Most Noble ━━ George Weasley

xv. Divine Hand

       Thing is, if she moves to pull her skirt down, it'll bring attention to it. Archie's brows already rose when he saw George immediately sit next to Mia, imagine if he realised the two of them are sitting so close together her whole thigh is touching his.

       And like, Mia knows what she feels. She knows it took that moment of clarity after the Quidditch match for her to truly realise it — Cedric will be fine with this, she knows that, so now this is where she stands. Aware of her feelings and most likely his, too. They're moving towards something...

       Do you think something might happen soon? She tries to imagine it: maybe it'll happen after a DA lesson, where he finds an excuse to walk back to her common room, and when they're alone they start talking and he leans in. Or maybe it'll happen completely out of the blue, either in Hogsmeade or maybe there's a party when a Quidditch team wins. Maybe it'll happen at Christmas, if they're alone in one of their rooms (because they will have more time together in the holidays) and he looks down at her, and she tilts her head slightly as she looks up... She wonders what he'd be like, to kiss. Would he just lean in? Or would he hold her face with his hands, or do that thing where you tuck a piece of hair behind the other's ear. She glances across at him. He does have nice hands. Slightly big with long fingers... She wouldn't mind if he held her face with them... Or, like, if he took those hands and—

       "Mia," says someone, and she snaps out of it.

       Archie gives her an odd look, before she shrugs.

       "Sorry, I wasn't listening," says Mia. She looks down at her plate of food, the crusts of a sandwich leftover, and takes one of the Christmas-themed gingerbread men from the middle of the table. "What...?"

       "Are you going to the meeting tonight?" says Fred, lowering his voice for meeting.

       Mia nods her head.

       "We thought so," says George. Ever since she said that thing, about the twins acting like a collective, she can't help but notice whenever they do it. George doesn't do it much, or at least not as much as he used to, and Mia doesn't know whether or not she should feel guilty about it. Is it a good thing, that he addresses things as an individual, not a twin? She doesn't know.

       "Briar wishes she could join in," says Fred.

       Archie gives him an odd look. "Well, we could ship Umbridge off to her."

       "She doesn't mean it like that," says George.

       Mia knows that Briar didn't mean it like that, but definitely feels left out that all of this is going on and she isn't here to experience it. If Mia was Briar, she'd feel that way. Everyone's sneaking out to defy the new teacher, and she's missing out? Mia, too, would be bitter.

        She wishes she could go back to thinking about George's hands but Archie realises the time, so the two of them decide to leave for first period. They've got Charms all afternoon, and since they haven't had it this week, she guesses Umbridge will be there. Apparently, she wants to sit in a class with every year, in hopes of slip ups or whatever, because George said yesterday that they had Umbridge in their Charms lesson. She forgets he's the year above sometimes. Anyway.

       When Mia and Archie get to the classroom, everyone's deadly quiet. Umbridge is already sitting at the back of the room, next to Flitwick's silver Christmas tree. But, when Mia walks past, Umbridge breaks her pleasant silence, making a comment about Mia's skirt length. She stops Mia in her tracks and makes her unroll it, and the top of her skirt, too wide to fit her waist properly, awkwardly hangs on her hips as she sits down. Mia sees the flames in the fireplace grow unpredictable, and she has to make herself calm down before she accidentally burns the room down.