Can I request a fic where George gets knocked out in quidditch practice and reader aka his girlfriend runs to check on him he's all confused and dizzy and flirts with her? Like those memes "hey girl you got a boyfriend?" "You are my boyfriend" "hEelL yeAH"
Dazed and Devoted - George Weasley
summary: George gets knocked out during Quidditch practice. When he wakes up, confused and concussed, he flirts with his girlfriend like he’s never met her before. And honestly? It’s kind of adorable.
warnings: none!
Word Count: 1.5k
Fred and George were showing off, as usual, turning every drill into a competition. You were perched in the stands, legs swinging off the edge as you watched George zip around the pitch like he hadn’t a care in the world. You’d told him earlier to please not die today, and he had given you a wink and said, “No promises, love.”
Typical.
Oliver was barking out orders below while Katie and Alicia ran plays overhead, but your eyes stayed on George. He always looked so alive on a broom, golden in the sunlight, wind-tossed hair everywhere, laughing like there was nothing else in the world to worry about.
And then—just like that—it changed.
One moment he was banking left to avoid a Bludger, and the next—
WHAM.
Bludger to the head. Clean hit.
You heard the thud before you saw it. George spun midair like a ragdoll, his broom zigzagging before he tumbled off and hit the grass with a dull, sickening sound.
“GEORGE!” you screamed, dropping your notes and sprinting from the stands before Madam Hooch could even react.
By the time you reached him, he was flat on his back, eyes half-lidded, a crooked smile on his face like he had just had the best dream of his life. He blinked up at you slowly.
“Hi,” he said, voice drowsy and slurred. “Are you an angel?”
“George—Merlin, George, are you alright?” you asked, dropping to your knees beside him, brushing back his hair to check for blood. “Fred! Someone get Madam Pomfrey!”
He blinked again. “Whoa. You’re really pretty.”
You froze, eyes narrowing. “Okay, yeah. He’s definitely concussed.”
George propped himself up slightly on his elbows and squinted at you, like he was seeing you for the first time. “Hey… hey, uh, do you have a boyfriend?”
You stared at him. “Seriously?”
He grinned goofily. “Because if not, I’m available. Just saying.”
You bit back a laugh. “George, I am your girlfriend.”
His face lit up like a Christmas tree. “No way. For real?”
“For real.”
He pumped a lazy fist into the air. “Hell yeah.”
Fred, who had just run over, nearly tripped over himself laughing. “He’s either dying or just scored the best news of his life.”
You rolled your eyes but couldn’t help the smile tugging at your lips. “Both, apparently.”
George reached up and gently patted your face, missing your cheek and hitting your chin instead. “You’re so soft. Have I told you you’re soft?”
“You’ve told me lots of things, love. Most of them nonsense.”
“Bet I said them real smooth though.”
Fred muttered, “He flirts better concussed than I do fully functioning,” earning a glare from you.
Madam Pomfrey finally arrived, puffing and muttering under her breath. “Step back, step back, what did he do this time—bloody Weasley twins—”
“He caught a Bludger with his skull,” you said flatly.
“Coolest catch I’ve ever done,” George mumbled.
You brushed his hair back again gently, watching as Pomfrey waved her wand over his head and began muttering incantations. “You’re going to be okay. Just… try not to flirt with anyone else on the way to the Hospital Wing.”
George’s eyes fluttered closed briefly, then opened again, still dazed. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Got the prettiest girl right here.”
“Sweet-talker,” you said quietly, cheeks warm.
He smiled at you, soft and crooked. “Still can’t believe you’re my girlfriend. That’s like, winning the Triwizard Tournament but without the dragons.”
Fred piped up. “You do realize you’re gonna have to live this all down when you’re healed, yeah?”
George didn’t miss a beat. “Worth it.”
Pomfrey sighed. “Someone help me levitate this lovestruck idiot to the Wing before he starts serenading her.”
You stood up, still grinning as George kept his eyes locked on you, even while floating in mid-air. He reached out lazily, fingers wiggling in your direction. “I love you, random pretty girl.”
You leaned close and kissed his forehead. “Still your girlfriend, dork.”
He beamed, all bruised and dizzy and delighted. “Hell yeah.”
summary: Instead of packing your boyfriend's clothes away, you’d like to see what he’s packing underneath them all.
wc: 900+
cw: making out, suggestive content
When George walks out of the bathroom to find you laying on his bed on your stomach, kicking your feet up behind you, he allows a loving smile to grace his features. You, on the other hand, can’t help the bodily reaction you have at the sight of your boyfriend. Your eyes widen, and your legs go suddenly still. In the distance, you hear yourself gasp. George stands in front of you, eyebrows raised at your reaction, but can he really blame you? He’s only wearing an old, ripped t-shirt, some boxers and a pair of socks, and he can nearly see you drooling over his muscular legs.
“Nice surprise.” George’s two, simple, genuine words have you snapping out of your haze, pushing yourself off your stomach to slide your legs underneath you and kneel facing him. You watch silently as George takes slow steps towards you, a teasing grin on his face. When he’s finally close enough, George puts a hand on your cheek, caressing your soft skin with his thumb. Both your hands come up, resting on George’s thighs, which instantly flex at your touch.
George’s thumb stops its circles on your cheek, moving to finally rest on your bottom lip. You wrap your lips around the tip of his finger, sucking lightly. George chuckles, removing his thumb from your mouth and you sigh, sitting up off your ankles. Teasingly, George leans down to press a soft kiss on your lips. You try deepening the kiss, but to your misfortune, your boyfriend pulls away, leaving you yearning for more. “Please.” You hear yourself whisper, but George is already walking past you to sit down on his bed.
Pouting slightly, you kick your legs off the bed, pushing yourself to stand up with your hands on your hips. George furrows his eyebrows from where he is sat with his back against the headboard, gesturing for you to come closer to him. You feel fulfilment engulf you, pride filling your chest as you throw yourself onto George.
George huffs slightly as you knock the air out of his chest, his arms snaking around your waist just like yours had been thrown over his shoulders. Whilst you rearrange yourself over George’s lap, he busies himself by nosing at your neck, pressing kisses on every inch of skin he can reach. You hum when he introduces his teeth into the mix, nibbling on your neck softly enough that he wouldn’t leave any bruises. After all, today’s the last day of term before everyone goes home for the holidays, and the last thing you’d want your parents to notice are dark love bites on your skin.
“One for the road?” George asks, words muffled against your skin. You giggle, pressing yourself down onto his lap with a wiggle to tease him. His clothes are still sprawled all over the room, clearly in the midst of packing before he decided on taking a shower. Procrastination at its best.
Running your hands underneath George’s shirts, you revel at the feeling of his soft skin, velvety under your fingertips. George grabs you by the hips, dragging you forward on his lap so you sit atop his growing erection. He leans forward, attempting to press his lips to yours, but you pull back by the slightest bit, only letting his lips graze yours as you mumble “You’ll still have time to pack, won’t you?”
“Yeah, love. When have I had to worry about that before?” His sarcastic comment has you chuckling against his lips, vividly recalling the way you stayed up with him early into the hours of the morning to pack all of his belongings before your last holiday. You hope that tonight, you’ll be able to spend time with George a little differently. Instead of packing all his clothes away, you’d like to see what he’s packing underneath them all. Instead of folding clothes up yourself, you’d prefer to be folded in half by your boyfriend on his messy bed.
But unfortunately, just as you hook your fingers into the band of George’s boxers, the twin’s other half decides to make up for the lack of productivity he's had all day. Fred enters the room loudly, unaware of the moment he interrupted until he hears your disappointed sigh, head dropping to rest on your boyfriend’s shoulder. George places his hands over yours, smiling apologetically at you despite knowing you’re not paying any attention to his face.
“Get a room!” Fred jokes with an annoying smirk, slumping down on the floor at the foot of his bed to begin folding his own clothes that had been thrown in a messy pile when he had begun 'packing'.
You lift your head off George’s shoulder, tugging him by the shirt desperately. His eyes are immediately clouded with confusion, but he wordlessly follows you off the bed, lips tugging upwards into a proud smile when you grab him by the hand, beelining towards the bathroom. It’s even messier in there, but you prop yourself up on the limited space the sink offers, hooking a leg around George’s hip. He grins widely now, arms landing on each side of you to trap you between the sink and his body.
He ducks his head down, lips hovering just above yours, but just before he’s able to connect them, a voice from outside the bathroom door calls out “Can you pass me my toiletry bag?”
Summary: When your feelings got the best of you and ended up being jealous which led to George comforting you but you weren’t gonna make it easy for him.
Warnings: no use y/n
Cw: fluff
Wc: 1k+
A/n: another george oneshot for my George girlies…cause he’s my fav twin:)))
You'd been craving treacle tart for three hours straight, and you'd finally decided that surprising George at the shop with homemade ones was either the most romantic thing you'd ever done or a complete waste of energy. Your feet hurt, your back ached, and you were pretty sure you'd gained another pound since yesterday—or at least that's what it felt like when you'd tried to squeeze into your maternity jeans this morning.
Seven months pregnant. You were absolutely enormous. George kept saying you were glowing, but you were fairly certain "glowing" was just a polite way of saying "sweating excessively and bloated."
Still, you'd made the tarts. You'd even gotten dressed—properly dressed, not in the oversized jumpers you'd been living in. So you were going to do this.
The shop was busy when you arrived, which you'd expected. What you hadn't expected was to see George laughing with a woman you didn't recognize. A very pretty woman. A woman with perfect auburn hair and legs, touching his arm while she laughed at something he'd said.
Your stomach dropped.
You stood there, holding the container of treacle tarts, watching as she leaned closer to him. George's hand came up to her elbow—a friendly gesture, just a friendly gesture but your pregnancy hormones didn't care about anything at the moment. Your pregnancy hormones saw it as a threat.
The woman said something that made George smile that smile. That smile. The one you thought was yours.
Your eyes stung.
"Oh no," Ginny's voice came from behind you. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"
You didn't even realize she'd been in the shop. You spun around, tears already streaming down your face because apparently your tear were as unreliable as everything else about your body and Ginny's face immediately shifted to concern.
"I'm fine," you whispered, which was the most obvious lie you'd ever told. "I just... I need to go."
"Wait, hold on—" Ginny grabbed your arm, but you were already moving towards the door.
"Is that my wife?" You heard George's voice from across the shop. Your heart shattered a little more at the surprise in it. Of course he was surprised. He probably wasn't expecting you because he was too busy flirting with Miss Perfect over there.
You kept walking.
"Oi, come back!" Fred appeared in your vision, somehow materialising the way he always did. "You can't just storm off dramatically without an explanation—that's our thing!"
"Fred," Ginny said sharply, but it was too late. Fred had already caught up to you, taking the container of tarts from your hands.
"These smell amazing," he said, which was the worst possible thing he could have said. "Did you make these? George is going to love—"
"George is busy," you spat out, your voice shaking. "George is very busy flirting with his girlfriend."
"His what?" Fred's eyebrows shot up.
"The woman! The beautiful woman with the hair!" You were crying properly now, hormones in full revolt. "I'm pregnant and I look like a whale and my husband is apparently—"
"Okay, okay, let's just—" Fred tried to put his arm around you, which was a wrong choice because suddenly you were sobbing onto his shoulder.
"You're so nice to me, Fred," you wailed, "which makes this so much worse because you're making me cry even harder—"
"I didn't do anything!" Fred protested, looking genuinely distressed. "I literally just said the tarts smelled good!"
"That's the problem!" you cried. "You're being nice and I'm a mess and my husband doesn't want me anymore because I'm FAT!"
"You're not—" Fred started.
"I AM!" Another wave of sobs. "I'm enormous! I'm the size of a bludger! I can't even see my own feet!"
Ginny had caught up to you by this point and was making soothing noises that weren't helping at all. "You're pregnant, you're supposed to gain weight—"
"I don't WANT to gain weight!" you sobbed.
Behind you, you heard George's voice calling your name, but you couldn't face him. You couldn't let him see you like this, ugly-crying and splotchy and enormous. You spun around and practically ran out of the shop, ignoring Ginny's protests.
You made it exactly two blocks before your feet hurt too much to keep going, and you ended up sitting on a bench in a small park, surrounded by the wreckage of your afternoon and your dignity.
——
George came home that evening looking vaguely confused.
"Why did you run out of the shop?" he asked, dropping his bag by the door.
You didn't look up from the sofa, where you'd been stewing in your misery for the past three hours. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Right," George said slowly. He came around the sofa to look at you properly. "Are you... are you crying?"
"I'm not crying now," you said, which was true but also evasive. You still had your face turned away from him.
George sat down on the coffee table in front of you—which he knew you hated because it made you feel like he was looming and tried to meet your eyes. "What's going on? Did something happen?"
"Nothing happened," you said coldly. "Everything's fine."
"You're clearly upset."
"I said I don't want to talk about it."
George was quiet for a moment. Then, very carefully, he said, "Is this about what happened at the shop?"
Your throat tightened. You didn't respond.
"Because," he continued gently, "if this is about Rebecca, that's the supplier's daughter, by the way, the one who's been bringing in samples of the new potion bottles, she was asking about where I got my inspiration for some of the new products, and I was telling her about how you helped design the color-changing sweets—"
"I don't care," you said, but your voice broke on the words.
George reached out and took your hand. "Look at me."
"No."
"Please."
"Oh, come on, baby," George said, walking over to the couch.
You turned away from him, scooting to the far end of the couch.
George followed, grinning. He sat down beside you, leaving just a small gap between you. "You're adorable when you're pretending to be mad."
"I'm not pretending," you said stubbornly, keeping your eyes fixed on the magazine.
"No, you absolutely are," he said, leaning closer. "Your ears are turning red, which means you're fighting a smile."
"They are not," you protested, though you could feel the heat creeping up your neck.
"They absolutely are," George said, his voice dropping lower. "And honestly, watching you try to stay mad at me when you're pregnant and sitting on the couch is the cutest thing I've seen all day."
