Forget-Me-Not (George Weasley Love Story)

Chapter Five

"So... You're telling me that the wedding is in a month and you still haven't organised a thing?" Felix was sat cross legged on the paisley rug placed snugly in front of a roaring fire. George wrinkled his nose, arms crossed as his gangly frame lent against the door, fork lodged through his shirt sleeve, pinning him to the wood. "Ever think that it's annoying Hermione? I mean, maybe that's why she threw the fork at you."

"I'm sorry, did you say something? I can't hear you over the sound of noodles, all I heard was 'garflarblasbdb'" George ducked as another fork was thrown at him, although that was reasonably difficult with his arms immobile. Felix rolled her eyes, taking to eating her food with her hands.

"Merlin's beard-" The door swung open, trapping George between the door and the bookshelf. Aphrodite flounced in, nose pointed upwards in premature disgust as her eyes turned to Felix.

"Oh, I was expecting Georgie." She muttered, fiddling with the bracelets snaking up her wrist, trying to avoid eye contact with Felix as if it would spread disease. Aphrodite screamed a somewhat pretentious scream as a hand reached out from behind the door and grabbed her bare shoulder.

"Little help?" Aphrodite pouted, pulling the door back and squealing in fake delight.

"Georgie! There you are! What are you doing behind there, silly?" She cooed, pulling the fork out of his sleeve and fluttering her clumped eyelashes. "Were you playing hide and seek? I love that game!"

Reluctantly, George smiled at Aphrodite, eyebrows furrowed, giving him the impression of a somewhat confused Cheshire Cat. A door slammed shut, disrupting a layer of dust from the ceiling and making the people in the portraits hung from the wall disgruntledly yell.

"Bimbo." Felix growled, heels clacking on the cobblestones. Her shift had ended a few hours ago, but George had made her stay for lunch. How extraordinarily kind... No she thought. No emotional attachments, it's much easier that way.

"Dumb, pretentious bitc-" She held her tongue, slashing her wand for every obscenity that ran through her head as she described Aphrodite, the sparks cutting the rain like a blade.

Felix hissed bitterly as the hem of her cloak dragged in a puddle. She new it was March, but did it really have to rain so much? Turning the corner, she pulled her collar up against the wind, kept her head down. And marched determinedly onwards, stopping only to bathe in the warmth of a bakery, before reaching the end of the street and ducking into an alleyway.

In reality, she was only a street away from the shop, but for her it was a world away. Tucked between an apothecary and a second hand book shop, was her home. Felix shook her head, tendrils of glossy hair bouncing as the raindrops flicked off, a slender black cat curling round her feet.

She slumped against the wall of the basement of the apothecary, the steps from the street already pouring water into the dark, murky room. Mr Oscair let her use the basement temporarily, just as long as she didn't mind cleaning up the apothecary every now and then.

The deflated mattress, spilling its stuffing onto the concrete floor, was covered in a mismatch of blankets and bedding sourced from various waste bins around the shops. A single oil lamp hung limply from a ceiling hook, its dim glow barely penetrating the dark corners of the room. Felix shut the crumbling door, its planks of wood starting to mould and fester. The black cat slunk back to its corner, curling up in a cardboard box full of the stuffing ripped from the mattress.

A greying mirror was propped against the far wall, to the left of the mattress, the foot of which faced the door, and to the right of the now snoring cat. An assortment of vials littered the floor, and Felix sank in front of the mirror whose glass was peppered with a spider's web of cracks. Slowly, she slipped off her right boot and massaged a pale white cream onto the mangled mess that used to be her toe, wincing and hissing with the pain.

Rain hammered onto the small, slit window built at the top of the wall against which the cat slept. Felix had left it open a few days ago to find that another cat had come in and eaten the tiny slither of food she had bought for her own cat. I should really name him. But for now, Cat was as good a name as any.

Felix massaged her foot, slid her woollen sock back on and stood up, struggling to pull her boot on as she hopped around the room on one leg, knocking over the vials of medicine and kicking the box over, the cat sprawling onto the floor and hissing violently. Finally, she stopped hopping, only to trip backwards over the cat and straight onto the merciless concrete.

Or so she thought.

"Felix?" A strong pair of hands grabbed her under the arms and swung her upright onto her feet, the strong scent of gunpowder heavy in the air. Felix screamed, leaping away and managing to trip over the cat again. The man at the door furrowed. His eyebrows, holding out his hands to help her back up again.

"M-mr Weasley?" Felix pulled away and hugged her knees to her chest as George glanced quickly around the basement. "What happened to your face?"

"I followed you home and the first thing you ask is 'What happened to your face?'?" George asked, somewhat bemused as he sank down beside her on the mattress. Felix glared under a mass of curly black hair and George smirked. "Fine, if I tell you, will you explain why you're living here?" A scowl was his only answer. "Bit of a problem at the shop, I tried to be all inconspicuous when I following you when this little shi-.... This delightful young gentleman decided it would be funny to set off a dozen exploding candies-"

George was cut off by a bout of raucous laughter as Felix used the cuff of her shirt to wipe the glistening gunpowder from his nose and fringe.

"Why did you follow me?"

"You said you'd gotten help from a homeless wizard's charity, so I was going to donate some money for you until they told me that a Felicia Williams had never visited..."

"Mr Weasley, I don't want to talk about it." Felix muttered, rubbing her shaking hands together and wishing there was heating in the basement. George picked up a blanket and wrapped it snugly round her shoulders.

"You don't have to live like this, I can help you-"

"I don't need your help! She snapped, quickly covering her mouth as her eyes filled with tears. "Mr Weasley, I'm so sorry, please please please don't fire me!"

"I won't fire you, on one condition." George smirked, nose wrinkling when his mouth moved. He flicked a strand of hair out of his eyes, and continued. "Let me find you somewhere to live."

Felix nodded, but had no idea what she had let herself in for.