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I HEARD A RUMOUR, george weasley where a split-second lie in a crowded pub convinces half the school that [reader] is dating george weasley, forcing the two into a fake relationship that becomes increasingly difficult to separate from reality.

the feeling of keeping a secret song recs: heat waves glass animals washing machine heart mitski electric love børns wait a minute! willow lovers anna of the north training wheels melanie martinez does he know? one direction temporary fix one direction somebody else the 1975 getaway car taylor swift

pairing: george weasley x ravenclaw f!reader word count: i stopped counting after 15k words.. (part one of two) content: set in and before order of the pheonix, fake dating to lovers, slowburn, cormac mclaggen is a major douche, george is a bit dense, reader is a bit introverted and considered very nerdy, contains use of alcohol, use of substances if you squint, mild violence, blood, swearing and parties are normalized. a/n: as always, not proofread because i'm simply too lazy. might be grammatically incorrect in some places, english is not my first language.

September 1st, 1995. 19:09, Friday.

[Reader] didn’t even want to be there.

There were, in [Reader]'s opinion, very few circumstances under which voluntarily entering a room packed with intoxicated teenagers could be considered a wise decision.

On any typical weekend, the Three Broomsticks was her sanctuary; a safe haven of polished mahogany and crackling hearths where she could sequester herself in a quiet corner booth, nursing a single mug of spiced cider while parsing through the intricate syntax of ancient runes.

Tonight was not any typical weekend. The pub had devolved into a circus show that brought with it a kind of vertigo that could only come with walking on a tightrope. The familiar, homely refuge was entirely buried under the sheer mass of the student body, as if it had been transfigured into a sweltering labyrinth of noise and heat and sweat.

Every square inch of the floorboards had become a treacherous, tacky maze of bacteria, coated in a varnish of sloshed butterbeer and exploded firewhiskey that caught at the soles of her boots with every step she took retreating from the crowds.

The air was dense and suffocatingly humid, choked with the overbearing warmth of a hundred teenage bodies crammed shoulder-to-shoulder, thigh-to-thigh, dancing, drinking, and hollering over the din to drown out the ghosts of the previous term.

Waves of cheap floral perfume collided with the grease-heavy stink of stale pub food, coating the back of her throat in something thick and cloying. Every breath felt borrowed from somebody else's lungs.

And if she breathed in just deep enough, beneath the thick carpet of condensation and spilled alcohol was the unmistakable, herbal skunk of something Muggle. It drifted lazily from the darkest, shadowed alcoves near the back exit, where the older years were aggressively trying to forget the world outside.

The smell lodged somewhere behind her eyes. The room seemed to tilt on its axis. For a horrifying second she wasn't entirely certain whether the floor was moving beneath her boots or if her balance had finally decided to abandon ship.

It made her dizzy. Too much, too much, too much.

Every rational instinct— the very mind that had gotten her sorted into Ravenclaw in the first place— screamed at her to turn around and flee back to the warm, welcoming halls of the castle.

But she’d made a vow to her friends.

And friendships, much like legally binding magical contracts and certain species of carnivorous plants, had a tendency to trap intelligent people into situations they otherwise would have avoided.

Earlier that evening, 17:54.

An hour earlier, the curtains of [Reader]'s four-poster bed had been drawn shut against the world. The dormitory beyond them existed only as a distant blur of muffled voices and creaking floorboards. Placid behind thick navy hangings embroidered with silver stars, [Reader] had burrowed beneath three layers of blankets and arranged herself into what she considered a perfectly reasonable appropriation of a corpse.

The journey from King's Cross still sat heavily in her bones. Coal smoke lingered in the fibres of her travelling cloak where she'd abandoned the obsidian fabric across a plush midnight armchair. Her trunk remained half-unpacked at the foot of the bed, brass latches hanging open like exhausted jaws. Somewhere nearby, parchment rustled as one of her dormmates unpacked books for the term.

[Reader] ignored all of it. The mattress beneath her felt like sinking into a cloud, her pillow smelled faintly of lavender polish and old parchment from last term, and for the first time all day, nobody required anything from her.

No stiff conversations. No formal introductions. No distant relatives of classmates asking about her summer. No suffocating sea of black robes flooding through the Great Hall.

Just silence. Serendipitous, serene silence.

Her eyes had barely drifted shut when the curtains were wrenched apart with enough force to rattle the canopy overhead.

The sanctuary died instantly.

A draft of cold September air knifed beneath the blankets, crawling across the strip of exposed skin between her collar and jaw. Somewhere beyond the bed hangings, the dormitory rushed back into existence all at once; mahogany wood squeaking beneath moving feet, hushed whispers and distant laughter drifting up from the common room below.

Three silhouettes loomed over her like particularly judgmental apparitions.

[Reader] responded by dragging the blanket higher over her shoulder and burying her face deeper into the fortress of pillows.

"No."

There was a brief pause.

"You don't even know what we're going to ask."

Veronika Moore's voice was always attuned to a very particular frequency whenever she was about to become a problem. The sound alone was enough to make [Reader] contemplate the logistical feasibility of transferring schools on the first day of seventh year, preferably to one located on a different continent where the tan-skinned girl could not physically reach her.

A long, theatrical groan escaped somewhere from beneath the tower of blankets as [Reader] rolled onto her stomach and buried her face deeper into the pillow, as though sheer determination might allow her to tunnel through the mattress and emerge several floors below. With her nose pressed into the cotton, she didn’t just smell of the detergent the house elves used on it; she smelled late nights spent studying by wandlight, ink stains on her fingertips, and the comforting illusion that summer had not passed in the span of a single, cruel breath.

"I know exactly what you're going to ask."

One of the springs huddled somewhere beneath her ribs emitted a metallic cry of protest as somebody dropped onto the edge of the bed with all the subtlety of a collapsing bookshelf, the resulting tremor travelling through the frame in concentric waves. The mattress dipped beneath an abrupt shift of weight; not so much a movement as an act of aggression.

[Reader] felt it in her spine. In her teeth. In whatever fragile corner of her soul had been desperately attempting to recover from the journey back to the castle.

"Oh, good," Veronika giggled, bright as a church bell and twice as impossible to ignore. "That'll save time."

The pillow left [Reader]'s hands before conscious thought could intervene. It sailed across the mattress with remarkable precision, propelled by six years' worth of accumulated affection and intermittent impulses of white-hot rage.

For one glorious, fleeting moment, victory seemed possible.

The cushion crossed the distance between them with admirable speed. Unfortunately, six years of friendship had granted Veronika the reflexes of a seasoned duellist where flying objects were concerned. The pillow never stood a chance.

Veronika plucked it neatly from the air and deposited it in her lap without so much as blinking, as though intercepting projectiles launched in her direction was simply another skill she'd acquired somewhere between OWLs and learning how to tolerate [Reader]. That, more than anything, was what finally convinced [Reader] to crack one eye open.

A mistake.

Veronika Moore looked exactly like the sort of person who should not be approached without protective gear. Loose curls spilled from what had once been a respectable hairstyle, framing a face still warm from the climb to Ravenclaw Tower. The last traces of summer lingered stubbornly in her skin, untouched by the Scottish weather that had already begun leeching the colour from everyone else. Lamplight caught along the curve of her cheekbone whenever she moved, and there was entirely too much life in her expression for someone who had spent the last eleven hours travelling.

Most offensive of all, she appeared rested. Not merely awake; rested. The distinction mattered.

[Reader] had spent the day being herded from train platforms to carriages to feast tables like particularly reluctant livestock. Veronika, meanwhile, looked as though she'd just returned from a rejuvenating seaside holiday and was moments away from embarking on a second one for sport.

Worse, there was purpose in her eyes. Purpose. The sort worn by people who had already devised a plan, anticipated every objection, and arrived fully prepared to drag everyone else toward their conclusion whether they liked it or not.

The smile spreading across her face did nothing to ease those concerns.

Veronika's arms were folded across her chest, the heavy fabric of her black travelling cloak shifting as she settled into her stance. Her expression radiated the quiet, terrifying confidence of a predator who already knew she had won, weeks before the hunt had even begun. Behind her, the two girls flanking her like a pair of particularly symmetrical gargoyles looked equally determined, their collective posture radiating a unified front that made the small dormitory bedroom feel suddenly very cramped. One of them was still wearing her prefect badge, and the other appeared to be holding a hairbrush for reasons that neither she nor anyone else seemed capable of explaining.

[Reader]'s gaze drifted toward the narrow gap between Veronika and the nearest bedpost. The idea of diving out the opposite side of the bed, dropping low into a crawl beneath the rows of identical trunks, and making a desperate break for the dormitory staircase crossed her mind.

The odds of survival were low; the staircase was narrow, and Veronika had always possessed an uncanny, almost supernatural reaction time when it came to preventing people from escaping her company.

"We're going to the Three Broomsticks," Veronika announced, her tone clipping each syllable with a finality fearsome enough to rival Flitwick himself.

"No."

