Protégée (George Weasley)

Chapter Twelve

The Johnsons had sent Lisa an invitation to spend the holidays at their lovely home. As much as she hated to, Lisa had to decline, as her parents had already arranged a rather extravagant visit to Sydney, Australia, as yet another one of their Quidditch congregations were hosted there. She absolutely adored the Johnsons more than her parents, as harsh as that sounded, which made her less excited to the fact that she was going to spend the entirety of her break with them.

"It's fine, Lis," Noel consoled, "My parents understand. And they would want you to spend it with your family, too."

"But I'm not fine with it." she said, zipping her duffel bag close as soon as she finished double checking, "I mean, your mum's pecan pie..." she sighed, "I love her pecan pie."

He chuckled, "Well I'll make sure bring some with me when we come back from break. Besides, it's going to be a perfect opportunity for you to bond with them. I mean, sure, all they're going to ask about is your Quidditch status..."

"Which I'm still working on," Lisa reminded him, as the two of them walked out of the common room, the carriages waiting for them to take them to the Hogsmeade station, "And progress is going terrible, by the way. I nearly broke my neck the last time I tried practicing alone, had it not been for Weasley."

"Weasley?" Noel repeated, "Which one, though?"

"One of the twins...George...I guess. Atleast that's who he said he was.", they turned a corner, before descending down the stairs, "You know how they are sometimes. They like to switch around their identities." she chuckled, rather fondly as she remembered witnessing it numerous times.

"What was he doing in the Quidditch pitch?" asked Noel, Lisa noticing the suspicion creeping up in his tone.

"He wasn't doing anything in the pitch, per se." Lisa replied, "He was on his way to Hagrid's and he heard me screaming."

This made him laugh.

"You might have screamed like a bloody banshee, then."

"Hey," she said in her defense, "You'd probably scream like that too if you were so close to falling to your death. I can't die yet. I still have a lot of things that I want to do."

"Yeah? What is on Elisabeth Branson's bucket list that she hasn't done yet? Ride a dolphin, set your parents' broom on fire..."

"No! Who has bucket lists like that? Those goals sound absolutely barbaric."

"You'd be surprised..."

"I just want the simple things in life, you know? See my siblings happy and well, seeing you happy, graduating, getting a decent job...falling in love." she chuckled, "I'd atleast want to fall inlove before I die."

"Don't we all?"

Callan and Maisie were already in a carriage by the time they had arrived downstairs, the two overeager to get to Australia, especially Callan, after he had heard of the rather terrifying species of snakes and spiders that resided in the land down under. Maisie was just excited with the prospect of having Christmas in warm weather. For some reason, she greatly disliked the cold.

Lisa was just dreading the whole trip in general, knowing full well that her parents would greatly insist on showing her terrible Quidditch skills, which would lead her to perpetual embarrassment in front of the Australian Quidditch team. Oh joy.

"Don't look too excited, Elisabeth." Callan chimed from their train comparment. It had started running not nearly ten minutes ago, and Lisa was showing her pretty hard-to-miss nervous mannerisms. She had already braided and unbraided Maisie's hair several times to the extent that she had yanked herself free from her older sister's hands and sat as far away from her as possible.