My Love ✧ George Weasley

51 - The Yule Ball Ends

George

The night ended very quickly, too quickly for my liking.

Our friends started pairing off with their dates near the end of the night, disappearing out of the Great Hall to go on "walks" together. Eventually, it was only Adriana and I left at the table. I was going to offer up going back outside for some fresh air, until the Weird Sisters started to play their last song of the night, which was a nice, slow tune. I instead stood up and silently held out my hand. She took it without hesitation, and I led her onto the dance floor, where there were only a handful of couples left.

I placed my right hand on her waist and continued holding her right hand with my left as she placed her left hand on my shoulder. We swayed back and forth to the music in silence for a moment before I broke it.

"Tonight's been fun," I quietly told her.

"It has," she replied, and I looked down to see her already looking up at me with a small smile. "I really don't want it to end."

"Neither do I." I trailed my eyes all over her face before speaking again. "You look fucking beautiful, Adriana. I haven't told you that nearly enough tonight."

"You told me once," she started, "as well as some other synonyms for beautiful, and that's plenty for me. It's really more than anyone else has ever told me."

"Someone should be telling you how gorgeous you are every second of every day, Ada," I breathed out, not letting my nerves get the best of me. "I should be the one telling you that."

This time, I was the one to make Adriana furiously blush, instead of her making me all flustered. It felt good to be on this side of things, to watch the pink spread across her cheeks, to see her try and form a coherent sentence. I knew very well what that was like.

"Now it's me making you blush," I teased, a smirk growing on my face. "You're cute when you get all flustered." My words didn't do anything to help calm her, as the blush on her cheeks turned a dark shade of pink, bordering on red. My smirk grew even wider.

In a burst of confidence, I leant down so my mouth was level with Adriana's ear, and whispered, "I hope to see you like this more often. So flustered from my words." I then placed a light kiss on the side of her neck, right under her ear, before drawing back to my full height.

Adriana was frozen, standing with her mouth dropped slightly open. I could see the gears turning in her head as she comprehended what had just happened.

"Ada," I said after a few moments, moving my hand from her waist to wave it in front of her eyes. She quickly shook her head and blinked a couple times, closing her mouth before she focused back on me.

"I'm good," she told me, moving so that we'd start swaying again.

"Are you sure about that?" I asked, watching her with a smug smile.

"Yep," she quickly replied, giving a nod of her head.

I decided then that she'd had enough teasing for one night, and let the moment pass as we focused back on dancing. She eventually let her head rest on my chest, and we stayed like that until the very last note of the song played. The remaining people in the Great Hall gave a loud round of applause for the Weird Sisters, and proceeded to make their way into the entrance hall to return to their dorms.

Still holding hands with Adriana, I led us through the crowd of people heading out of the Great Hall, and to where we would, unfortunately, have to part ways to return to our separate common rooms.

Once we reached that point, we stood, just looking at each other for a couple of minutes, before Adriana stood on her tiptoes slightly and gave me a gentle kiss on my cheek. She returned down to her normal height and smiled.

"I enjoyed tonight," she said. "A lot."

"So did I." Her smile was contagious, and I couldn't help the large grin from growing on my face. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Of course," Adriana replied, giving me one last smile before she reluctantly let go of my hand and walked down the path to the Hufflepuff common room. I watched her walk off until she disappeared around a corner, and then I too made my way to my common room.

✧

"There he is!" Fred yelled as soon as I entered our dorm. He stood up from his bed and walked over to where I had just closed the door, tossing his arm over my shoulder as he led me to sit on my bed, facing Lee's bed so he could be included in whatever conversation I was about to be swept up into. "I know this is going to sound a bit like girl talk, but you've gotta tell us everything, Georgie, every single little detail about what happened between you and Adriana tonight."

"And don't try to play dumb!" Lee exclaimed, sitting upright on his bed. "Or lie. Fred and I saw you and Adriana all cuddled up on the dance floor, doing Merlin knows what."

"We were dancing," I told them both. "What did it look like we were doing? Snogging on the dance floor for all to see?"

"Sort of," Fred said.

"Yeah, it did, mate," Lee responded shortly after Fred. "Your faces were mere centimeters apart when we left the Hall."

"Well, for your information, we weren't," I told them, rolling my eyes. "Also, there isn't much to 'gossip' about. Nothing happened between us."

"Wha-" Fred started, looking around in confusion. "What do you mean 'nothing happened'?! This was supposed to be your chance to make a move, to ask her out on a real date! Or at least kiss her! And yet, you tell me nothing happened."

"The most that happened was me kissing her on the neck," I said. "That's it. No kissing on the mouth for either of us tonight. Nor did I even think about asking her on a date. How the hell am I supposed to do that..."

"Just like you asked her out to the ball!" Fred shouted in frustration. "Well, maybe without the whole thing of somehow making her think you want to go out with her friend. We could do without that. But, literally, just go up to her and ask if she wants to go on a date. That's it."

"You see, you make it sound simple and easy, when, in reality, it's not," I replied. "It took enough confidence and courage to ask her to the ball, and then even more to be able to do what I did earlier. Asking her out on a real date is on another, even higher level."

"Merlin's fucking balls, you are impossible," Fred muttered. "You better get to asking her out soon, before someone else does that. Or, before she decides she's done waiting for you to make a move. Maybe she'll make the move for you, but, based on what I've seen and heard about her, I seriously doubt that."

"Hold on," I started, "who else is wanting to ask her out on a date? Do you really think she'd just be done waiting for me to ask her out? Is that a possibility?"

"If it'll make you ask her out faster, then yes."