"But the entire year is going!" An exasperated tone.

"No."

"It's the first weekend back." A pleading tone.

"No."

Veronika inhaled slowly through her nose, her nostrils flaring as she marshaled her patience. She looked toward the high, arched window where the Scottish rain was just beginning to streak the glass in long, grey ribbons.

"We survived last year," she said simply. The words weren't loud, but they held an undercurrent to them that instantly dropped the temperature in the room by several degrees.

Silence settled across the dormitory, heavy and nauseatingly thick, filling the spaces between the four-poster beds like rising water. The crackling fire in the common room beyond the heavy oak door suddenly seemed very loud, the popping of dry pine sounding like dynamite in the quiet.

The previous term lingered over Hogwarts like a massive, purple bruise that hadn't quite faded beneath the skin. Nobody talked about it for very long. No one really knew how to find the vocabulary for it without making it sound even more monstrous than it was. The closest anyone had come to closure had been Seamus grilling Harry earlier at lunch, and that altercation spoke for itself.

One moment there had been a Tournament— bright banners, roaring crowds, and the smell of toasted sugar from the vendors. The next, there had been a funeral in the middle of the lawn, the grass crunching beneath hundreds of black shoes, and the sickening realization that safety was an illusion they no longer had the currency for.

And somehow, with an almost offensive lack of regard for their collective grief, the world had continued turning afterward. The trains had run on time. The books had arrived at Flourish and Blotts. The sun had risen over King's Cross. And some dim-witted bloke had the audacity to call for a pep rally at Hogsmeade.

A celebration of Cedric's life.

What a mouthful for an event destined to collapse beneath the burden of adolescent impulses and poor decision-making.

"It'll be good for everyone," one of the girls flanking Veronika, Marietta as [Reader] had come to know her name, said quietly. Her fingers nervously pleating the hem of her jersey. "Just to… clear the air. Get out of the castle."

"It'll be loud," [Reader] countered, still skeptical of the whole ordeal.

"Yes."

"It'll be crowded."

"Probably."

"There will be drunk people."

"Almost certainly."

"There will be seventh-year boys attempting to perform prehistoric courtship rituals under the influence of illicit beverages."

Veronika winced at that one, her nose scrunching partially in shared disgust. "Unfortunately."

"There is literally nothing about this entire proposal that appeals to my intellect, my senses, or my basic survival instincts. I really don't see why I should go."

A sharp, toothy grin tugged at the corner of Veronika's mouth, breaking the somber spell that had briefly held them captive. "Oh, see, that's where you're wrong,"

"Please don't."

"You've spent the entire summer hiding behind ink jars."

"I have not! I was occupied—"

"You sent me three separate letters discussing the finer points of the thirteenth-century history of magic."

"They were fascinating letters. I was excited to tell you because you're my closest friend! I discovered a consistency in the Nordic curses that could—"

"They were ninety inches long," Veronika interrupted, her hands measuring an impossible distance in the air. "The owl arrived at my house looking as though it had aged a decade during the flight over the English Channel."

"They required context," [Reader] huffed, a defensive warmth rising in her cheeks. "You can't just drop into the middle of a translation without the story needed to understand its significance."

Veronika barked out a laugh, the sound bubbly and echoing off the stone walls. She stepped forward, the ostentatious persona fading away as she shook her head. "[Reader], you're seventeen."

"And?"

"And if I have to watch you spend our final year voluntarily imprisoned inside the restricted section of the library, living off ink fumes like they're high-grade opiates, I'm going to write to your mum."

"That's an incredibly vague threat."

"It's meant to be. Keeps you guessing."

The mattress dipped at the left corner as Veronika crossed the distance and sat down beside [Reader] once more, the heavy wool of her robes rustling against the blankets. The teasing vanity vanished from her voice all at once, replaced by a quiet, grounded sincerity that was infinitely harder to fight against than her usual bravado.

"We've only got one year left," she murmured. That landed harder than any of the threats. Because there it was. The grand, petrifying elephant in the room that none of them wanted to acknowledge while they were still unpacking their trunks and organizing their quills.

One academic year.

Not even a full nine months before N.E.W.T.s tore their schedules apart. The final year before adulthood forced them to sign contracts and choose ministries and swear allegiances. The final year before the very people who had become her family over six years of shared drafts, burnt midnight oil, and stolen pumpkin pasties scattered across Britain and vanished into lives of their own, separated by careers and distance and whatever evil was currently brewing outside the castle gates.

The realization settled morbid and heavy beneath her ribs, immobile as granite. Veronika reached out, nudging her shoulder with a gentle, companionable pressure. "Come on. Don't go sour on us before the term even starts."

"Veronika—"

"We're not asking you to become a different person," Veronika said, her golden-flecked eyes locking onto [Reader]'s with a fierce, protective intensity. "We like the person you are. We like the nerdy rambles. We even like the impossibly long letters, mostly."

"That's exactly what you're asking. You want me to go stand in a room full of clattering noise and pretend I'm enjoying the sensation of being grinded on by boys who haven't even hit puberty yet."

"First of all," Veronika said, offended, "we're seventeen."

"Physically."

Marietta snorted. The third girl choked so violently on her own laughter she had to grab the nearest bedpost for support. A look of vindication crossed [Reader]'s face.

"There. Exhibit A."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake." Veronika scrubbed both hands down her face. "We're asking you to leave the castle for two hours. To let us get a look at you while you're not hidden behind a stack of books ten feet tall. Two hours."

A long, heavy pause stretched out between them. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed twice.

"Three, maybe," Veronika amended with a sly tilt of her head.

"Veronika Moore."

"Two and a half. Final offer."

For a moment, the room settled back into a familiar rhythm. Stone walls. Firelight. The smell of parchment and damp wool drying beside the hearth. Home. She looked down at her hands, her fingers still stained with a faint, stubborn crescent of blue ink from the train ride.

"Fine," she breathed, conceding to her friend's pestering.

The grin that beamed across Veronika's face was so wide and blinding it should have warned [Reader] she was making a grave mistake of deadly proportions. She stood up instantly, clapping her hands together with a sharp, echoing snap that set the other two girls into immediate motion toward the wardrobe.

"There she is," Veronika crowed. "I knew we'd get there eventually!"

"I already regret this," [Reader] said, burying her face back into the indentation of her mattress one last time to mourn her lost evening.

"You haven't even put the clothes on yet."

"I regret it preemptively. It spares me of a headache later."

Back to present, 19:10.

Calpurnia had been the first one to say it; when regular people are destined to die, they perish at the hands of unforseeable forces– yet the tides themselves turn to warn those deemed important.

When beggars die, there are no comets seen; Yet even the heavens themselves blaze for the deaths of princes.

There had been no omens, tokens, or emblems to notify [Reader] of an impending doom. There had been no blood-red moon hanging over the castle. No flock of ravens circling Ravenclaw Tower. No cryptic warning delivered by an elderly Divination professor moments before supper.

There had only been the mocktail that Veronika had thrust into her hand with a conspiratorial wink before vanishing into the humid haze of the pub. Which, in hindsight, should have served exactly the same purpose. The evidence now sat sweating in [Reader]'s hand.

The liquid occupying [Reader]'s glass was an aggressive, almost radioactive shade of pink that seemed less like a beverage and more like the by-product of an unfortunate Potions accident.

A Pink Pixie Fizz, Veronika had called it. [Reader] preferred her own working theory.

Namely, that somebody had dissolved six pounds of sugar into a cauldron before becoming possessed by a particularly vindictive demon.

A steady stream of bubbles climbed the inside of the glass in frantic silver chains. Every few seconds one burst against the surface with a soft hiss, releasing another wave of synthetic cherry sweetness strong enough to strip paint from a wall.

It was exactly four minutes and forty seconds since Veronika had claimed an urgent need to "powder her nose," a blatant lie considering she had been tracking a specific, broad-shouldered Hufflepuff Beater with the intensity of an Animagus on the hunt.

[Reader] leaned against the polished mahogany of the partition, her fingers tracing the condensation running down the glass. She was counting the seconds. Sixty more, and she would— morally, ethically, and maybe legally— be allowed to abandon the table and retreat to the drafty, wonderful sanctuary of the back exit.

The plan was excellent.

In fact, the longer she stood there, absently tracing the rivulets of condensation sliding down the outside of her glass, the more convinced she became that it was perhaps the most intelligent idea anybody in this establishment had produced all evening.

The prospect had become so appealing that [Reader] was already mentally composing the apology she would absolutely not be delivering.

Goosebumps bloomed across [Reader]'s skin, travelling up her forearms till her elbows.

Something had shifted, but she couldn't immediately identify what exactly. The wireless still crackled somewhere overhead beneath the roar of voices. Laughter continued to ricochet off the low timber beams. A group of fifth-years near the fireplace were engaged in what appeared to be an elaborate debate over whether somebody could successfully Apparate into a suit of armour. The room remained exactly as crowded, humid, and ragingly unpleasant as it had been thirty seconds earlier.

