A Simple Favor ~ F.W

Chapter 1 - The Confession

Saturday, September 16th, 1996

"Tonight is the night, Hermione. I really think I should just do it. Rip off the bandaid, because I don't know how much longer I can take this shit." Clara said loud enough to be able to be heard over the blaring music in their dorm room. The two girls were sitting on the floor in criss cross, doing each other's makeup. Their other dorm mates, Lavender Brown and Lilly Finnagin, were doing their hair in their shared bathroom.

"Do you really think this is the right time?" Hermione questioned, displaying a very concerned look for her friend on her face. "You have been friends with him since first year, and he has just gotten a girlfriend. Do you think now is the right time to risk your friendship and admit you fancy him?" Hermione asked in between sips of the Firewhiskey cocktail they had made.

Clara sat there, frowning, thinking for a moment. She knew she couldn't hold it in any longer, but she also knew it would be stupid to mess up her closest friendship over a stupid crush. Well, thats what Clara chalked it up to-a stupid crush. But anyone who knew Clara knew she had been absolutely consumed by George Weasley since the fourth year when they went to the Yule Ball together.

(Obviously, just as friends to him but way more to her.)

That was the night everything changed. Instead of seeing him as a best friend, she saw him in a new light. A loving one.

But, two years later, during her sixth year and his seventh, she still kept the secret—too afraid to say anything due to their closeness.

Coming into the term, the night before heading to Kings Cross Station, at their yearly "last night of summer" sleepover, Clara had made a promise to Hermione to tell George about her feelings as soon as they arrived at Hogwarts.

But, to her surprise, as she ran up to give George a hug and greet the rest of the family when they arrived the next morning, another member was with them: Katie Bell.

What Clara didn't know was that over the summer, while she was spending her time in Ireland with her father, dreaming about her and George finally being together, he had found someone else.

There was no mention of anything within the immense number of letters he had written to her. She went back to check each and every one, making sure she had not been so stupid as to miss such an important event in his life.

So, on that day she received the soul crushing news, Clara bit her tongue and went on just like every other year. Accept that this time it was different.

I mean, of course, she saw George through many of his flings and one-night stands and was familiar with his goings-on, but it was different with Katie.

Clara knew George better than he knew himself, so when she saw the way he looked at Katie on that platform, she felt, for the first time, real jealousy for one of George's girls. She could sense that they were serious.

Part of herself contemplated still telling him, but it would make things way to complicated. She knew it would never work because he saw her as a little sister and probably nothing more. She was running out of time with him with this being his last year before she left him for the real world, so this year she was determined for George to notice her in the way she did for him.

When Clara and her dorm mates arrived at the doors of the Gryffindor common room on the fourth Saturday night of term, she desired one thing: to get absolutely shitface drunk.

She wanted to get so drunk that she could block out all thoughts of George and Katie she had accumulated from the previous weeks. The handholding at dinner, the tagging along on her and George's special outings. She could feel herself being cast aside.