Your cheeks went hot. "Don't—"
"What?" he asked innocently. "Don't what? Don't mention how hard you're trying not to smile? Don't point out that you're absolutely terrible at this? Don't tease you about how you moved all the way over there like you thought I wouldn't follow you?"
"I don't want you sitting near me," you said, but your voice wasn't convincing at all.
"Sure you don't," George said, shuffling closer. "Though I have to say, I wouldn't want you to fall off the couch, so maybe scoot back a bit?"
"Whatever," you said, not moving an inch despite his words, your arms crossed stubbornly.
George reached over and gently placed his hand on your belly. "How's our baby?"
You tried to keep your expression neutral, but the baby chose that exact moment to kick, and you couldn't help the small smile that crossed your face.
"Still there," you said quietly. "Kicking. A lot, actually. She's been restless all day."
George's hand moved gently across your bump, feeling for another kick. "Now how’s my baby" he asked, his voice softer now, more intimate.
Your cheeks flushed hot. You bit your lip, trying to hide the blush creeping across your face, knowing exactly what he was doing—calling you "his baby" in that low, teasing tone.
"She's... she's sulking," you said, your voice barely above a whisper.
"She's sulking?" George asked, amusement evident in his tone, his fingers tracing lazy circles on your belly.
You bit your lip harder, unable to answer. The blush was definitely spreading now, and you definitely weren't going to let him see it.
"She won't talk to me, huh?" George continued, leaning in closer.
"She's not..." you started, then stopped, realizing you'd fallen right into his trap.
"Not what?" George asked, his smirk audible in his voice.
You turned your head away, burying your face slightly in the cushions. "You're impossible."
"Completely impossible," he agreed cheerfully. "And yet, you're still here. Still sitting on the couch with me instead of running away. And was just blushing after I called you my baby."
"Did not," you muttered into the cushion.
"You absolutely did," George said. He shifted closer, and you could feel the warmth of him beside you. "Come here."
"No," you said stubbornly, but your resolve was crumbling fast. The teasing, the way he was looking at you, the gentle touch on your belly—it was all too much for your hormonal, sulking brain to handle.
"No?" George repeated. "Come on, baby. Stop sulking."
"You need to learn a lesson," you said, still not looking at him. "That you can't just tease people and expect them to forgive you immediately."
"Is that so?" George asked. He shifted even closer, until he was practically spooned behind you on the couch. "And how long do you think you can hold out?"
You didn't answer, but you also didn't move away.
"Because from where I'm sitting," George said softly, his hand still on your belly, "I'd give it about thirty seconds before you cave and let me kiss you and stop being mad."
You were determined not to cave. Determined to stay mad, stay sulking, stay facing away from him and his stupid teasing smile and his stupid warm hand on your belly and his stupidly attractive voice.
"Thirty seconds is a long time," you said stubbornly, still refusing to turn around.
"Is it?" George asked. His hand left your belly and came up to your jaw instead, his fingers gentle but firm. "Because I think it's about to be much shorter."
Before you could protest, he was tilting your face toward him, forcing you to meet his eyes. And when you did, when you saw the warmth and mischief and genuine affection there, you knew you were completely lost.
"Don't—" you started, but it was too late.
George crashed his lips to yours.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't slow. It was hungry and warm and tasted like apology and teasing and George, and your stupid hormones immediately betrayed your sulking efforts by making you kiss him back desperately.
His hand stayed on your jaw, tilting you closer, deepening the kiss. His other hand was still splayed across your belly, and you could feel the baby kick against his palm as if she approved of her parents making up.
When he finally pulled back, you were breathless and flushed and absolutely furious that you'd caved so easily.
"That wasn't fair," you gasped out.
"Wasn't it?" George asked, his forehead resting against yours. He was grinning like he'd won the lottery. "I thought it was perfectly fair. I gave you thirty seconds, and you barely lasted ten."
"Shut up," you said, but you were already reaching for him again, pulling him back down for another kiss.
"Oh, so now you want to kiss me?" George asked against your lips. "Funny how that works. Five minutes ago, you were ignoring me."
"I'm still mad at you," you mumbled, kissing him again.
A/n: this is like my fav story I’ve written so far…
Pairing - George Weasley x reader You and George walk the halls of Hogwarts just talking quietly before George asks you to visit the burrow for Christmas.
The late afternoon air around Hogwarts was crisp, the kind that carried the scent of damp grass and distant wood smoke. The grounds were quiet now that most students were inside finishing homework or crowding the common rooms.
You and George walked side by side along the worn path that circled the edge of the Black Lake, your footsteps crunching softly over scattered gravel.
George had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his robes, shoulders slightly hunched against the chill, though every so often he bumped into you deliberately with his elbow.
“Careful,” you said with a small laugh. “You’re going to push me straight into the lake.” “That would be tragic,” he replied immediately. “Think of all the homework you’d miss.”
“You’d miss me.” George tilted his head dramatically, pretending to consider it. “Hmm… possibly.” You nudged him back, and he grinned, wide, crooked, the kind of smile that always meant he was enjoying himself far too much.
Walking with him had become strangely natural over the past few months. What had started as occasional conversations after class had slowly turned into this: quiet walks around the castle grounds, talking about anything and everything. Sometimes jokes, sometimes nonsense, sometimes things that were surprisingly real.
Tonight it was a bit of both.
“So,” George said after a moment, kicking a small stone off the path, “Fred and I tried a new experiment earlier.”
“That sentence already sounds dangerous.”
“It was only slightly dangerous.”
you rolled your eyes with a smile “That’s not reassuring.”
“Well the Canary Cream prototype may have… exploded.”
You stopped walking. “Exploded?”
“Small explosion,” he clarified quickly, holding his fingers a tiny distance apart. “Very small.”
“And?”
“And now Lee Jordan is still yellow.” You burst out laughing, and George looked extremely pleased with himself. “That’s horrible.”
“He volunteered!” George protested. “Well...he didn’t exactly volunteer, but he didn’t say no fast enough.”
The two of you continued walking, the castle towering behind you now, its windows glowing warm against the fading sky, for a moment, the conversation drifted into a comfortable silence.
George glanced at you from the corner of his eye.
There was something on his mind. You could tell. Normally he would have filled the silence with another joke by now, instead, he rubbed the back of his neck. “So… Christmas holidays are coming up.”
You nodded. “Finally. I think if Professor Snape gives us one more essay I might actually die.”
“That would ruin my holiday plans.” You raised an eyebrow. “Your holiday plans?” George slowed his pace slightly. “Yeah… about that.”
He kicked another stone off the path, clearly trying to look casual and failing miserably. “My mum, well, she likes when we bring friends home for Christmas.”
“Friends?” you repeated, a teasing smile tugging at your lips. He glanced at you, suddenly looking a bit nervous. “Right. Friends. Obviously.” You could see the faint pink creeping into his cheeks from the cold, or maybe not the cold.
George stopped walking entirely and turned to face you.
“Listen,” he said quickly, words rushing out now. “The Burrow’s a bit chaotic. Loud. Mum cooks enough food to feed an army and Fred will probably try to prank you within five minutes of arriving.”
“That sounds exactly like Hogwarts.”
“Fair point.” He hesitated again. “But… I thought it might be nice if you came.” Your heart skipped slightly.
George tried to shrug like it wasn’t a big deal, though his ears were now definitely red. “I mean—you don’t have to. Obviously. Just thought you might like it. And Mum’s been asking about you ever since I mentioned you helped us test that new Skiving Snackbox prototype.”
“You told your mum about me?” you asked. “Accidentally,” he said quickly. “Fred told her first actually. Traitor.” You laughed softly. The wind stirred the lake beside you, rippling the dark water.
George shifted on his feet. “So… what do you think?” he asked. “Want to spend Christmas with my family?” There was something hopeful in the way he looked at you—like he was trying very hard not to seem like he cared too much about your answer.
You stepped a little closer to him. “George.”
“Yeah?”
“I’d love to.” For a second he blinked in surprise. Then that brilliant grin spread across his face again. “Brilliant,” he said. “Absolutely brilliant.”
He started walking again, a noticeable bounce in his step now. “Just warning you though,” he added. “Once Mum meets you, you’re stuck with us forever.”
You bumped his shoulder again.
“I think I can survive that.” George glanced at you, smiling a little softer this time.
“Good,” he said quietly, and the two of you continued walking around the grounds, the castle lights glowing behind you as the sky slowly faded into night.
It was absolutely no surprise to anyone with even half a functioning brain cell that (name) (surname) was a complete freak- the kind of unsettling oddity you spotted from down the corridor and immediately pretended you hadn't. From the hunched shoulders to the head perpetually tilted downward, to that eerie, unblinking stare that made people rethink every choice they had ever made... everyone knew exactly what she was.
Even the wide-eyed first years whispered about her in trembling little clusters, clutching their textbooks like protective talismans, as if simply brushing past her might doom them to some horrific sacrificial ritual they were not ready for.
...But what no one- and I mean no one, could have possibly predicted was that she, of all people, would be hiding a face card so lethal it could resurrect a Victorian child ravaged by illness, restore them to full health, and maybe even leave them emerging with a six-pack and a newfound will to live.
And with a face card like that?
Of course she'd gather attention.
Of course people would stare.
Of course admirers would start cropping up like cursed mushrooms after rain.
Not shocking at all.
What was shocking though- was how fast those admirers escalated from "harmless crush" to "problematic shrine builders," to "maybe you should start sleeping with one eye open" territory.
Bloody hell- on Salazar Slytherin's very brittle, very ancient toes, if she wanted to stay alive, she'd need every ounce of luck she could get. Desperately.
OR
A girl constantly dismissed as strange- suddenly shocks the entire school with a beauty dramatic enough to make Dumbledore's timbers shiver. Yet despite the shift in how everyone looks at her, one thing stays the same, she's still that weird girl... just now with an equally weird, borderline cult-like swarm of admirers who are, unexpectedly, yours to handle.
PLAYLIST!! ‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
romeo; pinkpanthress.
❝You're my Romeo, Everybody laughs when I tell them so (Ow, ooh)
I feel like it's magic, Romeo You're all I can imagine, imagine.❞
crush; solange.
❝It's weird I know but somehow I know I've been handed you,
you've been handed me It's like some fantasy, I like you I want you.❞
when did you get so hot?; sabrina.
❝When did you get hot? All the sudden I could look you up and down all day.
When did you get hot? I think I would remember if you had that face.❞
I want it all; lana del ray.
❝I said "do you think you'll kill for me one day?"
(Yes, of course I will, my darling)❞
gabriela; katseye.
❝You got everybody's eyes undressing you And I see it too.
You could have anyone else you wanted to I'm beggin' you.❞
diet mountain dew; lana del ray.
❝Baby, you're no good for me.
You're no good for me.
But baby, I want you, I want you.❞
diner; billie eilish.
❝bet I could change your life, you could
be my wife.
could get into a fight, I'll say you're right and you'll kiss me goodnight.❞
this love; maroon 5.
❝I'll fix these broken things, repair your broken wings,
and make sure everything's alright. Into every inch of you because
I know that's what you want me to do. This love has taken its toll on me.❞
everytime; ariana grande.
❝You get high and call on the regular, I get weak and fall like a teenager.
Why, oh, why does God keep bringing me back to you?❞
black sheep; metric, brie larson.
❝I'll send you my love on a wire,
lift you up, every time, everyone, ooh, pulls away, ooh.❞
join me (in death); him.
❝Won't you die tonight for love?
Baby, join me in death
So, won't you die?❞
w.d.y.w.f.m?; the neighborhood.
❝Maybe you're right, maybe this is all that I can be,
But what if it's you, and it wasn't me?
What do you want from me?❞
WARNING!!
This book contains gore, mature language, death, mentions of suicide, mental illness, blood, violence gaslighting and graphic content!
NOTES!!
HIII my lovelies !! I'm back with a new book, it's probably gonna be short or long- I honestly don't know and I might somewhat go on hiatus BUT ILL TRY NOT TO. I really wanna do like updates every week, cause I'm so tired of slow updates and panicking about not writing enough for you guys. Hopefully you all like this, cuz I love my (name) in this, she's such a cutie !! This book starts at 3rd year ofc !! And obviously the characters will be aged up, so 1st year in Hogwarts, you're 14 and leave at 21! This book will be slightly cliche, and a romcom with slight dark themes, because I can never ever be serious when it comes to writing sometimes.
This book is heavily inspired by the anime, "The wallflower." If any of you haven't watched it yet, you need to!! It's so good and honestly I need more people to talk about it with me!!
COPYRIGHT!!
All rights go to J.K. Rowling. I only own (name), my oc's, what I write, and the cover! The pictures aren't mine but I made the cover and dividers by myself!
Strange hearts attract stranger devotions. One glance, one slip, and suddenly the shadows answer to you, "unexpectedly, yours."
(chapters coming out soon!!)
CHAPTERS!! : (meet the cast!!) - (1) - (2)
fav genre of men ? the ones who love to love you i.e. sweet gestures they make when they're smitten
﹙ 🥐 ﹚ 𝒻em ! 𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋 ✴ 𝖻𝗈𝗒𝖿𝗋𝗂𝖾𝗇𝖽 ! multi f1 ◟ 🏁 blurbs ◜ᴗ◝ featuring. ln¹ cl¹⁶ gr⁶³ radio. hi, lovelies! here's a very late valentine's treat. and a good practice round for me at writing for these dudes <3 ／ 𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐘.
LANDO NORRIS
He doesn’t tell you he’s doing it.
Not when the cameras are in his face and he’s giving the usual practiced grin, entertaining questions about strategy and the endless ‘what if's. Not when the day officially ends but the garage is still buzzing with team personnel packing up equipment, and the media centre is a beacon of everything he'd rather avoid like a plague.
Lando's good at that. Infusing every word with enough enthusiasm to hide the fact that his heart is somewhere else entirely.