And yet, a peculiar tension crept across the back of her neck. The sensation was so faint she almost dismissed it.

Almost.

It felt like the moment a forest falls silent before a storm. The density of air before the crackle of lightning. Like the split second before a staircase gives way beneath your foot. Some primitive, deeply unacademic corner of her brain abruptly sat upright and announced, with alarming certainty, that something was wrong.

Her grip tightened fractionally around the stem of her glass.

The smell reached her first. Firewhiskey.

Not the stale traces lingering in abandoned tankards or soaking into the floorboards beneath the crush of bodies. This was fresher than that. Sharper. Potent enough to carve through the layers of perfume, sweat, spilled butterbeer and woodsmoke that had been making her uneasy all night.

Then the physical intrusion itself. A large, calloused hand clamped onto the curve of her waist.

The grip was too tight, the fingers digging unceremoniously into the fabric of her shirt, dragging her backward against a chest that felt like a solid wall of muscle and poor decision-making. [Reader]'s knee jerked out of reflex; she lost her footing, her centre of gravity tilting as one foot slid back.

A voice drifted down from somewhere above the crown of her head. Deep enough to vibrate through the space between her shoulder blades, slurred enough to raise a brow, and familiar enough to make her soul attempt to leave her body.

"There you are."

[Reader] closed her eyes. Because somehow— through a domino effect of events so statistically improbable they deserved academic study— the situation had managed to become worse.

Cormac McLaggen.

Cormac radiated the distinct, repulsive heat of someone who had spent the last sixty minutes stewing in a volatile cocktail of ego, jealousy, and approximately fourteen ounces of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey.

For the past hour, [Reader] had been acutely aware of his presence across the room— he was a hard object to miss, given that he generally occupied space with the entitlement of a minor deity.

She had watched him through the gaps in the crowd, holding court with a group of raucous Gryffindors, his eyes constantly tracking her every move. Every laugh she shared with Veronika, every time she didn't look in his direction, had seemed to act as a personal affront to his constitution.

Now, he was entirely unmoored.

"Cormac," [Reader] leveled her voice, trying to make sure the panic in her head didn't seep through her register. "Remove your hand from my person before I transfigure your fingers into ginger biscuits."

He didn't let go. If anything, his grip seemed to tighten, flexing hand pulling her an inch closer as he stumbled slightly, his balance compromised by the sheer volume of liquor in his system. He leaned down, his breath hot and stinging against her cheek.

"You're being ridiculous, love," he slurred, the nickname heavy and clumsy on his tongue. "Spent the whole summer… three months… and you didn't reply to a single letter. Not one. I saw you laughing over there. With Moore. You've got time for her, but you don't have time for me?"

[Reader]’s thumb remained white-knuckled around the stem of her mocktail. Her mind, usually a pristine library of ordered thoughts, was rapidly narrowing down to a single, sharp hex.

"We broke up in May, Cormac," she said, her words clipped and precise as a guillotine. "Ring any bells? A breakup implies a cessation of correspondence. I assumed even a Gryffindor could parse that such common sense."

"You're always doing that," Cormac grumbled, his chest rising and falling heavily against her back. He sounded less angry now and more desparate, the firewhiskey blurring the edges of his usual arrogance into something messy. "Using big words. Hiding in your books. You think you're better than everyone else. But you're here. You came tonight. For them. Why'd you never come to parties when I called you?"

He turned her chin slightly, forcing her to face him. His hair was a bird's nest, his tie loosened to the point of absurdity, and bloodshot eyes transfixed on her with a blazing intensity.

"Look at me," he demanded, his hand moving from her chin to grip her upper arm. "Just... stop being so damn difficult for five minutes, [Reader]."

The Pink Pixie Fizz tilted dangerously in her hand, a drop of the fruity liquid spilling over the rim and splashing onto the toe of Cormac's leather boots.

[Reader] looked up, her glass eyes turning entirely to flint. Veronika was still nowhere to be seen, the crowd was roaring at a joke she hadn't heard, and Cormac McLaggen was currently occupying her entire horizon.

She really hated parties.

The strategy of escape, [Reader] knew, was entirely dependent on a single, desperate window of time. In the suffocating, butterscotch-scented heat of the Three Broomsticks, her mind raced through every possible exit as Cormac’s heavy hand pinned her in place.

She calculated her survival in heartbeats: a sudden dive beneath the long oak trestle tables, a sharp pivot into the crowded shadow of the stairs, or throwing herself into the thick of a nearby group of fifth-years to break his line of sight.

But every fleeting idea ended the same way— with him catching her.

You couldn’t outrun a boy who chased Quidditch balls for a living, not when he already had his ironclad grip on you. If she wanted to vanish into the crowd, she had to rip herself free right now, taking advantage of his own heavy, drunken momentum against him before he realized what she was doing.

The logic of breaking a hold was simple, but Cormac McLaggen held the sheer, stubborn mass of a Keeper.

As his fingers tightened on her upper arm, his thumb digging bruisingly into the muscle, [Reader] stopped arguing. Words were wasted on him now. Instead, she dropped her weight, sinking low just as he leaned in further, his massive frame tilting forward with the weight of his own slurred grievances.

With a sharp, downward snap of her elbow against the crook of his ribcage, she broke his grip.

The movement was a blinding, fluid reflex that caught him entirely off guard. The sudden, total loss of resistance sent Cormac stumbling backward, his heavy dragon-hide boot catching on the sticky edge of a warped floorboard. He flailed, his large arms windmilling wildly against the dense air as he tried to anchor himself against the pull of gravity.

His arms pinwheeled. A nearby third-year shrieked and dove out of the way. Cormac staggered sideways like a wounded warship attempting a difficult turn.

In the ensuing scramble, the neon-magenta mocktail in [reader]'s hand sloshed violently over the rim of her glass. A sticky, carbonated wave drenched the sleeve of Cormac’s pristine woolen jersey and splashed directly across his chest.

"What the—" Cormac grunted, his face contorting into a mural of astonishment and alcohol-fueled outrage as he stared down at the bright pink stain spreading across his front like an embarrassing badge of defeat.

[Reader] didn't wait for the realization to clear his foggy, air-filled brain. She dropped the sticky glass onto a nearby ledge, pivoted sharply on the heel of her boot, and bolted.

The Three Broomsticks suddenly felt less like a pub and more like a poorly shot slasher film, and her ex-boyfriend hot on her heels like a masked killer.

[Reader] ran. She didn't look for Veronika; she didn't look for the other girls. Every instinct that had kept her alive through six years of gruelling magical theory told her that proximity to Cormac McLaggen in his current state was a death sentence.

She ducked between a pair of towering sixth-year Hufflepuffs, her shoulder clipping a passing tray of empty glasses that rattled ominously but didn't fall. The air was a blur of the deafening roars of the crowd, all of it pressing into her ears like water pressure.

Get to the back exit. Just get to the door.

Ten paces out, she risked a frantic glance over her shoulder. Through a gap in the swerving bodies, she saw him. Cormac had recovered his footing. His large, broad-shouldered frame was cutting through the crowd like a thresher through wheat, shoving a smaller Ravenclaw fourth-year out of his path without sparing a second glance. His eyes, dark with a heavy, tunnelling focus, were locked entirely on her head of hair. He was furious, the pink stain on his chest looking like a garish wound under the amber lanterns.

"[Reader]!" his voice boomed, easily piercing the din of the tavern. "Stop!"

The sound struck her straight in the spine. Her pulse lurched. But she didn't stop. She pushed faster, her heart a trapped snitch hammering against the bones of her ribcage.

The back exit was visible now— a heavy oak slab set into the stone wall, the cool, eerie chill of the Scottish night leaking through the frame tempting as a deal with the devil.

She looked back a second time.

He was closer. The alcohol seemed to have bypassed his coordination and gone straight to fuel his adrenaline. He was only five yards away now, his arm reaching out through the press of the crowd, his fingers splayed as if he could pluck her right out of the air by her cloak.

The floor beneath her boots felt treacherous, slick with spilled drinks and condensation. She could hear the heavy, disoriented thud of his leather soles stomping forward against the polished wood— a terrifying pursuit that filled the space behind her eyes.

With her head turned sharply toward the pursuing threat of Cormac McLaggen, her forward trajectory terminated abruptly against something that felt remarkably like an unyielding oak beam.

She hadn't had the time to glance forward.

Thud.

The same evening, 19:25.

The impact burst through her skull with enough force to scatter every coherent thought she had been clinging to. It wasn't pain, not immediately.

Pain would have been easier to understand.

Instead, it was a strange, disorienting shockwave that seemed to travel through her entire body at once, rattling through her teeth, vibrating along the hinges of her jaw, and reverberating down her spine until she became absurdly, horrifyingly aware of the fact that humans were composed of a skeleton. Every bone felt suddenly present, every joint articulated, every fragile piece of her anatomy announcing itself at once. The realization struck her as deeply unnecessary.

