come out weeks earlier. It had been this reason that she'd not known who he'd been taking to the ball — she'd been too afraid to ask, truthfully, in case the conversation devolved into something awkward.
It felt almost like she spent more time sidestepping his feelings anymore than it did that they spent doing anything else. It was exhausting at this point, and she'd avoided him outside of their tutoring sessions and prefect duties, and she'd debated heavily what she was supposed to be doing about the entire mess of a relationship. Everything between them had been so weird since they'd had that argument about Harry before the first task. Even if they'd made up since, it felt a little awkward now. She'd at first blamed it on the fact that her brother and he were competing in the tournament, but that excuse could only go so far.
She wasn't comfortable with the current state of their relationship but she wasn't exactly sure how to convey that to someone without making it worse. Confrontation of this sort made her highly anxious and she'd tried avoiding any territory that would make anything worse.
The closest they'd come to a return to normal had been when they'd been talking about the Muggle books he'd read over summer holiday. They'd been speaking about it a few weeks before in the library when he'd told her he'd read The Great Gatsby and they'd been dragged into a conversation about Muggle literature. She'd told him her favorite book that she'd stolen off of her aunt's book shelf had been Pride and Prejudice, and she hadn't yet found anything that had topped it so far.
And here she was, staring at the sixth edition of her favorite book, not knowing how expensive they'd been (though she was sure they costed a pretty penny) or how hard it would have been to find them (likely not easy, particularly within such a short period of time) or why in the hell he'd get her something so…so wildly personal and expensive.
A part of her wanted to keep them — they were beautiful and clearly worn, the covers of them blank except for a gold crest in the top left corner with the title of the book in the middle and J. Austen in beautiful cursive in the bottom right. It had been common in that time period to publish books in three parts, and each volume was exactly the same.
The other part of her wanted to panic because this was a clear sign of something more than friendship, wasn't it? It had to be. What sort of lunatic would have bought their dear friend a set of books that would have cost a couple hundred Galleons at best?
Well…she might have bought Tori something that expensive, but that felt different. They were best friends and they'd known each other for so long — she was really more like her sister than her friend, truthfully.
And she'd never snogged Tori.
That sort of changed the entire landscape of their friendship, didn't it?
Tori snapped her fingers in front of her face.
"Please explain to me what's happening," she said seriously. "I'm not familiar with Muggle literature."
Nessa looked up at her with a panicked expression.
"Tori, these would have cost a small fortune," she said, her voice high pitched and panicky. "Well, no, they're sixth edition so probably not a fortune, but they wouldn't have come cheap. Not like if I walked into some bookstore down the street and bought them off the shelves, you know, and —"
Tori slapped a hand over her mouth to get her to stop her panicked rambling. She eyed her in annoyance and spoke firmly.
"Now when I lift my hand off your mouth," she said. "You're going to quit rambling like a moron and explain this to me in a way that doesn't sound like I'm doing trigonometry, got it?"
Nessa rolled her eyes, despite her panic, and nodded once. Tori released her and eyed her expectantly.
"Cedric got me these."
She could tell by the amount of times that Tori blinked that she'd taken her by surprise, some of the pieces falling into place.
"George is going to be righteous pissed," she said unhelpfully.
" Tori!" Nessa said, some of her panic coming back. "That doesn't help me!"
Tori rolled her eyes, took the book from her grasp, and shoved it gently back into the box it had come in.
"Look, I don't know what Diggory is playing at here, and I don't want to know," Tori said, taking the box and setting it at the foot of her bed and out of her grasp. "He's a smooth bastard, I'll give him that, but George will punch him in that pretty boy face if he keeps trying to woo you with expensive books —"
"Maybe he was just being nice!"
It was a stupid thing to say, particularly because she didn't think she believed that. Being nice was buying her those levitating sherbet balls she liked so much or helping her pick up her books when her bag split in the corridor. It certainly wasn't taking this much time and effort into getting her an early edition of a book she'd mentioned only one time.
It was incredibly personal, and something about that made her highly uncomfortable. She wasn't familiar with how to handle these situations, but this felt like something a bit bigger than harmless flirting that she could pretend to ignore.
Maybe ignoring it had been part of the problem? Had he taken that as interest?
Tori gave her a look full of disbelief, clearly thinking along the same lines as she was.
"Look, I understand that you have issues cutting people out, Vanessa. I even understand that you feel a bit responsible for leading him on last year," she said, pointing at the box at her feet. "But this is not being nice. This is either sheer stupidity or desperation, and we don't need to know which. You're a notorious people pleaser and I hate that for you, but you're going to send these back and tell Diggory to put his efforts into wooing Chang instead, and then we're going to go downstairs, have breakfast, enjoy Christmas, and get ready for the ball tonight and we're not going to think a single thing about them."
Right. She could do that. That seemed simple enough.
Well, except…
"Do I tell George?"
Tori considered this for a moment and then shook her head.
"Not tonight," she said with a heavy sigh. "Tell him tomorrow. Last thing we need is Diggory to open the ball with a black eye."
She did not especially like keeping things from George, even if it was her intention to tell him after the craziness of the ball was over.
