Hunted AIAOY 3

Chapter 22

"Sleep we-"  Harry flinched at the look Rebecca gave him.  "Sleep well, I did.  That's all I was going to say."

Rebecca rolled her eyes at his amendment and turned her attention back to the books in front of her.  "Good.  That's all it should have been anyway."

"Should have been what?"  Harry asked confused.

"All you were going to say!"  Rebecca snapped.  She stood up and closed her book with her finger in it to save her spot.  "I'll see you in class, if you think I can manage that without fucking up!"

Hermione closed the book of her own at their table in the Great Hall, giving the boys a sad look.  "Does that need to be the first thing you say to her every morning?"

"What else should I say?"  Harry said shortly.  "'Glimpse into the future last night?'"

Fred's head jerked back to them instead of from the door where it had wandered when Rebecca had left so abruptly.  "Oi!  Say it louder, why don't you?"  Both boys looked around carefully, finding no one listening to them.

Harry looked down ashamed, he was wrong to have said that.  "Damn.  I didn't mean to say that.  I just-I don't know."

"I know, mate."  Ron bumped Harry with his shoulder.  "Do what I do, don't ask anything."

"Or," Hermione offered with a roll of her eyes.  "Just balance between the two of you: Asking too much and not at all.  It doesn't have to be the only thing you ask, certainly not the first."

Fred nodded and beside him to see if George agreed, but he was gone.  

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George had left the second Fred had turned to Harry, though not to evade his twin.  No, George simply wanted to make sure Rebecca was alright and that the outburst had been just that: An outburst and nothing more.  He saw someone sitting down an empty corridor between two suits of armour and knew exactly who liked to sit like that when they were avoiding something.

"Taking a pause on your rage to next class?"

Rebecca scowled up at him, though her expression lasted only a second before fading away into a sadness that seemed too old for her to even manage.  "Something like that."

George sat next to her and scooted against her.  "You know he's just worried about you."

"I know."

"And you know that he only asks so many questions because of where he grew up."

"I know that, too."  Rebecca clenched her fists.  "But it's not just about-I feel like I'm suffocating when he asks me so many things!  I can hardly breathe without him asking me if it's whooping cough."  The anger that she had begun with had long faded by the end of her thought.  "And I know that that makes me a bad twin, too."

George gasped.  "A bad-Are you mad?"  George turned, crossing his legs in front of him so that he faced her entirely.  "Rebecca, that is not true."

"It is!"  She said quietly, wiping at her cheek before she had to add feeling badly about crying in front of George to the morning.  "I know it is, you don't have to lie!"

George leaned a little closer, catching her eyes so she could see that there wasn't a single trace of dishonesty in him.  "Not only am I not lying, you being a bad sister is the most untrue thing I've ever heard."  He sighed, shaking his head.  "It's-Neither of you is used to having a sibling, alright?  He feels like he needs to...suffocate, in your words.  Think about what little he's shared about your aunt and uncle."  George grew more serious as he was forced to think of some of the things Harry had said.