raison d'être (george weasley x reader)

7.11

The noise of furious scratching plagued the library, the only breaks being the occasional shuffling and slamming of books.

Y/N's head hung low to the table as she frustratedly shifted her attention between three different books. A pile of torn and crumpled pieces of parchment stood tall on the edge of the table that she had taken over earlier that afternoon.

Her hair was a frizzy mess atop her head, indicative of the numerous times she had carded her fingers through it, trying to soothe herself out of letting out irritated shouts. Her bottom lip wasn't a sight better — she had chewed it relentlessly during the past couple of hours, leaving it a slightly torn and swollen wreck.

Squeezing her eyes shut once more, Y/N willed the gradually worsening headache between her brows to go away. She pressed the palms of her hands into her eye sockets, letting out a deep breath.

"We found a book on medieval torture methods, figured it might mention something similar to Umbridge's quill, and a couple of more healing books," Alicia said, sliding into the seat next to Y/N while Angelina took the one across from them. Both girls set down stacks of books onto the shared table.

Although neither looked as bad as Y/N, both sported the same tired look and their foreheads seemed permanently creased from stress. Despite the cold weather outside, all three girls had their sleeves rolled up their forearms, bodies heating up from a blend of irritation and impatience.

In their seven years together, none had had to worry about their friends this much. Where previous issues lay in complaints about Snape's endless detentions, current ones circulated around physical acts of violence and no amount of assurance from the boys could soothe them of their worries.

"Have you heard back from your mother?" Angelina asked.

"Yeah... Here," Y/N replied, rummaging through her bag momentarily to procure a slightly crumpled letter. "She says the spell on the quill itself sounds like something St. Mungo's lower-level departments deal with a lot. I'm not too sure, but it sounds like it will just have to heal on its own."

"But surely there's something we can do to speed it up," Alicia inputted, already flipping through an advanced healer's guidebook she had found in the back corner of the library. "I mean, Madame Pomfrey can get other scars to fade within a week, so why wouldn't we be able to help with these."

"Well, even if we can get them to heal faster, it won't do much if she just keeps giving them detention," Angelina pointed out begrudgingly. "I mean, they have another one tonight just for standing outside of the Potions classroom. Snape hasn't even given them detention for that and he knows when they've stolen something."

"We're also running low on Murtlap," Y/N noted, eyes skimming the pages of a book on plants that Neville had recommended to her. "She's started targeting some of the younger students and- Well, you know how the boys are."

"While I applaud them for being honorable and looking out for them, I'm sure there's enough to go around," Angelina said. "They really didn't have to hand out our entire stock. I mean, it's a bowl of essence — it's meant to last for a while and be shareable."

"They're convinced they can withstand the pain," Alicia tsked. "Not that Lee is doing that good of a job of hiding it. I mean, he's acting like we don't know him well enough to catch on."

"You do have to give them some credit though," Angelina shrugged. "With how often they smile and laugh, you'd think nothing's going on."

"But that's the problem, isn't it?" Y/N asked quietly. "Everyone thinks they're fine."

The conversation settled after that and the girls spent the rest of the afternoon grueling over multiple textbooks, guidelines, historical timelines, and anything else that might possibly point them in the direction of a cure of some kind. It was only when they had missed the first thirty minutes of dinner that Madame Pince finally forced them out of the library. She muttered a string of scolding words, all along the lines of being tired of their mumbling and needing them to maintain their health.