He checks his phone the second he’s out of range for any long lenses to capture his horrifyingly warm expression. There’s a message from you—sent an hour ago, because you always try to time them with when he gets in and out of the cockpit.
So so proud of you, sweetheart <3 Get some rest. And have a safe flight tmrw!
His chest tightens in that quiet way it always does when it reads the unmistakable undertone of care in your every word.
Theoretically, Lando should be on a shuttle to the Hilton where they'd checked him in for the weekend. Maybe exploit his ambassador status by ordering half the room service menu, or take up some of the other drivers on their offer of a night out.
But something in envisioning himself eating his weight in burgers and chips, or changing into something remotely appropriate for a high-end club only serves to make Lando uneasy.
So instead, he bolts it to Jon's rented Chevy Malibu and has the decency to look sheepish as the other man eyes him knowingly. Two hours later, Lando is on the next flight to Nice after bidding you an early night under the guise of feeling absolutely knackered. Which is not far from the truth, he thinks, as he snaps his headphones into place, staring at the bejeweled skyline with sleep lidded eyes.
He tells himself that it’s the right sort of impulsiveness. Why the hell does he earn so much if he won't reap the benefits once in a while? That he’s tired. That he just wants his own bed.
Though who is he kidding —Lando just wants you.
By the time he lands and books a cab to Monaco, it’s properly late. Like the kind where every straggler is sluggish on the streets: either dead on their feet or shitfaced. Lando's got his carry-on slung over one shoulder, having left most of his racing gear with his management to take to Woking. Blessed two week break, he's never been more glad for those.
No florist in their right mind is operating at this hour but the idea of showing up to your doorstep empty-handed is preposterous. So he takes his liberties at the first open 24 hour supermarket—cap pulled low, mask on—and piles all your favourite sweets in a basket to dump on the checkout counter.
There's a voice in the back of his head that oddly resembles his nutritionist nagging about so much processed sugar. But then Lando imagines your face, beaming brightly at him with one cheek stuffed full with chocolate, and he thinks he'll gladly tear up his weekly meal plan and throw it in the open sea.
And in the blink of an eye, he's standing outside your flat, nervous in a way that makes zero sense.
He's faced the fear of his life flashing before his eyes in terrible crashes, handled interviews with a straight face after heartbreak races. But this? This makes him feel faint enough for a breeze to knock over.
Before he can overthink it, he rings the doorbell.
Lando hears some shuffling on the other side, imagines the confusion on your face as you waddle down the hallway toward the entrance, clearly not expecting anyone at midnight, and peer into the CCTV display. He grins wryly at the blinking red light.
The door bangs open with frantic disbelief.
You are in pyjamas—bright pink satin with printed strawberries that have seen better days—with your hair twisted into a loose bun. The way you blink slowly reminds him of a cat while your brain catches up with your eyes.
“…Lan?”
He swallows visibly, slightly lost for words. Just gives you that soft, crooked smile—high strung caricature of a public image sanded down into something real.
“Hi,” Lando says, almost shy.
Your shoulder bumps against the doorframe when you take a step forward. “You– You’re not supposed to be here until tomorrow.”
“Yeah, well.” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, rubbing over the stubble he hasn't shaved. Like he needs to occupy his hands with something until they inevitably reach forward. “I got bored.”
Your laugh comes out breathless. “You changed your flight because you were bored?”
He shrugs, but his ears are pink. “Might’ve wanted to see you.”
That’s when you step forward and wrap your arms around him. It should scare him how easily you fit: his arms around your waist while you hug his shoulders firmly, his chin resting on the juncture of your neck. Melded together like butter on warm toast.
Lando exhales. It’s not dramatic. It’s not cinematic. It’s just so much relief. His face presses into your hair and he holds you tighter than he means to. He’s been running on dry gulps all weekend and suddenly someone has dropped him into an oasis.
“You’re mad,” you murmur against his hoodie. “Absolutely fucking ridiculous.”
“Maybe. Possibly.”
“And exhausted probably. Jesus, Lan.”
“Oh, absolutely,” he chuckles, nosing at your skin to feel you shiver.
You pull back, hands on either side of his head, looking up at him. He only slightly choked knowing he feels so precious under your gaze. He thinks he's a mirror of your expression. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I know.” His thumb brushes your cheek gently. “I wanted to,” Lando says, retrieving the chocolates out from behind his back like he’s in a cheesy fucking rom-com, the packaging slightly crushed. “Peace offering for abandoning you for a week.”
You cradle the heart-shaped box as if it's priceless treasure. “You were working.”
“Uh-huh. Anyway, I agreed to spoil you until forever, and that starts with giving you cavities.”
You smile at him in that way that makes his stomach flip and hug him again. “You’re so stupid. Welcome home, baby.”
And if he melts under the those orange porch lights, that is nobody's fucking business innit? You usher him inside, and Lando toes off his shoes by the door impatiently, a force of habit. They fall lopsided by your perfectly arranged shoes like they belong there. Like he belongs where you are.
CHARLES LECLERC
He doesn’t mean to overhear.
Charles makes it back after his morning run, unhooks the leash off Leo's harness and lets the puppy run free into the flat. He's walking past the bedroom while stripping off his sweat-soaked shirt when he catches your voice drifting, animated in that way it gets when you're talking to your best friend. It's a losing battle against the smile taking over his face.
“I’m serious,” you say, nearly shrieking in insistence. “Men who can cook? Husband material. Immediately.”
Charles slows. He doesn’t stop completely—he’s not that obvious—but he absolutely slows.
“Like, imagine coming home after work or something, and he's got dinner ready and plated? I would fold,” you sigh, dreamily and his eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. Huh.
Charles continues down the hallway as if nothing happened. But there's this restlessness crawling under his skin. It's not that he disagrees about culinary competence being sexy, but what the hell, he never knew it's that high in your book of ideal qualities.
A quality Charles doesn't think he's ever shown or even has. But what did you call it? Husband material? He can fucking manage that, alright.
By the time you hang up after a long drawn weekly catchup, the apartment is suspiciously quiet. Some might say it's too quiet.
Never one to deny your curiosity, you kick both feet off the side of your bed and wander towards the kitchen. And immediately you are met with a scene that looks… intense, for a lack of better adjectives.
There’s flour all over the counter. A pan that is visibly smoking. Three different spice containers are open at once in the cabinet. And in the middle of it all stands Charles, sleeves pushed up, brow furrowed in deep concentration while he wrestles with the salt and pepper shakers like he's performing some complicated folk dance.
“Cha?” you say carefully, stepping past the archway past the dining table.
He jumps, swiveling around to spot you leaning on the kitchen island. His eyes are blown wide and he looks distinctly like a toddler who got caught stealing from the cookie jar. “Ah— you’re not supposed to be here!”
You sputter, taken aback. “Supposed to— this is my kitchen.”
“Yes, but,” Charles gestures vaguely behind him, "consider this a temporary takeover. Go, sit at the table. I will be done soon.”
“Done with what?” You blink at him owlishly. “What’s happening?”
His shoulders drop as if he's being forced to confess to a crime. “I am cooking.”
You stare. “For me?”
He clears his throat, attempting casual, but there is a prominent flush to his cheeks “Yes. Now, will you please go sit down? You are ruining the surprise.”
You try very hard not to smile too widely. “Okay.”
You retreat to the dining table while he continues moving around the kitchen with determined energy. There’s a lot of stirring. A questionable amount of salt being added. A brief muttered string of curses in French when something sizzles too aggressively.
After a while, Charles appears with a plate of spaghetti with a generous amount of cheese and green onions sprinkled on top. It looks decent, if you ignore the charred bits of pasta and tomatoes that look a little too brown.
Yet you cannot help feeling giddy when he sets the food down in front of you triumphantly. A spoil of war, almost. “Voilà.”
But then you notice the stub of bandaid stuck to his little finger and a groan bubbles out. You take his hand into your own to inspect the cut and he slumps into the chair beside you. “Was butchering your finger worth it, love? Why did you suddenly want to cook anyway? Thought we were ordering in today.”
Charles squirms in place, suddenly put on the spot. He's clearly conflicted but ultimately sighs. “You said earlier… that men who cook are…” He trails off, blushing plainly for all to see.
Your eyes widen. “You heard that?”
“Maybe,” he mutters.
And oh, your heart melts. You hadn’t spared much thought when you said it, it was just gossiping for gossip's sake when your friend mentioned her latest date was an actual chef.
Not that there is anything wrong with not being able to cook five star meals. You yourself aren't too keen on it, nor do you have the patience for complicated dishes. But, Charles, with his sweet consideration and eagerness to help in any way, had always been miffed that he is utterly useless in the kitchen.
So, you have a solid system in place. You cook while Charles cleans, and you happily make do with takeout when laziness creeps in.
But knowing that he has even tried just because of an offhand comment you made? That has you reaching for a fork like a starved caveman, shovelling it into your mouth.
It’s— Okay. Slightly burnt. Definitely salty and the pasta is somewhat overdone. But it’s warm and the care Charles has put into it is clear as day. Starting with the unevenly chopped onions and excessive dairy, in a bid to follow some internet recipe, no doubt. All the while ignoring to scale down for the portion size.
And it’s him. And he’s watching you like he is waiting for the most important result of his entire life.
You light up instantly. “Charlie!”
His shoulders tense. “Yes?”
“This is amazing!”
Relief floods him so quickly it’s almost painful how sweet it is. He narrows his eyes jokingly. “Really?”
“Really.” You take another bite to prove your point, nodding. “I love it.”
The smile that breaks across his face has your stupid traitorous heart stumbling. Charles huffs, in relief perhaps, before picking up a fork and twisting the pasta onto it. You brace yourself as he takes a bite.
The smile fades. He chews, then pauses, and his eyebrows lift comically, blanching. “Mon chou, it is so fucking salty.”
You shake your head, stuffing your face to match the cavity of your chest brimming with happiness. “It is flavorful.”
Charles frowns, fingers tracing up your arm as if he's debating yanking the fork out of your grasp. “And maybe a little burned. Stop forcing yourself to eat it. It's terrible.”
“It’s caramelized,” you argue. “And you really think you can force me to do anything? I love this, and I will finish it, thank you very much.”
He looks at you suspiciously. “You are lying.”
“I am not! Seriously, you did great for your first try. You can't expect to get a Michelin star right away, can you?”
He studies you for a second longer, then laughs softly, the tension draining out of him. “Okay. Maybe I got a bit excited with the salt.”
“Yes, a bit,” you concede, squeezing his hand into your own. “Charles.” He looks up and your smile softens into something gentle and certain. “The fact that you heard me say that and decided to cook for me? That is peak husband material.”
Charles’ breath catches just slightly. “Even if I nearly gave you food poisoning?” he teases.
“Especially then." You lean in to press your lips to his cheek and laughing at the sauce smeared there.
His eyes are shining and he’s absolutely overwhelmed, yet trying his hardest not to show it. “I wanted to do something for you. I wanted you to come home and feel… taken care of.”
Your heart aches.
“I do,” you say. “I feel very taken care of.”
And it rings true especially when he tugs you into his arms without another word, and you're practically falling onto his lap. His forehead rests against yours. You like Charles even when he can't cook to save his life. You love Charles because he'll try anything to make you the happiest version of yourself.
GEORGE RUSSELL
The thing is, you hadn’t even asked him to come with. George had clocked you stumbling around the living room halfway into your shoes, scouring for car keys and unsurprisingly failing at both. He'd walked into the bedroom, came back with a scarf and gently looped it around your neck.
“Grab an energy bar, at least. I'll get the car out,” he said, dangling the keys in front of you.
“I’m literally just running errands,” you'd replied, cupping his face and getting on your tiptoes to kiss him softly. “It'll be boring. Plus, you have plans.”
“Plans of playing video games. I can ask Alex to reschedule,” George insists, already walking towards the door. “And I love boring. I can do with some boring right now.”
Now you glance back at him in the middle of the store and chuckle. There’s an inflated tote bag hooked over one shoulder, two glossy shopping bags dangling from his fingers, and somehow he’s also holding your iced coffee because you said it was “getting in the way” of sifting through clothes.
“You okay back there?” you ask sweetly.
George adjusts his grip, posture still perfectly upright despite the growing collection. “I'm alright.”
“You can put some down, you know,” you say for the hundredth time, crossing your—completely empty—arms.
“And have you carry them instead?” He scoffs playfully. “What kind of boyfriend would I be?”
You tilt your head thoughtfully. “The normal kind.”
He gives you a look. “Well, I don't want to be the normal kind. You deserve better than that. Now which dress are we thinking, because I'm not sure about the whole polka dots.”
George follows you from rack to rack without complaint—well, without real complaint. There’s the occasional sigh when you disappear into a fitting room for the fourth time. “How many versions of the same top do you need?” he calls from outside.
“They’re all different,” you giggle through the response.
When you pull back the curtains and step down from the elevated platform meant to prop you up like a doll at the back of your favorite—and only a little obnoxious—boutique, he looks up from his phone, mildly exasperated. “They’re all white, sweetheart.”
“This one is cream,” you counter, tugging the fabric down to your naval. Your face scrunches in concentration, tongue poking out.
“Ah. Of course. Game changer,” George sighs, biting back a fond smile.
But when you turn away from the mirror to show him, he straightens immediately. The teasing fades, replaced with genuine focus. He hums, “Turn, please.”
You roll your eyes, twirling around with the necessary amount of dramatic flair. “I didn’t realize I was dating a fashion guru. Which one is it gonna be, good sir?”
George taps his chin once, twice, thrice, before he nods. “Yeah, this is the one. The other is way too similar to the pink one you already have.”
“You think?” You ask, surprised.
His attention to detail always catches you off-guard but it's nothing new. He is always meticulous, especially about things he cares for. You just happen to be at the very top of that list.
“Mm.” His gaze softens. “You look… really good.”
