The Last Great Hogwarts Dynasty

chapter eight.

December 1st, 1994

The winter had laid a thin layer of snow over the Hogwarts grounds and a christmas buzz hung around the school. The first trial was over and done with, and for a moment, everyone could relax, knowing that a well earned break was on the horizon.

All five of them sat in the library and only three of them tried to complete their homework - the other two were levitating small scrunched up peices of parchment and launching them at unsuspecting students across the library.

Without looking up from her book on Charms, she raised her hand to George's and lowered his wand it for him. Despite her squashing his fun, his eyes were only reflecting admiration for her and he respected her wishes.

'It's almost christmas! You guys are no fun.' Fred exclaims in a whisper. Em looked up, brows furrowed in annoyance.

'If you're going to be like that, you can just leave.' She whispered back. Her legs were laid on Cedric's lap as she sat in a rather uncomfortable looking angle. Cedric wasn't even paying attention to the bickering and simply played with Em's hair in between his fingers while scribbling down some notes.

Fred glared at her and then at Cedric. He always seemed to be glaring at Cedric now adays.

Sensing the rest of the groups disinterest in having any fun at all this lunchtime, the twins decided to get up and leave. Katrina finally looked up when she noticed George stoop to her sitting level and whisper in her ear.

'We still on for later? Don't forget to bring that stuff I need.' She could hear his grin as he talked.

'Yeah, course.' She smiled back before giving his hand a gentle squeeze, out of their friend's lines of sight. That's all it took for George to turn bright red, as if they hadn't been doing this for over a week now. Every sign of affection given to him still felt new to George and he didn't think he'd ever get used to it.

After that night up in the Astronomy tower, they'd sat and talked for hours under the night sky. They talked about what they thought the kiss meant for them and they landed on the mutual agreement to stop playing around and to see where it would lead them. So that's what they did, but on their terms. They both agreed that nobody could know, at least not for a little while. That way, if it didn't end up working out, nobody would be any the wiser that anything had happened at all. Another good reason was to keep Snape from running his mouth to Katrina's parents - dating a Weasley would definitely earn her some unthinkable punishments.

Every night since, they would meet up and just talk and laugh together (with a few kisses here and there), or Kat would bring her guitar at George's request and they would sit under the big oak tree just outside of the castle. George was eager to learn the instrument and Kat was more than happy to teach him. It was another one of many of Andromeda's gifts that Katrina had stashed away in the castle. She'd taught herself how to play and was rather proud of her secret muggle-like talent.

'Am I doing it right?' George asked, concentrating as hard as he could on the brown acoustic guitar that lay in his lap, biting his tongue as he did so. He was trying to play a C sharp major, but kept resting his hand weight on the strings, making it sound rather unpleasant.

'Almost. Here,' Katrina shuffle in closer while the tree that towered over them shook gently in the winter breeze. Her hand craned around with his and she adjusted the weight of his arm so that he had some more space to place his fingers on the neck of the guitar. 'Try again now.'

Strumming the guitar, the note sounded as it should and George grinned ear to ear, feeling accomplished.

'Lindsay Buckingham, who?' George smirked, a bit too cocky and Katrina laughed at him.