Royalty (George Weasley) (Completed)

Misletoe

Fall turned in to winter slowly but surely, the leaves leaving us for good and blankets of snow covering the grounds. Filch had been in an extra bad mood due to the watery mess it had been leaving near the entrances, so it was best to avoid him.
Lessons were getting harder, especially with N.E.W.T's looming right around the corner. Snape had only been giving them harder potions, and McGonagall was having them write more than ever. Even Lupin was cracking down, no longer tolerating Fred and George's usual antics in class.
"I'm sorry you lot, but the exams are close. Everyone needs to be taking it a bit more serious." he had told us all after class one day, looking more tired and more shabby than he had in months.
The only silver lining, it seemed, was the Christmas break was in one short week. Everyone would be gathering at the Burrow for security precautions. So everyone would be there, and that sounded wonderful to me. A nice, quiet Christmas holiday was what we really needed right now.
The castle had been decorated beautifully by the house elves, as usual. It seems every year they found a way to outdo themselves.
"Hard to walk around this place without getting hit in the head with tinsel," George complained one day, ripping a strand of tinsel down and shoving it in a large vase, which rattled violently in return.
I was looking forward go seeing Sirius again. It will be the first time since the incident that I will see him, and I was really excited for it. I was worried about him, and I knew he was worried about me. I was proud of the gift I had gotten him, too. I got him a watch with two hands, one with my name on it, and one with Harry's name. I got the idea from Mrs. Weasley's kitchen clock. It pointed at whatever state we were in, such as "school", or "home", "travelling", or "mortal danger". I also got him some of his favorite cauldron cakes.
The week went on slowly, leaving me very little time to spend with anyone. I had so much homework, mostly from Snape, to finish before the break and that was all I could focus on.
"Come on, just take a short little break, Liz." George tried to convince me Thursday evening by the common room fire, but I shook my head, staying put over the parchment I had been writing on for the past hour.
"You're going to go crazy if you don't take a break, come on.." he whined, trying to take the quill out of my hand.
I looked up at him, his pouting face making me succumb to his request.
"Fine, just a short break." I stood up from the desk I had been using and joined him by the fire in the common room, sitting down on the sofa and letting out a deep breath. The common room was almost empty, only a couple of third years sat in the corner gathering their textbooks.
"Excited to be back home tomorrow?" I asked George.
"Yeah, I am. I reckon we won't be seeing Percy this year, but that's probably for the best."
I frowned. Percy had been very anti-Voldemort's return. He chose the Ministry over his family, and I hated seeing how much that hurt Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. They are such good people, they didn't deserve to be treated that way.
The common room was deserted now, and I watched the snow falling slowly and quietly outside of the window. I could just vaguely make out lights in Hagrid's hut.
We sat for an hour longer, talking about the gifts we had gotten everyone and the food we were looking forward to eating. I had long since forgotten about my charms essay, realizing it was as good as it was going to get.
I let out a yawn, rubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands. Glancing at the clock on the wall, I saw it was half past one in the morning. I didn't want to leave him and go upstairs, but I knew he had to be tired too.
"Come on, let's get you to bed." George said, seeming to be able to read my mind.
He helped me gather my things into my bag and put out the last of the fire. We were walking towards the stairs when George stopped in his tracks, looking up.
"What's wrong?" I asked, following his gaze to the bundle of green leaves with white berries mixed in.
"Mistletoe," he said, more quietly than he'd been speaking before.
I looked from him to the mistletoe hanging between us, "These house elves are really outdoing themselves this year, I must say.." my voice came out a little louder than a whisper, but I felt my feet take a step toward George.
"Yeah, they are, huh?"
I decided in that very moment, George and I only a step from each other, to just not think. I'm tired of overthinking this, overthinking us.
I closed the space between us, placing my hands on his chest. George's hands cupped my face, looking at me softly.
"What in the world are we doing, Liz?" he laughed quietly, not breaking eye contact with me.
"What should've been done a long time ago,"
And with that, I pushed my lips onto his, sinking into the perfect feeling that we both had feared for so long.
It was soft, intimate, and quick. And it was perfect. It was so perfect. I leaned back and rested my forehead against his, when suddenly we both burst into laughter, not letting go of each other. Not letting go of the beautiful feeling of what just happened.
"Blimey.. you've got no idea how long I've wanted to do that." George seemed breathless, hand still cupping my face as if I'd slip away any moment.
"Me too," I said, equally as breathless as he had been.
"Well, I guess we should go off to bed.. What do people normally do after they've kissed for the first time?" George asked me, his smile flashing in his eyes as well, making my heart beat a million beats a minute.
"Surely not laugh at each other.." I grinned, moving my hand to wrap around his.
We were silent for a moment, just standing with our hands wrapped together, footsteps coming from above us in the dormitories caused us to step apart.
"Well, we should probably be off to bed now.." I trailed off, dropping our hands between us.
"Yeah, guess so.."
Neither of us moved, we just stood there waiting for the other to make a move.
"I, well, goodnight then." I decided to speak first, turning slowly, feeling George's eyes on me as I walked.
"Liz," I turned around at his voice, still a little breathless.
"Yes?"
George hesitated, looking like he was having some internal battle with himself. When he finally spoke, he let a small smirk break through, causing my
heart to nearly go into cardiac arrest.
"I'll see you in the morning,"
It was simple, but it was all that needed to be said right now. I took the stairs slowly, not trusting my feet right now as I was quite shaken, but in a good way.
I pushed open the dormitory door, finding Ginny and Hermione still awake and in their beds studying.
I must've looked as if I'd received some earth shaking news, because they both jumped up from their beds and rushed over to me.
"Liz, what is it?" Hermione asked, leaning on my bed post and placing a soft hand on my shoulder.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, Liz," Ginny muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.
I looked up at both of them, unsure of how to tell them what had happened. But then it kind of just tumbled out.
"GeorgeandIjustkissed."
All I saw was a flash of red hair and a bushy mane of brown hair running towards me, their owners squealing with delight.
"Finally!" Ginny let out in exasperation, hugging me ferociously.
"Yes, it is about time!" Hermione added.
I gave them a sheepish smile, grabbing hold of my bed frame as I was still quite lightheaded.
"So, it's official now then?" Ginny followed up, sitting back down on her bed.
"Well, we never really said anything about it, I suppose.. We just, well, kissed.." I mumbled, looking down at my hands, thinking about the way they rested on George's chest just moments before.
"Well, what happened after that?" Hermione pondered.
I paused, looking up at the two of them looking at me intently, "We just sort of said goodnight."
"Oh, George.. George, George, George.. No tact at all..." Ginny threw her hands up in exasperation.
"Oh, don't blame him. We were just caught up in the moment and all.. it might not have even meant anything.." I tried to brush her off, not even convincing myself.
"Oh please, Liz. You cannot possibly still be trying to convince yourself there is nothing between the two of you. Especially now." Hermione spoke up, looking at me crossly.
I rolled my eyes, "Maybe. We'll see."
With that, I dropped the subject. Changing into my pajamas and sliding into my warm bed, I closed my eyes to try and clear my head. Unfortunately, that plan failed when I closed my eyes and saw George's lips moving towards mine.