There’s no over-the-top dramatics with him. Just quiet certainty. Like he’s stating a fact. It comes to him like a rehearsed vow but every time, the words are honeyed with so much sincerity. It swells inside your chest; unasked, unconditionally adored.
You end up buying it. And the skirt he'd picked when he got bored of waiting idly while you changed. And the shoes you definitely hadn’t planned on purchasing but he insisted, saying they complete the look.
By the time you reach the checkout counter, you’re doing that thing where you mentally calculate and pretend you’re not slightly stressed about the egregious sum total.
George, meanwhile, has neatly stacked all the bags by his feet, hands on his hips, standing like he’s waiting at an airport lounge to hear the PA system clearly.
The cashier scans the final item. “That’ll be—” You’re already reaching for your wallet as she announces the bill when George suddenly steps forward, tapping the back of his phone against the scanner.
“George,” you make a frustrated noise, feeling a little ruffled.
“I’ve got it.” He doesn’t even look at you, just smiles at the lady who hands him the receipt, scanning it to make sure everything's as it should be.
“I can pay for my own things.”
“I know,” he says calmly. His fingers find yours, entwining together perfectly while he wrangles all the shopping bags in his other hand. “But I want to. So, you just have to deal with it, darling.”
You stare at him with ill-veiled disbelief and the begrudging flutter in your stomach. Might as well commit to the bit and call it a butterfly zoo. “You didn’t have to do that.”
George glances down at you, faint grin tugging at his lips. “I like taking care of you.”
“And I love that you do! But seriously, it was a lot.”
He shrugs slightly. “It’s just money.” As though a couple thousand euros are pocket change. Well, to him maybe they are. Still it makes you squirmish with every realization. "If it bothers you, consider you looking fantastic as repayment."
“That’s not the point,” you huff, feeling increasingly like you're arguing with a wall. You cannot hate him for it, for catering to your whims whenever and wherever. Not when every action of his feels like a warm embrace.
He has that way about him, leading you without being overshadowing. You like to be independent, and that's something he cherishes about you. But more than often, he does these things without any fanfare.
Footing the entire bill on group dinners. Ordering flowers when he's away; not just for you, but all your friends if they're around. Never letting you drive if he can help it. Not because you're incapable, but because he loves to take you places. To steal glances of your wide eyes and lips parted in awe at the scenery flashing past, deliberately speeding up on empty streets to have you holding the overhead handle for dear life as you end up shrieking with laughter.
Small things that mean the world.
You barely suppress a startle when George hooks a finger under your chin, gently tipping your face up just enough to meet his bright azure gaze.
“The point,” he says, whispering it like a secret, “is that I enjoy doing things for you. Carrying your ridiculous number of things. Standing outside fitting rooms for an hour. Treating you just because it makes me very, very happy.”
And the clarity washes over you like a recurring tide: he doesn’t like the mundane so much as he likes the time spent with you. He likes being yours. The rest of it is just… confetti.
Your lips twitch. “An hour?”
George scoffs, draping an arm around your shoulders as you walk out. “At the very least.”
“Oh, you drama queen.” You nuzzle into him, resting your hand on his chest for a few seconds. You don't expect it to slow the hummingbird against your ribs. “You’re spoiling me. I'm going to develop a horrible habit and lose all my financial competence.”
He leans down enough so only you can hear him, breath ghosting over your ears, ticklish. “You got me,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the side of your head. “That was my plan all along.”
more yapping. 💌 i wanted to squeeze in carlos' part into this too. i wrote and rewrote it so many times, but it just wouldn't feel right. hope you guys still enjoyed these three and some lovin. mwah ~ (๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑)
The first time I learned that humiliation can stick to you like treacle, I was eleven and wearing brand-new black shoes that still pinched at the heel.
It had been my first week at Hogwarts—my first week of pretending I belonged in corridors that moved and staircases that changed their minds halfway up, my first week of learning to sleep with other girls breathing around me and to fold my homesickness into neat little squares and tuck it under the mattress where no one could see.
I had been so careful, then. I’d brushed my hair until it shone, checked my robes twice, practised my name in my head as if saying it correctly might keep the castle from swallowing me whole.
And then I walked into the Gryffindor common room with my chin up and my stomach full of nerves—and Fred and George Weasley turned me into the punchline of a joke I didn’t even understand until everyone was already laughing.
It was a simple thing, in the way that all the worst things are simple. A charm, whispered and flicked like it was nothing. Warmth at my collar. A strange tug behind my ears. A sudden lightness at my scalp, as if my hair had decided it could no longer tolerate gravity.
There was a beat of silence—one sharp, sparkling second where the room registered I was wrong somehow—then the laughter broke out in a wave that felt physical, like being shoved.
I remember reaching up, fingers catching in something that wasn’t hair anymore, something feather-soft and ridiculous. I remember the heat crawling up my neck, my face turning traitor-red before I’d even spoken. I remember trying to laugh too, because at eleven you think laughing along might save you, might make you look clever and unbothered, might keep the world from deciding you’re weak.
But my voice came out thin and odd, and I heard it wobble, and I knew I sounded like a child trying to pretend she wasn’t one.
Fred Weasley had looked delighted, eyes bright, a grin so wide it seemed to split his face. George stood beside him. He laughed too—but when my gaze snapped to his, something in his expression tightened, quick as a blink, as if he’d only just realised I wasn’t in on it. As if he’d only just noticed the way my hands had gone clumsy at my hair, the way my shoulders had pulled in.
That was the thing about the Weasley twins. They didn’t just cause trouble. They made it look like sunlight.
It was hard to hate someone who could make a room feel warmer just by walking into it. Hard, but not impossible. I learned.
I didn’t cry until later, when the common room had thinned out and the fire had burned lower and my dormitory was full of whispering girls who had already found their places in the world. I lay in bed with my face turned into the pillow, gripping the sheets so tightly my fingers ached, and made myself a promise with the kind of grim certainty children are capable of: I would not let them do that to me again. I would not be someone’s joke.
Of course, that promise became a sort of curse.
Because somehow—somehow—their jokes kept finding me.
A levitation charm meant for someone else that sent my stack of books drifting into the air like startled birds. A handful of enchanted dungbombs that rolled under my chair in History of Magic just as Professor Binns glided past, and suddenly it was my desk that smelled like a sewer while Fred and George sat two rows back with faces of perfect innocence. A set of bewitched quills that scribbled I’m a flobberworm in looping, enthusiastic handwriting across a parchment that was most certainly mine.
And always, always, it was me standing in front of a professor with my hands empty and my cheeks burning and the Weasley twins behind me wearing expressions that said wasn’t that brilliant? wasn’t that funny?
I learned the shape of their laughter the way you learn the feel of a bruise you keep bumping. I learned their loudness—how it filled space, how it demanded attention like a firework. I learned how George’s eyes flicked to me when no one else was looking, as if he were measuring the damage.
Detention came to me the way rain comes to a stormcloud: not as a surprise, but as an inevitability.
By third year, Filch knew my name. By fourth, I knew every corridor from the trophy room to the dungeon classrooms by the scent of the stone and the way the torches hissed. By fifth, I could scrape dried potion residue from a cauldron with one hand and write Charms homework in my head with the other.
And somewhere in all that time—somewhere between the late evenings and the dust, between the way we’d sit on opposite ends of a corridor waiting for a professor to stop lecturing us about our moral failings—something inside me shifted.
Not loudly. Not all at once.
Just… quietly, like a page turning in a book when no one’s watching.
Because Fred was always Fred—bright, careless, brilliant, the sort of boy who could smile after being told off and make you feel as though you’d been the one scolded for not laughing harder.
But George—George had edges that didn’t catch the light unless you looked for them. He’d pass me a rag without a word when my hands were full. He’d make a joke and then, if I didn’t laugh, his eyes would dart to my face, quick and wary, as if checking whether he’d gone too far.
Sometimes, when Fred’s energy ricocheted off walls, George seemed to step aside from it for half a second, and in that half second you could see something like thoughtfulness, like softness, like a person underneath the performance.
It infuriated me, because it made no sense.
It was much easier when they were both simply unbearable. It was much easier when George was just Fred’s twin—an extension of the same trouble, the same grin, the same hands flicking wands in corridors when they were supposed to be hurrying to class.
It was much easier before my eyes started snagging on him like thread catching on a nail.
I told myself it was because of proximity. Because you can’t spend years being dragged into the same detentions as someone without recognising the slope of their handwriting, the way they bite the inside of their cheek when they’re concentrating, the slight tilt of their head when they’re listening. I told myself it was normal, the way you start to notice the creak of a stair you step on every day.
But there are certain thoughts that don’t feel like stair creaks. They feel like lightning—silent until it isn’t.
And the worst part was: the more I tried to stop noticing him, the more my body betrayed me anyway. My mouth would sharpen its words without my permission. My shoulders would square as if bracing for impact when he came too close. My laugh—my real one, the one I didn’t share with just anyone—would get stuck behind my teeth when he said something that, under different circumstances, might have made it out.
It was easier to be difficult. Easier to be prickly. Easier to keep him at a distance where he couldn’t see the thing I didn’t want him to see—couldn’t see that a part of me leaned toward him like a plant turning to the sun, even while the rest of me insisted the light was unbearable.
George, for his part, did something I only realised in hindsight.
He stopped.
Not completely—not in a way Fred would ever have noticed, but in the small, particular ways that mattered. When pranks sparked in the air like static, George began to redirect them around me. When Fred’s eyes lit with a new idea, George would catch his sleeve and murmur something under his breath, and the idea would shift course. When I walked into a room, George’s gaze would flick to me and then away again quickly, as though looking too long might burn.
It should have made things easier.
Instead, it made them worse, because it meant he was paying attention. And if he was paying attention, then he might have seen too much.
The day we ended up in the dungeon again—again—it started in the most ordinary way possible, which is how trouble likes to begin at Hogwarts. Ordinary, and then suddenly you’re in too deep.
I was on my way back from the library, arms wrapped around a stack of books that smelled like dust and old glue, thinking about a Transfiguration essay that refused to arrange itself into proper paragraphs. The corridors were dimmer down there, the stone colder, the air damp and faintly metallic, like the castle was bleeding.
I turned a corner—
—and stepped straight into the middle of something that should not have existed in a school.
A snort of laughter—too quick to be real, too sharply swallowed—leaked from behind a suit of armour, and then the corridor itself seemed to misbehave.
Something bright and peppermint-sweet hit the air first, that unmistakable whiff of Weasley mischief, like a joke you can smell before you hear it. A second later, the flagstones just ahead of me turned slick and glassy, a thin sheet of shimmering green creeping outward as if the castle had decided to grow a pond in the middle of its own hallway. It wasn’t water, not quite—more like enchanted soap, too glossy and alive, catching torchlight in little cruel sparks.
Right in the centre of it, a Prefect’s badge—Percy’s, I’d recognise that pompous shine anywhere—hung in midair, bobbing gently as though it were bait on a fishing line. Each time it dipped, it let out a prim, amplified little cough.
“Ahem.”
The sound echoed off stone, officious and insufferable, and it was so perfectly Percy that for half a heartbeat I forgot to breathe. Then the badge cleared its throat again, louder, the way he did when he wanted an entire room to remember he existed.
“AHEM.”
The badge flashed, and a neat little ribbon of parchment unfurled beneath it like a proclamation, ink appearing on its own in tight, fussy handwriting:
PREFECT PATROL. PRESENT YOURSELF FOR INSPECTION.
My foot slid the instant I tried to stop. My books lurched against my chest, corners biting my arms, and the world tilted in that quick, stupid way it always does right before you lose dignity in public. I windmilled—there’s no elegant way to windmill—caught myself by grabbing the armour’s elbow, and felt cold metal under my palm where I’d expected stone.
The suit of armour shifted, offended, and something inside it clanked.
I hadn’t even finished pulling my hand back when the “puddle” decided it wasn’t finished being clever. The glossy green spread another inch, as if reaching for me, and a line of bubbles rose from it—fat, wobbling things—each one popping with a tiny, rude little sound that almost sounded like laughter.
My books shifted again, and my stomach dropped with the sudden, familiar certainty of what this was.
From behind the suit of armour, Fred and George Weasley appeared—Fred first, of course, as if he’d been fired from a cannon, laughing already; George right after him, a fraction slower, eyes widening the moment he saw me, like the scene had rearranged itself into something he hadn’t planned for.
Fred’s wand was still half-raised, as if he’d been mid-flourish. George’s hand hovered near his brother’s sleeve, that small, instinctive gesture of stop, stop, stop that no one ever seemed to notice unless you were watching for it.
And then—like the punchline delivered by the universe itself—Professor Snape emerged from the shadows at the far end of the corridor, robes billowing like a stormcloud given human form.
“What is this idiocy,” Snape snarled, his voice slicing through the corridor as his black eyes locked onto the three of us.
Everything in the dungeon seemed to tighten around him. The torchlight looked dimmer in his wake. The air went colder, as if it had been waiting for him to arrive.
Snape’s gaze moved over the scene—the hovering Prefect badge barking out its self-important ahems, the ridiculous inspection notice, the spreading slick of enchanted green—and then landed on me, pinned there with all the warmth of a blade.
“I leave the castle unattended for five minutes,” Snape snapped, “and I return to this.”
The hovering Prefect badge gave one last officious ahem and then went suspiciously quiet, as though even it had learned fear.
“Explain!”
I drew a breath and felt it scrape on the way in. Snape had that effect—made the air feel smaller, like the dungeon itself leaned in to listen. Words crowded the back of my throat, tripping over each other, all of them suddenly aware of how useless they were going to be.
“I was in the library,” I said, because it was true and because truth was all I had. “I just turned the corner and it all just appeared. I swear Professor, I didn’t do any of this.”
My voice didn’t shake, but my fingers tightened around my books until the edges pressed into my arms. I refused to look at the Weasleys. Refused to give Snape the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.
