Royalty (George Weasley) (Completed)

Morning Post

The potions classroom seemed darker and colder today, if that was even possible. The torches on the dark stone walls were throwing ominous shadows all around the room.
I always dreaded potions with the slytherin's, as did most of the gryffindor's. George was sat to my right with Fred next to him. I had been dreading this specific lesson ever since my encounter with Malfoy that previous weekend.
"Prepare your ingredients for today's lesson, I don't imagine any talking will be necessary." Snape's monotone voice broke through the quiet chatter of the students, making silence fall upon the classroom as people quickly got up and collected their ingredients.
I gathered all that I would need and headed back to our table, preparing my cauldron for the lesson.
"I want each of you to brew and prepare a vial of Draught of Peace, you will find instructions on page one hundred and eighty nine." Snape announced, taking a seat behind the desk at the head of the class.
We began work on our potions in silence, despite Fred and George who were quietly discussing the newest improvements on their Skiving Snackboxes.
"Snape is going to fail you both if you don't get to work.." I warned them, not interested in giving Snape a reason to pick on me sitting with the twins.
They rolled their eyes at me and began working on their potions. I continued to work on mine, pleased with how mine was going until I noticed the vapors releasing from it were a dark red, not the lavender color the book said it should be.
"Lestrange, clearly the book says to crush the gurdyroot, not chop it. I'd imagine you'd have learned to properly read by your seventh year.." Snapes voice taunted, making my fists ball at my side.
George looked up to say something, an angry look on his face. I quickly yanked the sleeve of his robes, causing him to back down.
"It's not worth losing house points.." I whispered, feeling the anger radiate off of him.
"Slimy little git.." I heard George mumble, making me chuckle under my breath.
"Distracted, Eliza?" Malfoy simply couldn't let a chance of taunting me go by without taking advantage of it.
Our table was unfortunately closest to the ingredient shelves, so it was quite easy for him to walk over here without raising any suspicion. It also didn't hurt that Malfoy was Snape's favorite student.
Fred and George's heads snapped up when they heard him, both of them ready to come to my defense.
"Go away, Malfoy" I warned, hands trembling slightly out of anger.
He chuckled, pretending as if he was searching for some hard to find object on the shelves, "Now, now. There's no need to be rude. I just thought I'd check up on my cousin. Family first and all that.." Sarcasm was dripping from his every word.
"You are no family of mine," I hissed out, keeping an eye out for any sign of Professor Snape noticing our little squabble.
"Oh, but I am. And I'd hate to have to tell dear aunt Bellatrix how you've been treating others.." my heart skipped a beat, there's no way she would be staying with the Malfoy family, surely.
"You're bluffing. You haven't heard a word from her," I turned on the spot, trying to keep my voice steady.
"Oh, but I'm not. You see my mother and her were always close. Want me to relay a message to her for you? I'm sure she'd love to hear from her sweet little blood traitor daughter.."
"You're lying!" my voice rose without warning, heads turning in our direction and Snape's eyes snapping up to look at us between curtains of his long, greasy hair.
"I assume you thought the 'no talking' rule didn't apply to someone of your status, Miss Lestrange. Twenty points from Gryffindor. One more word and it will be detention." Snape growled, his eyes boring into mine like daggers.
"Apologies, professor." I said as calmly as I could, unwilling to let him intimidate me.
Malfoy smirked and stalked away back to the Slytherin table, all of them whispering and pointing over to me.
"He's lying, he's got to be.." I heard George say quietly beside me, but I kept silent. Mainly because I didn't want to give Snape the satisfaction of giving me a weeks worth of detentions, but also because of the weird feeling that was gathering up in the pit of my stomach.
Perhaps Malfoy was right. It would make sense. It is common knowledge that the Malfoy family have been longtime supporters of Voldemort, and I was well aware of my relation to Draco. Of course, I didn't know how close my mother had been with her sister, so maybe he was lying.. But who knows? It's possible she had no where else to go once she broke out of Azkaban. It'd be smart, to run to one of the families that had been under the protection of Voldemort.. Maybe Malfoy was telling the truth..
I had hardly noticed the bell ringing or the people clearing their stations and gathering their belongings, I only realized class had ended when George tapped me on my shoulder.
"Class is over, Liz."
I nodded, clearing my own station quickly and heading out of the cold dungeon room with the twins.
We walked up the stairs and through the doors that led towards the castle grounds, hoping to spend some time outdoors before our next lesson. The weather was still nice out and we were in desperate need of some sunshine after that lesson.
We decided on a spot under the shade of a birch tree that overlooked the Black Lake. A merman had peered his head out of the water as we approached, scouting out to see if we were enemy or foe. Fred threw a stick at it, causing the creature to angrily brandish his staff at him and dive back under the water.
"Do you two reckon Malfoy was telling the truth back there? About my mother staying with his family, I mean.." I blurted out, meaning to ease into this question but feeling impatient. I wanted to know what they thought.
I had clearly caught them by surprise, George looking quite taken aback as he answered, "Well, it does make some sense. But I'm also not one hundred percent positive he wasn't just saying that to get under your skin. He's been a right foul git lately.."
"Yeah, I mean his family's about as bad as your mum, right? Sort of makes- ow!" Fred stopped abruptly as George hit him over the side of the head.
"Want to try and be a bit more sensitive next time, mate.."
"No, it's okay. Really.. I know she's awful, there's no way getting around that. It's just something I'm having to learn to live with." as I spoke I pulled my knees up to my chest, resting my head upon them and staring into the water of the lake.
We sat for a while, watching the various merpeople come up from the water and point at Fred. Clearly news travels fast down there, and they were not happy with his actions.
"Oh come off it, I was just having a laugh!" Fred called to them, laughing as one of them threw an obscene gesture his way.
I leaned up against George's side as I took out my copy of A History of Magic and began looking over the passages from the last lesson.
"Eliza!" I looked up at the sound of my name being called, seeing Cormac waving in my direction and headed our way.
"Great.." I thought I heard George mumble as I jumped to my feet.
I met him halfway, wrapping my robes closer to me as a gentle breeze blew by.
"Fancy a walk around the grounds?" he asked me, reaching for my hand as he spoke.
I took his hand in mine and let them fall between us, "I'd like that."
We turned to walk down to the edge of the lake when I saw George nearly sprinting back up into the castle.
"Where's George going?" I asked Fred as we got close enough.
He seemed a bit nervous as he answered, "Um, he said he had something to take care of, yeah." he sounded as if he was trying to convince himself of his obvious lie, but I let it slide. It was hard to ignore the slight pang in my chest though as Cormac led me down to the water, pulling me away from Fred.
I noticed a group of Hufflepuffs not too far from us, pointing and whispering in hushed voices as we walked by. Cormac saw them too, but quickly looked away, flustered. I ignored it, because clearly they were just a little boy crazy as I walked by with one of the more handsome boys in the school. I couldn't help but notice that Cormac seemed quite intent on getting away from them, though.

