Begin Again (George Weasley/Draco Malfoy)

Twenty-Eight.

I threw myself into my studies after I broke up with George. Between Quidditch, Slug Club meetings with Professor Slughorn, classes, and then all of the homework I have hardly had a free minute. The only time I am free is when I am eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
   
Like I asked them to, Ginny and Hermione told Ron and Harry the details of mine and George’s break up. I wasn’t worried about Christmas, but I wasn’t exactly ready to see all of the Weasley’s so soon. Ron and Ginny were more than enough for now. I didn’t want to see the whole lot of them just yet. I had received a letter from my mother, telling me she heard the news and she asked me how I was doing. I told her I was doing okay, that all of the homework I had been getting has been a great distraction.
   
Ron and Hermione were having a row. She likes him, a lot, and he likes her too, but he’s now dating fellow sixth year Gryffindor Lavender Brown. Hermione is crushed about this, because she had planned on asking him to Slughorn’s Christmas party and tell him everything then, but now he has a girlfriend and she’s jealous. I feel bad for her, and Ron is acting like a right git towards her if I do say so myself. Sometimes boys are very clueless. Harry, on the other hand, has become obsessed with Draco Malfoy and what he is doing for the Dark Lord, if he even is doing anything. He has made it his personal mission to find out. Especially after Katie Bell got cursed during the Hogsmeade trip. It was the evidence Harry needed in Harry’s mind that Draco was up to something big.
   
I had been so busy by the time the Holidays rolled around, I didn’t even invite anyone to Slughorn’s Christmas party. Harry asked me to go with him as friends, and I would have loved too, but then I reminded him the point of being able to take a guest with us is to bring someone that wasn’t in the Slug Club, and Harry and I both are part of the Slug Club, we have been since day one. I asked Ron to join me, just as friends, so he could spend the evening with his friends, but he didn’t accept saying he and Lavender had plans.
   
I looked over at the Slytherin table during lunch that Monday before the party, and I looked at Draco and my heart sank as I watched Pansy playing with his white blonde hair, draped over him like she owns him. Man, I wished that was me. It hurt to see, now that I have figured out the truth about my feelings for him. I peeled my eyes away almost as quickly as I looked over to him.
   
“Who are you going to ask to go with you to the party?” Asks Jude. The party was closing in, and I was still going alone.
   
“No idea,” I admit. “I don’t know who to ask. I can’t go with Harry, I can’t ask Neville either, and Ron is busy, so there goes my guy friends.”
   
“Isn’t Hermione going with McLaggen?” Asks Sadie.
   
“She is,” I admit, nodding.
   
“And isn’t McLaggen in the Slug Club with you guys?”
   
“He is,” I nod again.
   
“Then why can’t you go with Harry?”
   
“Because, I don’t want to go with someone that’s in the club, it defeats the point.” I remind her, she obviously didn’t get it. “If I’m going to go with someone, I don’t want them to already be in the club.” I’d go alone before I went with someone already in the club.
   
The person that I really wanted to go with was certainly not going to go with me, so I was stuck. I didn’t know what to do, or who to ask, and I only had a week left. I tried to think of who was in the D.A. with me that is still here today. A lot of them were seventh years when they were in the D.A., like Fred and George. Even if I were still dating George, I wouldn’t be able to take him, and I’d gladly be Harry’s guest because it wouldn’t matter to me so much.
   
When I was sitting in the library the night before the party, Neville joined me, asking for some help with the Charms homework that I was already working on, so I agreed to help him. I soon realized that he didn’t sit with me to ask for help on his homework.
   
“So, um, are you taking anyone to Slughorn’s party?” He asks, in his usual nervous tone.
   
“No,” I say shaking my head, “I don’t want to go with anyone. I don’t know who to go with and it’s kind of a lot of pressure trying to pick someone.”
   
“I know what you mean,” he says, nodding, “Usually Ginny is my go to Just-As-Friends date, because she always says yes to me out of pity, but since she’s dating Dean and Harry asked Luna I don’t know who to ask.”
   
“Awe, don’t talk about yourself like that, Neville,” I say, giving his arm a little push. “I’ve seen what you can do, you’re a powerful wizard. It’s very impressive.”
   
He smiles shyly, “Thanks.” It’s sad, how much confidence he lacks due to how his family has treated him his entire life, comparing him to his dad and all. The D.A. gave him the confidence boost he needed, but I guess it wasn’t enough.
   