Fred let out a sound—something between a cough and a snort—far too close to laughter to be wise.
George didn’t make a sound at all.
Snape’s eyes flicked to Fred, slow and deliberate, the way one might examine an insect before deciding how best to squash it. His lip curled, just slightly, as if the expression had been practised.
“How diligently rehearsed,” he murmured. “One might almost believe you had prepared that defence in advance.”
“I didn’t—” I started, and immediately hated myself for how small it sounded.
“Silence.”
The word cracked through the corridor, sharp enough to make the torches gutter. Snape took a step closer, robes whispering over stone.
“I have grown exceptionally weary of this… little constellation of chaos,” he said, gaze sweeping over the three of us as if we were stains on the floor. “Every corridor I patrol, every corner I turn, I find Gryffindor fingerprints smudged across my evening.”
His eyes settled on me again, and I felt that familiar, infuriating sense of being weighed and found wanting.
“And you,” he continued, tone thick with false curiosity, “always seem to be standing conveniently nearby when such… innovations occur.”
“That’s because they drag me into it,” I said, before I could stop myself.
Fred’s eyebrows shot up, impressed. George’s head snapped toward me, a warning flicker in his eyes that said don’t, said please don’t.
Snape’s mouth thinned.
“How refreshing,” he drawled. “An accusation. How very Gryffindor of you. Bold. Loud. Utterly unconvincing.”
“I wasn’t part of it,” I insisted, heat crawling up my neck despite myself. “You can check—my wand—”
“Do not presume to instruct me on my own methods,” Snape cut in smoothly, and there it was—the satisfaction, dark and unmistakable. “Your talent for finding trouble is quite adequate without assistance.”
“Sir, I really wasn’t—” I stopped short at piercing look Snape gave me before he turned his attention to the twins at last, and the temperature in the corridor seemed to drop another degree.
“Weasley,” he said, singular, as if they were one creature with two heads. “Your tireless dedication to idiocy continues to astound me.”
Fred opened his mouth—clearly possessed by a death wish.
George’s hand shot out and grabbed his sleeve, fingers tightening just enough to warn him. Fred shut his mouth with an audible click, though the grin lingered, defiant and bright.
“One week of detention,” Snape said silkily. “Every evening. You will scrub my classroom from floor to ceiling until every surface reflects your regret back at you.”
His eyes slid to me again, pinning me in place.
“You will join them,” he added, as if it were an afterthought. “Consider it a lesson in choosing your associates more wisely.”
“That’s not a lesson,” I said, and this time I couldn’t stop the edge from creeping into my voice. “That’s just convenient.”
For a heartbeat, the corridor went utterly still.
Then Snape smiled.
It was thin. Cold. Triumphant.
“Detention,” he repeated. “Unless you would prefer I deduct points as well. I am certain Gryffindor can spare them.”
I bit down on whatever I’d been about to say so hard I tasted metal.
Snape turned on his heel, robes snapping like a struck nerve, and swept away down the corridor, leaving behind the slowly dissolving puddle, the deflated Prefect badge, and the three of us standing in the aftermath like survivors of a small, personal disaster.
The silence he left behind rang louder than shouting.
I looked at them—at Fred’s grin, already fighting its way back onto his face, at George’s expression tight and pale around the eyes—and something in me snapped cleanly, like a thread pulled too hard.
“You two are unbelievable,” I said, and my voice sounded strangely steady, as if all the shaking had gone inside instead. “Do you guys wake up and decide, today I’ll make someone else’s life difficult, or does it happen naturally?”
Fred’s grin widened, because of course it did. “We don’t have to decide,” he said cheerfully. “It’s a gift.”
I shifted my books higher in my arms to keep my hands from doing something stupid like throwing them at his head. “Well,” I said, “congratulations. Your gift has earned me a week of scrubbing Snape’s cauldrons.”
“It wasn’t meant for you,” George said quickly.
The sound of his voice—lower, more careful—hit me in a place behind my ribs I didn’t want to acknowledge.
I scoffed, because scoffing was safer than listening. “Funny how that keeps happening.”
George’s mouth opened as if he might argue, then closed again. He looked at the floor for half a second, like he could find a solution in the cracks between stones.
“It was for Percy,” Fred said brightly, entirely unhelpful. “Or maybe for someone even more deserving. Percy’s got that face that begs for it, though.”
My lips pressed together so tightly they almost hurt. The name Percy felt like salt in the wound—Percy, it was always his pranks I seemed to take but I’d barely seen him on the receiving end of this stupidity.
I turned before my temper could make me say something that would echo in the walls later. “I’ll see you in detention,” I said, and walked away with my shoulders stiff and my footsteps too fast.
Behind me, Fred’s laughter followed like a thrown pebble.
George’s silence followed like a hand held out and then withdrawn.
~~~
The next evening, the dungeon classroom waited for us with all the warmth of a tomb.
The door creaked when we went in, and the smell hit at once—sharp, sour, medicinal. Potions ingredients clung to everything: to the air, to the stone, to the wooden shelves lined with jars of things that should not be jarred. The torches burned low, their flames struggling against the damp, and shadows gathered in corners like they were listening.
Snape didn’t bother with a speech. He didn’t need one. He simply stood at the front of the room, dark eyes sweeping over us, and dropped a pile of rags and scrub brushes onto the nearest table as if tossing scraps to animals.
“You will begin,” he said, and the words were slick with satisfaction. “And you will not stop until I say so.”
Then he swept into his office and shut the door, leaving us with the silence and the smell and the faint drip of something from somewhere.
Fred, naturally, broke the quiet first.
“Well,” he said, clapping his hands together as if this were a party. “Quality time.”
I chose the far end of the classroom with the deliberation of someone choosing a battlefield. As much distance as the room allowed. I set my books down carefully—too carefully—and picked up a rag, because if I didn’t start cleaning immediately, I might start doing something else.
The stone under my fingers was cold and slightly tacky with residue. My rag came away stained a sickly green after the first swipe.
Behind me, they talked. They always did. Their voice bounced off the walls and made the dungeon feel smaller.
“Do you think Snape polishes his hair with bat’s blood?” George mused, scrubbing at a table. “Because honestly, it’s got that sheen.”
“Maybe it’s just slime,” I said, without turning around. The words slipped out before I’d decided to give him anything at all.
Fred made an appreciative noise, as if I’d just tossed them a sweet. “See, George?” he said. “Y/N does have humour. Deep down. Buried under a mountain of bitterness.”
Something inside my chest tightened at hearing my own name in their mouths like that. My scrubbing grew faster. The rag squeaked against the tabletop.
“I’ve got plenty of humour,” I said, and my voice sounded too light for the way my throat felt. “Just not for you.”
Fred laughed outright.
George didn’t laugh.
I could hear him moving around the room—quiet footsteps, the scrape of a brush against wood, the soft clink of a jar being lifted and moved. He wasn’t on my side of the room, but sometimes the air shifted as if he’d glanced up, and my skin prickled along my arms in response, unreasonable and sharp.
“You really think we’d set you up?” George asked after a moment, and his tone was careful, almost… gentle, which made it worse, because it made the anger in me feel suddenly too big for the room.
I didn’t look at him. Looking at him was dangerous. Looking at him meant noticing the way his sleeves were rolled up, forearms dusted with grime, the way his hair fell over his eyes when he bent to scrub. Looking at him meant remembering a hundred detentions, a hundred late evenings, the way he’d once passed me a chocolate frog in the corridor without meeting my gaze.
“I think,” I said slowly, “that you always have a reason. And somehow I always end up standing in the middle of it.”
Fred’s brush paused. “It’s not personal,” he said, sounding faintly offended, as if I’d accused them of something crude. “We don’t even think about you that much.”
The words should have been relief.
Instead they landed like a slap.
I let out a short laugh that didn’t belong to me. “How comforting.”
George’s brush stopped. I felt it more than heard it, the sudden stillness.
“That’s not—” he began, and then he inhaled, as if rearranging his thoughts. “We didn’t mean— I didn’t mean—”
I scrubbed harder, as if friction could erase the past. The rag dragged over a spot of something that looked like old potion spill, and the smell rose sharp and unpleasant. My eyes stung—not from tears, I told myself immediately, furiously, but from fumes. From the damp. From everything.
I kept my gaze on the tabletop.
“You don’t have to explain,” I said. “Honestly. I’ve had five years of explanations. They all sound the same.”
There was a beat of silence. Fred, apparently, couldn’t stand it.
“Well,” he said briskly, “if we’re taking a stroll down memory lane, I’d like to remind everyone that you did hex my eyebrows off in second year.”
“That was self-defence,” I said.
Fred laughed again, delighted. “See? Fire. Passion. You’d be terrifying if you weren’t so—”
“Fred,” George said quietly.
It wasn’t a reprimand exactly, but it was enough. Fred’s grin faltered just a fraction, which on Fred Weasley was practically a moment of solemnity.
I kept scrubbing. The rhythm of it became a sort of anchor. Back and forth. Back and forth. The sound of cloth against wood, the faint rasp of brush, the drip-drip-drip somewhere in the shadows.
After a while, George moved. His footsteps came closer—not all the way, not brazen like Fred would have been, but enough that I felt him without turning. The air seemed to shift around him, warmer where he stood, as if he carried some of the common room fire down here with him.
“I can do that bit,” he said, voice low.
I didn’t look up. “I can do it.”
“I know.” He hesitated, and I could picture him running a hand through his hair, the way he did when he didn’t know what to do with himself. “I just— you’ve been scrubbing the same spot for ages.”
I realised then that my hand had cramped. That my knuckles were pale. That the tabletop under my rag was already clean enough to reflect torchlight.
I forced my fingers to relax, one by one, like prising them off a wand after too long.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“It does,” George replied, and there was something in his voice that made my stomach do a strange, stupid dip, as if I’d missed a step on a staircase.
I hated my own body in moments like that. Hated that a soft tone could undo me, hated that I could stand in a dungeon classroom telling myself I had every right to keep him at arm’s length, and still the sound of him trying—trying—could make something ache in me that I couldn’t name without wanting to throw myself into the Black Lake.
I turned my head slightly, just enough to see him out of the corner of my eye.
He was holding a rag in his hand like he didn’t quite know what to do with it, shoulders angled toward me, expression carefully blank in the way boys get when they’re pretending nothing matters. But his eyes weren’t blank. His eyes were too bright in the dim torchlight, fixed on me as if waiting for something—approval, permission, forgiveness, any scrap of peace.
For a second, I saw it: the softness. The gentleness he tried to hide beneath jokes and trouble. The way he could look like someone who didn’t want to hurt anyone, even if he kept doing it by accident.
Then I remembered the common room, eleven years old, laughter crashing over me.
And I swallowed the softness back down like a bitter potion.
“Please,” I said, and made my voice as even as I could manage. “Just—leave it. I don’t need you hovering.”
Something shifted in his face so quickly I almost missed it—like a shutter closing.
He nodded once. “Right,” he said lightly, and the lightness was too practised. “Hovering. Terrible habit.”
Fred, on the other side of the room, snorted. “I knew you were a hovering sort, Georgie.”
George’s mouth twisted into a grin that looked like it belonged on someone else. “Shut up.”
I turned back to my work because it was easier to scrub a table than to sit with the weight of what I’d just seen in his eyes.
The rest of detention blurred into a steady, stubborn motion—wipe, scrub, rinse, repeat—broken only by Fred’s running commentary and Snape’s occasional appearance from his office, gliding around the room like a bat checking its prey.
When Snape finally dismissed us, it was with the kind of reluctant displeasure that suggested he’d been hoping we’d never leave.
I gathered my books, fingers still smelling faintly of potion ingredients no matter how much I’d wiped them. My arms felt heavy, as if the dungeon had poured lead into my bones. I didn’t look at the twins as I walked out, because looking meant noticing, and noticing meant thinking, and thinking meant feeling.
But I could feel George’s gaze anyway, a quiet pressure between my shoulder blades, as familiar now as the castle’s draft.
The corridors outside were warmer, the air less sharp, but the dungeon cold clung to me like a memory.
By the time I climbed back into the Gryffindor common room, the fire’s crackle sounded too cheerful, the laughter too easy. Everyone was doing homework or playing Exploding Snap or arguing over Quidditch.
I dropped into an armchair near the edge of the room and opened my book, staring at the words without reading them.
Because somewhere behind my eyes, George’s expression kept replaying—the way his mouth had tried to make a joke out of something that wasn’t funny, the way his eyes had looked as if he’d been bracing for a blow.
And my own thoughts, traitorous and soft in the wrong places, whispered the same unbearable question they always did when it came to him:
What if I’ve been wrong?
I tightened my grip on my quill until my fingers ached, as if pain could pin my mind back down.
Across the room, someone laughed—bright, loud, unmistakably Weasley.
And my heart did that stupid thing it always did, like it didn’t know the difference between trouble and warmth.
~~~
It was a Tuesday, I think. Or maybe it only felt like a Tuesday because everything about it had that grey, inevitable flavour: stone cold under your shoes, torches sputtering like they couldn’t be bothered, the air tasting faintly of damp and old secrets. I was coming from the library again—because of course I was—and I caught a glimpse of them through a crack in a tapestry I shouldn’t have been looking behind.
Fred Weasley’s red hair flashed like a warning flare in the dim corridor. Lee Jordan’s shoulders were hunched the way they got when he was trying not to laugh too loud. And George—George was there too, turned slightly away, as if he were listening harder than the others, as if the sound of their own joke had to pass some private test before he could let it live.
I didn’t mean to stop. My feet just… did. That treacherous pause, the way your body betrays you into curiosity even when your mind is shouting do not, do not, do not. I told myself it was tactical. If you know where the trap is, you can avoid stepping in it. If you know what they’re planning, you can keep your name out of it.
You’d think I’d have learned by now that their plans didn’t require my participation to include me.