[Reader]'s forehead had collided with something solid enough to halt her momentum completely, yet not nearly hard enough to be stone. Before she could identify what it was, her senses became tangled in a rush of conflicting impressions.

The sharp sweetness of butterbeer drifted through the air, mingling with the lingering scent of smoke from the crowded tavern and the cool bite of autumn air sneaking through the cracks around the nearby exit. Beneath all of it lingered something warmer, subtler, and inexplicably distracting: soap, faintly scented with cedarwood and burnt sugar.

It was such a ridiculous thing to notice while actively losing control of her balance that her brain should have discarded it immediately. Instead, it lodged itself stubbornly in her consciousness, like it was trying to sew itself into her skin.

Then her footing vanished.

The floor seemed to tilt beneath her as though someone had physically shifted the entire building several degrees to the left. The crowd dissolved into streaks of colour and movement at the edges of her vision. Somewhere beyond the ringing in her ears, laughter erupted. Someone shouted. Glass shattered against stone. The sounds blended together into a distant, meaningless roar as gravity finally seized its opportunity.

For one dreadful second, [Reader] knew exactly what was about to happen. She was going to fall. She was going to hit the floor. She was going to crack her skull open in front of half of Hogwarts and die of humiliation before the injury had the chance to finish the job.

But a hand closed around her forearm.

Another caught the opposite arm scarcely five seconds later. The speed of it was startling. The certainty of it even more so.

Her descent stopped so abruptly that her shoulder jolted in protest. Momentum carried her forward anyway, her body swinging awkwardly before the grip tightened instinctively to steady her, preventing her from pitching directly into the person she had collided with.

For a strange suspended moment she existed somewhere between falling and standing, neither entirely upright nor entirely supported by herself. Her limbs felt disconnected from the rest of her body. Her breath snagged halfway into her lungs and refused to move any further.

The world took its time putting itself back together.

Sound returned first, filtering gradually through the haze. The wireless from the main room chirped faintly in the distance. Chairs scraped against floorboards. Conversations overlapped into a familiar wall of noise.

Then came the light, amber lantern glow swimming slowly back into focus until the darkness and colourless blur around her began to separate into recognizable shapes.

Details emerged one by one; A sleeve. A weathered cuff rolled carelessly above a freckled wrist. Long fingers wrapped securely around her forearm. Very long fingers, actually. An utterly useless observation, but her brain recorded it anyway.

"Whoa there, steady on"

The voice drifted down from somewhere above her head, warm with amusement and entirely too relaxed for a situation that currently felt catastrophic.

[Reader] blinked once. Then again.

The silver haze clouding her vision finally began to return to her, and as the last of it cleared she found herself staring directly at Fred.. no, George Weasley.

Not George-and-Fred, not one half of the inseparable force of nature that spent most of its existence causing trouble in corridors and classrooms; just George.

The realization landed with almost as much force as the collision itself.

He stood directly in front of her beneath the lanternlight, and for perhaps the first time in her entire Hogwarts career he was completely alone. No identical shadow hovering nearby. No second voice finishing his sentences. No twin occupying half her attention. Just George Weasley, singular and startlingly real.

His hair looked different from this close. She had always thought of it simply as red, but that wasn't quite right. Under the lanternlight it gleamed copper, bright and metallic, like freshly minted Sickles left out beneath the sun. A few rebellious strands had escaped whatever futile attempt he'd made to tame them earlier and now hung across his forehead. Light traced the bridge of his nose and illuminated a scattering of freckles that seemed to multiply the longer she looked at them, stretching across skin flushed faintly from the warmth of the tavern.

Somehow, despite having just intercepted a human projectile, he was still holding two tankards of butterbeer in one hand. Neither had spilled. Frankly, that felt more impressive than most magic she had witnessed at Hogwarts.

"The floor's got a bit of a grudge tonight, hasn't it?" [Reader] became abruptly aware that she was still clutching the front of his sleeve. Mortified, she released it at once.

The immediate result was nearly losing her balance again.

"I—" Brilliant. A truly compelling opening statement.

"I am so incredibly sorry," she blurted, the words tumbling over one another in a frantic rush. "I wasn't looking, I was just— I need to—"

Her gaze snapped toward the exit. Cormac. Right. Cormac was still—

She twisted sharply toward the door, fully expecting the movement to free her, it didn't.

George's grip loosened, but it didn't disappear. Instead it shifted subtly, transforming from the reflexive hold of someone preventing a fall into something gentler and more deliberate. Not forceful enough to restrain her. Just enough to stop her from immediately bolting. A quiet interruption. The sort that somehow demanded attention without ever raising its voice.

"Hold your Hippogriffs, [Last Name]." Something in his tone had changed. The humour remained, but only partially. The easy grin faded slightly as his brow furrowed. His eyes dropped toward her eyes, then higher, and a faint crease appeared between them as his expression sharpened into concern.

"You've got a bit of a leak."

He reached out, his thumb hovering just above her left temple. [Reader] blinked as a cold, wet sensation trickled down the right side of her face, pooling at the edge of her jaw. The altercation with Cormac had just rattled her, but a protruding wall sconce had caught her skin in her attempts to stumble away from him.

"What's happened?" The question should not have sounded as alarming as it did.

Nothing about the words themselves had changed. There was no sharpness to them, no raised voice, no immediate demand for answers. Yet the moment they left George's mouth, [Reader] became aware of a subtle shift in the atmosphere between them. The easy amusement that had coloured every previous sentence vanished so completely it was as though somebody had extinguished a lantern.

For the first time since colliding with him, George looked less like one half of Hogwarts' most infamous troublemaking duo and more like a responsible student assessing a situation that had abruptly ceased to be funny.

Unfortunately, that was exactly the opposite of what [Reader] needed.

Her gaze flicked past his shoulder once more, skimming desperately across the crowded tavern. Everywhere she looked there were bodies. Ravenclaws perched on tabletops. Hufflepuffs attempting to dance in spaces far too small for dancing. A group of Slytherin seventh-years gathered around the wireless. The room seemed to swell and contract around them, lanternlight smearing gold across flushed faces and polished wood.

For one dreadful second she couldn't find him. The relief lasted less than a heartbeat. A gap opened between the crowd.

"Who’s behind you?"

The question made [Reader]'s gaze snap back to the tall redhead standing in front of her, his brows still furrowed at her in concern.

Concern?

George Weasley didn't know [Reader]. Not really.

To him, she was the quiet girl with the ink-stained fingers who sat near the back of Professor Snape’s suffocating dungeon. She was the one who didn't laugh when Fred set off a dungbomb in the back row, and more importantly, she was the one who had twice handed over a perfectly organized parchment of Advanced Potions notes when George had been tracking a bit too far behind the syllabus. She didn't talk much, she didn't join in the house rivalries, and she actively treated drama like it was a contagious strain of Spattergroit.

So, seeing her pale, bleeding, and trembling in the dingy corner of a Hogsmeade pub was an immediate system error.

"I don't have time," she breathed, her eyes darting frantically between the heavy oak door and the crowded sea of bodies behind him. Her chest was heaving, every breath tasting of sulfur and the metallic tang of iron. "George, please, let go— he's chasing me, he’s right behind—"

"Who's chasing—"

The question was cut cleanly in half when the crowd parted with a wet, heavy rustle.

Cormac McLaggen burst through the final layer of students like an Erumpent through a thicket. His tie hung entirely askew, and his face was flushed a shade of crimson bright enough to match the magenta blooming across the front of his mocktail-soaked shirt. He was breathing through his mouth, his large hands clenching into fists as his eyes scanned the shadowed alcove.

"[Reader]!" he bellowed, his voice thick with bruised pride. "You think you can just—"

He stopped dead. His eyes traveled from [Reader]’s pale, blood-streaked face down to George Weasley’s hand, which was still lightly but defensively resting on her upper arm, just below the hem of her navy blue shirt.

The atmosphere in the small corridor dropped into an instant, freezing silence. The noise of the main tavern seemed to recede into a distant hum, leaving only the sound of Cormac’s heavy, labored breathing and the steady, rhythmic drip-drip of butterbeer hitting the floorboards from George's tilted tankard.

As Cormac took a heavy, maddened step forward— his boots crunching against a stray peanut shell on the floorboards— George didn't hesitate. With a fluid, unhurried motion that didn't look like a threat but functioned precisely as one, he stepped sideways.

The lanky, six-foot frame of the Gryffindor Beater completely obscured [Reader] from view.

He didn't drop the butterbeer tankards. Instead, he held them loose and easy, though his broad shoulders squared into a solid wall of red hair and woolen jersey between [Reader] and her ex-boyfriend.

"All right there, McLaggen?" George said, his tone conversational, almost pleasant, though his eyes stayed completely still. "You look a bit… pink tonight. New cologne?"

Cormac’s eyes snapped up from the space where [Reader] had just been standing, locking onto George's face with a heavy, rage-muddled glare. He stopped three feet away, his chest expanding, the stench of cheap firewhiskey radiating off him like heat from a furnace. He was bigger than George in terms of raw muscle, but he lacked the sharp, twitchy reflexes of a seasoned Beater who spent four days a week dodging iron balls at ninety miles an hour.

