The lord save me. It's been a long week, I've played like one hundred hours of the Sims 4 (I have a problem clearly), and I have way too many things coming up as the holidays get closer. The last two months of the year are wild.
I've been taking a break from writing a bit, which is why this took so long. Again, I appreciate all of you for your patience and for sticking with me on this!
Bookcozy: Thank you! I feel a bit better taking some time off. And upset reviews sort of come with the territory, I suppose, but I appreciate it anyway. Flaming isn't my favorite part of posting stories, but sweet reviews like yours keep me going. And I didn't even realize how long this story was until you'd mentioned it! Wow! It's unbelievable to think about. And I totally agree about George — at some point, he's got to step in. It involves him too, 100%. Nessa's a hard head sometimes, though, what can I say? As far as Method to the Madness, it occurs (in my head, at least) about a few weeks before the twins' birthday, so it's coming soon. I can definitely add something once we get there!
RoonieTunes: Hahaha, there's something about a jealous George that really just does it for me. He's a sweetie, I can't. Thank you so much for reviewing, I adore you!
Gi-L-Ha: Thank you so much for understanding! Keeping up with everything sometimes is a bit difficult. I'm still here, I swear. I was so waiting for George to lose it…Cedric does deserve it a bit at the moment. Things will get difficult for Nessa and George in future, I'm afraid, but it won't all occur in this chapter. We've got some time left. As far as Cedric dying, he will still die in this story, yes. His death will be a big turning point for Nessa in the next story, and that's all I can say for the time being haha. I adore you too! And if you manage to come up with a cute couple name for George and Nessa, let me know LOL. Their names do not mesh well, and I couldn't think of one either.
Cally: Ron's reaction to Tori and Fred will come soon. He's got the emotional range of a toddler, so it's sure to be amusing on some level. I appreciate you always!
Chapter Thirty Seven
Nessa was trying to remind herself at the current moment that there were plenty of things to be grateful for with the end of the second task. It was rather unfortunate that she could only think of the horrible things. For one, people were so keen to hear details about what had happened under the water that they'd begun following her around and asking her hundreds of questions. She was going half-mad trying to avoid them all.
At first, it hadn't really been so bad. She'd tell them that she'd been spelled to sleep and didn't remember much, and they'd left it be, but when the school had nothing exciting to talk about, they became quite creative in coming up with what they believed had happened. She'd have never guessed that she'd been kidnapped by thirty armed merpeople and left for dead under the lake. As it was, she'd started telling people who approached her for questions that if they asked her anything stupid, she'd give them detention.
A lie because she'd handed out very few detentions since she'd become prefect — she really preferred taking house points — but they didn't know that.
But the questions weren't even the worst of it.
She'd almost take the endless questions over the giggling that erupted any time that she and Cedric were in the same room together. This included the Great Hall at mealtimes, which was incredibly annoying. Murton and her friends had taken to making snide remarks at her in every class period, making lewd suggestions or otherwise implying that she was settling for George or that perhaps Diggory was blind for thinking her attractive to begin with.
If she'd been a braver soul, she might have fought back — Tori had had no problem shoving Murton's head in a pile of horse dung during Care of Magical Creatures when Hagrid hadn't been looking in retaliation for a particularly cruel comment she'd made in Nessa's direction. The class had erupted in a duel that Hagrid, of course, could not break up, but Nessa still hasn't taken that opportunity to fight back.
She was a coward, and she was avoiding Murton as if she had the plague. It was easier at the moment. About as easy as it was diving into the loo any time she saw Cedric coming toward her. She had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to be doing in terms of whatever predicament he'd left her in.
Much as she'd have preferred to tear him a new one, she also didn't want to be caught speaking to him in case the school saw it. George had punched him in the face, so perhaps that was enough. Perhaps she could avoid the thing entirely.
It was all so incredibly stupid, really, and she almost wished that anyone else in the world might have a problem more serious than hers.
Hermione's irritation at having so much attention at being Krum's hostage had only lasted her so long, and, truthfully, was only mildly distracting. Sure, she was being teased relentlessly, but at least she didn't have people suggesting that she was sleeping with Cedric and George simultaneously.
As they entered March, she was about as irritated as she had been at the beginning of the year when Fred and George had been trying to enter the tournament illegally. The weather was becoming drier, but there was a particularly cruel wind that skinned their hands and faces every time they went out onto the grounds, which added to her particularly foul mood.
By the time that Thursday evening rolled around, she was about as excited to do her prefect patrols as she had been to take flying lessons with Cedric the year before. She was nearly convinced that she might actually rip someone's head off, and that was before she rounded the corner to the prefects' office and saw the very last person she expected to be waiting there.
"Hey," Cedric said awkwardly, straightening to his full height when she stopped abruptly in the middle of the hall.
Was it too late to go diving into a loo?
"What are you doing?" She said by way of a greeting.