It felt like she was lying somehow although she'd taken care of the situation as best she could for the time being — they'd run into Dobby sprinting out of the boys' dormitory when they'd come downstairs (he'd been dressed in a ridiculous pair of mismatched socks and had a bauble hanging from his hat) and she'd asked him if he'd do her the favor of sending the books back to Cedric for her instead of having to go to the Owlery and send an owl to someone who resided in the same castle as her.
She was a coward for not just doing it in person, but Dobby had nearly passed out from the excitement of helping her and it just made things much easier. Sending them back was a clear enough message as far as she was concerned, she didn't need to make it worse with an awkward conversation.
Even so, George had noticed her anxious twitching at breakfast and asked her if she was okay. That might have been the opportunity to just tell him and get it over with, but she was so sick of always being stressed out about something and she knew he wouldn't take it well. He didn't like Cedric as it was, and it wasn't something she wanted to worry about on Christmas. Particularly because they'd been doing so well lately.
Though, truthfully, it might have been a bit better to talk him down from killing Cedric than it would be to have him talk her down from her anxious thoughts.
A nice change of pace.
At any rate, she'd simply brushed off the concern for the time being and decided to enjoy the holiday instead, as Tori had recommended.
They'd spent most of the morning in Gryffindor Tower, where everyone was enjoying their presents, then returned to the Great Hall for a magnificent lunch, which included at least a hundred turkeys and Christmas puddings, and large piles of Cribbage's Wizarding Crackers.
They went out onto the grounds in the afternoon; the snow was untouched except for the deep channels made by the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students on their way up to the castle, and the twins and Tori were of the belief that they could be used as protection during a snowball fight.
There was nothing that Nessa liked less than the cold, but George had forced her out into the snow to join with a teasing question about whether she wanted to turn into Hermione — who chose to watch from the sidelines rather than join. She didn't see anything wrong with being Hermione for the morning but he'd looked affronted when she'd said so, so here she was, hiding within the ridiculous forts and tunnels they'd made in an attempt to keep herself from being pelted in the face with a snowball.
She muttered to herself darkly as she rolled the snow in her hands. How she'd ended up on a team with Ron and Harry instead of her boyfriend — who had forced her out here to begin with — was beyond her.
Not to mention having Tori and the twins on the same team was a disaster. A horribly poor thought out plan. They were savages, completely unapologetic as they pelted them with snowballs. If George hit her with one more, she was going to hex him into next week.
Chivalry was clearly dead.
"I think you've got enough snow, Ness," Harry panted beside her, eyeing her in amusement as she continued packing snow petulantly. He snorted when she looked up at him as if he'd said something ridiculous.
"It won't be enough until it's hard enough to break one of their noses," she said in irritation.
One of them — she wasn't sure which from her vantage point — had pelted her in the face with the last one and then dived behind the Beauxbatons carriage cackling madly, and she'd since dropped all pretenses of fair play.
If they wanted to play like savages, she'd play like savages. Damn her propriety to hell.
She was going to make George Weasley rue the day he'd forced her to play this ridiculous game.
Ron gave Harry a frightened look over her head, scooting away from her a little. Harry choked on a laugh; she'd always been competitive and they were losing horribly. That was sure to piss her off as it was, but she'd been whining about how much her hands hurt for the last five minutes as well, and George had responded by pelting a snowball at her and laughing madly. He'd missed — on purpose, Harry was fairly certain unless George's aim had diminished in the three months they hadn't been playing Quidditch— but Nessa had been all in since.
"Now you two listen up," Nessa snapped, taking her gloved finger and drawing out a crude map of their area in the snow. "We're getting creamed out there. We need to focus on one of them at a time. This here…that's the Beauxbatons carriage — one of those idiots is hiding out behind there, probably making another 50 snowballs —"
"It's Fred," Ron grumbled to himself, eyeing her warily. "I saw the F on his sweater. Stupid, cheating git. He hit me straight between the eyes. I thought we agreed shoulders down —"
Nessa pointed at him warningly, her eyes flashing.
" Don't be a wuss," she said firmly. He spluttered indignantly and Harry had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing uproariously. "Now, if it's Fred back there, he's definitely going to cheat. He's probably got his wand ready to send them all flying at once. So one of us — that means you, Ron — is going to have to act as bait —"
"Not bloody likely!" Ron said. "Why can't Harry be bait?"
A stupid question. Fred liked Harry, and wouldn't be quite as content to pelt him with fifty snowballs as he would be with Ron. Fred took particular amusement in enraging Ron, and it would distract him far longer if she played to that knowledge.
Not to mention, that Harry was more well-matched against Tori, who was more likely to be strategic about her approach, whereas Fred and George relied on overwhelming their opponents and leaving them flustered.
"Because he's a Marauder's son, that's why," she said instead of explaining it to him. He'd never go through with it if he knew she was taking advantage of his very pelt-able face. "I need him elsewhere, and this has gotten far too embarrassing. Our father is rolling in his grave right now —"
"Maybe we should just call a truce," Ron said, suddenly frightened by how serious she'd gotten in the last five minutes. He was going to lose his head out here. Literally.
"We aren't calling a truce!" She said as if the suggestion were a capital offense. "You two babies have already asked them to call a temporary ceasefire. I've never been so mortified in all my life —"
"Well what would you have done?" Harry snorted. "We clearly need a better approach —"
She snorted.
