the gentle moon / george weasley

you need new friends

George was chasing August around the greenhouse with a lizard he found hiding in one of the flower pots. August was dodging George's every move, taking a corner around a desk quickly or diving under a table before he got her. She took a corner too fast and ran her hip into the corner of one of the work benches.

She laughed through her pain when George quickly dropped the lizard back into the pot and ran to her, diving to his knees next to her. They were both on the floor trying to catch their breaths from laughing so hard with tears streaming down their face when Neville came running into the greenhouse.

They both looked up at him smiling, but their smiles faded fast when they saw the fear and sadness in Neville's eyes. With a painful groan, August got up fast limping to the boy. He was breathing fast with tears threatening to fall from his eyes, looking all over the place for something to distract him, but nothing was helping.

"Neville!" August grabbed his chubby cheeks, forcing his face to look at him, but his eyes kept wandering, "Love, look at me!"

Neville's eyes snapped to August's, and the tears finally fell and he engulfed her in a hug as his legs gave out. August quickly grabbed him fully under his arms, trying to keep him up. She looked at George quickly and with her eyes, she pointed at a chair next to him. George scrambled to his feet, picking up the chair and putting it behind Neville so August could help him down. George quickly grabbed an empty terra cotta plant, trying to fill it with water but he forgot there was a drainage hole at the bottom, so it never filled. August quickly transfigured a cup next to George to fill, and the pair forced Neville to drink something before he passed out.

"Neville, what happened?" August's voice was shaky, George could feel her fear that someone did something to him, "Who did this to you?"

Neville, with a shaky hand, handed his empty cup back to George. "Have you read today's paper?" He asked George with a wavy voice.

"No." George said, giving August a quick look "Why? What happened?"

August remembered grabbing the paper at breakfast, but she didn't read it yet. It was in her bag still rolled up with twine around it. The head stories lately hadn't been exciting or anything, so she didn't think about unrolling it when she saw it.

"It's in my bag," August looked up at George, "Go get my bag."

George ran to the other side of the greenhouse, ripping all of the stuff out of it until he found the rolled-up paper. August watched as his eyes scanned the page, and then he handed August the paper and headed to the door.

"I need to go write to my mum..." George said, "Get Neville back inside, it's too cold. I'll meet you two in the common room." George stopped, "Actually bring him to your common room, it's quieter..."

"George!" August got up, and when she went to go after him she saw the headline.

MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN

MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS "RALLYING POINT"

FOR OLD DEATH EATERS

Ten black-and-white photographs filled the whole of the front page, nine showing wizards' faces and the tenth, a witch's. Some of the people in the photographs were silently jeering; others were tapping their fingers on the frame of their pictures, looking insolent. Each picture was captioned with a name and the crime for which the person had been sent to Azkaban. Antonin Dolohov, read the legend beneath a wizard with a long, pale, twisted face who was sneering up at August, convicted of the brutal murders of Gideon and Fabian Prewett.