She always had patrols with McLaggen. No one else wanted to be paired with him — Nevermind that she didn't either — and she was the only one who had the ability to shut him up with a single look. The Head Boy and Girl had taken this as a sign that she was the only one who could survive patrols with him altogether.
She hadn't done patrols with another prefect in months, and it was part of the reason she hated doing them so much. All of a sudden, though, she was wishing to see the annoying Gryffindor come walking around the corner, making some inappropriate comment, instead of staring at Cedric Diggory.
"I'm doing patrols with you."
She blinked at him as if she didn't quite understand the words he'd said.
"No, you aren't," she said immediately, not even attempting to sound apologetic. The prospect of doing patrols with him made her want to run screaming for the hills. It was dramatic, maybe, but she wasn't anywhere prepared to have the conversation she knew she needed to have with him, and the awkward silence that would occur if she didn't have the conversation was almost just as bad to consider. "My patrols are with McLaggen —"
"I asked him to switch with me."
She stared at him for a long moment before the words fully registered.
"What?" she said through gritted teeth. "Why would you do that?"
She didn't know why he seemed so surprised by her displeasure at the idea of doing patrols with him. She'd thought her avoidance of him had been quite clear before now, and she really didn't like being forced into situations she wasn't ready for.
"I wanted to talk to you —"
She laughed derisively and turned on her heel, stomping away from him in the other direction. She could not believe her life sometimes. Was there ever a point where she could be the one making the decisions? Where she could just decide when she was ready to talk to someone and have them respect that? Her entire afternoon had been taken up by listening to Murton and her friends whisper mocking insults in her direction during Potions when Snape and Tori hadn't been looking.
Three years ago, she'd had no friends, and didn't have to worry about this sort of ridiculous, petty drama. She missed that.
She absolutely didn't want to be having a horrid conversation with Cedric now too. She'd done enough for the day as far as she was concerned.
She nearly swung on Cedric herself when he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to a stop. There was only a fleeting thought in her head that stopped her and she dropped her arm before she could convince herself that hitting him was a good idea.
He blinked at her in surprise, staring at the hand she'd lowered as if he couldn't quite believe she'd been going to hit him. Instead, she shoved him away from her with a glare.
"Are we doing patrols or not?"
"Were you going to hit me?"
"I considered it," she snapped. Of course, then she'd thought that George had already done that and suddenly she thought maybe he should have hit him harder. Because how dense did the man have to be at this point? "Let's just get this over with, alright? One word and I swear to God, I will leave you to patrol alone."
"Or hit me," he snorted pointedly, but closed his mouth abruptly when she gave him a vicious look.
He did what she'd asked at least. There was an utter, overwhelming silence that stretched out between them. Normally, she found this sort of silence stifling and awkward, but she was too pissed off to take much notice at the moment.
She couldn't tell if she was being a baby anymore. She was tired and cranky, at minimum, but she didn't have the energy to think about the fact that slamming doors and stomping down corridors was a bit more childish than she'd have preferred.
She'd avoided Cedric for a reason. For one thing, any time George saw them in the same general vicinity, he looked like he might hit him again. For another, she was starting to feel like there was nothing else she could say at this point that would matter. She wanted to be the sort of person who understood how difficult it must be for him to wish she'd chosen him, but she also wanted to be the sort of person who was capable of standing up for herself when it got too difficult. The sort of person that could accept that she couldn't please everyone.
Figuring out how to balance that out was particularly difficult at the moment. Especially because she wanted to hit him instead.
"Well, this is awkward," he said casually, swinging his arms exaggeratedly.
She closed her eyes and took in a slow breath. It had been an hour. She had one hour left — why couldn't he just be quiet? Why did he have to talk?
"I said I didn't want to talk," she said flatly. He sighed in frustration.
"Yes, well, you can listen then."
"Alright then I don't want you to talk."
"This is ridiculous —"
She whirled on him angrily, sparks shooting from her wand warningingly. He took a hasty step backward and raised his hands in placation.
"Ridiculous?" she screeched before realizing how loud she was being, and forcing her voice back down. "Ridiculous? You think this is ridiculous? Because I think it's exhausting. You're supposed to be my friend and you're — you're — whatever the hell this is! Sending me expensive books and pulling me out of lakes instead of your own girlfriend — who, by the way, I have Charms with twice a week, and keeps looking at me as if she can't decide if she wants to hit me or cry every time she sees me — and it was already complicated to begin with and you just keep making it worse! Not to mention that Murton keeps asking me what I'm doing with George when I could be with a champion, which I'm sure goes without saying isn't George's favorite thing in the world to be hearing, and I can't even look at you without wanting to — to push you off you the Astronomy Tower. Or maybe push myself off it. And I don't know what else you want me to say anymore, Cedric! We kissed…ages ago. Almost a year ago. And I told you then that I was interested in George and that's still true, so unless you're going to stand there and suggest that you're done with whatever bullshit this is then I'm sorry, but I'm just going to have to —"
"Nessa, I was just going to say I'm sorry," he said sincerely, trying to cut her off before she could work herself into a panic. Or into hexing him, which was seeming more and more likely, and he had to keep a very close eye on her wand arm.