"You've only given them more time to think up a plan of attack," she said with an eye roll. "Which is certainly worse for us than you're imagining. You should never give those three an opening for planning. Now, Ron can take care of Fred —" She ignored his dark muttering to look at her brother, dragging her finger across the map to where she was fairly sure Tori was hiding. "Now, you need to distract Tori. She pelts snowballs like she plays Quidditch, so you should be well equipped to handle that. She cheats too, so I could care less what you have to do to take her down. Got it?"
Ron gave her an irritated look.
"While we're out there risking our necks, what are you going to be doing?" he said.
She packed more snow as one of them released a shower of red sparks that was their indication that the ceasefire had ended.
"I'm going to make your brother wish he'd never met me is what I'm going to be doing," she said, waving her wand over the packed snow in her hand to keep it from melting and then shoving it in her pocket. It was massive and left a large bulge in her pocket, but that was a problem for another day.
Ron was staring at her as if he'd never seen her before, and was wishing he could get as far away from her as possible.
"It's times like these when I understand completely how you're dating George," he deadpanned.
Harry snorted, clearly more prepared than Ron was for his task — though he and Tori were more evenly matched than Ron and Fred, so he had less to worry about — and was preparing to dart out from their temporary hiding spot.
"Just because she's quiet doesn't mean she's not insane," he said to his best friend. "How long, exactly, are you needing us to distract them?"
"Couple minutes," she said, cheating herself by muttering a spell that made a pile of snowballs appear in front of her and splitting them between the three of them. "George will be easy just as long as I can get close enough."
Harry didn't want to know what that meant, but he nodded, shoving snowballs in all of his pockets, and then making two fists. She met him with two of hers in a fist bump, and then alternated in bumping his fists on the top and bottom in a handshake they'd used since they were children. It was ridiculously unimaginative in the grand scheme of things but they'd been unimaginative children and she was too sentimental to change it as they'd aged.
Harry went careening out from behind their protective cover with a grin in her direction.
She loved that kid, she thought fondly as he winded in and out to avoid being pelted by snowballs that came flying from three directions; George was behind the willow tree if she was calculating the direction correctly.
She was less sentimental with Ron, forgoing niceties altogether and shoving him out from cover until he stumbled out into the open.
"NESSA, YOU DAMNED COWARD!"
As expected, she heard Fred cackle madly again, and there was a great shower of snowballs in Ron's direction, and Nessa couldn't help her own laugh as Ron dove sideways with a loud swear, only managing to avoid being hit by a mere inch. Made more amusing by the fact that he decided to army crawl in Fred's direction instead of standing again, trying to make himself a smaller target as he attempted to reach the next fort that had been made several feet in front of him.
Coward, her arse, she thought as she weaved her way toward George, who appeared to have figured out what she was doing, and had stopped throwing snowballs at Harry in an attempt to wait her out instead. She swore loudly, diving behind a bush near the lake when he chucked a snowball that hit her dead in the chest.
She could see Harry and Tori taking turns dodging out from their hiding spots to pelt each other, and Harry had apparently given up on playing fair, as he had a large pile of snowballs at his side that he could not have had the time to make in the last five minutes unless he'd used magic.
Ron, however, was having a horrible time of it.
"WE'VE GOT TO CALL A BLOODY TRUCE!" Ron roared, cowering behind a bush across the grounds, his hands over his head as he was pelted repeatedly. She could see Fred laughing madly behind the Beauxbatons carriage, and pointing out Ron to Colin, who was watching from the sidelines in wide-eyed horror.
Nessa rolled her eyes to the sky. Weasleys — they never did anything according to plan, did they?
"DON'T YOU FUCKING QUIT ON ME, WEASLEY!" she roared back, ducking out from her bush to throw a snowball at George. She grinned widely when he swore — it'd hit him directly in the face, and she used his distraction to sneak a bit closer. "LET ME SEE SOME RAGE, FOR GOD'S SAKE! THIS IS THE MAN WHO TURNED YOUR TEDDY BEAR INTO A SPIDER!"
She laughed delightedly when Fred cried out in alarm and dove for cover; her point had energized Ron, and he sent a stream of snowballs pelting in Fred's direction. She was so momentarily caught up in her own pride — in herself for managing to manipulate Ron into fighting back and in Ron for having given up his whining — that she didn't at all notice that George had snuck around the bush she was hiding in until he'd pulled her back into his chest quickly and held a well-packed snowball directly in front of her face threateningly.
"Drop them, love," he said in her ear, his voice low with warning. She could hear the grin in his voice, the smug bastard, and she didn't even pretend like she didn't know what he was talking about. She released the hem of her sweater, which she'd been using to house her unused snowballs and they splattered at her feet. "As breathtaking as you are shouting insults at my brother, you've gotten far too cocky. Call them off."
Nessa blushed at the compliment, though she didn't think he could tell the difference, considering her cheeks were already red from the cold. She refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing either, falling back on the snark he liked so much instead of allowing him to fluster her.
She only had the one shot at this.
"Afraid you're going to lose, Weasley?"
