Sparks Fly || A George Weasley Story

Year 5: Going Through Changes (and not all of them are magical)

It had been a little over a month since everything had happened with Heather, and tonight was the next full moon... the night before we were supposed to be going back to school, and a night that I would not be spending with Heather. This whole Animagus thing was going to take a lot longer than I'd originally imagined.

You see, I had to hold that mandrake leaf in my mouth from full moon to full moon as the first step. This means that since I didn't place it in my mouth that night, I had to wait until tonight. This also means that Heather is going to have to spend her first transformation at Hogwarts alone as well since after I held the leaf in my mouth, I'd have to add it and a strand of my hair into a potion that I then have to add a silver spoon of dew that hasn't been touched by human foot or sunlight for seven days. Then, as though that weren't enough, I have to wait until lightning is in the sky so I can drink my potion and transform.

Hopefully this will go the way it's supposed to instead of leaving me as a hideous half human, half animal monstrosity. Yeah, that's happened before, and the worst part is that there is no cure for that. Like, there's no way that we've found yet to change someone back into their complete human form.

McGonagall did say that it was advanced magic...
But, for now, I was sitting at my own kitchen table, doing my best to eat breakfast with this stupid leaf stuck to my cheek. I'd just put it in this morning, and it was already getting on my nerves. I didn't know how anyone makes it a whole month this way. However, I was hungry, and I was not going to let this lead keep me from getting a second plate of food (something that up until Christmas was not something that happened in our house).

"Juniper, what are you doing?" Leilani asked as I reached for the food in front of us.

"I'm getting a second plate," I shrugged, "What does it look like?"

"Are you sure that you need a second plate?" She asked, looking as though she was trying to hold back a laugh.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Gardenia asked, making her own second plate while Oleander was trying his best not to fall back asleep into his food.

"Oh nothing," Leilani shrugged, "It's just that, I don't think Juniper here is going to even fit into her old uniforms anymore. She has been eating an awful lot this summer."

"Leilani, that's not nice," Gardenia said, looking from me and her sister to the food she'd put on her plate with disappointment.

"Yeah, Leilani, no one is talking about how much you've been eating," I said, "Or how much Oleander's eating. We're all eating more because there's more available. There's nothing wrong with it."

"I never said there was anything wrong with eating," She sighed, brushing blonde hair over her shoulder, "All I'm saying is that you seem to be... how do I put this, holding onto your food a little more than the rest of us."

"Leilani, what in Merlin's name is wrong with you," Amaryllis asked as she walked over to the table, slapping Leilani in the back of the head with the cloth she'd been using the dry some dishes, "Weight gain or loss is not something that we talk about because that can really hurt someone's self-image."

"I wasn't trying to hurt anyone's feelings," Leilani pouted, "I was just bringing up that she might need new uniforms this year. Merlin, why can't anyone around here take a joke?"

"Because that wasn't a joke," Oleander mumbled, blinking away the sleep that still hung in his eyes, "Jokes are supposed to be funny. When you learn to make a joke, we'll learn to take one."

"Shut up Oleander, you always side with Juniper," Leilani rolled her eyes.

"Because when it comes to the two of you, she's always right." He shrugged.