“—that’s the best part,” Fred was saying, voice low with glee, the words fizzing like fireworks right before they go off. “He’ll have to. He can’t not. He’s Percy.”
Lee snorted, muffling it with his sleeve. “What if he doesn’t drink it?”
George’s shoulders rose and fell—one slow breath, the kind you take when you’re trying not to laugh at your own idea too early. “He will,” he said. “You leave something labelled Prefect’s Private Reserve on his desk and he’ll drink it out of spite.”
Fred leaned in, conspiratorial. “And he’ll march into breakfast and start telling McGonagall what he really thinks about her tartan.”
They were bent over something small, glassy. A bottle, I realised, the sort Madam Rosmerta served butterbeer in, but this one was cloudy and pale, like watered milk, with a sheen on the surface that made my teeth itch just looking at it. Potion, then. Not the usual bubblegum-smelling nonsense they used for their joke sweets—this looked older, sharper. Real.
I should have walked away.
Instead, I listened long enough to catch the word Lee said next, quieter, like it mattered.
“Where’d you even get this?”
Fred’s grin widened in the dark. “Borrowed it.”
“Stole it,” Lee corrected helpfully.
George’s mouth twisted. “Liberated.”
“From who?” Lee pressed.
“From a very badly supervised cupboard,” Fred said. “And before you ask, yes, George tested it.”
Lee’s gaze snapped to George. “You what?”
George lifted his hands, palms out, as if surrendering to a crime he didn’t particularly regret. “Not on me,” he said. “On a gnome.”
Lee stared. “You brought a gnome into the castle.”
Fred shrugged, utterly shameless. “It didn’t complain.”
“That’s because it can’t speak,” Lee said but leaned closer, suddenly wary. “How long does it last?”
George looked down again. “Depends how much,” he said. “And how concentrated it is. This one’s strong.”
Fred made a pleased sound. “As it should be.”
I should have left then. I told myself I would. I even shifted my weight, the tapestry’s edge rough against my shoulder as I began to step back.
And then Fred held the bottle up to the torchlight like a jewel.
Footstep sounded down the corridor. Not one of theirs. They all froze.
The tapestry shifted as Fred shoved it—too quickly, too carelessly—trying to make it lie flat again. My shoulder caught on it; the fabric tugged; I swore under my breath, already too late.
The bottle, in Fred’s hand, jerked.
It slipped.
My head snapped to the side as I heard someone laughing down the corridor—high, cracked, echoing off the stone like it had teeth. Peeves. I closed my eyes for half a second, pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth, as if that might keep him from noticing me. It never worked. It never had. The castle liked its little cruelties too much to spare anyone.
I straightened anyway, smoothed my robes with hands that didn’t need smoothing, and muttered something under my breath that sounded like encouragement if you didn’t listen too closely. Just keep walking. Don’t react. Pretend you don’t exist.
Naturally, that was when he swooped into view.
He burst out from behind a suit of armour with all the subtlety of a firework, cap bells jingling, eyes bright with the kind of joy that only comes from ruining someone else’s day. He hovered upside down in front of me, his face inches from mine, breath cold and sour like old dust.
“Well, well, well,” Peeves crooned, spinning lazily in the air. “If it isn’t the detention darling herself. Skulking and skulking and skulking—what’s the matter, hm? Lost your little Weasley shadows?”
I kept my face carefully blank, eyes fixed on the stone just past his shoulder. Engaging Peeves was like feeding a stray dragon: once you started, it never stopped.
“Tut, tut,” he went on, clicking his tongue. “No hello? No smile? That won’t do at all. Peeves doesn’t like being ignored.” He swooped closer, bells chiming right by my ear. “Maybe I should sing! Or shout! Or tell Professor Snivelly that someone’s loitering where they shouldn’t—”
“I’m going to lunch,” I said, evenly, though my fingers had curled into my sleeves, nails digging into fabric. “Same as everyone else.”
Peeves cackled. “Lunch! Boring, boring, boring! You humans are always scurrying somewhere important.” He leaned back in the air, peering at me with exaggerated scrutiny. “You look wound tight as a clockwork toy. Someone steal your laugh?”
I didn’t answer. I took one careful step forward, as if he might be solid enough to bump into, as if I could push through him by sheer will.
For a moment, it looked like he might block me just out of spite.
Then, mercurial as ever, his attention flicked elsewhere—down the corridor, toward the faint murmur of voices and a flash of blonde hair half-hidden by a tapestry. His grin widened, delighted.
“Oho,” Peeves sing-songed. “Secrets and scheming and sneaky little plots. Smells like trouble. Smells like fun.” He winked at me, exaggerated and gleeful. “Don’t worry, darling. I won’t tell. Not yet.”
Before I could stop him—or thank whatever small mercy had intervened—he shot off down the corridor in a whirl of laughter and bells, his voice fading as he turned a corner and vanished into the castle’s endless mischief.
The silence he left behind felt almost startling.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding and leaned back against the cold stone for just a second, letting the chill steady me. Then I pushed off the wall and moved again, softer now, footsteps careful, attention pulled back to the reason I’d stopped in the first place.
Fred’s face was blank.
Lee’s eyes round.
George was froze with his fingers against his lips, and for a second he looked exactly like he did in those rare, unguarded moments—like the joke had stopped being funny and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do without it.
Confused I tried to see what the hell the boys had in their hands but stopped short as the approaching footsteps grew louder.
Fred hissed, suddenly alive again. “George—don’t—”
George swallowed.
His throat bobbed once.
Then he slowly lowered his hand and stared at the bottle like it had bitten him.
“Right,” he said, voice too calm. “That’s… that’s not ideal.”
Lee’s mouth opened and closed. “How much did you—?”
George’s eyes darted, quick, panicked, as if searching the corridor for an answer that wasn’t there. “Not much,” he said immediately. The words came out before his mind could stop them. “Enough.”
Fred grabbed the bottle, jammed the cork back in with more force than necessary. “We can fix it,” he said rapidly, the way he talked when something had gone wrong and he wanted to outrun it. “We can— we can water it down— get you something—”
Lee leaned in, voice dropping. “Is there an antidote?”
George blinked. “No,” he said at once, and the bleak certainty in the word made Fred’s hand tighten around the bottle. George looked like he hadn’t meant to say it so quickly, like his own mouth had betrayed him. He swallowed again. “Not… not a proper one.”
The footsteps turned the corner.
Percy appeared, of course he did—Prefect badge gleaming, hair perfectly combed, a stack of papers under his arm like they were an extension of his personality.
He saw them.
He saw the bottle.
His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”
Fred opened his mouth, ready to lie with the ease of breathing.
George beat him to it.
“We were going to spike your tea,” George said, clear as daylight.
The corridor went silent so abruptly it felt like someone had jammed cotton in my ears.
Percy stared. Lee made a choking sound. Fred’s head snapped toward George so fast it was almost violent, as if he were trying to physically drag the words back into his brother’s mouth.
George’s eyes widened in horror at what he’d just said, like he was watching himself from outside his body. He clapped a hand over his mouth, too late.
Percy’s face drained of colour.
“You were going to—” Percy sputtered, voice rising. “You were going to poison me?”
“It’s not poison,” George said immediately, hand still half-covering his mouth, the words slipping out around his fingers like water through a crack. “It’s a potion. And you’re insufferable.”
Fred made a strangled noise that might have been laughter if it weren’t so close to panic. “George,” he warned, sharp.
Lee leaned close to George’s ear. “Stop talking,” he whispered desperately. “Stop—”
George stared straight ahead, as if focusing hard might keep his mouth shut. It didn’t help.
“And you’re always telling Mum on us,” George added, helplessly honest. “And you’d deserve it.”
Percy’s face went purple. “I will be reporting this to Professor McGonagall!”
“You do that,” George said, and then, with a sudden flinch, as if realising what he was about to do, he clamped his lips together so hard his jaw trembled.
Fred grabbed George by the elbow and steered him away, fast, hauling Lee with them.
I stepped back from the tapestry, heart hammering, the corridor suddenly too full of air. What the hell was that all about? Must’ve been some stupid prank I didn’t get, but still I watched as they vanished around the corner in a rush of robes and panic, Percy’s outraged voice echoing after them like a siren.
I stood there for a beat longer than I should have, staring at the place George had been, the way his eyes had looked. Surely a prank. I shook myself, forced my feet to move, and told myself—very firmly—that whatever trouble the Weasley twins had brewed this time, it was not my business.
It didn’t matter what I told myself.
It never did.
By the next day, George was still acting strangely. It started small, the way all catastrophes do. Little slips that made people blink.
George answering Professor Flitwick’s question without the usual joking deflection, bluntly, correctly, then looking faintly horrified at how pleased Flitwick looked. George telling Seamus Finnigan that his hair looked like a startled puffskein and then clapping a hand over his own mouth like he’d been slapped.
At lunch, Angelina Johnson leaned over from the opposite side of the table—Quidditch captain’s posture, eyes sharp and amused. “George,” she said, as if tasting the strangeness, “are you feeling all right?”
George stared at his plate like it might answer for him. He opened his mouth.
Fred kicked him under the table.
George flinched. “Ow,” he said. Then, before he could stop himself, he added, voice tight, “I’m fine. I’m just… cursed.”
Angelina’s eyebrows lifted. “Cursed?”
Fred laughed too loud, too fast. “He means tired, Angie,” he said breezily. “Exhausted. Poor lad. Quidditch training’s ruined him.”
George’s gaze flicked up—quick, sharp—and his eyes met mine across the table for half a second.
It was like being noticed by sunlight you didn’t ask for.
I looked away immediately, as if I’d been caught doing something wrong.
Because for three days—three long, strange days—George Weasley stopped being background noise.
He stopped being that constant, maddening presence in the corridors who always had a quip on his tongue and a prank in his pocket. He became instead a boy moving very carefully through the castle, shoulders drawn in, eyes scanning like he was looking for landmines.
And whenever I appeared—whenever I turned a corner or walked into the Great Hall or stepped into the dungeon for detention—he went very still, as if my existence tightened something around his ribs.
Fred and Lee stayed close to him like bodyguards.
Fred Weasley, who normally couldn’t go ten seconds without making some dramatic commentary about the universe, developed a kind of forced sobriety that made him look like a poorly disguised imposter. He kept his mouth shut so hard you could see the strain in his cheeks, and every so often he’d glance at George with a look that was half amusement, half this is going to ruin us.
Lee Jordan—who usually fed their chaos like oxygen—hovered with the air of someone trying to hold a lid on a boiling cauldron.
And me?
I did what I always did when something didn’t make sense: I pretended it wasn’t happening.
I told myself I enjoyed the quiet. I told myself it was a relief not to have my name dragged into their jokes, not to have Fred’s laugh bouncing off stone like a thrown spell, not to have George’s eyes flicking to me like he couldn’t help it.
But the castle doesn’t like quiet. It fills it with echo. It makes your own thoughts louder.
So every evening, when I walked down to Snape’s classroom for detention, my steps seemed to sound sharper than they should have. The torches hissed. The stone sweated cold. And on the far side of the room, George Weasley scrubbed in silence with his jaw clenched, and I found myself watching him anyway—watching the way he held himself like someone bracing against a storm that lived inside his own mouth.
On the second last day, it finally snapped.
Snape set us to work with his usual black-eyed glare, then disappeared into his office as though he couldn’t bear to share air with us longer than necessary. The classroom settled into that strained hush—brushes scraping, rags squeaking, cauldrons clinking faintly when moved.
Fred, after ten minutes of wrestling with a mop that looked like it had been cursed in the Middle Ages, muttered something under his breath and left to fetch another.
The door shut behind him.
And suddenly it was just me and George, with the dungeon’s damp pressing in and the silence so thick it felt like my lungs had to push through it.
George stayed at the far table, scrubbing methodically, eyes fixed on the wood as if looking up might be fatal.
I scrubbed too, but my mind kept snagging—on the strangeness, on the unnatural quiet, on the way he was behaving like a boy trying not to make a sound in a room full of sleeping dragons.
Without Fred’s noise, it was unbearable.
I didn’t want to speak. I didn’t want to give him anything.
But the words rose anyway, dry as dust.
“So,” I said, not looking up, keeping my tone casual in the way you keep a wound covered with a neat bandage. “Did you lose the ability to talk, or are you saving it for someone important?”
George’s brush paused. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t answer. For a beat, only the drip-drip somewhere in the dungeon spoke.
I scrubbed harder, because my hands needed something to do.
“Right,” I muttered, more to myself than him. “Fine. Ignore me.”
George’s shoulders shifted. A breath. His fingers tightened on the brush handle, whitening at the knuckles.
Then the door opened again and Fred strode in, triumphantly holding a mop like a trophy.
Lee Jordan followed him, slipping through the doorway with the careful look of someone arriving at a crime scene.
George’s head snapped up at once.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded, and his voice sounded almost too loud in the silence, like it had been stored up. “Lee—Snape’ll—”
Lee held up his hands. “Relax,” he whispered. “I’m just… checking.”
“Checking what?” George shot back.
“Whether you’ve exploded yet,” Lee murmured.
Fred’s grin twitched. “He hasn’t,” he said. “Not properly.” I turned slowly, rag hanging from my fingers, eyes narrowing.
“Oh,” I said softly. “So you can talk.”
George’s gaze flicked to me, panicked, and then away again as if my face was a lit match. He opened his mouth—and whatever was inside him slipped out before he could catch it.
“I wasn’t ignoring you,” George said quickly. “I was trying not to say anything stupid to you.”
The words hit the dungeon air like a dropped glass. For a heartbeat, my mind simply… stopped.
Fred made a strangled noise. Lee muttered something that sounded very much like, “Oh, for—”
My chest tightened, sharp, and my first instinct—always, always—was to defend myself. Was he really mocking me after days of pretending I don’t exist? The nerve.
“Stupid?” I repeated, voice very steady. Too steady. “Is that what you call it? Because it sounds like you’re trying to be clever.”
