Umbridge's office reeked of overly-sweet perfume and George's nose crinkled as he stepped inside.
There was a pink ticking clock gleaming at him from it's place amongst the display of cat plates against the wall, two desks had been strategically placed at opposite ends of the room. George pulled the chair out of the one nearest to him, cringing at the way it's legs screeched along the stone floor.
He spared a sideways glance at Marigold, she still held no expression on her face as she dropped quietly into her seat behind the other desk.
On the desk, a quill sat next to a stack of parchment. George stared at it, he already knew what was coming. He'd heard the stories of Umbridge's infamous blood-ink quills.
It seemed that Marigold knew as well, because when he looked to her - she was staring down at the quill with an unreadable tilt of her brow.
"Both of you will be picking up your quills," George had almost forgotten that Umbridge was there. She approached the side of Marigold's desk with arrogance in each step, looming over her with a barely noticeable grin: "I would like fifty pieces of parchment of lines from each of you, the line I would like you to start with is:"
Umbridge leaned over Marigold so she was barely a few inches from her, the professor's small smile stretching to cover her entire red, round face. "'Cedric Diggory was a reckless fool'."
Anger seized George's chest and he bit hard on his lip to stop him from saying something that could get them both into deeper trouble.
Marigold still hadn't met Umbridge's gaze.
Umbridge knew exactly what she was doing. Ripping Marigold to shreds from the inside out - dangling the prospect of losing her captainship in front of her face by forcing her to disrespect the memory of what she held dearest: Cedric. George watched on, his grip on the edge of his desk tightening until his knuckles began to whiten.
He could only imagine the thoughts running through Marigold's head.
The professor straightened up, a pleased look plastered across her features. "You will be allowed to leave at ten o' clock."
By then, George simply couldn't help himself, "Ten o' clock? Professor, that's four hours!"
He'd had experienced a lot of detentions in his time at Hogwarts, but they'd never been four hours long.
"You should have thought about that before you decided to talk back to me in my classroom, Mr Weasley." She squashed back into the arm chair behind her desk, "I suggest you get started."
He spared a final glance at Marigold, watching how she lifted the pen - noticing how it shook slightly in her grasp. The single only sign of weakness she'd shown since that morning. George took a deep breath, settling into the realisation that he didn't regret a damn thing. He'd defend Marigold a hundred times more, even if it meant a thousand hours of slicing his hand open with Umbridge's vile quill.
With that thought, he stuck his head down and reached for the parchment.
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If Marigold was ever sure of one thing, it was that she knew she would never forget the sensation of that quill slicing through the flesh on the back of her hand. How every stroke stung just as bad as the last, the pain running through her hand and up her arm. Cedric Diggory was a reckless fool. Cedric Diggory was a reckless fool.
By the end of the first hour, her hand was shaking from the pain and by the second, she couldn't feel anything up to her wrist.
A stone felt as if it was lodged in her throat, only growing thicker and heavier with every parchment she finished. She wouldn't look up, she couldn't if she tried. The sight of Umbridge might have just made Marigold vomit. Cedric Diggory was a reckless fool. Cedric Diggory was a reckless fool.
She could feel George's gaze striking the side of her head every few moments, she'd catch the flicker of movement in the corner of her eye when he turned to face her. Marigold desperately wanted to meet his eyes, but couldn't find the strength within her to look up from the parchment.
By the end of the fourth hour, a pool of shining red blood had gathered around her scarred hand that sat limp near the edge of the desk while her writing hand shook with cramps.
Marigold glanced up at the clock, one of the few times she'd lifted her head in four hours. Three minutes to ten.
She heard the squeal of Umbridge's chair as it was pushed out from behind her desk. The professor's glittering pink pumps clicked on the stone floor as she rounded the table to where Marigold sat. Marigold refused to meet her eyes as Umbridge's pudgy hand reached out to pick up her pieces of parchment.
Umbridge's voice was vile as she counted the parchment, and Marigold could only barely stand the sound of it.
"Forty-nine, fifty." She pressed the stack of parchment close against her chest as she moved towards George's desk, proceeding to count his aloud.
The clock against the wall chimed, ten o' clock. Marigold sat quietly until Umbridge was done with George's papers, her hands sat wounded in her lap. Her one hand dripping in blood, the other barely strong enough to curl into a fist after hours of writing. Cedric Diggory was a reckless fool.
"If I hear a single snarky remark out of either of you ever again, be warned that I will have you both expelled." Her voice was sharp as the edge of a blade, "Do we understand each other?"
Marigold nodded, her gaze still in her lap and her throat tight. She assumed that George had done the same because Umbridge huffed and turned to her desk sourly. "Get out. The both of you."
Marigold leapt from her seat, she couldn't stay another second in that office if she didn't want to wrap her hands around Umbridge's thick neck. Her hand pained as she twisted the doorknob and she almost yelped as the sensation ran up her arm. She avoided George's very obvious glance, she just wanted to get to bed.
Already pacing down the corridor, Marigold heard the door to Umbridge's office click shut behind her.
"Marigold!" the sound of George's footsteps approaching followed the sound of the door, she ignored him. "Marigold!"
Every inch of her stung with pain, her hands swelling and her chest tight with heartache. Facing George, who didn't even like her back, wasn't something she was up to dealing with just yet.
But the decision was made for her when a hand closed around her wrist and stopped Marigold dead in her tracks. At once, George was impossibly close. She could feel his breath on the top of her head.
"Please," His voice was so soft, it eased the pain in Marigold's heart for just a moment. "Just wait."
Marigold sighed, she'd missed his voice so dearly.
"Are you alright?" His voice drowned in sincerity.
She almost laughed, "I think we both know the answer to that, Weasley."