The laugh he released sent shivers down her spine, but it was a fair question. They'd gained back some of the ground they'd lost, and Ron seemed to be using quite a bit of pent up rage to his advantage now. His aim had far improved and Fred was swearing viciously now, forced to take a more strategic approach in his defense. Nessa was entirely sure that Ron had quite a few grievances with his brother that he could fall back on for the time being. Tori had been forced back some by Harry, who was watching her carefully from behind one of the benches in front of the castle.
"They'll crumble without you, sweetheart," he said. "You're the mastermind, aren't you? Poor Ronnie will lose all his momentum the moment you aren't there shouting at him."
Probably true. He was weak and he'd wanted a truce far before she'd been captured, though her brother might keep him motivated on her behalf.
Truly, she didn't care much if they won, so long as she taught George Weasley a lesson.
"I'm not calling them off," she said, eyeing the snowball he held in front of her cautiously. She didn't think he'd shove it in her face, but it was always hard to tell with him. "So either let me go and go back to cheating or —"
"OI!" George shouted in Harry and Ron's direction. "I've got a prisoner! If you want her back then you —"
She had a five second window in order to catch him by surprise, and she used it when he looked away from her momentarily to see if Harry and Ron would stop their assault and concede defeat in order to have their teammate back.
It was five seconds that it took her to shove her hand into her coat pocket and grab the massive snowball she'd hidden there, spin on her heel, and shove it into the side of his head without warning.
She got a face full of snow for her efforts because he'd reared back in surprise and the snowball he'd been threatening her with had been too close when she'd turned, but she wasn't about to complain. Not when the force of the impact sent him careening sideways and she was able to stumble back a few feet.
He blinked at her several times — and there was a moment when she wondered if she might have concussed him — before he seemed to jerk out of his shock and laughed under his breath, sounding surprisingly pleased, his eyes twinkling madly.
"Oh, my love," he said, tsking at her as a slow grin spread across his face. Her stomach swooped from underneath her at the endearment — he'd not said it in a week and she'd been sort of convinced she'd imagined the entire thing before — and she took a slow step backward. "I'm going to make you pay for that one."
She turned tail and ran before he could lunge for her, and she squealed with laughter at the sound of his feet pounding behind her. He was much taller than her, and she had no doubt he'd catch her, so she swung herself around the trunk of the willow tree in an attempt to put something between them.
It was much more difficult to run in the snow, and the exertion was clear in both of them, as she rested her hands on either side of the trunk, eyeing him cautiously in an attempt to determine which direction he'd go to grab her.
She laughed again when he lunged right, forcing her to run in a circle around the trunk. He was grinning at her from his side of the tree, making another lunge for her, this time to the left.
"I won fair and square," she panted, keeping the trunk between her as much as she could. "You never told me to empty my pockets."
He chuckled appreciatively at the workaround, but lunged again, clearly not willing to accept defeat. She lunged in the opposite direction, and then squealed again. He'd faked her out, sending her careening into his chest, and allowing him to wrap his arms around her and spin her so her back was to the tree and she had no means of escaping.
"Cheeky little minx," he said, grinning widely, as she looked at him with an expression that bordered on being coy. She was cute all bundled up, in a coat that was bulky, her toque pulled over her ears, and her nose and cheeks red from cold, but it was that feigned innocence in her eyes that made him want to kiss the air from her lungs. He underestimated that mischievous streak of hers, and she'd taken full advantage. "You could have ruined my pretty face. Here I am, the man of your dreams —"
She snorted, rolling her eyes to the sky, still laughing breathlessly from their chase.
"Your modesty is very refreshing," she said dryly.
"Don't play coy, love," he said, raising an arrogant brow at her, and grinning when she huffed at him in irritation. "It's my sweater you're wearing —"
"Because you sent it to me as a Christmas gift, you great prat —"
He had, and he was not too proud to admit it. Her excuse for not wearing his sweater at the World Cup had been because Tori had given her Fred's and because she didn't even have one of his sweaters. And he wasn't the type of man to pass up such an easy, open opportunity. His mother had sent him another, as she always did, and he'd grown out of the one he'd worn last year. It was only fair that he passed it along to someone in need, wasn't it? It was a generous offer in his opinion. Very charitable.
"Yes, well, you're always complaining about the cold," he said in a tone that implied it was a great deal of hard work for him to have thought of such a benevolent gift. She eyed him flatly, further amusing him. "Very thoughtful on my part, I think. Though I expected you to wear yours, I certainly won't complain."
She'd not been going to wear it — Mrs. Weasley had sent her a sweater of her own, and she'd always worn the new one on Christmas morning, but it had been a rough start to the day, and George had always been a source of comfort. The sweater smelled like him still even though she was sure he hadn't worn it in ages, and she'd taken the opportunity that had been given to her.
If she'd thought it had been worth it before, she'd certainly thought so when he'd looked up from his breakfast and grinned at her so happily that his face had nearly split in two.
"I wasn't going to, but it — It smells like you," she said truthfully.
He stilled against her, his eyes flickering across her face, and she wondered if admitting this aloud to him was odd or weird or if she should have just said something sarcastic in continuation of their banter and moved away from the conversation altogether, but the next moment his eyes softened and he reached forward with his gloved hand to tilt her face up to his.
