Bloom | George Weasley

2. Clever Little Clover

"Oi, wait up, Joshi!"

I obey the call.

It's one of the twins, maneuvering through the crowd of people herding into the Great Hall for supper.

"Do you need something?" I ask as he slows down upon reaching me.

"No, not really." He turns to look through his bag, and I tilt my head to look inside, preparing for some new gadget the two have come up with. "I'm here to give this to you."

He pulls out a single stemmed plant and nothing else. My eyes break quickly to look around the corridor for the other twin, but he's nowhere to be found.

It's a dainty little thing, the flower. It doesn't seem to have taken any sort of droop or smushing while in his bag - it looks perfect, which only fuels my distrust.

"Who's it from?" I ask carefully.

"Who's it from?" He repeats. "Well - me, of course. I'm giving it to you."

"What for?" I reach out to touch it, and when nothing bad happens to my skin upon contact, I take it from his own grip. Half of me expects it to spurt out water like the one clowns have.

"I didn't know I needed a proper reason to give you a flower, Joshi." The twin says.

"Most people do give one." I contend and he shrugs.

"I think giving flowers to everyone should be a regular thing, don't you?"

My eyebrow raises skeptically and I nod my chin in the direction of the bag across his shoulder.

"Got any more to hand out to people, then?"

"Sadly, no, you're the only one who gets one today." He says. "So don't flaunt it, wouldn't want them getting jealous now."

"Of course." I play along, however, I decide I still don't trust him. Especially if I'm the only person getting one. "But forgive me if I don't want to be the only one with a flower."

My arm outstretches as a sign that he should take it back, but Weasley takes a large stride backwards, as if the act is offensive.

"No can do, Joshi." He shakes his head. "That's for you, straight from the bottom of my heart."

"So it's specifically meant for me?" I ask and he agrees. "I warn you, Weasley, if anything happens to me, it's your head on a stick."

He laughs a bit, but doesn't say anything else as he turns to walk away.

I wait until he turns the corner, and I'm left alone in the corridor, then go up to the closest rubbish bin and am about to drop it in when I hesitate.

I've never gotten a flower before, at least not by someone who wasn't my family. It's actually a really cute gesture so long as there's no trick hidden underneath. And with one of the Weasley twins (or both, you never know) are involved, there's definitely cause to throw this out at the earliest convenience lest I want to wake up with purple skin creeping up my fingers.

And yet, despite the obviously logical reasons I should get rid of it, I don't. Instead, I hold it up slightly, admiring it as a normal gift, before placing it in my book bag and walking away.

~*~

My distrust is only fuelled when the next day, the flower has done nothing but stand on my nightstand. If it were one of the Weasley twins' pranks, it would have done something by now. So, naturally, I steal one of my roommate's charm textbooks, grab my wand, the flower, and head down to the common room for witnesses.

Stevie's working at one of the couches so I slide into an armchair, perch my legs over the arm, and open the book to curse breaking spells. My friend doesn't acknowledge my presence, but lifts her eyes for a moment to try and understand what I'm doing before going back to her own thing.

A while later, Ainur is approaching.

"Cohen just found out my name isn't Chinese." She has an amused look on her face as she leans over Stevie and her work. Interesting way to start a conversation.

"Isn't your name Muslim?"

"Kazakh, but yea, there's overlap." She throws herself over the back of the couch to take a seat beside Stevie.

"Wait 'til he hears that you speak Russian." I comment absently, moving on to the next spell down the list.

"Never mind that I speak it," she rests her head back and closes her eyes, "my surname is Russian."

"His mind would explode." Stevie says, finishing off her page before focusing on what's in my hand. "What are you doing?"

"One of the Weasley twins gave me a flower." I say, then swish my wand, but the flower doesn't change.

"Is it cursed, or something?" Ainur lifts her head.

"S'what I'm trying to figure out." I reach the end of the list. "But nothing seems to be wrong with it."

"Maybe Madhvi has an admirer." Stevie offers with a smirk. "Which one gave it to you?"

I scrunch up my nose.

"I'm not sure." I admit, feeling a bit bad.

"You don't know which one gave you a flower?" There's a hint of judgement in her voice.

"Oh, what, like you can tell them apart?" I get defensive.

"No, but I know which guys give me flowers."

"No guy that gives you flowers has an identical twin." Ainur cuts off, then tells me, "but that's cute, he has a crush on an older lady."

"Don't make me sound so old." I twirl the lone plant between my fingers. "What kind of flower is this, anyway?"

My friends shrug their shoulders, and Ainur turns to one of the bookshelves of the common room, pointing her wand at it. A book comes flying towards her, and the people in the way duck instinctually.

She brings it over to my armchair, moving me to sit properly so she can join in the space as she turns the pages.

"It's a pretty colour." She says, splitting her focus between the tiny petals and the book.

"It's white." I deadpan.

"It's pretty." She insists, then lifts the book. "Looks like a white clover."

Ainur holds the book for Stevie to see, who confirms her findings.

"Oh." I say. "Thanks."

"There's more." My friend says, pointing to a line near the bottom of the page. "The symbolism of a white clover is 'think of me'."

Stevie lets out an 'aww' at her words.

"That's so cute!" She exasperates. "He wants you to think of him."

I scrunch up my face.

"That would be cute, except I don't know which one to think about!" I feel kind of bad.

"Can't you just ask?" Ainur offers.

"Isn't that a bit rude?" I ask. "'Thanks for the flower, it's beautiful, but which one of you gave it to me?'"

"I'm sure you could figure it out without them catching on to the fact that you don't know which is which." She consoles.

"At least you know their names." Stevie reasons.

"I think so." I guess. "I've never really thought much of them. They're just... there, y'know?"

"You'd have to live under a rock not to know Fred and George Weasley."

I groan.

"Fine, you seem to know everything about them - what's Fred Weasley's favourite colour?"

"Which one of the the twins gave you a flower?" Stevie retaliates, and Ainur watches our 'cat fight' as she likes to call it.

"Not sure, I just know that neither gave you one."

"Touché." She nods her head, signalling I've won this argument.