"So, how was your little walk with Cormac yesterday? Hermione and I saw you from breezeway," Ginny asked me, helping herself to the plate of scones in front of us at the breakfast table.
"It was nice, I suppose.." I trailed off, not terribly sure I wanted to talk about it.
It was nice, in the beginning. But then Cormac led me to the gardens where we sat on one of the benches behind a butterfly bush. It seems he had more on his mind than just having a short chat.
"Pavarti swears she saw you both snogging!" Hermione gushed, her brown curls moving excitedly as she spoke.
"Well, yeah. He wasn't really in the mood for talking." I admitted, trying to brush it off as no big deal.
"Was it not good? I mean.." Ginny looked around to see if anyone was close and dropped her voice, "Is he a bad kisser?"
I nearly snorted, "No, no. He's fine, I suppose. Just a bit.. handsy. It's only that we've just started seeing each other and all that, but I guess it's a good sign? I don't know.. I wouldn't mind getting to really know him some more."
The conversation dropped as the post owls began flying in. Not expecting anything, I went back to my bacon, picking off small pieces and eating them slowly as I did not have much of an appetite now.
I nearly jumped back when a large black barn owl appeared in front of me, sticking it's leg out to me in a dignified manner.
"Odd.. I wasn't expecting anything.." I trailed off, untying the letter from the owls leg.
"Maybe it's something from Sirius," Hermione suggested, peaking over her copy of the Daily Prophet.
I opened the letter, unable to recognize the scratch of the person who had written it:

Dearest Daughter,

I must say, I'm a tad disappointed I have yet to hear from you since my release. No problem, I'm sure we will see each other shortly. Are Hogsmeade trips still happening for students above their third year? Just wondering, of course.. I have been hearing wonderful things about you, my dear. I look forward to seeing you soon.

All my love,
Your Mother

My heart sank in my chest. I clutched the letter in my hand, unable to meet Ginny nor Hermione's eyes, who had both read it over my shoulder.
"Liz, you've got to show this to Dumbledore." Hermione said with an air of confidence. She was right. However, I can't allow myself to run to Dumbledore with all my problems. She could simply be trying to scare me, couldn't she? From what I've heard, it definitely seems like something she would try to do.
"What's going on?" Ron's voice made me jump back to reality, and I watched as he, Harry, Fred and a surly looking George walked our way. It must have looked suspicious to see three of us gathered around like this.
I simply held out the note, George taking it in his hand. They were silent for a moment as they read it, realization dawning on each of their faces once they finished it.
"Well, that's it. You aren't going to Hogsmeade anymore." George was the first to speak, the others still looking quite scared after what they had read.
"Excuse me?" I asked, a bit shocked at him telling me what to do.
"She's clearly going to try and find you there, it's way too dangerous, Liz."
"I don't want to let her dictate-"
"I know, I know, trust me. You don't want to let her have that control over you. But there is a difference in stubbornly ignoring her threats and walking right into her trap."
I paused, perhaps he was right. I didn't think of it that way.
"I still think you should show Dumbledore.." Hermione mumbled once more, making me roll my eyes.
"It doesn't concern him, if I just stay out of Hogsmeade I will be fine. There's no way she could get into the castle, especially not with Dumbledore here." I understood Hermione's concern, really, I did.
She sighed, accepting that she had lost this battle. I smiled at her, trying to reassure her that everything was fine.