George’s head jerked toward me, eyes widening again, the panic returning full force. “No—” he said, and then his mouth betrayed him again. “I mean—sometimes you look at me like you want to hex me, and I can’t decide if that’s fair or—”
Lee stepped forward fast, like he was throwing himself between a curse and its target. “Right!” he said loudly, clapping his hands once. “Mop delivery. Brilliant. Fred, mate, you’ve saved the day. Come on, Weasley, we’ve got to— er— check the corridor, make sure Snape isn’t—”
“I am capable of checking a corridor,” George snapped, and then immediately went rigid because he’d said it like he meant it.
Fred’s eyes danced with the urge to laugh and the knowledge that he shouldn’t. He swallowed it with visible effort, cheeks twitching.
My fingers tightened on the rag. The sting in my chest sharpened into something that wanted somewhere to go.
“What was that supposed to mean?” I demanded. “What the bloody hell has gotten into you recently? First you ignore me than you mock me?”
George stared at the floor like it might open and take him.
Lee, apparently deciding survival required distraction, turned to me with a grin too wide to be innocent. “Fancy a bet?” he asked rapidly. “On whether Snape’s shampoo is actually bat blood?”
I blinked at him.
“What?”
Lee beamed. “Bat blood. Or maybe… eel slime. Fred thinks eel slime.”
Fred’s mouth twitched. “It’s a strong contender.”
“Why are you talking about Snape’s hair?” I said, because it was absurd and because my mind was still snagged on George’s words like a sleeve caught on a nail.
Lee leaned closer, voice dropping dramatically. “Because,” he whispered, “if you don’t stop looking like you’re about to bite George’s head off, he’s going to say something catastrophic, and then we’ll all be scrubbing these shelves until we die.”
That earned a laugh from somewhere in the room—small, involuntary, sharp enough to surprise me. It startled out of me before I could stop it, like a sneeze.
George flinched as if he’d heard it.
I hated that.
I focused on the practical instead: Lee’s presence.
“Get out,” I hissed, turning my attention on him because it was safer than turning it on George. “Lee, you’re going to get us into even more trouble. Snape will have you mounted on the wall like a trophy.”
Lee lifted his hands again, mock-innocent. “I’m leaving, I’m leaving.” He backed toward the door, still grinning. “Try not to be too terrifying while I’m gone, yeah?”
I glared at him until he slipped out and shut the door. The room settled again into that thick, dungeon quiet.
Fred went back to scrubbing, eyes bright with suppressed laughter, as if he were biting the inside of his cheek to keep it contained.
George moved to the far corner of the classroom as if distance could save him. He scrubbed with vicious concentration, shoulders tight, gaze fixed anywhere but me.
I scrubbed too, but the tabletop under my rag blurred. George’s words kept replaying, not in the way a joke replays, but in the way an insult does—sharp, lodged.
Why had he avoided me for days? Why had he looked like he was bracing for impact every time I entered the room? Why was Fred Weasley—who never shut up for anyone—suddenly behaving like he’d taken a vow of silence?
The thought tugged at me, infuriatingly persistent, the way a loose thread keeps catching on your fingers.
Detention ended. Snape dismissed us with the same sour satisfaction. I left the dungeon with my books pressed to my chest like a shield.
At dinner, I sat with Angelina, Katie, and Alice. Angelina’s laughter cut bright through the Great Hall noise. Katie was talking with her hands, animated, cheeks flushed from the warmth and the chatter. Alice—steady, observant—kept glancing at me like she could tell I was somewhere else.
Fred and George and Lee sat nearby, close enough that I could hear Fred’s laugh when he let it loose, close enough that I could see George’s profile if I lifted my eyes.
I didn’t lift my eyes.
I told myself that was pride.
Across the table, Angelina leaned slightly toward Lee, calling, “Oi, Jordan—tell Fred he still owes me for that Bludger incident last term.”
Lee’s grin flashed. “He says it built character.”
“It built bruises,” Angelina shot back, laughing.
“I don’t know,” I said, voice carrying just enough. “Fred’s idea of character-building usually involves property damage.”
Fred’s laugh burst out, bright and immediate—relief in it, like he’d been starving for permission to be himself again.
And George—
George, who had been keeping his eyes firmly on his plate as if it were the only safe thing in the world—reacted without thinking.
“You always do that when you’re nervous,” George said too quickly. “Get sharp. It’s… predictable.”
The words hung in the air for a fraction of a second too long.
My fork paused halfway to my mouth.
Angelina blinked, eyebrows lifting, amusement sharpening. Katie’s eyes flicked between me and George with quick curiosity.
Fred made a noise that sounded like he’d swallowed a laugh and a groan at the same time.
Lee coughed loudly—far too loudly—and said, “George isn’t feeling well,” with the exaggerated sincerity of someone delivering a lie to a teacher. “Probably ate something dodgy.”
George’s chair scraped back sharply. He stood so fast it looked like the bench tried to keep him.
“I’m going,” he said, voice tight. “Before I ruin everything.”
Fred sprang up after him, half-laughing, half-alarmed. “That’s my brother,” he called, as if it were meant to sound normal. “Dramatic as ever!”
Lee hurried after them, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed.
The girls at my table stared after the three of them.
Angelina’s mouth curved, interested. “Well,” she said lightly. “That was… new.”
Katie leaned forward, eyes bright. “What was that about?”
Alice looked at me, quiet and unblinking, as if she could see the exact place in my chest where the words had landed.
I set my fork down carefully, because my fingers had gone strange—too tight, too cold.
Get sharp. It’s… predictable.
It sounded like a joke someone else might make. Except George hadn’t laughed. And he’d run like he’d been burned.
I pushed back from the table and stood, so abruptly my bench squealed.
Angelina’s eyes followed me. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” I said, because I didn’t want to give the truth a name. I didn’t want to say after him. I didn’t want to say why does he keep doing this.
I gathered my things and walked out of the Great Hall with my spine straight and my steps controlled.
Because whatever game George Weasley had decided to play—whatever strange, quiet, cutting thing he’d turned into this week—I wasn’t going to sit there and let him throw words at me like stones and then run before I could throw them back.
And if he thought I wouldn’t follow the thread until I found what it was attached to—
He didn’t know me at all.
~~~
The common room was the same as it always was—firelight licking at the edges of everything, red-and-gold warmth pooling on threadbare armchairs, voices rising and falling like waves—yet something in it felt… misaligned. Like a portrait hung slightly crooked.
I was tucked into the corner with my back against the arm of a chair that had seen better decades, my book opened on my lap purely for the comfort of having something to stare at. The words didn’t go in. They sat on the page in tidy little lines, politely waiting while my mind kept wandering to places it had no business going.
Across the room, Fred and George and Lee drifted in like they owned the air. Fred’s laugh usually arrived before he did; Lee’s voice followed, loud and warm and relentless; and George—George was the quieter current underneath it.
Tonight, the current didn’t touch me.
They passed near my chair as if I were a piece of furniture. Fred’s eyes skimmed right over my head. Lee didn’t even flicker in my direction. George kept his gaze fixed somewhere above the mantle, like he’d decided that if he didn’t look at me, I didn’t exist.
It is so unnatural I felt it in my teeth.
They didn’t so much as breathe in my direction. They didn’t toss a single irritating comment over their shoulders. No little quip meant to hook into my sleeve and drag me into their orbit. Nothing.
Just… absence, placed carefully around me.
A laugh bubbled up behind my ribs, sharp and incredulous. It didn’t make it out. My throat was suddenly too tight for any sound that wasn’t meant for war.
George’s words from dinner keep replaying, vivid as if he was still standing there with candlelight on his face and disaster in his mouth.
You always do that when you’re nervous. Get sharp. It’s… predictable.
As if I were a trick he learned. As if he had been watching me long enough to map out my reactions and file them away like notes for later.
And then he’d sat there with that expression—tight, wrong—like he’d bitten down on something hot. Like he’d hated himself for saying it. And then he ran.
Now he wouldn’t even look at me.
The audacity of it settled in my chest like a stone. Heavy. Round. Unignorable.
They moved toward the stairs to the boys’ dormitories, still talking among themselves in low voices that didn’t carry the way they usually did. Fred’s shoulders were tense in a way I’d never seen on him—he kept glancing sideways at George as if waiting for a fuse to spark. Lee walked close, murmuring something, the way you might murmur to a skittish horse.
George kept his head down.
Like if he didn’t just get upstairs fast enough, he could outrun whatever it was that kept making him act like this.
My book slipped a fraction on my lap. I didn’t notice until it thudded softly against my knee.
They were already up the stairs when something in me finally moved —like a latch giving way.
I closed my book with a slow, deliberate snap.
My feet carried me up before I’d fully decided to move.
I walked through the common room with the kind of calm that only arrived when you were past the point of reason. The fire crackled. Someone laughed. A first-year darted past me. I hardly registered any of it. My hand slid to my wand.
The staircase to the boys’ dorms was technically off-limits. There was no spell to stop me—nothing like the one that turned the girls’ stairs into a slide—but rules had never been my strongest restraint when my blood started to sing.
I took the steps two at a time.
The boys’ corridor smelt like soap and old wood and Quidditch gear left to dry badly. The door to their dorm room was ajar, light spilling out in a warm stripe onto the floorboards.
I didn’t knock. I pushed it open so hard it banged against the wall.
Three heads whipped toward me.
Fred looked like he’d been caught mid-conspiracy, hair sticking up. Lee’s eyes widened, then narrowed, as his brain caught up to the problem in front of him. George was sitting on his bed, shoulders hunched, hands clenched so tightly together his knuckles look pale.
For a heartbeat, no one spoke. It was, bizarrely, the quietest I’d ever heard three Gryffindor boys.
Then Fred recovered.
“Blimey,” he said, voice bright with forced normality. “If it isn’t—”
“Don’t,” I’d cut in, and the word landed like a door slamming. My wand was already in my hand, not raised—yet—but present enough to make the air feel pointed.
Lee straightened, taking a step forward, his palms were out in the universal sign for let’s not make this worse. “All right, all right,” he said, attempting charm. “You can’t just—”
“I can,” I said, and my voice didn’t shake. That’s how I knew i was in too deep. “I just did.”
Fred’s grin faltered into something more careful. “This is the boys’ dorm,” he pointed out, as if the concept of boys’ dorm was a warding charm.
“Yes,” I said, gaze flicking to George for a split second—and catching nothing because his eyes were fixed firmly on the floor. Didn’t even a glance. Didn’t even a flinch. “I noticed.”
George’s jaw flexed.
Lee cleared his throat. “Look,” he began, lowering his voice, “whatever’s going on, you don’t want to be up here when someone sees you—”
“Oh, spare me,” I said, and the sarcasm came out sharp. “I’ve been blamed for half the crimes committed in this castle and I’m still walking around. I think I’ll survive being seen standing in a room.”
Fred’s eyes flickered to George again, quick and warning.
George stayed silent, staring at his hands like he could physically hold his mouth shut.
My gaze returned to Fred and Lee, and something cold and clear settled into place.
“I saw you,” I said, softly enough that they had to listen. “Earlier this week. With a bottle. A potion.”
The air changed. It was immediate—like someone pulled a thread and the whole room tightened.
Fred’s expression got just a shade too blank. Lee’s mouth opened, then closed, like he was recalculating the situation.
George’s head snapped up for the first time, eyes wide—right at Fred, right at Lee—with a kind of naked fear that made my stomach dip unpleasantly.
And then he looked at me.
Just once.
It wasn’t a warm look. It wasn’t even an angry one. It was a look like a person watching a trapp door open beneath them.
“What was it?” I asked.
No one answered .
“Was it something you brewed?” I pressed, stepping farther into the room. The wooden floor creaked under my shoes. “Something you stole? Something you were stupid enough to put in Percy’s drink and then—what—missed?”
Still nothing.
George’s lips pressed together so tightly they got white.
My grip tightened on my wand. I was aware, distantly, of how ridiculous it was—me standing in a boys’ dormitory at night with my wand out like i was about to duel someone. But my pride had teeth, and right now it was the only thing keeping my chest from splitting open with the sheer wrongness of being ignored by someone who never shut up.
“Right,” I said, and my voice got flatter, dangerous in its calm. “You’re all going to sit there and pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Fred tried for light again, because it was his instinct. “Well, when you say it like that, it makes us sound terribly suspicious—”
“Get out,” I said.
Fred blinked. Lee stopped breathing.
“What?” Lee said.
“You,” I repeated, pointing my wand at the door, then at them—enough to make it very clear I was not playing. “Out. Both of you.”
Fred’s brows lifted. “Now hold on—”
I took one step closer. The tip of my wand steady without effort.
“I’ve spent five years taking the fall for your rubbish,” I said, and I didn’t raise my voice, which somehow made it worse. “If you think I won’t hex you out of this room, you’ve severely misjudged how attached I am to your continued wellbeing.”
Lee’s eyes flicked to Fred. Fred’s eyes flicked to George.
George’s face had gone tight, his hands gripped the edge of his mattress like he was anchoring himself to the earth.
“Don’t,” George said, and the word scraped out of him like it hurt. He looked at them—pleading, raw. “Don’t leave.”
Fred’s expression shifted—something real underneath the mischief. “Mate…”
George shook his head once, sharp, like he was trying to dislodge the whole moment. “Please,” he said, and his voice cracked on it, almost imperceptibly.
Lee swore under his breath, a quick, helpless sound. “This is bad,” he muttered.
Fred looked at me, then at George, and there was a beat where he’d weighed it—the way Fred weighed things: not with caution, exactly, but with a sense of timing, of damage control, of what made the best story and what might make the worst one.
Then he sighed, long and dramatic, like a man being marched to execution.
“All right,” Fred said lightly, because he couldn’t not. “If you die, I’ll tell Mum you died handsome.”
“Out,” I said again, unwavering.