"What's it to you, Weasley?" Cormac barked, his voice thick and slurred, though he tried to puff out his chest to close the distance. "Get out of the way."

"Bit difficult," George replied, a small, humorless smile touching the corner of his mouth. He shifted his weight, his long legs anchoring him right in the center of the narrow corridor. "This is a very small hallway. And I'm quite a large bloke. Engineering flaw, really."

"I just want to talk to her," Cormac hissed, taking another half-step forward, his large hands clenching into useless fists at his sides. "[Reader]! Stop hiding behind him! We're not finished!"

From behind George’s back, [Reader] stayed entirely silent, her fingers instinctively catching the hem of his oversized knitted sleeve. A wordless exchange that carried far more weight than syllables could have in the moment.

"Well, now, that’s the thing, Cormac," George stepped up, his voice dropping into that lower, steadier hymn again. He didn't raise his voice, which somehow made the words sound heavier in the small alcove. "She looks a bit finished to me. And frankly, you look like you’re about thirty seconds away from having a very intimate conversation with the floorboards."

"I said, move," Cormac snarled, his face twisting into something genuinely ugly as his patience finally snapped. He reached a heavy hand out, intending to shove George by the shoulder to get to the girl behind him.

He never got the chance.

George’s hand snapped out with the terrifying, muscle memory of a Beater catching a rogue Bludger out of the air.

There was a sharp, fleshy slap as his fingers clamped around Cormac’s thick wrist, arresting the larger boy’s forward motion mid-shove. The sheer impact jarred them both, the wood of the floorboards groaning beneath their boots, but George didn't yield an inch. His knuckles were white, his grip an iron vice locking the joint in place right between them.

"Cormac, stop being such a prat!" [Reader] shrieked from behind the safety of George's broad back. The sound of her own voice surprised her— it was higher, sharper than her usual controlled cadence, vibrating with a volatile mix of the blood rushing through her veins and pure, unadulterated fury.

She was sick of the chase, sick of the claustrophobic heat of the pub, and utterly exhausted by the endless clumsiness of Cormac’s inability to accept reality.

She took a half-step sideways, just enough to glare around George’s shoulder, her wide eyes blazing like twin stars beneath the dark crimson smear of the cut on her temple. She had to think of how to get rid of the shorter boy, and she had to think fast. Eureka.

"Please just leave me alone! I have a boyfriend!"

It was a harmless statement. A white lie meant to shield her temporarily from the onslaught of embarrassment the blonde in front of her had been forcing upon her. In all honesty, it ripped from the back of her throat upon instinct; before her mind could compute and process what fraud her tongue had just committed.

The silence that followed was heavy enough to drop a needle through the floorboards.

Cormac froze, his mouth hanging slightly ajar, bloodshot eyes widening as the words slowly penetrated the thick walls of his skull. He looked at [Reader], before letting his gaze drop down to George’s hand still holding his wrist, and finally back up to George’s face.

George, for his part, didn't blink. His expression remained entirely unreadable, a skilled poker face honed by years of concealing illegal Extendable Ears from the masterful Argus Filch. He didn't look back at [Reader], nor did he dispute the massive, glittering fabrication she had just dropped into the middle of the corridor. Instead, he merely raised a single ginger eyebrow, matching Cormac’s stunned stare with a cool, proprietary calm.

"A... what?" Cormac stammered, his grip slackening against George's hold as his chest deflated slightly. "A boyfriend? Since when? You don't— we haven't even been back at the castle a whole day!"

"That's none of your business, McLaggen. Like [Reader] just said, she has a boyfriend." George intervened smoothly, his voice dropping into a low, deceptively pleasant rumble. He didn't let go of the wrist; instead, he gave it a firm, downward nudge, forcing Cormac's arm back to his side with a finality that brooked no argument. "And frankly, I don't think he appreciates you getting your sticky pink fingers all over his girl's evening."

Cormac stumbled back a step, the rejection hitting him harder than any hex could have. His ego, a massive and fragile construct the size of a planet, seemed to visibly crack under the combined weight of sobriety and the sudden, public definitive end to his delusions. He looked between the two of them and found himself entirely outmatched.

"You're mental," Cormac muttered, his voice cracking slightly as he wiped a stray dribble of sweat from his jaw. "Both of you. Mental."

He took another clumsy step backward, the soles of his boots squeaking against the wet floor, before turning on his heel and escaping back into the roaring, humid belly of the main tavern, disappearing into the sea of dancing bodies like a shadow swallowed by a storm.

The moment the crowd closed behind him, the tension in the alcove dissipated. [Reader] let out a long, shuddering breath she felt like she’d been holding since she left her home in London, her shoulders sagging as the adrenaline began its slow, nauseating retreat from her blood vessels. She looked down at the floorboards, her fingers still trembling slightly where they had been clutching the edge of George's sweater.

"Right then," George said softly, turning around to face her, the two tankards of butterbeer still miraculously balanced in his hand. He looked down at her with a wry, amused glint in his hazel eyes. "So… out of curiosity, [Reader]… when exactly did we start dating?"

"I am so, so incredibly sorry," [Reader] started, her voice a rapid, breathless staccato as she immediately let go of his sleeve like it had burned her, and took a step back. Her hands flew up in a frantic, defensive gesture.

"I’m sorry, George. I didn’t mean to say that, it just— it came out, and I completely dragged you into this ridiculous, juvenile mess. I’ll clear it up, I promise. If Cormac asks anyone, or if it gets back to the Gryffindor tower, I’ll tell everyone I was concussed from the wall— which is entirely plausible, given the impact— and that I'll just explain that I was completely out of my mind—"

"Hey, hey— [Reader], take a deep breath," George interrupted softly. He stepped forward, cut off her frantic pacing, and set the two tankards of butterbeer down against the counter where Madam Rosemerta was trying, and failing spectacularly, to look disinterested in the exchange.

He held up his hands, palms open, a genuinely easy and reassuring smile breaking across his freckled face.

"It's alright. Calm down. No one's calling the Daily Prophet just yet. Trust me, Fred and I have been blamed for far worse things than being a Ravenclaw's sudden romantic interest."

[Reader] cut herself off at that, her chest still heaving as she pressed the back of her hand against her uninjured temple. The hollow exhaustion creeping into her nervous system made her legs feel like over-boiled flobberworms.

"I'll handle him," she muttered, looking down at the scuffed leather of her boots, unable to meet George's hazel gaze. "Tomorrow, when he's sober and his head feels like it's been hit with a club, I'll deal with Cormac on my own. He was just… he was being incredibly handsy. In the crowd. He wouldn't listen, and he wouldn't let go, and it just…"

She swallowed hard, her throat tight and dry.

"It got me anxious," she admitted quietly, her voice dropping so many decibels it was almost buried by the distant thumping of the music from the main room. "I just needed to get rid of him. Right away. I didn't think."

"You don't need to apologize for that," George said. The teasing, light-hearted tone was entirely gone now, replaced by a quiet, grounded sincerity that reminded [Reader] that underneath the jokes and the fireworks, George Weasley was a seventh-year wizard who knew exactly how to protect people.

He leaned against the stone wall, crossing his arms and tilting his head to look at her. "McLaggen can be an absolute gold-plated princess when he's sober. Give him a full bottle of firewhiskey, and he's a public health hazard. You did fine."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a clean, albeit slightly wrinkled, pale blue handkerchief that smelled faintly of peppermint and cocoa powder.

"Now," George said, stepping back into her space with a gentle, careful slowness, holding the cloth out toward her as a peace offering. "Before you go off to behead the poor guy, we really ought to do something about that forehead of yours."

[Reader] blinked, looking at the soft cloth, then up to meet his eyes. The back exit was right there, just three feet away, offering her the cold, shadowed, silent escape she had been craving all evening. But for some reason, the corridor didn't feel quite as suffocating anymore.

The same evening, 21:33.

Madam Rosmerta may have been a gossipmonger like no other, but that didn't mean she wasn't still a woman of principle. Her patience was pestilence with a austere, non-negotiable curfew of its own.

At exactly nine-thirty, the warm, amber atmosphere of the Three Broomsticks was violently replaced by the bright, unyielding glare of the overhead chandeliers. Rosmerta herself marched through the center of the tavern with a massive wooden broom, her patent leather heels clicking like rhythmic gunfire against the floorboards as she began herding the sticky, semi-conscious, and thoroughly disgruntled student body toward the front doors.

"Out! All of you, out!" her voice boomed over the fading din. "I’ve got floors to scrub that smell like a dungbomb convention, and if a single one of you gets caught by Filch past ten o'clock, I’m banning the whole lot of you until June! Move those legs!"

[Reader] was swept into the mass exodus like a piece of driftwood in a high tide. The cool, damp Scottish night air hit her face like a suckerpunch the exact moment she spilled onto the cobblestones of Hogsmeade.