She scoffed derisively.
"Sorry?" she said flatly. "You really think that sorry is going to cut it here? Because this is starting to feel like a nightmare that's never going to end —"
"No, that's not —" he huffed, running a hand through his hair. "Look, I know I haven't made this particularly…easy…for you. And I know that you wouldn't have died down there, and I'm not going to pretend like all of it was because we're friends. Partially because I think you might kill me if I do," he said, drawing an eye roll from her. "But also because it isn't the truth. I do — I think I've made my feelings about you overtly clear to you —"
"To everyone, you mean," she added angrily.
"Right, well, I can't take that back, Vanessa —"
"Don't piss me off."
"You're already pissed off —"
"Don't piss me off more —"
He snorted, running a hand down her face. He didn't think he'd ever seen her this angry before, and he was fairly certain she wouldn't hex him, but that might have been his own stupidity.
"Nessa, I can't pretend like I…" he cleared his throat and looked away from her. Some of her anger faded a little at the vulnerability on his face, and she had to look away from him before she started crying. "I'm trying here, alright? You want to be with Weasley, and I — I mean, I don't like it, but I get it. I hear you. But I don't — I don't want to cut you out of my life completely. I miss you. Even if you are a little bit crazy."
She snorted, rolling her eyes to the ceiling before she looked back at him. Her eyes were still stinging a little, but she'd blinked the tears back, so it was a little bit easier. He was looking at her again, and she wanted more than anything for their friendship to work. Cutting him out hadn't exactly been easy for her either, though she'd managed to distract herself with George and the second task. Of course, burying it all only made it that much harder once it all came exploding out, and her handling of this conversation was surely proof of that.
"I miss you too, but it's not —" she huffed, crossing her arms and trying to hug herself as if maybe that would make this entire thing easier. "I can't keep doing this with you. I can't keep — keep hoping for you to realize that this isn't going to happen with us or — or being my friend just because you're hoping that George and I won't work and you can just…swoop in —"
"There was no swooping," Cedric said indignantly, rolling his eyes when she raised a pointed eyebrow. "There wasn't intentional swooping," he amended. "And anyway, I think I'll maintain distance just to keep Weasley from breaking my nose again. He's got a powerful right hook."
A part of her felt badly that George had hurt him, but she'd decided not to apologize on his behalf. Much as she didn't like the show of violence between two people she cared so deeply about, it really wasn't her place to work things out between the two of them.
"You can't even tell he hit you," she said instead, and he laughed.
"Thanks to Pomfrey," he said. "Anyway, I deserved it. In a way, I kind of judge him for not doing it before now."
Nessa rolled her eyes, and dropped her arms from around herself, forcing herself to relax.
"How are you and Cho?"
He grimaced, turning on his heel and walking down the corridor.
"If I answer that, does it mean we're friends again?"
She huffed, following after him and trying not to kick him in the knee.
"Cedric —"
"You're mad at me, I get it," he said, stopping suddenly so that she ran into him when he turned around to look at her. She caught herself on his forearms before she could go toppling into him and backed quickly away when he blinked at her several times, suddenly distracted. He cleared his throat before she could pick up on the way his stomach had swooped out beneath him. Or before he could convince himself that trying to maintain a friendship with her was doing more harm than good because he simply wasn't prepared to let her go yet. "I understand it, and I don't blame you. I've made a mess of everything, and I do have feelings for you, and I can't pretend that I don't. For more reasons than just the fact that I pulled you out of the lake, although that certainly doesn't help. But I swear to you that I'm done — well, I won't send you expensive books or — or pick you over my girlfriend or — or…"
"Look at me and George like he stole your puppy?"
He rolled his eyes.
"I do not look at you like that," he denied, deliberately ignoring the way she sighed in irritation. "But, sure, I will do my best to be…happy for the two of you, if that's what you want." The words put a bitter taste in his mouth because it was the very last thing he wanted to do when he was fairly certain that he was falling in love with the man's girlfriend despite all his best efforts. But it was what she wanted. "We're friends. Nothing romantic. I can manage that."
Even if it did make him want to rip his heart straight out of his chest. He could give her that. He could.
She stared at him for a long time, weighing the words, and he hated himself a little because he could see that indecision in her eyes, and it was what he'd been counting on. It was getting harder and harder to pretend like he didn't love her, but not being able to talk to her made it worse somehow. Like he was watching her from outside his own body, and all he could think about was what she was doing or who she was with or if she thought about him at all.
He was counting on the fact that she treasured their friendship as much as he did — because of course he did — so that he could make the incessant pain in his chest go away, however briefly. He was sort of hoping that being in her orbit again would make it easier for him to focus on Cho because at least then he would get his fix of whatever Nessa had that was so distracting, and then eventually he'd grow to accept that she simply wasn't his.
