Forget-Me-Not (George Weasley Love Story)

Chapter Six

Hey guys! Sorry for the wait! I know the last few chapters suck, but I'm gonna try really hard to get it up to scratch :)

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Blank eyes bored into the canopy as the bones of the old building settled into place. The girl listened silently to the sighs of the bowing wooden floorboards. She flexed her toes, first her right foot and then her incomplete left foot before burying them in the snug throw. The click of her back as she stretched drew a snort from the man digging under the bed.

"That was gross!" George laughed, pulling out dog eared cardboard boxes which he stacked in an ungainly pile. Dust and assortments of fluff scattered his hair and forehead and as he raised his eyebrows to the cushion launched at his head the fluff clung to them like hairy caterpillars.

Felix was collapsed in an inelegant lump on the bed, face nuzzled into the soft bedding and black hair spilling onto the sheets in thick coils. Her shoes lay abandoned in the hallway and a sleek black cat lay curled on the floor, pawing the laces lazily.

"Here it is!" George emerged from under the bed, throwing the cushion back at Felix so that it landed on the back of her head and she squealed. He was holding a silken dressing gown in a sickening shade of lime green. Felix lifted her face from the covers and grimaced at the colour. Not wanting to seem ungrateful, she buried her head again and muttered a thank you, already missing the comfort of her dingy basement. Now that was a strange thought... "Oh god, no! No get out of here you mangy-"

There was a hiss as George tried to drag Cat away from the curtains (that the moths had already been at). He slammed the door, Cat still hissing as he scratched the rug in the hallway.

"What kind of a name is Cat, anyway?" George grumbled, the fluff having migrated to the tip of his nose and waving in the slight breeze from the open window. Felix laughed into the bedding, the cushion moving up and down as she giggled. She'd never heard George so flustered before.

"Mr Weasley, are you scared of a little cat?" She mocked and George's face flooded red, making him glad that she wasn't watching him. The dressing gown lay abandoned on the floor, the crumpled form almost humanlike and making George shudder as he picked it up and brushed his finger across the faded F embroidered in gold thread. It wasn't until the bed sheets rustled as Felix sat up that George realised he had been crying. A lone tear snaked down his cheek, the saltiness familiar to him now.

"T-thank you." Felix murmured sheepishly, trying to meet his gaze. "For letting me stay here, you didn't have to, Mr Weasley. Giving me the job was enough." George smiled sadly, glad of her change of subject.

"You're welcome. And how many times must I tell you to call me George?" It was Felix's turn to smile, but sheepishly this time. She fingered the hem of her dress

"No thank you, George. Mr Weasley is fine." She grinned at George's laugh and felt a sudden burst of happiness that she only ever felt with George, or working in his shop. He was such an easy person to get on with, there was something so endearing about him that made it impossible not to smile in his presence.

Felix wondered if she was the only one to notice that he also had a certain darkness to him, like the bitterness at the back of your throat when you eat a lemon drop. George was broken, and she felt like she could fix him somehow.

At the same time, George was thinking the same thing. This girl, so strong and yet so brittle. Like her happiness was just a front, her shell she used to protect herself. Had she been hurt before? Was that why her laugh seemed to falter as if she felt she didn't deserve such a beautiful smile.

"You can stay here as long as you like." George tried to act as if he was saving her from the basement she had been sleeping in, but he knew that he just missed company, having someone to talk to over breakfast or to sit with in the evenings when the sky looked like a vivid watercolour of blues and greys and pinks. "Make yourself at home, what's mine is yours!"