𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐍 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐒 // George Weasley

𝟖𝟐. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠

She fell back and her breathing became heavier as the body lay there in front of her. Tears pricked in her eyes as she muttered the same words over and over again,
"It's not real"
That didn't help. She wasn't exactly scared. She was scared that this would become a reality of course but all she felt was overwhelming grief.

"He's alive you're idiot" Elle cursed herself pulling out her wand and pointing it at the corpse "he's just downstairs" she sniffed.
But as she pointed her wand at the body her hand began to shake. How could she possibly make this funny. To kill a boggart, you needed laughter. And all she could do in this moment was cry.

Tears graced her cheeks now as her heart raced, the body wasn't going anywhere. It just lay there looking up at her with it's dead eyes.
Elle crumbled again. Placing her head in her hands she sobbed shakily. She was incapable of getting rid of a boggart. She felt useless as she clasped her hands over her eyes not wanting to see the image of George lying there again.

Suddenly the door behind her opened. She turned in shock with red eyes to see George standing there. He took one look at the boggart and jumped back obviously shocked to see himself lying there dead. His eyes flicked to Elle who was sobbing on the floor. He seemed to put two and two together.
He pulled Elle to the side and turned to the boggart itself. The image changed to the image of his brother. He was sitting alone pale and crying.

"Riddikulus" George yelled clearly. The image changed and suddenly his brother jumped up. He told a joke causing George to laugh before the Boggart dispersed.
"Don't think it's gone for good" George muttered "hopefully it'll piss off for now"
He turned back to Elle who was trying to compose herself.

"Sorry, I'm being an idiot, I know it's only a boggart" she sniffed glad to see that the body was now gone.
"You're not being an idiot" he helped her up and pulled her close to him "I'm right here" he murmured softly "I'm not going anywhere"
Elle nodded unable to speak as the image of George's body kept flashing before her mind.

✰✰✰

A week later marked the day of Harry's hearing at the ministry. Everyone was nervous for him however Elle and the twins hadn't got up early enough to actually wish him luck. After all he'd left at about six in the morning. The day was tense. Molly seemed to jump every time someone spoke to her and Sirius snapped at the house elf Kreature a lot more than usual.

"He'll be fine Mum" Ron muttered through a mouthful of toast. Molly didn't say anything in return. Truthfully no one knew what was going to happen to a Harry, for all they knew he may be expelled from Hogwarts. What would happen then? Would be become a recluse with his godfather.

Molly didn't force anyone to do chores that day. The twins discussed how they'd completed their fainting fancies as the three of them sat up in the twins room. They kept out of earshot of their mother as Molly ones nothing about the new skiving snack boxes. She had known about the twins attempts to start Weasley's Wizarding Weases last year but hadn't been overly pleased about it. Fred and George thought it best to not mention it.

Without having cleaning to keep everyone preoccupied, there wasn't actually a lot to in Grimmauld place. Elle just sat around with the twins but even they seemed to be getting bored after a while.
"I hope Harry's back soon" Fred sighed as he lay his head back on his pillow.
"I'm sure he will be, he's already been four hours" Elle looked at her watch impatiently.

It was then when the three of them heard the click of the front door. They didn't bother to listen to Mrs Weasleys complaints. Instead all three of them apperated immediately and appeared in the hallway downstairs. Molly didn't even seem bothered, she ran towards Harry completely ignoring the other three.

Everyone looked towards Harry expectantly waiting for him to confess how the hearing had gone,
"I'm going back to Hogwarts" Harry smiled happily. The cheers from everyone were almost deafening as Harry was pulled into a dozen hugs.

✰✰✰

As Molly served dinner, Fred, George, Ginny and Elle conducted a chant out of celebration.
"He got off, he got off"
Smiles were present on everyone's faces as the stress of the situation vanished. Harry, Ron and Hermione seemed especially happily as they passed around the food.

"I would have stormed into the ministry myself if they hadn't let you off" Sirius smirked,
"You most definitely would not have" Molly scowled,
"It was an exaggeration Molly" Sirius smiled politely, when Molly turned around her rolled his eyes causing everyone to laugh, except Kennedy.

The door opened and all heads turned to see who had arrived. Turns out it was Remus and Athena coming to congratulate Harry on his success.
"I knew they'd let you go back to school" Athena smiled "it would be ridiculous to stop you from going to Hogwarts"
"Agreed" Remus nodded as he took a seat next to Sirius "hopefully now you can have a good year at school".

Elle wasn't so sure about that. She hoped that everything at Hogwarts would go well however with what was going on in the world she doubted it would be normal. However Hogwarts life was usually anything but normal. In her first year she'd seen dreams of Voldemort attacking Harry, second year Voldemort had come back and opened the chamber of secrets, third year there'd been two 'criminals' on the loose and she'd found out that her uncle was a werewolf and last year there had been a triwizard tournament and a boy had died.

"Do we know who the defence against the dark arts teacher is yet?" Ginny directed the question to Athena who after all was a teacher at the school. However she shook her head regretfully,
"Unfortunately not, I think we'll all find out around the same time" she smiled apologetically.
"As long as it's not Snivellous I'm sure you'll be fine" Kennedy smirked from the end of the table. Sirius laughed but Remus looked up at her and shook his head.

"Snape went to school with you didn't he?" Harry looked to Kennedy who nodded,
"He was a right git, we were friends at some point though" the girl reminisced,
"What happened?"
"Well you've met him" Kennedy muttered "unbearable to be around".

Harry decided not to ask anymore questions as Kennedy's eyes had seemed to darken. Dinner was soon over and everyone promptly went back to bed,
"We better get a good teacher for defence against the dark arts this year" Fred muttered as all three of them entered the room,
"We've only had one decent teacher so far" Elle noted,
"I quite liked Moody" Fred shrugged,
"Fred it wasn't Moody, he was a death eater trying to kill Harry" Elle stated plainly.
"True" Fred muttered and the group laughed.

✰✰✰