Because Cho was great. He liked her. She was kind and quiet and honest. She liked the same things as him — flying and Quidditch and Herbology. She was brave and reassuring.
But she was very different from Vanessa Potter. And that was what he needed. Something different. Something simpler than whatever the hell he'd let this turn into.
So, yes, he was a bit of a bastard because he knew he was in love with her, and he knew he was making the entire thing harder, and he might have been lying directly to her face, but he was trying to convince himself that he could be friends with her and friends only. He was a bit of a coward for not just being the one to let their friendship fall apart and moving on.
And Weasley had certainly deserved to hit him, there was no doubt. He might still deserve to hit him, truthfully, but he couldn't help himself.
He couldn't stop himself.
There was something about her that wiped every thought in his head clean. Totally and completely empty. And Devin kept telling him to move the hell on, and he wanted to.
But at the moment he couldn't. And he was hoping that if they could act like friends, it would eventually just become second nature and he'd wake up one day and he wouldn't want her this badly at all.
A bastard, for sure. But a lucky one because he could see she was going to agree by the way she sighed and let her shoulders drop.
"Tell me about Cho, and then I'll tell you how I feel about this," she said, trying to pretend like she hadn't already made a choice. Like she wasn't an enormous people-pleaser.
Why did no one ever talk about how hard it was to cut someone out? To lose a friend? She heard about divorces and breakups all the time, but never about this. It was the ache she needed a distraction from, and she wanted it to work out. She wanted him to move on, and be happy, and realize that the two of them just weren't meant to be.
But agreeing to keep being friends when she knew it was hurting him felt selfish. And she hated herself for that too.
There was a flicker of a grin across his face, but he turned and kept walking down the corridor, slowing when he realized how quickly she was walking in an attempt to keep up.
"It's, uh, not great," he admitted, turning a corner toward the library. The castle was utterly silent this evening, but she preferred those nights. And it was a bit better to be on patrols with someone she could stand, rather than trying to brush off McLaggen's ridiculous advances. "I told her everything with us, you know…figured it was best to be honest. She wasn't happy about it."
"You're still dating, aren't you?" She said, her brow furrowing in confusion. She'd seen them in the halls together since the task, or at least she'd thought she had.
"We are," he said, holding the doors to the library open for her so that they could check to make sure the stacks had been cleared. "Doesn't mean she's entirely happy with me at the moment. Not that I blame her. She's trying to be understanding about it, you know. I told her that I knew me and you…well, nothing is going to happen there, and that we're just friends. I do like her. I want things to work with her. I just…made an arse of myself."
She refrained from saying that that was putting things a bit lightly, but she supposed he and Cho hadn't been dating that long to begin with, so perhaps they'd manage to work things out. Hopefully without her being part of the entire thing.
When they'd determined the library to be silent and unoccupied, they made their way back into the corridor and toward the opposite direction they'd come from.
"And how does she feel about us being friends?"
He hesitated.
"She's alright with it," he said slowly. "She doesn't think anything is going to happen between us. She just — er — is a bit nervous about if I still have feelings for you."
She stopped and stared at him.
"I thought you told her that you did," she said, eyeing him sharply. He shifted awkwardly.
"I told her that I did," he said, giving her a pleading look when she gaped at him in irritation. "C'mon, Ness, I can't tell her that I still do. Nothing is going to happen between us, right? And I don't want her to — to feel like she has something to be threatened by —"
"You can't be serious," she said.
"She suspects anyway, but it — I want to work things out with her," he said, sighing dejectedly. "I've already messed up things with her and with you."
"And lying to her is going to make things better…how?" she said pointedly.
"Nothing about this is going to make things better," he said, running a hand down his face. He looked exhausted, but she was too annoyed to care too much. "But I don't want her to be worried about us when nothing is going to happen. You've got Weasley, and we're just friends…now. I just sort of have to hope that the rest will fall into place as I go."
"I don't agree with this," she said shortly, turning away from him abruptly. "You should be telling her everything. You can't avoid your problems by pretending they don't exist —"
He snorted and rolled his eyes.
"Oh yeah?" He said pointedly. "Because the fact that I've only been punched once in the last two months would suggest you didn't tell Weasley about those books. When were you planning on doing that, exactly?"
She turned around, opening her mouth angrily, but then realized that she had no argument for that.
"I'm going to tell him," she said eventually, crossing her arms when he snorted. "I don't see what you're in a hurry for me to tell him for anyway. He probably will punch you again —"
"And I'll deserve it," he said. "Again. Could use the heads up though. I don't imagine he'll be too excited about us being friends either, will he?"
The immediate anxiety that erupted in her stomach was really the only answer she needed for that.
"No, he probably won't, but he's —"
She stopped talking abruptly, coming to a full stop and trying to remember how to breathe properly.