I know I said that I didn’t want to go with anyone in the club, but the truth was I only said that because I was kind of holding out some stupid hope that I’d buck up the courage to ask Draco even though I knew that I wouldn’t. “Would you like to go to the party with me, Neville?”
   
His round face lights up, he was so happy to hear this. His smile is wider than I have ever seen it before. “Really? You want to go with me?”
   
“Yeah,” I say, “Just as friends. We’ll have a great time gawking at all of the couples, eating all the food, drinking all the butterbeer. It will be great.”
   
“Yeah, that does sound like fun,” he says nodding. “Yes, Adelaide, I would love to go with you. I mean I know that I’m not as tall or as handsome as George Weasley, but I will show you a good time.”
   
“You’re just as handsome as George, Neville,” I say, putting a stop to his self-deprecation talk. “You just lack the confidence, but not to worry, that is something that you can gain over time.” He smiles again, and he actually does have a very bright smile. He just needs to learn how to wear it more is all.
   
When the night of the party came, I told Neville I would just meet him at the party. When I got there, Neville smiled at me when he saw me and walked right over to me. “I left a seat open next to you at our table for you,” he says as he greets me.
   
“Oh, thank you,” I say, giving him a smile.
   
Slughorn’s office was much larger than any other teacher’s study. The ceiling had been draped with emerald, crimson, and hold hangings, so that it looked as though they were all inside a vast tent. The room was crowded and stuffy and bathed in red light cast by an ornate golden lamp dangling from the center of the ceiling in which real fairies were fluttering, each a brilliant speck of light. Loud singing accompanied by what sounded like mandolins issued from a distant corner; a haze pipe smoke hung over several elderly warlocks deep in conversation, and a number of house elves were negotiating squeakily through the forest of knees, obscured by the heavy silver platters of food they were baring, so they looked like little roving tables.
   
I was already a glass of mead in, enjoying conversation with Neville, Ginny, and her boyfriend Dean when Harry and Luna entered. Hermione was already desperate to get away from McLaggen, saying he made Hagrid’s brother Grawp look like a gentleman when he came in. She ran over to her friend, desperate to get away from her date, looking so relieved to see Harry had finally arrived. Slughorn did too, since this is the first meeting that Harry has ever been to.
   
Harry was having the unavoidable talk with Slughorn that he has been able to avoid since he started these Slug Club meetings. He had introduced Harry to the same people I was introduced to when I first arrived, before he allowed me to go off and sit with my friends. He had even invited Professor Snape over to gloat about Harry’s new found luck in potions class, which is greatly thanks to Harry being lent a book that had markings in it that are even better instructions for the potions than the book itself.
   
They weren’t talking for more then 6 or 7 minutes when Filch came into the room dragging Draco Malfoy by the ear. He now had all of my attention, as well as everyone else’s attention in the room. “Professor Slughorn,” says Filch as he dragged Draco up to him. Draco was taller than filch, so he was hunched over as he walked. He looked good in his all black suit, even though I was sure that’s what he usually wore all the time now, it didn’t matter, he still looked great in it. “I discovered this boy lurking in an upstairs corridor. He claims to have been invited to your party and to have been delayed setting out. Did you issue him an invitation?” We all knew the answer to that was no, Slughorn didn’t invite Draco. And If I knew Draco had wanted to come that badly, I would have asked him to come with me.
   
Draco pulled himself free from Filch’s grip. “Alright, I wasn’t invited! I was trying to gate-crash, happy?”
   
“No I’m not,” said Filch, despite the glee on his face that he was right, “You’re in trouble, you are! Didn’t the Headmaster say that nighttime prowling’s out, unless you’ve got permission, didn’t he, eh?”
   
Professor Slughorn decides to step in finally, “That’s alright Argus, that’s alright. It’s Christmas, and it’s not a crime to want to come to a party. Just this once, we’ll forget any punishment; you may stay, Draco.”
   
“Are you going somewhere, Adelaide?” Asks Neville suddenly. I hadn’t even realized that I was standing up out of my seat. Was I that desperate to talk to Draco?
   
Yes, believe that I was.
   
I watch as Professor Snape drags Draco out of the room, and Harry takes after not long after them. I debated following them, but I decided against it. Draco was gone, and I had missed my chance to speak to him.
   
Hermione had left the party before Harry and I returned, and Harry told me that she had gone to bed before Harry could tell her what we had heard Draco and Snape saying. We had gotten to the Burrow on the day that was supposed to be mine and George’s one year anniversary a few days before Christmas.
   