It was there, under the flickering light of a street lamp, that her needled eyes finally locked onto Veronika Moore.

Veronika looked slightly disheveled— her curls a bit wilder than before, her lip gloss entirely missing— but she was wearing the egoistical, glassy, entirely full-of-herself expression of someone who had successfully managed to conquer a mountain.

"There you are!" Veronika called out, jogging a few steps to catch up and instantly looping her arm tightly through [Reader]'s. "I looked for you after I got back from… erm, well, anyway. Did you manage to survive your two hours of character development?"

[Reader] adjusted the hood of her midnight grey traveling cloak, pulling the heavy fabric forward just enough to shadow the small, dried scratch near her left temple. The bleeding had stopped shortly after George had surrendered his handkerchief, leaving nothing but a faint, tight sting beneath her skin.

She looked at Veronika’s gleefully animated face, then turned her gaze back toward the dark silhouette of the Hogwarts carriages lining the road.

"I survived," [Reader] mumbled quietly, her voice steady as the thestral-strung vehicles began to move. "Though I believe I’ve developed a permanent aversion to anything colored neon pink."

"Oh, don't be a dramatic Gryffindor," Veronika laughed, leaning her head briefly against [Reader] shoulder as mounted an empty carriage. "It wasn't that bad. Admit it. It was good to get out of the castle."

"I will admit nothing of the sort," [Reader] drawled bitterly, though she didn't pull away.

She didn't mention Cormac. She didn't mention the rough, terrifying grip on her waist, or the way her throat had closed up in the panic. And she most certainly did not mention George Weasley, the iron weight of his hand on Cormac's wrist, or the absurd, fictitious relationship she had manifested out of thin air to save herself. And she definitely didn't mention the time she'd spent after in the company of the Gryffindor quidditch team– when she helped George carry the tankards of Butterbeer to his long-awaiting brother, who accepted the glass with a raised brow and a muttered finally.

Some secrets were best kept in the margins of one's own notebook.

By the time they cleared the heavy oak doors of the castle and climbed the endless, rotating spiral of the Ravenclaw staircase, the clock in the entrance hall was chiming a quarter to ten.

The common room was an oasis of blue and bronze silk, the fire burning low and silent in the hearth. Without a word, both girls bypassed the few students staying up to argue about the upcoming Quidditch trials and slipped straight into their dormitory.

The heavy, navy-and-silver curtains of [Reader]'s four-poster bed were exactly as she had left them.

She shed her traveling cloak, abandoning it over its usual spot on the empty armchair, and crawled beneath the welcoming embrace of her blankets once more. The mattress didn't dip violently this time; there were no judgmental apparitions looming over her canopy. Just the faint, familiar scent of home and the deep, heavy silence of the tower, followed by the bottomless abyss that followed her to her slumber.

September 2nd, 1995. 08:06, Saturday.

Saturday morning unfurled across the castle with the sort of fragile serenity that always seemed borrowed rather than earned, as though the Highlands themselves were holding their breath before surrendering once more to rain and wind and cloud.

The storm that had battered the towers through most of the night had exhausted itself some halfway through, leaving behind a sky the colour of faded silver and windows glazed with pale autumn light. It streamed through the Ravenclaw dormitory in long, slanting ribbons, washing over ancient stone and worn oak alike, illuminating centuries of scratches carved into bedposts and trunks by generations of restless students who had once occupied these rooms before dissolving into history.

For the first time in a long, long time, the castle felt like it wasn't rushing to go anywhere.

Not silent—Hogwarts was never silent—but subdued. Somewhere further down the dormitory, water dripped steadily into a basin. A floorboard creaked beneath unseen footsteps. A girl laughed sleepily behind a half-closed curtain. The sounds floated through the room with a muted softness, muffled by thick hangings and lingering drowsiness, while the scent of rain-soaked stone still clung stubbornly to the air.

[Reader] moved through it all without much thought; the motions were familiar enough to require none. Dark-washed jeans, a black camisole, and the black cardigan she reached for so often it had begun to feel less like an article of clothing and more like a second layer of skin.

The first few fresh pieces of cloth her delicate fingers had landed on.

Her deft fingers worked routinely as she twisted her hair into a tortoiseshell clip, securing the waves at the nape of her neck. Several strands escaped almost immediately, falling loose around her face in quiet revolt. They softened the sharpness of her jaw and concealed the faint scratch near her temple— a singular line already fading into memory.

When she finally glanced at herself in the mirror, there was nothing remarkable staring back; just [Reader]. Ordinary, forgettable, exactly as she preferred to be.

The spiral staircase wound endlessly downward beneath their feet as she and Veronika descended from the tower. Sunlight filtered through narrow windows at irregular intervals, painting shifting patterns across the walls as they moved. Around them, the castle was beginning to wake in earnest. Doors opened and voices echoed. The distant clatter of breakfast drifted upward through the corridors.

Veronika, naturally, was talking.

She had apparently spent the better part of the previous evening trapped in conversation with a Hufflepuff Beater whose understanding of Quidditch strategy bordered on criminal negligence, and she was recounting every detail with the fervour of someone describing a near-death experience.

[Reader] listened with half an ear, offering the occasional nod or hum of sympathy while her attention wandered elsewhere— to the sunlight warming the stone beneath her fingertips as she brushed the wall, to the breeze of air winding through the stairwell, carrying with it the scent of coffee and toasted bread from several floors below.

It was a perfect morning. The kind of morning so utterly unremarkable that one never thinks to appreciate it until it is dead, ripped out from the clinging claws of a carcass.

The change announced itself with the subtle wrongness of a familiar painting hung crooked on a wall.

At first, [Reader] couldn't have said what had shifted. The enchanted ceiling still arched overhead in broad sweeps of autumn blue, flecked with slow-moving clouds. Sunlight still poured through the towering windows in pale rivers, spilling across rows of polished tables and catching on goblets, cutlery, and scattered strands of owl feathers. The smell of buttered toast, strong tea, and woodsmoke still drifted lazily through the air. Everything appeared exactly as it always had.

And yet, the Hall felt altered. As though something invisible had passed through it moments before her arrival and left the atmosphere stretched too taut.

The Great Hall contained nearly a thousand students and possessed all the restraint of a disturbed beehive. Conversations rose and fell in overlapping waves. Chairs scraped against ancient stone. Laughter erupted somewhere near the Gryffindor table before dissolving into the general din. Ordinarily, the sound swallowed individuals whole. A student could walk through the centre of the room and disappear into it completely, becoming no more significant than a single drop returning to the sea.

Today, the sea had turned its head, and the sensation arrived gradually enough to be terrifying. A glance, then another. A brief interruption in conversation. A spoon suspended halfway to someone's mouth.

It felt as though the crowds were parting around the duo in particular, as if either of them possessed a magic staff to push back the waves of students. Across the Hall, a girl leaned towards her friend and whispered something behind the shelter of her hand. The friend immediately looked up.

Then someone else, then three more.

The movement spread with uncanny speed, rippling through the room like a breeze disturbing a field of long grass. Heads turned one after another. Faces lifted. Conversations fractured midsentence. Entire clusters of students twisted around on their benches.

Everywhere [Reader] looked, eyes were finding her; not skimming past her, not searching for someone behind her. Bloody hell, not even glancing towards the scandalous neckline on Veronika's top.

The certainty settled over her shoulders with the unwanted pressure of cold rain. A knot tightened low in her stomach. A sickening of the heart.

Around her, whispers unfurled. The sort of whispers people exchanged when presented with a scandal they intended to dissect before lunch. Fragments drifted toward her from every direction.

"I heard a rumour" "swear it was Weasley" "McLaggen was furious" "never would've guessed"

The words floated through the Hall like sparks carried on a gale, impossible to catch but impossible to ignore. And unfortunately for [Reader], she wasn't the only one to take note of the tornado of whispers surrounding them.

Veronika Moore, for the first time in her life perhaps, fell silent. Before her ears and eyes perked up again, tilted at her companion.

"[Reader]," Veronika murmured under her breath, her voice laced with a mixture of profound confusion and sudden, intense curiosity. "Why is the entire student body looking at you like just cast an Unforgiveable?"

In that moment, [Reader] pondered if casting a forbidden curse genuinely would have had less severe consequences.

The fiction she had improvised in the underbelly of the Three Broomsticks— a desperate, defensive maneuver designed purely to sever Cormac’s reach— had refused to dissolve in the morning light. Instead, it had mutated, grown legs, and monopolized the castle’s rumor mill before she had even laced her boots.

"I—I don't know what you're talking about, Ika," [Reader] countered, the lie catching roughly in her throat as she cleared it with a sharp, distinctly unconvincing cough. "They're probably just staring at you. Y'know. After last night."

"After last night?" Veronika’s gaze sharpened, her features twisting in mock offense. "[Nickname], I spent two hours snogging and then twenty minutes attempting to converse in vain with a boy whose entire personality hinges on the Chudley Cannons. I didn't stage a coup against the Wizengamot. Cut the bullshit."