How had she not noticed? How had she gotten this far down the corridor without realizing where she was? Maybe the anger at Cedric or the anxiety about George or the irritation about Cho. She didn't know, and it was too late because she was already at the end of the hall, and she could see the spot where that trunk had been before.
It had been gone for over a year now, but it had likely been in that same spot for ages. The color of the stone around where it had once been was remarkably lighter than the stone around it, and if she tilted her head, she almost felt like she could see it there again. The pitch black and the gold latches, the way the light from the lanterns flickered off of it.
She didn't even realize how long it had been since she'd been down this corridor. She hadn't been. She'd avoided it entirely on principle, and she hated herself for that. It was weak, but she wasn't prepared to face the entire thing yet. She and McLaggen had simply avoided the corridor and he didn't care enough to comment. Between his disregard for prefect duties and his completely long-winded arrogant speeches, she wasn't sure he even noticed they skipped that corridor at all.
But of course Cedric was thorough, and she hadn't mentioned Murton or the trunk in so long that he likely thought she'd moved on from the entire thing. She hadn't.
The way her vision narrowed onto that one spot of discolored stone, and her chest constricted until she felt like she couldn't breathe, made it quite clear that she hadn't moved on from the entire thing. She'd simply buried it under her concern for Harry, her drama with Cedric, and her relationship with George. She'd simply learned to cope by pretending it hadn't happened at all.
"Nessa?"
His voice sounded far off, like she was hearing him from underwater and he was standing on the shore while she sank lower into the lake. It was warped and nearly incomprehensible, and it provided her absolutely no comfort at all.
Where was she? She was not in the trunk. She was not in the trunk, she was not in the trunk. Maybe if she said it enough times, she could convince herself it was true.
But she couldn't because it felt like she'd sucked all the air out of the corridor, and she was hot and stifling. It felt exactly like it had to be trapped in there and she knew it was all in her head, she knew it was all a trick her mind was playing, but the rationale didn't help at all. It did nothing for her. Just like it always had because anxiety had a mind of its own, and it was totally separate from the one she tried to use to calm her breathing.
There was something woodsy and someone grabbed her by the shoulders, but it made her panic more because she couldn't remember who it was or tell if they were the reason she was suffocating and she needed the room. She needed the oxygen and whoever it was was taking all of the oxygen, there just wasn't enough of it and she —
There was a round of swearing when she pushed them away wildly and they made another grab for her, but she backed away hastily, trying to keep them away from her. The fact that she could back away should have been a sure sign that she was not trapped, but her brain was still not operating at its fullest capacity and she couldn't even see anymore. Everything had gone black. Had she closed her eyes or had the lights gone out?
There was another round of swearing, and she could do nothing when she was forced to sit. Whoever was talking to her was much stronger than she was and her desperate clawing attempts to push them away did very little.
"Stay…get…Weasley…"
All of the words were lost on her, and she wasn't sure that she even knew what he'd been intending to say, but she didn't care because she could hear the footsteps racing away and that helped her. Or at least her brain thought that it did because it made her mind stop racing quite as fast, though her breathing and heart rate were still through the roof.
And she still couldn't see anything, but she was fairly certain she had squeezed her eyes shut. She needed to open them, she was sure of that. The crushing blackness was not helpful, but they felt heavy and she was starting to feel woozy. Like maybe she'd been holding her breath and was going to pass out.
It was lucky then that Cedric had forced her to sit. At least then she wouldn't crack her head open on the stone floor. And her body would do what it was supposed to once she passed out. It would start breathing again once her brain realized that she was no longer awake.
Yes, passing out was probably the best thing she could do and —
There was a stampede of footsteps what felt like an hour later and she tried to hide behind…something, but there was nothing. She didn't want anyone to see her like this, and she had no idea who it was or why they were here, and she'd only just managed to convince herself that she was not using all of the oxygen.
She made a desperate attempt to get away from whoever was pulling her off of the ground, but there was really nothing she could do when they lifted her clear off the ground and she had no leverage to push herself backward.
Yes, she should just pass out because this entire thing was horribly —
Her chest constricted under the hold, and her brain panicked, forcing her to take in a shallow breath. She squirmed against the hold, but it merely tightened around her, forcing her to slow her breathing in order to conserve whatever slim oxygen she had left. Another shallow breath, and she felt a little light-headed, but she could feel her hands and feet again as the panic started being rapidly beat back and her thoughts began to slow even more.
She didn't understand it, the pressure thing, but she was desperate for whoever was holding her to squeeze tighter. The science behind it made no difference. She just wanted it to stop.
She tried squeezing the arm around her chest and it tightened reflexively and she could have sobbed with the relief of it. This breath was deeper, the smell of cinnamon filling her nostrils and causing an immediate relaxation of her body.
George. She probably should have known. Very few people knew that pressure around her chest made her anxiety stall almost immediately.
The pressure kept her breathing, the sounds of the corridor filtering back in and bringing her memory with it.