Mrs. Weasley was happy to see all of us, especially her children. She hugged and kissed all of us, and she saved me for last. “Adelaide, dear, how have you been?” She asks, keeping me in her hold so she could talk to me. I was glad she was being nice, but I knew that George had assured her that he wasn’t angry at me, so there was no reason she should be.
   
“All the homework and Quidditch has been a good distraction,” I tell her, keeping it slightly vague on purpose.
   
“I’m sure it has,” she says smiling, “Don’t you worry, love, you’re always welcome here.”
   
“Thank you,” I say, faking a smile back. My heart was pounding, and my anxiety was through the roof, even though Mrs. Weasley was not giving me any good reason for it.
   
Later that day, Mrs. Weasley had us kids work on dinner. I was cutting potatoes, while the boys peeled sprouts for the meal. That’s when Harry filled Ron in on what he heard Draco and Snape saying to each other on the night of the party.
   
“So Snape was offering to help him? He was definitely offering to help him?”
   
“Yes,”says Harry, that was like the fifth or sixth time that Ron had asked that since he heard the story. “Snape was offering to help him. He said he’d promised Malfoy’s mother he’d protect him, that he’d made an Unbreakable Oath or something.”
   
“An Unbreakable Vow?” Said Ron, looking stunned, “Nah, he can’t have, are you sure?”
   
“Yes, I'm sure,” said Harry, “why, what does that mean.”
   
“You can’t break an Unbreakable Vow,” says Ron.
   
“I’d worked that much out for myself, funnily enough. What happens if you break it, then?”
   
“You die,” I say, nonchalantly.
   
“Fred and George tried to get me to make one when I was about five. I nearly did it, too. I was holding hands with Fred and everything when Dad found us. He went mental. Only time I’ve ever seen dad as angry as Mum. Fred reckons his left buttock has never been the same since.”
   
“Yeah, well, passing over Fred’s left buttock,” starts Harry but he doesn’t get to finish that thought.
   
“I beg your pardon?” Said Fred’s voice, as the twins entered the kitchen. I keep my head down keeping an eye on my work. “Aaah, George, look at this. They’re using knives and everything. Bless them.”
   
“Hey! I’ll be seventeen in nearly two months, and Adelaide in almost three!” Sneers Ron.
   
“But meanwhile,” says George sitting down at the kitchen table, “We can enjoy watching you demonstrate the correct use of kitchen utensils.”
   
“Why hello, there, Adelaide,” says Fred. I looked up from the potatoes for the first time since they walked in. I was going to greet him back, but Fred kept talking. “Are you trying to stay on our mum’s good side by helping out with dinner after breaking my brother’s heart?”
   
“Come on, man,” sneers George, “We talked about this, mate. Leave her alone.”
   
“What?” Asks Fred, shrugging, “It’s just a question.”
   
“A rather rude one,” says George, curtly.
   
“It’s fine, George,” I assure him and I go back to cutting the potatoes. “Really, I expected it.”
   
“I wouldn’t provoke Adelaide, if I were you, mate,” warns Ron. “She’s a sleeping bear, and you don’t want to poke the sleeping bear. A few more comments like that and you will feel her wrath.”
   
“Yeah, I watched her handle Draco at the end of last year,” adds Harry, “She doesn’t mess around.”
   
“No one is going to provoke anything out of me, you guys,” I say as I chop some potatoes. “And I didn’t handle Draco, Harry, I was just doing my job as Prefect. He had you pressed up against a wall threatening you, I couldn’t let him get away with that. The only person that I have ever come close to using magic on was Pansy Parkinson, and when I got in her face was because she insulted George, so I think we can agree that she deserved it.”
   
“Ugh, gross,” sneers Ron. “She’s just as disgusting as her boyfriend, Malfoy.”
   
“They’re both awful, they deserve each other,” adds Harry.
   
I stay quiet at this, but I can see George’s eyes on me as I continue to cut some potatoes, cutting them harder and harder as I imagine them as Pansy’s stupid head that I am severing from her body and cutting in half again and again. It was a good way to get out my anger. 
   
Then George says that there’s a cute girl that works down at the shop down the road who thinks his card tricks are like real magic, and the twins left us, and now I was pretending that these potatoes were George’s head too because he only said that to make me angry and jealous. It made me angry that he would even say something like that only because I was in the room to hear it. That wasn’t the kind of person I knew George to be.

____________________
Here's part 28!

Don't worry, I'm not going to turn George into an asshole.

He just had a little jerk moment there.

-Emily Winchester.