[Reader] didn't debate the point. Debating required an audience, and she was currently being observed by approximately eighty percent of the Great Hall's Saturday breakfast crowd.

Pivoting sharply on the heels of her boots, she clamped her fingers around Veronika’s forearm with a surprising, iron-like grip. She didn't walk; she marched, effectively dragging her friend along the perimeter of the room, keeping her back to the high stone walls until she reached the absolute farthest, darkest corner of the Ravenclaw table.

It was a booth-like alcove beneath a heavy gothic archway where the morning sunlight didn't quite reach— a secluded position that limited her exposure to a strict 180-degree field of view.

She slid onto the wooden bench, pulling Veronika down beside her so quickly that a silver basket of toast rattled in protest.

"Ouch! Fine, fine, I'm sitting," Veronika muttered, shaking out her arm but keeping her eyes pinned to [Reader]'s face. She leaned forward over the table, her curls cascading down her shoulders as she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial hiss. "Now, cut the rubbish, [Reader]. Half the Gryffindor table is currently craning their necks so hard I'm expecting a collective trip to the hospital wing for whiplash."

[Reader] cleared her throat and looked in every possible direction except Veronika's peering brown eyes.

She grabbed a porcelain mug, pouring black tea with a hand that was just a fraction too steady to be natural. She didn't look up. She kept her eyes fixed on the dark, swirling liquid, her mind frantically pacing to figute out the shelf-life of a standard Hogwarts rumor.

Seven days, her inner Ravenclaw estimated. If no further data is provided, a standard behavioral rumor decays within one week. I just have to remain completely invisible until next Saturday.

"Look," Veronika whispered, her fingers tapping a frantic, muffled warning against the mahogany table. "Wait, don't look now, but—"

"I am not looking," [Reader] said, her voice dropping into a flat, defensive register as she stared at her tea. "I am never looking at anything in this room again. I am going to become a permanent fixture of this corner."

"[Last Name]." Veronika’s tone shifted from amused to genuinely startled. "No, seriously. Look."

Through the gaps in her carefully constructed silver fortress, the heavy oak doors of the Great Hall lurched open for a second time that morning.

A tall, lanky figure with a head of vibrant copper-red hair stepped through the threshold, laughing over his shoulder at something his twin had just said. George Weasley was wearing his school robes loose and open, his hands shoved deep into his pockets with his signature, easy-going slouch.

The moment his boots cleared the doorway, three separate Gryffindor seventh-years audibly whistled, and a wolfish cheer went up from the middle of the Lions' table. George stopped, blinked, and then his hazel eyes began to slowly, deliberately scan the room— row by row, table by table— until they cut straight through the shadows of gothic archway, locking directly onto [Reader].

[Reader], like any other logical teenage girl her age, immediately averted her gaze, cleared her throat, and found solace in the shield of her claok.

"Okay. Okay. It’s not too bad. Okay. Bloody fucking hell, I’m going to murder McLaggen," [Reader] whispered under her breath, the words mutating into a frantic mantra. Her fingers white-knuckled the handle of her porcelain mug with enough intensity to crack.

Veronika’s head snapped toward her, her eyebrows furrowing into a tight, suspicious line. "Cormac? What did that twat do now?"

"He probably blabbed his mouth that I’m dating George Weasley," [Reader] muttered, keeping her eyes glued to her tea as if she could transfigure herself into the liquid and slide down the drain.

Veronika’s jaw dropped so fast it practically hit the mahogany table. "What the fuck—!"

Before the final syllable could echo off the high stone rafters of the Great Hall, [Reader]'s reflexes— honed by years of avoiding public spectacles— kicked in. She lunged across the table, her obsidian cardigan shifting as her arm shot through the gap between the teapot and the toast basket.

Clap.

Her palm clamped firmly over Veronika’s mouth, cutting off the rest of the expletive in a muffled, indignant squawk. Veronika’s dark eyes went wide, glaring at her with a mixture of betrayal and absolute, manic desperation for the full story.

"Mphff!" Veronika protested, her dark curls bouncing as she tried to shake her face free of [Reader]’s hand.

"Shh! Quiet!" [Reader] hissed, her voice dropping into a register so low it was practically subterranean. She kept her eyes darting between the Gryffindor table and their dingy little corner, her pulse hammering in the rhythm she'd grown so familiar to in the last two days.

"I am going to remove my hand," [Reader] whispered, leaning in so close her forehead nearly touched Veronika's. "And if you emit a single sound above a decibel level of three, I will swap your pumpkin juice with Babbling Beverage for the rest of the term. Do you understand?"

Veronika gave a frantic, dramatic nod.

Slowly, cautiously, [Reader] retracted her hand, wiping her palm on her dark-washed jeans with a grimace. Veronika immediately inhaled a sharp breath, leaning over the table until she was practically entirely hidden behind the white porcelain teapot.

"Are you entirely mental?!" Veronika hissed as soon as she recovered her voice, fierce but strangulated whisper. "George Weasley? George Weasley? Since when? How? [Nickname], you haven't spoken to a boy who wasn't a historical figure in a library book since May!"

"It wasn't true, okay!" [Reader] whispered back defensively, her cheeks burning with a sudden heat rushing to the skin. She continued her ramble, "I had to lie through my teeth! Last night. You left for five minutes, Ika. Cormac cornered me. He was drunk, he was aggressive, he wouldn't take his hands off me, and I... I panicked. I sprinted, I hit a wall— which turned out to be not be a wall entirely but rather George— and when Cormac wouldn't back down, I told him I had a boyfriend to make him leave me alone."

Veronika’s eyes traveled slowly from [Reader]'s flushed face, past the edge of the gothic archway, and back out toward the center aisle of the Great Hall.

"Right," Veronika murmured, a slow, terrifyingly sharp grin beginning to tug at the corner of her lips. "Brilliant tactical move, [Nickname]. Truly. Only one tiny, massive, elephant-sized flaw in the execution."

"What?"

"The 'boyfriend' in question is currently walking over here," Veronika whispered, tapping the table urgently. "And he looks entirely too amused by his new relationship status."

Silence for a whole of six seconds.

"You stay here, you keep your mouth shut, and if you utter so much as a single word to anyone, I will figure out the exact combination of hexes needed to curse your hair green for the rest of seventh year," [Reader] threatened, her voice a diamond-sharp whisper as she slid out from behind her silver breakfast fortress.

Veronika merely raised both hands in a mock gesture of surrender, her eyes sparkling with absolute, unadulterated glee as she watched her friend unravel.

[Reader] didn't wait to see if the threat took root. She scrambled out of the dark alcove, her boots nearly catching on the bench leg as she stumbled into the open aisle of the Great Hall. Every step felt like walking a tightrope over a pit of fire-crabs; she was acutely aware of the lingering whispers, the turning of heads, and the weight of a hundred eyes tracking her sudden, erratic movement toward the center of the room.

George Weasley hadn't moved.

He stood just a few paces from the Gryffindor table, leaning slightly to one side with his hands still buried deep in his pockets. The baboonish cheers from his housemates were still echoing off the enchanted ceiling, but George’s attention was entirely, completely fixed on her.

As she closed the distance, he didn't say a word. He just watched her, a lazy, profoundly amused smile tugging at the corner of his lips. His hazel eyes danced with mischief, entirely silent, patiently waiting to see how the resident quiet Ravenclaw was going to navigate the absolute catastrophe she had set in motion.

[Reader] stopped two feet away from him, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Up close, the sheer height of him was entirely unfair; she had to tilt her head back slightly, her black cardigan shifting as she nervously tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, exposing the tiny, faded scratch on her temple without meaning to do so.

She felt puny, remarkably conspicuous, and thoroughly out of her depth.

Clearing her throat with a timid, fragile sound that felt entirely inadequate for the grand stone architecture of the Great Hall, she looked up into his face.

"George," she offered, her voice barely carrying over the hum of the room. "Hi."

"Morning, [Last Name]," George replied, his voice a low, easy rumble that didn't do anything to lower her heart rate.

He didn't pull his hands from his pockets, nor did he make a scene, but the sheer, unbothered calm radiating off him felt like a tactical maneuver in itself. He tilted his head slightly, his eyes tracking the light flush of crimson that was rapidly rising from the collar of her black tank top up to her ears.

The silence stretched between them for three agonizing seconds— long enough for a nearby group of third-years to overtly lean in their direction to listen. George simply let it hang there, a masterful display of theatrical pacing, waiting for his sudden, accidental girlfriend to present her terms.

"Can I speak to you? Outside? Alone?"

The words tumbled out of [Reader]'s mouth in a single, breathless column, her voice dropping into a register so quiet it was nearly swallowed by the clatter of silver platters. Her fingers, entirely betrayed by her nervous system, found the delicate black trim of her shirt, twisting and fiddling with the fabric until the threads strained beneath her knuckles.