The sound of heated voices in front of her was what she heard next and she desperately tried to cling to those to ground her in reality.
"Why would you have left her here?"
"Well, what would you have had me do?" Cedric said angrily. "She wasn't responding to me, and she looked like she was about to pass out —"
"Well, you did a fabulous job at stopping that, didn't you?"
"I wasn't paying attention when we walked down here! I didn't know she'd respond like that!" There was a derisive noise, and Cedric's voice rose a little. "I don't see what you have to be so angry about, Weasley —"
"I'm angry because you left her here! She could have hurt herself! Imagine if Murton had found her like this —!"
"You think I didn't consider that?" Cedric snapped back. "She wouldn't let me touch her —"
"Yeah, but I'll bet you'd have loved if she had, wouldn't you?"
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"You know very well —"
"Fred, knock it off!" George said sharply from behind her. "She doesn't like arguing — I don't think the sounds of your fighting is helping me much."
She made a weak noise at the sound of his voice, and the immediate quieting of the arguing that had been occurring in front of her. She took in a slow breath, and opened her eyes.
Fred and Cedric were in front of her, both looking pale and out of breath, but glowering at each other as if they wished George weren't there so they could rip each other's throats out.
"I'm okay," she said, tilting her head back to rest on George's shoulder and swinging her legs in an attempt to get her feet on the ground, but only her toes managed to brush against the floor. "I'm okay."
Fred grinned, despite the fact that he was looking her over as if he were expecting one of her limbs to fall off.
"Would you look at that, George?" he said as his twin dropped her to rest on her feet in front of him, though his hold did not loosen. She wasn't sure she was ready for it either, so she merely leaned back into him, trying to keep her breathing even. "Isn't she just so cute when she swings her legs like that?"
"Do you really think joking is the —"
"I never got an egg on my head from walking under a tree branch and forgetting to duck though, now have I?" Nessa said weakly, cutting Cedric off before he could anger Fred again.
Cedric coughed to hide his snort and she could feel George shaking behind her, even as Fred's grin froze on his face and he narrowed his eyes on her.
"Fucking Victoria," he muttered, pointing at Cedric angrily. "You shut up. This is your fault to begin with —"
Cedric threw his hands up in the air.
"I already said I didn't know she would react like that! It's been a year —"
"Don't belittle her," George snapped. Cedric rolled his eyes to look at him instead.
"That's not what I meant," he said angrily. "I meant that she seemed fine after everything —"
"So when you were panting after her this whole time, you're telling me you didn't notice that she pretends to be fine all of the time?" Fred snorted. "Gee, no wonder she picked George —"
"Have I done something to you, Weasley?"
"Yes, I don't like the look of you," Fred snapped. "And you left her here —"
"Quit it, Fred," Nessa said, and the eldest Weasley immediately quieted though he rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Nessa looked to Cedric. "It isn't your fault, don't listen to him. He thinks he's right about everything."
"Okay, now that's —"
Fred threw his hands up this time when Nessa shushed him harshly, but Cedric didn't even appear to notice him. His eyes scanned over her in concern and he took a step forward, ignoring the way George tensed behind her.
"Are you sure you're alright?" he said carefully. "You look…"
"Like death, I know," she snorted, taking in another slow breath.
"I was going to say pale," Cedric snorted. "You scared the hell out of me. I'm really sorry, I should have thought —"
Nessa waved him away.
"Not your fault," she said again. "I'm fine. Just give me a second and we can finish rounds —"
All three of them went into an uproar at this, their dislike for each other ignored momentarily.
"Are you mad?"
"You're not finishing rounds!"
"Not a chance, love."
She huffed in irritation.
"I'm not a child —"
"No one said you were," George said, tilting her face up to look at him. She could tell by the set of his jaw and the look in his eyes that he was going to fight her no matter what she said. "But pushing yourself after that isn't going to help. Diggory can finish by himself —"
"We're not supposed to patrol by ourselves," Nessa said with an eye roll. "You'd know that if you listened to me —"
"I listen to you perfectly well," George said with a grin. "These are extenuating circumstances —"
"You can't say that about everything, George —"
"When was the last time I said that?"
"Yesterday when I asked you if you ate my candy and you said that you'd had a rough day listening to Fred whine about how Tori threw a fit until he let her braid his hair —"
"What in the bloody fuck?" Fred said loudly. "I told you that in confidence!"
George sniggered, but kept his eyes locked with hers rather than making a comment toward his brother.
"Tell you what, you come to bed and let Diggory finish rounds, and you can braid my hair," he said. When she opened her mouth to protest, he tilted her head further back and brushed his lips against hers, giving her a serious look. "Bed, love. You can apologize to Diggory tomorrow."
"Really, Nessa, I'll be fine." Cedric said loudly, avoiding looking at her and George altogether. Fred snorted.
"They're a bit disgusting to watch, aren't they?" he said with a smirk. "We should get going before they start snogging like neither of us is here."