Her breath caught in her lungs as he looked at her. His gloves were cold and wet from holding snowballs all afternoon, but she didn't care at all because he was looking at her in a way that made her melt into a puddle right there in the middle of the grounds.
"Whatever will I do with you, Vanessa?" he said softly, running a thumb over her cheek.
He'd kissed her in the very next moment before she had any idea how she should respond to that question and she melted into him with a soft sound, her heart stuttering in her chest and her breath leaving her in a rush.
He'd kissed her a hundred times before now, and each one of them had been perfect in their own way, but he'd never kissed her like this. Everything in her slowed until it was only him, the noise and chatter and cold fading from her awareness and she was so overcome with emotion that she couldn't breathe through it. It was all-consuming and heady, and every one of her worries faded to nothing as he held her.
It was languid and slow and gentle in a way that made her heart ache. It was calming and unrushed, but heavy with the sort of emotion that made butterflies erupt in her stomach. It was all at once too much and not enough, warming her from the inside out until the only thing she knew at all was George Weasley.
Her hands slid between the lapels of his coat and came to rest on either side of his face so she could hold him there, as if she were afraid he'd pull away too soon. The only indication he gave that her gloves were as cold and wet as his own was his sharp intake of air. Or maybe he was as simply overwhelmed with feeling as she was because he slid his other hand between her coat and her sweater, gripping her waist tightly and pulling her into him as if any amount of space between them was of great offense to him.
"Alright, alright, TRUCE!" Tori yelled from somewhere behind them. "We've got a ball to get ready for! Let's go, Hermione! Where's Vanessa?"
George pulled away from her slowly, reluctantly, his breaths coming fast and his eyes still with that softness to them that made her want to drown in them for all of eternity.
"What, you need three hours?" Ron shouted back incredulously. He paid for his distraction when a large snowball, thrown by Fred, hit him hard on the side of the head.
Neither she or George were paying them any attention, still staring at each other as the world came back to them slowly.
"Go on, love," George said quietly, kissing her on the nose and taking a step back from her. It felt dimmer and colder now that he'd stepped back, and she was sincerely tempted to reach for him and pull him back. "I'll see you tonight."
He was pulled back into the game when a snowball came flying at his head, and he took off running with a final wink in her direction.
"VANESSA!"
"I'm coming, you lunatic!" she yelled back, her hand against her chest to calm the frantic pounding and stepped out from under the willow tree to make her way back to the castle.
George Weasley would be the death of her.
"Come on, Hermione," Tori lamented, as she worked on the younger Gryffindor's hair. "Just tell us who you're going with."
"You'll make fun of me," Hermione said, flushing scarlet.
Tori rolled her eyes to the ceiling and caught Nessa's gaze in the mirror. Nessa grinned, shaking her head as she focused on Ginny's hair in front of her. She'd chosen to keep it simple for the sake of time — and the fact that Ginny didn't seem at all that excited for the evening, seeming morose and in her head — and curled the strands around her wand before pulling half of it up and leaving the other half down.
"Why would I make fun of you?" Tori huffed, frowning in Ginny's direction. "And what are you so depressed for?"
"Nothing," Ginny mumbled, smiling at Nessa in thanks, as she stood. "Thanks, Nessa."
"Is this about Harry?" Hermione questioned knowingly. Ginny sighed heavily, taking a seat on Nessa's bed and watching Tori work on Hermione's hair.
Their dormmates were currently hogging the bathroom, and giggling loudly, so they'd had to make do with the extra space they had between the window and Tori and Nessa's beds. They'd transfigured random items into mirrors and comfortable chairs, using sticking charms to apply them to the walls, and using the empty windowsill as a means to hold their hair and makeup products. It was turning into a disaster as they worked their way through the four of them. The majority of the windowsill was being taken up by ten bottles of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion, most of which was being applied to Hermione's hair in generous amounts.
She'd wanted her hair to be straighter as she didn't want her date to be looking at her bushy curls all night. She seemed a tad insecure about her curls, though Tori had told her that she had nothing to be ashamed of — she used to hate her own until she'd learned to love them. They gave her volume and character, as opposed to the plain quality that came with having straight hair. Hermione seemed to find the words somewhat pleasing, turning her head to the side to eye herself in intrigue, but she'd still decided to keep her plans of having straight hair, stating that it would make her look older. The boy she was going with was older.
Tori had obliged, though she'd been badgering Hermione about the man ever since, this juicy tidbit proving to be too much for Tori's minimal self-control.
Ginny frowned at Hermione for the question, clearly under the impression that she'd only asked to steer the conversation from herself, but the fourth-year looked genuinely concerned for her. Nessa smiled at Ginny knowingly when her eyes flashed briefly toward her. Tori took the bait regardless, turning to face Ginny with hands on her hips
"Well?" she demanded, looking disapproving.
Ginny rolled her eyes, coming to a stand again, and forcing Nessa into the chair she'd vacated.
"What are you — Ginny, I'm not doing anything with my hair!" Nessa said indignantly, as the younger girl took her own wand and began to curl it around it, ignoring her completely.