Lee stepped toward the door first, shoulders tight. Fred followed, pausing just long enough to clap George once on the shoulder—harder than necessary, the way boys do when they don’t know how to be gentle without making it obvious.
“Better now than later,” Fred murmured, voice low. “Yeah?”
George’s eyes flashed. He shook his head again, fierce. “No.”
Fred didn’t argue. He just let out a small breath through his nose, as if laughter was trapped there and he was forcing it back, and then he was gone.
Lee slipped out behind him. At the threshold, he glanced back at me with a look that said good luck and you’ve doomed us all in the same expression. Then the door clicked shut.
The room felt too quiet without them. Like you could hear the castle breathing.
I turned back to George.
He was still on his bed, shoulders rigid, hands folded together so tightly it looked painful. His jaw was clenched. His eyes were down again.
As if looking at me was the most dangerous thing in the world.
I folded my arms across my chest, wand still in my hand, and leant back against the door.
“Well?” I said.
George didn’t move.
The silence stretched. It wasn’t the comfortable kind. It was the kind that filled your ears until you couldn’t tell if you were hearing your own heartbeat or the room’s.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked, and the words came out sharper now, because the quiet was scraping the inside of me raw. “You spend all week acting like you’ve been possessed. You say—” my throat tightened around the memory and I pushed through it anyway, “you say things at dinner like you’ve been watching me through a telescope, and then you can’t even be bothered to look at me afterwards.”
George’s fingers twitched. His eyes flicked up for a split second—toward my wand, not my face—and then away again.
That did something to me that I hated. I pushed off the door and took a step closer.
“Talk,” I said. “Or I swear—”
George’s head snapped up at last. His eyes locked onto mine, wide and bright and wrong, like there was too much inside him and nowhere for it to go.
“Put your wand down,” he said quickly.
“Give me a reason.”
His mouth opened.
And then whatever it was that seemed to be torturing him this whole week jerked him by the throat and dragged itself out.
“I always thought it was—” he started, and then his eyes squeezed shut like he was trying to stop the sentence with sheer will. He failed. “I always thought it was—” he swallowed hard, “hot when you get like this.”
I didn’t move.
I didn’t breathe.
It hit me the way a Bludger hit—sudden, solid, stupidly physical. My body reacted before my brain could arrange meaning. I flinched back half a step as if the air between us has snapped.
“What?” I said, and it came out small, because I didn’t have anything else ready.
George made a sound that was half groan, half curse. He slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wild. My heart was doing something frantic and humiliating in my chest, like it was trying to climb out.
“What did you just say?” I demanded, and the words shook at the edges no matter how hard I tried to iron them flat. “Are you—are you mocking me?”
George shook his head violently, hand still over his mouth. It was almost comical, how desperate he looked, like a boy trying to wrestle his own face into silence.
I stared at him, heat rising in my cheeks for reasons I refused to examine.
“This is—” I said, and my voice wanted to splinter. I forced it steadier. “This is a new one, I’ll give you that. Insult me and then pretend you can’t speak. Very creative.”
George dragged his hand down his face, as if wiping away the disaster. His eyes were bright with something that looked suspiciously like panic.
“I’m not—” he started.
He clamped his mouth shut again, but it was useless. The words kept pressing at his teeth like they were alive.
I lifted my wand a fraction. Not to hex him—no matter what my pride was pretending, I wasn’t actually going to hex him—but to kept myself feeling like I had control of the room.
George’s gaze dropped to the wand and he lifted both hands, palms out, surrendering.
“Okay,” he said quickly. “Okay—don’t—just—put it down, yeah? Please.”
There it was again.
Please.
It landed strangely. Not like Fred’s theatrical pleas, all grin and performance. George’s plea had weight to it, like it cost him something to say.
I lowered my wand—only a little—because I wasn’t a fool.
George exhaled, and then the truth, relentless as gravity, finally won.
“I can’t—” he said, and the admission came out in a rush, raw with humiliation. “I can’t stop it. I’ve been trying all week and I can’t. I didn’t want—” his voice caught, and he swallowed it down harshly, “I didn’t want you to hear me say stupid things.”
My throat went tight again. “Stupid things,” I echoed confused.
George’s laugh came out sharp and miserable. “Yes,” he said. “Because every time I open my mouth around you it’s like—” he jerked his head, frustrated, “it’s like the truth has been sitting there waiting and now it thinks it’s got permission.”
I stared at him.
He looked back at me for the first time without dodging—really looked—eyes bright with something like dread.
I couldn’t tell if he looked terrified of me or of himself.
“You’re on something,” I said, and it wasn’t a question anymore. Pieces clicked in my head, one by one: the strange bluntness in the corridor, the slips at dinner, the way Fred had been strangling his own laughter, the way George had been moving through the castle like he was afraid of speaking within earshot of anyone.
George’s shoulders sagged as if the fight had finally left him. “Yes,” he said quietly.
“What?”
He flinched, as though the word itself hurt. Then, because he had to: “Truth potion.”
I blinked. The room swam faintly at the edges, not because of magic but because my brain was trying to hold too many things at once.
“You—” I started, and stopped. I tried again. “You drank a truth potion.”
George closed his eyes. “Yes.”
“And you’ve been avoiding me because—”
His eyes opened.
And then it all split out in one catastrophic, unstoppable flood, like he tried to dam a river with his hands and now the water had found every crack.
“Because I like you,” George said, words tumbling too fast, too honest, too vivid. “Because I’ve liked you for ages, and it’s pathetic, and I don’t know how to stop it, and I keep telling myself you hate me and you probably do because I’ve given you every reason to, and every time you glare at me it feels like—like you’re about to hex me and I deserve it, but—” he dragged in a breath, eyes fixed on my face like he couldn’t help it now, “but it’s also—Merlin, it’s also the only time you look at me properly.”
I didn’t move.
I couldn’t.
My hands had gone cold around my wand. George’s voice kept coming, helpless against the potion’s pull.
“I notice everything,” he said, and the words should sounded arrogant, but they didn’t—they sounded like confession, like a boy caught with something stolen in his pocket. “The way you set your jaw when you’re pretending you’re fine. The way you get sharper when you’re… when you’re not sure what to do. The way you act like you don’t care and then you care so much it leaks out anyway, and you hate that about yourself—” he broke off with a strangled laugh, like he knew he was stepping into dangerous territory, “and I shouldn’t know any of it, because you don’t give it to anyone on purpose, but I’ve been… watching. I can’t not. It’s like my eyes do it without asking me.”
My pulse was loud in my ears. My face felt too hot. My feet were rooted in place as if the floorboards had taken sides.
He swallowed, voice going lower, rougher.
“And you’re—” he shook his head, like the word was too big, “you’re… beautiful when you’re furious.”
I inhaled sharply, and it was the first real breath I’d managed since he started.
“No,” I said, because my brain was scrabbling for a rung to hold onto and that was the only one it found. “No. This—this is—”
He flinched immediately, like the refusal was a physical strike.
“I’m not joking,” George said, voice suddenly fierce, and it was so unlike the George I knew—so stripped bare—that it jolted something in me. “I would never— I would never joke about you. Not like that. Not—” his voice cracked, and the crack was worse than any loudness, “not about this.”
I stared at him, searching his face for the familiar shape of a prank—waiting for the grin, the wink, the bright cruelty of got you.
There was none.
Just George, sitting on the edge of his bed like he was waiting to be punished, hands clenched, eyes too bright.
And the worst part was: the more he spoke, the more my stomach twisted—not with humiliation, not with rage, but with something treacherously soft that made my chest hurt.
My wand dipped, forgotten.
“You’re expecting me to believe,” I said, and my voice was thin now despite myself, “that this is real.”
George let out a breath that sounded like laughter turned into pain. “I don’t have a choice,” he said. “I can’t lie.”
I shook my head. “Prove it.”
His eyes flickered up, startled. “What?”
“If you can’t lie,” I said, and the words scraped out of me like a dare I didn’t mean to make, “prove it. George’s mouth opened, and then he shut it, as if he could feel himself being dragged forward again.
“I—” he started, then winced. “I don’t know how to—”
I stepped closer, and the space between us felt suddenly too small, too charged. His gaze flickered to my face, then to my wand, then back again, like he couldn’t decide what scared him more.
“You’ve avoided me,” I said, quieter now, and the quiet was more dangerous. “All week. You looked right through me in the common room. You wouldn’t even look at me.”
George’s throat bobbed. “Because if I looked at you,” he said, and the truth came out as if it had been trapped behind his teeth for years, “I’d say things I can’t afford to say.”
My breath caught. I hated that it did. I hated the way my body betrayed me with small, involuntary tells.
George’s eyes flickered as if he noticed.
I lifted my chin—stubborn, defensive, Gryffindor to the bone.
“Fine,” I said, voice tight. “Prove. It,”
George stared at me for a long, unbearable moment. The room was so still I could hear the distant crackle of the common room fire below, muffled through floors and years.
Then he spoke again, because he couldn’t help it.
He said my name—just my name—like it tasted different in his mouth than it did in anyone else’s.
And that, somehow, was the most terrifying thing yet.
He pushed himself up from the bed slowly, like his body was arguing with his mind and winning. The mattress creaked behind him, a soft sound, and suddenly he was standing—really standing—close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look at him.
My gaze caught on his chest first, the way his jumper hung slightly loose on him, sleeves pushed up just enough to show forearms dusted faintly with freckles and scars that looked earned. I registered the height of him without meaning to—the way he blocked the lamplight, the way his shadow folded over me like it belonged there. I was aware, absurdly, of how warm he smelt—soap and smoke and something sharp underneath, like adrenaline.
George noticed.
Of course he did.
His breath stuttered—just enough to tell me he lost whatever fragile control he thought he had left.
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
I looked up. His eyes were dark, fixed on my face like he was memorising it against his will.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he added, and the words came out strained, like they’d been dragged through his teeth. “If you don’t stop, I’ll—”
He cut himself off, jaw tightening.
I lifted my chin a fraction. It wasn’t defiance exactly. It was instinct. It was the same thing that always made me step closer instead of back.
“You’ll what George?”
The silence that followed wasnt empty. It was crowded—packed tight with things neither of us had said out loud before now.
George’s laugh was breathless and disbelieving, like the sound had surprised him on the way out.
“You’re going to ruin me,” he said.
“Show me how,”
That’s all it took.
He leaned down and kissed me like he’d been waiting years and suddenly there was no one left to stop him.
It wasn’t careful.
It wasn’t polite.
It was the kind of kiss that stole the air from your lungs and left you dizzy in its place—his mouth warm and sure against mine, like he already knew exactly how this was meant to feel. My hands moved without consulting me, fingers fisting in the fabric at his shoulders, pulling him closer because distance had become unbearable.
His hands found my waist as if they’d always known where it was, steady and grounding and impossibly gentle for how much force there was behind the way he pressed me back against the door. I made a sound—small, involuntary—and he stilled for half a heartbeat, like he was listening for it again.
Then he kissed me deeper, slower now, as if he learned something and intended to keep it.
My head tilted without thinking, chasing the angle, and the world narrowed to heat and pressure and the way his thumb pressed into my side like he was anchoring himself. I was lightheaded—too aware of my own pulse, of the way my body seemed to lean into him like it’d been waiting for permission.
He made a sound—low, startled, almost a laugh—and then his hands shifted with sudden certainty. One moment I was standing there with the door cold at my back, and the next the floor dropped away.
I gasped as he lifted me, the movement smooth and instinctive, as if he’d done this in some other life and his body remembered even if his head didn’t. My fingers clutched at his shoulders, fabric wrinkling under my grip, and he carried me the short distance to his bed like he was afraid of setting me down too gently.
The mattress dipped beneath me. The lamplight swung. He followed, bracing himself over me, close enough that the air felt crowded, his weight a steady presence I didn’t want to escape.
My hips shifted up without thinking—seeking, answering—and the sound he made in response was rough and unguarded, torn from him like a confession. His hand tightened at my waist, fingers biting in just enough that it made my breath stutter, the other slid up to cradle my neck with a care that didnt match the hunger in his mouth.
“Merlin,” he muttered, and it wasn’t a joke.
His lips left mine and trailed along my jaw, unhurried now, as if he was mapping something he intended to keep. The sensation pulled a sound from me before I could stop it—soft, traitorous—and he caught it instantly, kissing me again to quiet it, a smile pressed into the corner of my mouth like he was pleased he found it.
He swore under his breath, the word lost to fabric and skin, and dipped to my neck. The warmth there was unbearable, dizzying; I tipped my head back without meaning to, fingers tightening in his hair as the world blurred at the edges. For a heartbeat, everything else—rules, pride, years of irritation held like armour—fell away, leaving only this: the way he held me like I were something precious and dangerous at the same time.
The door banged open.
“Right,” Fred’s voice announced, breathless and dramatic. “I had a bad feeling and—”
George froze.
I froze.
Fred took in the scene in one sweeping glance—and then he bursted out laughing, loud and delighted, like he’d just won a bet no one else knew he placed.
“Oh, this is brilliant,” he wheezed. “Absolutely brilliant. I go to rescue my brother and instead I—”
“Wow, mate,” George said dryly, not lifting his head, voice rough with laughter he was trying not to let loose. “Impeccable timing.”
Fred wiped at his eyes, still grinning. “Never would’ve guessed,” he added, ignoring what George just said as he glanced between us. “Honestly thought she’d hex you before she ever kissed you.”
George finally looked up, one hand still steady at my waist, eyes bright and unapologetic. “Out,” he says.
Fred snorted. “Touchy.”
“Fred.”
“All right, all right.” He backed toward the door, laughter trailing behind him like sparks. “Carry on, then. I’ll just—” he paused, smirked, “—pretend I saw none of that.”
The door shut.
The quiet that followed was different—softer, warmer, humming with something that hadn’t settled yet.
George looked back at me, thumb brushing my jaw like he was checking if I were real.
Still close. Still here.
And for once, neither of us was in a hurry to move.