"Why are you here?" Nessa said with a huff. George laughed, squeezing her sides comfortingly and pushing her forward.
"Love you too, munchkin," Fred said with a poke to her nose. "Have fun, Diggory. Hope no one throws any Dungbombs your way. Be a right shame to ruin your pretty boy hair."
Cedric rolled his eyes and looked like he might throttle him, but Nessa reached out for him and pulled him toward her before he could retort.
"Are you sure that you —"
"I'm fine," he said, smiling sadly at her and pushing her toward George as if he were doing something wildly painful to him. "Just get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"
She'd have thought that she'd have stabbed him directly in the chest, but she nodded anyway, and pretended like she didn't notice.
If he wanted to pretend like he didn't have feelings for her, she didn't have the energy at the moment to argue. She was exhausted now, and no matter how much she argued, she was grateful that George was insisting she go to bed.
"Sure," she said awkwardly. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it," he said, smiling stiffly at her.
She watched him walk away, biting her lip anxiously, but George tugged her hand toward the stairs and she jolted, shaking her head free of her own thoughts and following the twins back up to the common room.
If she'd expected Friday to be better than the rest of the week had been, she was sorely mistaken.
It had started out fine. She'd slept on the common room couch with George because he was a worrywart any time she had a panic attack, but she didn't want to listen to Fred continue his whining about how George had told her that Tori had braided his hair, and he kept glowering at them in silence before bringing it up again every five minutes.
George found it amusing, but Nessa mostly wanted to suffocate him the moment she'd seen him opening his mouth to speak again after she'd thought he'd finally dropped it.
She hadn't spoken to Cedric, but she'd seen him in the Great Hall at breakfast, and whatever melancholy that he'd had at seeing her and George together the previous evening had appeared to pass, as he'd waved at her cheerily before continuing his conversation with Cho.
Classes had been relatively straightforward, and by the time the afternoon had come, and she was able to retreat to the library for the rest of her free periods, she was starting to relax a little. She avoided even looking toward the corridor that had freaked her out the evening before, but she'd made it through the day without too much fuss and it was really better than she could have asked for.
Even despite the group of girls that were looking over at her above their Witch Weekly magazine and giggling madly. She'd asked them what the problem was, but they'd just retreated behind their magazine in giggling whispers. She tried not to notice. It was likely about Cedric pulling her out of the lake and people had been pointing and whispering at her all day.
She'd thought that it was dying down a bit, but the rumor mill in this school always had a way of doing the exact opposite of what she expected.
She tried not to worry about it and focus on her Transfiguration homework instead because she was slowly but surely bringing her grade up, but she still had a long way to go.
She was so focused on what she was doing that she didn't immediately notice when George had appeared in front of her, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she looked up and saw him there.
"George, you scared me!" she scolded, grabbing at her chest in reflex. "How long have you been — what's wrong?"
Because he certainly looked pissed off. Now that she was actually looking at him, he looked about six seconds away from hauling off to kill someone and she tried to pretend like it wasn't at all alarming.
"You tell me," he snapped. She furrowed her brow in confusion, and opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted her, "Is there anything you haven't told me?"
She paused, eyeing him carefully. There was a sudden sinking feeling in her gut, but there was no way he'd found out about the books. She'd only told Tori, and no matter how bad she was at keeping gossip to herself, she was meticulously silent about keeping secrets like this. She'd not have told him. And the only other person who'd known was Cedric, and he hadn't seemed keen to tell him last night.
"George, what —"
He threw a copy of Witch Weekly onto the table without saying anything else, and she gaped at the center pages for a long moment before she went scrambling for the pages.
It was a particularly unappealing picture of her, but it was the title that had grabbed her eye the most.
Vanessa Potter's Secret Sweetheart
Vanessa Potter may be a girl who struggles to keep her brother in line, yet willfully ignores the line herself, writes Rita Skeeter. Deprived of love since the tragic loss of her parents, sixteen-year old Vanessa Potter appears to have found her one and only through the affections of George Weasley, a quite handsome and rebellious young man. The majority of the school appears to agree that the two recent love birds appear quite smitten with each other.
"I think they're very sweet together," a young first-year Gryffindor by the name of Natalie tells this reporter. "They only have eyes for each other."
A sentiment that seemed to be shared among several of the students I had spoken with. Even, surprisingly, the ex-girlfriend of George Weasley, who reluctantly admitted that the two of them were quite happy together.
Little does the school know just how skilled Vanessa Potter is at hiding her nasty secrets from not just them, but from her charming beau as well.
It appears quite plain to some students that Vanessa Potter is playing with not only George Weasley's emotions, but with Cedric Diggory's as well. As I'm sure readers will remember, Cedric Diggory is a quite attractive Hufflepuff boy who serves as one of the Hogwarts champions within the Triwizard Tournament. Friends of Cedric's admit that the two of them had a minor relationship before she turned her affections toward George Weasley.