"We're all doing our hair," Ginny said as if the idea that she'd expected anything different was preposterous. "We're not likely to be able to go all out like this again in ages, and I need a distraction." Nessa huffed, sitting back and letting Ginny do whatever ridiculous hairstyle she had in mind. Tori smirked at her for giving in so easily, particularly because the two of them had been arguing about her hair for the last week. "I just can't believe that he asked me after I was already going with Neville —"
"He didn't ask you, Ginny," Nessa said gently, but trying to keep the reminder firm. " Ron asked you to go with Harry. You don't want to go to the ball with someone who wants to be there with someone else."
Ginny sighed morosely, working her way slowly through the thick, auburn hair of the girl in front of her. It wouldn't take long to curl — she had a lot of it, but her hair was stick-straight, which made things a bit easier than the hell that Tori was going through to help with Hermione's.
"Yeah, well, regardless, I could have spent the evening with him instead —"
"An evening of him pining after the fact that Cho Chang is going with Diggory?" Tori said loftily, grabbing another bottle of hair potion — she'd only gone about halfway through Hermione's hair. "That's hardly a romantic evening, Ginny. Particularly not seeing as you've been swooning after him for the last three years."
Ginny rolled her eyes and didn't say anything, but Hermione spoke next, sounding very matter-of-fact.
"That's your problem, you know," she said, eyeing the youngest of them through the mirror. Ginny gritted her teeth as if she were tired of talking about the entire thing, and began to pull a large portion of Nessa's hair back and starting a thick, loose braid on the right side of her head. "He'd like you a lot more if you were yourself."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ginny said with a glare.
Hermione sighed heavily, turning to face her and ignoring Tori's huff of annoyance.
"Ginny, you can barely talk to him," Hermione said honestly. "He looks in your direction and you're a giggling, blushing mess. You need to get on with your life, give up this fantasy you have of him. He's just a human being, he's not this perfect person that can do no wrong. You should go to the ball with Neville, have a good time, and forget about Harry for a bit. Maybe date other people — you're very pretty and people like you. It wouldn't be hard. Once you relax a bit and show him who you really are, I'm sure he'll take notice."
There was a long moment of silence as the two girls stared at each other and Nessa watched as Ginny made a thoughtful face as she turned back to look at her hair and continued the same braid on her left side this time, leaving the right side only partially finished. Nessa didn't mention it.
"She's right, you know," Nessa said when Ginny continued to work in silence. Her brown eyes lifted to meet hers. "Harry's spent his whole life with attention he didn't want — first our relatives and then the Wizarding World. He isn't likely to pay much attention to someone who perpetuates that even if that attention is less because he's famous and more because she has a crush on him. He doesn't really thrive under that sort of environment."
"Yeah, I suppose that makes sense," Ginny said thoughtfully.
"And dating is fun, Gin," Tori said helpfully. "There's no use holding out for someone who doesn't want you —"
Nessa rolled her eyes at this statement. For one thing, Tori didn't date. Though perhaps confiding in Ginny what she did do was not the sort of thing she wanted to be encouraging.
For another thing, it was a bit rich of her to be saying those words when she was making a mess of things with Fred.
"Is that what you tell Fred?"
The words came out before she could even stop them.
The entire room went silent and Nessa slapped a hand over her mouth in horror when Tori's head snapped to look at her.
" Fred?" Ginny said, dropping Nessa's hair in shock. "You — you're dating Fred?! I thought he was — no, he's going with Angelina. Or is that — what?"
"What the hell, Vanessa?" Tori said angrily.
Shit, shit, shit.
Why would she have said that? She'd gotten far too comfortable, so used to this space being only her and Tori's that she'd said it without even thinking.
And far too annoyed with Tori's refusal to work things out with Fred apparently. So much so that she'd let her irritation cloud her judgment.
"Shite, I'm sorry, Tori —"
"I think the two of you make sense," Hermione said in that same calm, matter-of-fact tone as if she didn't notice the seriousness of the bomb Nessa had just dropped.
Tori's glare moved to Hermione instead, but Ginny spoke again before she could retort, likely by telling Hermione to mind her own business.
"How are you not surprised by this, Hermione? Will somebody tell me what the hell is happening between Tori and Fred? Am I the only one who didn't know?"
Nessa did not need Tori's glare to know to keep her mouth closed this time. She grimaced at her in apology, but it was Hermione who spoke.
"It's sort of obvious, isn't it?" She said, giving Ginny a surprised look. "I mean, I sort of just thought that the two of them were just really close, but it makes more sense now, the way Fred looks at her and why he's always trying to upset her. My mum used to tell me that boys were mean to girls because they fancied them. Of course, she was talking about primary school boys, so it might not apply here. I always thought it was a bit ridiculous, but —"
Ginny looked like she might have gone into shock, her mouth gaping wide open.
"You're dating Fred?"
"No, Ginny," Tori said, trying to sound as a casual as possible. "I'm not dating Fred."
"But you want to be?"
"That's not what I said."
"You haven't said anything!"
"Ginny, there's nothing you need to worry about, alright?" Tori said firmly, leaving no room for argument about the conversation and working on the last section of Hermione's curls.
Ginny frowned, but dropped the subject, looking angry at having been shut down so completely. Nessa winced when she turned back to do her hair and tugged harder than was likely necessary in her irritation.
There was a very long, awkward silence as they all continued with their chosen tasks and Hermione and Nessa looked resolutely into the mirrors in front of them.