She was acutely aware of how this looked. The dark alcove, the frantic approach, the hushed, urgent invitation to a secluded corridor— it was a textbook exhibition of a clandestine seventh-year romance.

Right on cue, the universe decided to penalize her for her tactical errors.

"Ooooooooh!"

The chorus erupted from the Gryffindor table with the unified precision of a well-rehearsed orchestra. It was led, entirely unsurprisingly, by a lanky red-head who looked identical to the boy standing in front of her, save for the absolute, manic delight painted across his features. Fred Weasley was halfway out of his seat, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify the sound, while three separate Chasers began rhythmically banging their spoons against their goblets.

"Going for a morning stroll, Georgie?" Fred bellowed over the din, his eyes glinting with pure, unadulterated sibling malice. "Don't forget your jacket, mate! It’s a bit brisk out there for a romantic tryst! And what if the Missus gets cold, lad?"

[Reader] felt the heat in her cheeks intensify, mutating from a contained flush into a roaring, high-grade fever that she was certain was turning her entire neck a violent shade of scarlet. She closed her eyes for one agonizing second, praying for a sudden cavern collapse to bury her alive.

George, however, didn't flinch.

He didn't even turn around to look at his brother. Instead, he simply raised a single, long arm over his shoulder, blindly extending his middle finger toward the Gryffindor table with a practiced, casual elegance that only drew louder cheers from the Lions.

When his hand dropped back down, his hazel eyes returned to [Reader], the amusement crinkling the corners of his eyelids. He pulled his right hand from his pocket, gesturing smoothly toward the heavy oak doors behind him.

"Lead the way, [Last Name]," he murmured, his voice a low, soothing friction against the noise. "Before my brother decides to write a song about us and hire the Frog Choir to perform it."

[Reader] didn't need to be told twice.

Turning on the heel of her boot, she marched toward the threshold of the Great Hall, her black shrug fluttering slightly behind her as she kept her eyes fixed straight ahead. She didn't look at Veronika, she didn't look at the staring Hufflepuffs, and she absolutely did not look at Cormac McLaggen, who she could see out of the corner of her eye looking thoroughly miserable over a plate of untouched sausages.

George trailed half a step behind her, his long strides easily matching her frantic, hurried pace.

As they cleared the massive stone archway and stepped into the grand, cavernous quiet of the Entrance Hall, the roar of the breakfast crowd died down into a distant, muffled hum. The cool, grey morning light filtered through the high stained-glass windows, washing over the stone floorboards and offering a small, fragile pocket of sanity.

[Reader] stopped near the base of the marble staircase, tucked beneath the shadow of a towering stone griffin, and finally turned to face her boyfriend.

"So, uh, why does half the school think we're dating? Did Cormac say anything? You both are on the same Quidditch team and in the same house so I'm sure you have common friends so I'm sure—"

[Reader]’s voice was climbing an octave with every syllable, her words blurring into a rapid, continuous stream of data that was rapidly losing its punctuation. Her fingers, having abandoned the hem of her tank top, were now tracing the intricate stone feathers of the griffin statue beside her with all the calmness of a raging storm.

"I mean, the statistical probability of a rumor expanding across four houses in the span of nine hours implies a common denominator, and given that Cormac shares a dormitory with half your team, the transmission rate is entirely logical, but I didn't think he'd actually—"

"[Last Name]," George said. He didn't yell. He didn't even lift his hands from his pockets. He simply stepped into her immediate perimeter, his tall frame casting a long shadow over her dark jeans and black shrug, effectively cutting off her line of sight to the rest of the Entrance Hall. The rambling died mid-sentence, the final syllable catching in her throat with a soft, helpless click.

George leaned his shoulder against the stone pedestal of the griffin, looking down at her with a lazy, heavy-lidded gaze that was entirely too calm for the situation. "First of all," he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that echoed softly against the high ceilings. "Breathe. You're talking like your brain is trying to outrun your lungs." [Reader] took a sharp, tight breath, her shoulders dropping half an inch.

"Second of all," George continued, a slow, wicked grin spreading across his face, "Cormac didn't just say something. He spent the better part of three hours last night sitting in the middle of the Gryffindor common room, nursing a massive hangover before the alcohol had even left his system, telling anyone who would listen that you'd gone and replaced him with a ginger homewrecker."

"A ginger homewrecker?" [Reader] parroted, her eyes widening.

"His words," George chuckled, tilting his head. "Fred and I were actually quite flattered. Usually, we have to set off a crate of dungbombs to get that kind of press coverage. Cormac did all the marketing for us by midnight."

He pulled his right hand from his pocket, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly as he looked out toward the grand doors before returning his gaze to her.

"He's a loud bloke, [Reader]," George explained, his tone softening into something more genuine. "He was angry, he was embarrassed about the pink drink on his jersey, and he wanted sympathy from the lads. Problem is, the lads think he's a prat. So the moment he started complaining about me taking his 'proper pure-blood girl,' the whole tower took your side. And Fred... well, Fred decided to treat it as a matter of house pride."

[Reader] closed her eyes, her forehead coming to rest briefly against the cold stone of the griffin's pedestal. The sheer, logistical nightmare of Gryffindor house politics was exactly why she had chosen a tower filled with silent books.

"So," she whispered into the stone, "everyone thinks it's real."

"Oh, absolutely," George murmured, his voice sounding entirely too close. "As far as the Seventh-Year Lions are concerned, I’m a heartthrob and you’re the clever girl who finally realized she can do better than a Keeper who can't keep his hands to himself."

He waited a beat, watching the way a loose strand of her hair fell across her neck.

"So, the question is, [Last Name]... do we tell them you're a terrible liar, or do we let McLaggen stew in his own juices for a bit?"

"I— I— uh—"

The pristine, multi-tiered library of [Reader]’s mind had just suffered a catastrophic structural collapse. For the smartest girl in their year— a girl who routinely read thirty-page treatises on thirteenth-century Nordic grammar for light weekend reading— the English language had suddenly devolved into an unformatted string of useless vowels.

Her jaw remained microscopic fractions of an inch open, her tongue completely failing to execute the basic mechanics of speech.

George didn't press her. He merely shifted his weight, his tall frame remaining perfectly stationary under the shadow of the stone griffin. He watched her with a kind of lazy, clinical fascination, his hazel eyes tracking the frantic, erratic micro-movements of her face as she tried to process the data he had just dumped into her lap.

The silence stretched, thick and humiliatingly heavy, broken only by the distant, rhythmic clink-clink of someone's silver fork echoing from the Great Hall behind them.

Her analytical brain, operating on pure survival instinct, frantically tried to build a logical matrix around the two options he had laid out.

Option A: The Retraction. She tells everyone she’s a liar. The rumor dies, but Cormac realizes she was cornered and defenseless. Her carefully constructed boundary vanishes, and she becomes the target of every locker-room joke from the Gryffindor Chasers for the rest of seventh year.

Option B: The Complicity. She lets the lie live. She lets Cormac stew. But letting the lie live meant being attached to the most prominent, volatile, and high-frequency disruptor of the peace in the entire castle. It meant Fred Weasley’s whistling at breakfast. It meant being noticed.

"You're doing it again," George murmured, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly register that seemed to vibrate directly against her collarbone.

"Doing what?" she managed to squeeze out, her fingers still desperately anchoring themselves to the iceicle-like stone feathers of the statue.

"The calculation," he said, a small, knowing grin crinkling the corners of his eyes. "I can practically hear the parchment rustling in there, [Last Name]. It’s not an Arithmancy OWL. It’s just a yes or a no."

[Reader] let out a long, slow breath through her nose, her shoulders dropping in total, unconditional surrender. The black lace of her shirt rose and fell with the weight of her defeat.

She looked up, past the broad expanse of his woolen school jersey, meeting his lazy, amused stare with a look of profound, existential despair.

"If we tell them I'm a liar," she said, her voice finally stabilizing into something resembling a human register, though it was still a fragile whisper, "Cormac wins. And I… I fundamentally open the door to his pestering again."

George’s grin widened, sharp and wicked, his teeth catching the cool grey morning light filtering through the high windows. He pulled his left hand out of his pocket, offering it to her in a mock-formal handshake of alliance. To [Reader], it felt like a blood oath.

"Option B it is then," he chuckled, the sound vibrant as magnolias blooming in may. "Welcome to the other side, love. Hope you like fireworks."

a/n: before i get thoroughly attacked for using the em dash, its a habit developed by the gruelling academic boundaries of 0500 english and 7 years on wattpad ok trust. a/n 2.0: uh so i lowkey forgot my password but update, this will be a three part series now. part two will be out by wednesday because i'm on only my first draft and its at 23k words right now so..

tag(s): @georgeweasleyrecs

#˚⋆ᯓ࣪𖤐˚#ivyhrt #george weasley x reader #george weasley imagine #harry potter #harry potter x reader #quidditch #fake dating #mutual pining #angst #angst with a happy ending #george weasley #weasley twins #weasley twins x reader

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