"She never wanted to admit that she and Cedric were a couple," Adelaide Murton says. "But I saw them kissing several times last year. But then only a few weeks later, she was with George. I always thought it was a bit weird, but everyone thinks she's so innocent. No one would listen to me."
Diggory seems to have moved on from his affections with the much prettier Cho Chang, but he was apparently quite taken with Vanessa prior. They shared a kiss after a flying lesson and over the Easter holidays, according to several students close to the two of them. Even more disheartening, however, it appears that Cedric has not quite let go of their romance together.
Despite what it may seem, a close friend of Cedric's disclosed that he had recently gifted the younger Gryffindor girl with early editions of her favorite book, Pride and Prejudice, a Muggle novel that tells the story of a man with too much pride and a woman with too much prejudice who end up happily married.
"The books cost him a pretty Galleon," the friend said anonymously. "A few hundred Galleons, to tell you the truth. I told him she didn't deserve them, but he wouldn't hear it. He thinks her something spectacular."
It is a mystery to his friends why he would go to so much effort to woo a woman who is clearly manipulating him — and her supposed boyfriend — into keeping their eyes on her, though some speculate that expensive gifts are only a drop in the bucket for what she might manipulate them into doing for her next.
"Cedric did this really sweet thing during the second task," Pansy Parkinson says dreamily. "He pulled her out of the lake instead of his own hostage because he simply adores her so much. It was so romantic…but then George Weasley became awfully jealous and they broke out into a fight right there. It was such a disheartening thing to see."
Not only did he pull her out of the lake to save her from the merpeople who had abducted her, but he also took quite the verbal beating from Vanessa Potter for his bravery. She was quite concerned that "the whole school" would "know about {us} when Harry brings {your hostage} up here!"
One must ask if perhaps her true concern was that the school would soon come to realize just how many secrets she has piling up between her and her multiple sweethearts. It is the hope of all of us that the two boys she has ensnared will see her for who she really is.
She gaped at the article for a long moment, a thousand questions running through her head, but none of them quite enough to mask her sudden anxiety.
"George, this isn't what it sounds like —"
"So he did get you those books then?" He said angrily. "When?"
"Christmas, but I gave them back, I swear to you —"
"Christmas?" He said angrily. "He gave them to you for Christmas and you couldn't be bothered to mention that?"
"I was going to tell you!" she said desperately, trying to keep her voice down despite her panic because they were garnering quite a bit of attention from the people nearest them.
"Well waiting until it was thrown in my face was certainly the best way to do that, wasn't it?" He said, clenching his fists at his sides. "Why in the hell is everyone suddenly keeping secrets from me anyway?"
"I didn't mean for it to be a secret, George, I just — I didn't want you to get upset and —"
"Right because having me find out on my own wouldn't have been upsetting at all," he snorted. "I'd much rather read about it in a magazine than hear it from my own girlfriend, who swore up and down that there was nothing going on between her and Diggory —"
"There isn't!" She said indignantly. "I didn't ask him for those books! And I told him they were inappropriate —"
"Inappropriate," George snorted again. "That's putting things a bit lightly, but you've always been good at that as far as your relationship with him goes, I suppose."
"I don't even want to know what that means," she said angrily before taking a deep breath and trying to remind herself that she was not the one who deserved to be angry here. "Look, George, I'm sorry. Really. Can we just talk about this for a second?"
"Sorry, I have product development with Fred," he said, turning away from her. "I shouldn't have bothered coming down here at all —"
She reached for his arm to stop him before he could leave, and he stared at her hand for a long moment as if he couldn't quite understand what was happening. He cleared his throat and pulled his arm from her grasp, looking much calmer than he had a moment before, but there was a flicker of hurt that flashed across his face that she absolutely despised.
"George, I —"
"Don't," he said, stepping backward and shaking his head. "Just…don't. I shouldn't have — I've got to meet Fred."
"George, please don't —"
"I can't deal with this right now, Vanessa, alright?" he said angrily. "I don't — I'm not going to be able to listen to anything you're saying to me when I'm this pissed off, and I — I just need a minute to — to figure out what the hell is going on. I shouldn't have come down here. Just — I'll see you later."
She didn't know what to say to any of that, but she didn't have the time to consider it for long because he was gone in the very next second, and she collapsed into the chair she'd been sitting in before, ignoring the whispers that erupted after his departure.
It was her own fault that this had happened, and she knew that, but she was going to kill Rita Skeeter. She should have known that the entire thing would come back to bite her in the ass, but she'd been too busy worrying about everything else.
And wasn't that a stupid thing to do?
Damn her to hell for trying to keep a secret.
Ahhh, the real reason that Nessa didn't tell George last chapter…ol' Skeeter is back for more. Couldn't help myself, I really couldn't.
Also, some Cedric POV, I guess? Didn't intend it to happen that way but it happened anyway. Unlikely to happen again, so if you hated it, you're in the clear haha.
I appreciate each of you! I'll see you soon!