Nessa was watching Ginny closely — it wasn't in her nature to drop the subject so easily, and the way Ginny responded to this particular subject could very well change Tori's opinion on her and Fred's relationship. She was the first Weasley to have inside knowledge on the subject.
Other than George, she was the safest Weasley to have inside knowledge in Nessa's opinion. She was shrewd, and opinionated, and unafraid to challenge the status quo. It was a dangerous combination of characteristics, and having her on their side would make Tori feel more comfortable.
As it was, she could see the cogs turning in the younger girl's eyes. She practically watched as she went over every memory she had of her older brother and surrogate sister in her mind's eye, drawing parallels, seeing them all from an entirely different angle. Nessa saw the moment that Ginny had made a decision, her brown eyes hardening unapologetically as she pinned Nessa's hair temporarily with her wand and turned around to face Tori again.
"You know what, no," she said, her voice hard and angry. "You're not getting away with this that easily. Do you want to be dating Fred or not?"
"It's complicated." Tori said shortly.
"How is it complicated? It's a yes or no question! You've been keeping this a secret this whole time? How long has this been going on? Does he know? And if he does then why is he going to the ball with Angelina?"
"Ginny," Tori's jaw was clenched and her name came out as a warning. Hermione met Nessa's eyes, her gaze sparking with concern, but Nessa shook her head.
She'd gotten sick of hearing the same old argument from Tori and she was intrigued to see what Ginny would do now that she knew.
"Why are you being weird about this? Just answer the question —"
"Because it's not going to happen, Ginny, alright?" Tori shouted, losing her patience entirely. Hermione jumped but managed to keep most of her surprise to herself.
Ginny's glare softened a little.
"Why not? He doesn't fancy you back?"
"He's obsessed with her," Nessa said quietly.
"Shut it! You've done enough, Nessa." Tori snapped, waving Hermione up from the chair. She looked like an entirely different person, but none of them commented on it as Tori took the seat she'd vacated and started straightening her own hair with what was left of the potion before her. Five more bottles and Nessa was sure she'd need all of them. "Find something else to talk about."
Ginny's brow furrowed in confusion as she looked between Nessa and Tori before she lost patience again and stepped forward, snatching the bottle from Tori's hand. Tori didn't even bother arguing this time, seeming exhausted and overwhelmed by the entire situation.
"If you want to be with him and he wants to be with you then what's the problem here, Tori?"
"You don't get it, Ginny —"
"So explain it to me!" Ginny said, throwing her hands up in frustration. "Make it make sense to me!"
"Ginny, for fuck's sake, think about what you're asking right now," Tori snapped. "We're talking about me and Fred. We've grown up our entire lives together — or most of our entire lives together anyway. We live together. We fight constantly —"
"It's more like bickering than fighting," Ginny interrupted.
"— Your mum would never understand. She'd throw a fit and it would end up making everything horribly awkward and complicated —"
"You've never cared what Mum thought before," Ginny said, clearly still confused by the argument.
"I never stood to lose my family before."
Ginny blinked at her as if she didn't quite understand the words, looking as if she'd temporarily forgotten how to speak English.
"What are you talking about?" She said, her tone softening a little when Tori closed her eyes. It hadn't been before any of them caught the tears in her eyes. "Why would you think —"
"We're supposed to treat each other like siblings —"
"But you aren't siblings," Hermione said calmly from behind her, appearing a little nervous to be talking again in case Tori decided to hex her outright. "And you've been friends for far longer than you've lived with the Weasleys. Just because Mrs. Weasley sees you as her daughter doesn't mean that you have to see Fred as your brother."
"He isn't your brother," Ginny said bluntly. "I'm not your sister," Tori reared back in surprise, flinching in pain, but Ginny smiled at her weakly. "I mean, you're like a sister to me, of course you are — you're everything I've ever wanted in a sister. I don't know if I'd have been sane in that house with all those idiots if it wasn't for you. But you're my family by choice, Tori, not by blood, and I love you no matter what — we all do. Mum won't like it at first — it ruins the picture of her perfect family, you know, and she hates when we don't all agree with whatever ridiculous plans she has in mind — but she'll get over it eventually. They all will. You aren't going to lose any of us just because of some idiot like Fred."
"So you're okay with me and Fred just — just going about as a couple?" Tori said skeptically. "After all this time that we've been friends or — or surrogate family or — or whatever the hell sort of situation this is?"
Ginny snorted and gave her a hard look.
"Well, I don't want to see the two of you snogging if that's what you're asking — I've got to keep my breakfast down," she said, clearly only half- joking. "It's disgusting enough watching George moon at Nessa all the time —"
"Hey!" Nessa said indignantly, and Hermione giggled behind her hand.
"But Hermione's right, you know. It does sort of make sense. I never really thought about it all that much before," Ginny said as though she didn't know how she'd missed it before. "He's always been a bit soft for you…and he's not soft for anyone. Might take some getting used to, of course, but…If you want to be with Fred then you should be."
Tori was silent for a moment as she stared at the younger girl in front of her. Part of that panic she'd been feeling, part of that guilt at sneaking around with Fred, faded a little at the acceptance in her eyes.
She hadn't had any intention of telling anyone about Fred, not until she'd figured out what she wanted to do about the entire thing, but she didn't regret that Ginny was the first to have found out.
