Joke's on Me | George Weasley | Book 1

chapter 22 - late night again

Natalia sighed, looking down at her shoes. It'd been a long shot asking to meet George again, especially after what happened in the owlery. But she had to try.

She shrugged to herself, pushing off the wall, turning and walking back the way she came, through the castle, going back down to the dungeons.
It wasn't long, but Natalia walked slower than usual, trying not to think of any of it.

"Natalia." Draco fell into step beside her. "What's got you looking so melancholy on a Saturday morning?"

She shook her head. "Ah-" She laughed bitterly, "I may have accidentally cursed George, become my mother, then threatened his life. Oh, then I tried to give him this today except, surprise surprise, he wants nothing to do with me."

Draco sighed, shaking his head. "Which curse."

"I don't know. I was speaking so fast my words merged together and I said something in Latin to make him start drowning on air. It was kind of terrifying."

"Merlin's beard Nat." He muttered. "We really need to figure out how the hell you can do that."

She shrugged. "Whatever. I'm gonna go stare at this and break my teeth with roasted hazelnuts in my dorm." She pulled out the little bag of hazelnuts from her pocket, crunching one on her way up the stairs.

Natalia pushed open the door to her bedroom, where her roommates were all gathered on one of their beds talking in hushed voices. They stopped as soon as they saw her.

"Um, there's an owl? with something addressed to you?" One of them pointed to the windowsill, where indeed there was an owl waiting with a letter in its beak.

Natalia threw the keepsake box onto her bed and retrieved the letter, rolling her eyes when the girls all stared at her, waving her wand to close her bedcurtains. She could hear them whispering, but it didn't particularly bother her; they were always like this. She recognised the handwriting, her heart in her throat as she stared at it.
Hands shaking, she carefully opened the letter.

Nat

Sorry I won't be there, Fred and I got detention for yesterday with Snape

I know what happened in the owlery was probably a mess of emotions and bad phrasing on my part, though you're not entirely innocent either. But maybe we can leave it? After all, I did insult your family, prank you since you arrived, and terrorised you a little in second year.

Let's call it even

-Georgie

Natalia nearly choked, losing her breath and her voice, not entirely sure what on earth she was supposed to do now.
Write back? Ignore him? He did say he wanted to call it even... which was unusually out of character for him, George never called it even without... well, getting even.