The next morning I woke up feeling refreshed and incredibly well rested, and then the events of last night crept into my head. I smiled to myself, thinking how incredibly life changing this was. My best friend of six years.. It just didn't seem like real life yet. I rolled over in my bed to see the snow had continued to fall through the night, the grounds blanketed with beautiful, sparking white snow.
Ginny and Hermione rose shortly after I did, the three of us getting dressed for the day and ensuring our trunks were ready to go once our lessons were over.
"Excited to see Georgie this morning?" Ginny nudged me, throwing me a cheeky smile. I rolled my eyes, throwing a pillow at her in return.
We walked down to the Great Hall together, and I must say, I was a bit put out to see George had not been in the common room this morning with his usual greetings, but I shrugged it off.
There was an air of excitement about the place, everyone positively glowing in light of the Christmas holidays finally being here. The hall was decorated more extravagantly than ever and the smells of delicious breakfast food wafted down the corridors, drawing us closer and closer.
I caught myself running my hands through my hair last minute, and even tried to catch my reflection in a suit of armor dressed in a Father Christmas hat.
"Oh, stop that. You look fine, let's go!" Hermione pulled me away as I was double checking that I had nothing in my teeth.
We walked down the aisle between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, my breath hitching as I saw that familiar head of red hair standing with his back towards me with Harry and Ron.
"Morning," Ginny grinned, giving Harry a quick kiss.
Are George and I supposed to do that? I thought to myself as he turned towards me, a dopey grin on his face.
"Morning," he said to me softly, eyes on mine.
"Hi," I breathed out, awkwardly reaching my hand to him but letting it drop quickly.
"Um, how did you sleep?"
"Very good, yeah,"
"What in Merlin's name has gotten into those two?" I heard Ron ask, making me turn back to the others quickly. Hermione had given him a stamp on the foot, causing him to fall silent with a look of immense pain on his face.
"This looks great," I changed the subject, taking a seat next to Hermione and George sitting to my right. Our legs were against each others and I felt his hand resting on his, but brushing up against me, making me shiver slightly.
I tried to grab myself a scone from the platter in front of me, but dropped it when I felt George's arm brush mine.
"Here," his hands darted out in front of me and placed a scone on my plate. The same hands that had held my face so gently the night before..
Stop that. I had to warn myself. Now was not the time to get flustered and start blushing like a lovestruck idiot.
We finished breakfast in silence, both of us listening to a story Fred had begun telling as he sat down. Of course, my focus was anywhere but his story.
The bell rang, signaling that it was time to head to our first lessons, mine and the twins' being Charms.
"Oh, I just realized I left my bag at the table, I'll meet you two there!" Fred realized once we were almost to the charms classroom, leaving George and I alone.
We continued walking for a second, but I felt George's absence as he stopped, making me turn towards him. He was looking into an adjacent corridor, which by the looks of it was empty.
"We have about ten minutes before class starts, fancy a chat with an old friend?" he winked at me, and his lighthearted attitude to all of this made me smile at him.
He held out his hand to me, and I took it in mine, allowing him to wrap our fingers together as we found a bench halfway down the empty corridor. It felt normal, as if we were supposed to be this way all along.
"So.." George mumbled, his body turned to face mine.
"This isn't awkward at all.." I let out, my nerves settling when I saw George chuckle. I leaned my head down on his shoulder, releasing a breath I hadn't realized I had been holding in.
"I know, I'm sorry.." George mumbled, playing with his hands in his lap. I turned towards him, a frown on my face.
"Why are you apologizing?"
George sighed, "I feel like I just messed everything up, I don't know.. It shouldn't be this awkward, should it?
"You didn't mess anything up, Georgie. It's awkward because we're just so new at this. We went from best friends to... well.. whatever this is.." I trailed off, not entirely sure of what "this" was.
We were interupted by Fred rounding the corner, almost out of breath, "You two coming to class or what?"
I released George's hands, unsure if Fred knew about anything yet. We walked back towards the charms classroom in silence, Fred looking between the two of us with a confused look on his face, but not raising any questions.