"Told you," Nessa said smugly when neither one of them said anything to each other.
It effectively broke some of the tension and Hermione and Ginny broke into a fit of giggles as Tori rolled her eyes to the ceiling, grabbed the bottle of hair potion back from Ginny, and went back to applying liberal amounts of it to her hair.
"Shut up, the whole lot of you," she said. "We're done talking about this now —"
"Hardly," Ginny snorted, coming back to work on Nessa's hair. Hermione stepped forward to help with Tori's hair, returning the favor for her own. "I've got loads of questions. Why's he going to the ball with Angelina?"
"Because he's a prat —"
"Because Tori lost her nerve and told him he should go with someone else and he's trying to make her jealous," Nessa said with a snort.
Tori made a sound that was part growl, part enraged scream.
"You know, I'm starting to understand why it annoys you so much when I tell people about your business," Tori said in annoyance.
"I'm starting to see why you like doing it so much," Nessa replied snarkily.
"Why would you tell him to go with someone else?" Ginny gaped, pulling the two of them back into the conversation. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"
"Thank you, Ginny, that's very helpful," Tori said with an eye roll. Hermione was giggling again and Tori pointed at her through the mirror. "You have to tell us who you're going with now. You're the only one of us left to have an awkward conversation with —"
"That's not true!" Hermione squeaked, clamming up immediately. "Nessa hasn't —"
"Cedric Diggory got her sixth edition versions of Pride and Prejudice because he's trying to woo her away from George —"
" Tori!" Nessa said, throwing her hands up in frustration.
She hadn't even told George that yet, for God's sake.
Though she supposed it was only fair considering she'd thrown Tori under the bus.
"What the hell?" Ginny said, clearly offended on her brother's behalf. "That smarmy git!"
Hermione took an entirely different approach to the words, her hands freezing in Tori's hair and her face lighting up with excitement.
" Really?" She squealed. "Oh, I bet they're just beautiful —"
Tori rolled her eyes to the ceiling and snapped her fingers at Hermione to get her attention.
"Focus, Granger, we're not happy about the books, yes?" Hermione cleared her throat awkwardly and focused back on Tori with sheepish nod. Nessa snorted. "Who are you going with?"
Hermione hesitated, flushing to the roots of her hair.
"Viktor Krum."
Ginny laughed when Nessa and Tori both turned to face her rapidly, causing Hermione to accidentally smear the hair product all over Tori's forehead by mistake.
"Oh, Tori, I'm so sorry —"
"Nevermind that," Tori said, batting away Hermione's hand with a grin. "You're going with Krum? How could you keep that a secret?"
Hermione busied herself with Tori's hair again, blushing scarlet again and smiling to herself.
"He's in the library a lot, you know, and I — well, I'm the only girl there who doesn't follow him about fawning after him. And he said he thought I was really pretty —"
"Well of course you are," Nessa said as if this were obvious. Hermione's smile widened as if she were pleased to have this confirmation. "When did he ask you?"
"A few weeks ago," Hermione said sheepishly. "In the library. I — well, I didn't want to say anything, you know, because he made such a point of mentioning that he liked that I didn't follow him around everywhere. I didn't want it to seem like I was — like that's all I was interested in, I mean."
Tori shook her head wondrously.
"Honestly, Hermione," she said. "How you kept a secret like that I'll never know."
"I've got a question actually," Ginny said, grabbing a sparkling flower pin and using it to pin the two half braids she'd made of Nessa's hair behind her head before moving some of the curls around so that they flowed down her back. She murmured her thanks when Ginny finally signaled to her that she was finished. "For Tori this time, not Hermione. I already knew about Krum."
"Well, we didn't, and I've still got questions myself!" Tori said indignantly.
"Well you can ask them after you tell me why you're having Hermione straighten your hair," Ginny said. "Fred hates it when you do that."
"Yes, exactly," Tori said, giving Ginny an exasperated look. Nessa rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "That's why I'm doing it."
Hermione frowned in confusion.
"Am I missing something?"
"No, but the two of them are missing a few brain cells," Nessa said, sending Ginny into a fit of laughter, and moving around to grab their dresses from Tori's bed. "Now, can we focus, please? We've only got an hour to finish getting ready and I've my own questions for Hermione."
As usual, I have gotten carried away. I'm a slut for fluff at the moment — Nessa's got a lot coming her way, and the next few books are so much darker in comparison to this one, so I'm enjoying it while I can.
Plus, I mean, George Weasley. That's it. That's the whole thing.
So much happened, I can't. A reminder that Cedric is still a pawn here, the poor obsessed bloke; girly gossip (because how can we possibly have a school dance without it?); and a very large step toward the Fred and Tori reveal (it's the excitement that's killing me, you guys).
Drama, fluff, drama. That's the pattern we're going with for the Yule Ball. Teenage drama is among my favorite things to write — partially because most of the drama in HP is so on the side of being too much for children their age. Also because I am no longer a teenager so I don't have to think about it anymore. School dances are such fun to write and the drama is coming still, for all of them except our perfect Ginny because JKR cut her a break this book, thank God.
Thank you all for being you, and all of the kind words you gave me last week. It kept me going. I'll see you very soon!