His grip still hadn't left her arm. Marigold lifted her scarred hand and gently pulled his hand into her grasp. It was warm, but tender with pain. She stared down at it, the same words etched into his hand as was hers. Cedric Diggory was a reckless fool.
Marigold allowed herself to meet his eyes for the first time in nearly two weeks. "You shouldn't have gotten yourself into trouble this morning. Umbridge could have expelled you."
George huffed, "She called you a cow, Marigold. How could you expect me to just sit by and watch?"
She sent him a stern look, "I can deal with Umbridge on my own, George. I don't need you jumping in to save me, especially when that bitch is looking for any excuse to expel you."
Their hands had grown warm from the shared touch and George lifted his hand to graze the side of her head tenderly. "I know you can. All I'm saying is that you don't have to. You don't have to handle Umbridge, or Cedric's death all on your own."
Marigold's throat tightened again, she broke their eye contact to stare down at their hands - the image blurring beyond her watery eyes. By Merlin, she never thought she'd have to deal with such pain in all her life. Less than a year before, she'd been completely content with no more problems than any other seventeen year old had.
"I don't know what to do to make you feel better, Goldie, but I'm here. I want to help. I want it to stop hurting." George's chest was tight and he wasn't sure he was making any semblance of sense, but he couldn't deal with another second of Marigold avoiding him. The last two weeks had been pure torture. He wanted her back, and if that was selfish, so be it.
Unintentionally, a fat tear slipped from Marigold's eye and chased down her face. She gently let go of George's hand so it fell by his side again. For a moment, George was convinced that she was going to walk away and leave him with his words but nearly jumped in fright when her arms curled around his waist.
Marigold leaned forward to rest the side of her face against his chest and sighed, tightening her grip around him. "You're always helping."
George didn't really understand what she meant by her statement, but decided that he didn't need to. He relished in the feeling of her warmth pressed against him and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, tucking her deeper into his chest.
They stayed like that for a long while, nearly ten minutes. Neither felt any urge to move, each heart feeling like it was going to explode in their respective chests.
Eventually, Marigold tilted her head up from where it was burrowed against him. "We should go to bed." she whispered, "We have class tomorrow."
George had to stop himself from groaning aloud, if it were up to him, they'd stay like that forever.
"Yeah, we should."
The walk back to the Hufflepuff common room was quiet, it was already past curfew and the only students wandering the corridors were over-achieving prefects.
Murray Mayfield had even scolded them as they crossed the library.
"Oh, put a sock in it, Mayfield." George had quipped and Marigold had let a small giggle slip. George smiled at that.
The entrance to the common room arrived far quicker than either George or Marigold would have liked, and for a moment, they just stood staring up at the barrels.
"Right," George shifted his weight awkwardly between his feet, "I suppose this is goodnight?"
Marigold hadn't met his gaze, she nodded silently.
Subconsciously running a hand through his hair, George nodded. "Well, goodnight then I suppose--"
"Will you stay?"
Marigold's words startled him and he looked down to where she stood, now staring up at him with nervousness painted across her features.
"Uh ..." George fumbled for words, did he want to spend the rest of the night with Marigold? Most definitely.
He regretted his spluttering when Marigold looked down regrettably, her face turning beet red. "I'm sorry. I was being silly. You don't have to if you don't want to, I just thought--"
"Yeah. Marigold. I'll stay."
Impossibly, Marigold's cheeks turned an even darker shade. It took her a moment, but she eventually let out a small "alright".
She tapped the barrels quietly before leading George into the common room.
The area in front of the fireplace wasn't completely deserted, two seventh years occupied a table near the boys dorm but Marigold seemed to pay them no mind, George trailing after her.
He wondered for the first time what he'd actually agreed to ... where was he even going to sleep?
Marigold broke off from him to near the chest George recognised from the last time he'd put her to bed on the night of her birthday, she pulled it open and stared into it's depths. "There's only one left." She lifted out a single, thick grey blanket. George stared at it, his heart sank.
"I could run back to the Gryffindor common room and grab mine?" He suggested.
"We could just share it?"
George's breath hitched in his throat. The thought of cozying up under that - by all observations - quite small blanket, had sent his heart racing a thousand beats a minute.
"Trying to seduce me, Knight?" He tried to talk over the obvious waver in his voice.
Marigold met his eyes and grinned - Merlin's beard he loved that grin - "I'm actually just trying to sleep, Weasley. I don't have to seduce anybody who's already in love with me."
From a thousand beats to zero, George's heart stopped. "W-What?"
Marigold was nearing him, she met his eyes and frowned in curiosity. "I'm just joking, George." She tossed the blanket over a wide couch nearby them, "You'd swear you'd seen a ghost.."
Rolling his eyes, George fell onto the couch and lifted his feet so his long body covered the length of the couch. He struggled to bring his breath back to normal. "Didn't realise you were so full of jokes tonight."
Marigold stood over him, her cheeks were blushing again. She motioned with her hand, "Are you going to shift over or am I sleeping on the floor?"
"Yeah, right." George toed off his shoes and shifted to the back of the couch, Marigold sat down stiffly before eventually leaning back to rest her head against the pillow beside George's.
She turned her head to meet his eyes, their faces barely a few centimetres from hers. She allowed a nervous giggle to pass her lips. "Stop looking at me like that."
George blinked and turned to face the ceiling, he had been staring. It was hard not to, he'd never been allowed the chance to examine her face so closely. Only from this angle could he really see the spots on her face, the slight colour imperfections that he didn't help his situation at all. Or the way her lashes fanned her cheeks. He brushed her comment off, "You warm?"
Marigold was quiet, she nodded. She shifted closer to him until her back was pressed against his chest and George was worried she could feel his heart pounding against his ribcage. Her eyes fell shut and after a few moments of silence, George was sure she had fallen asleep.
"George?" She whispered unexpectedly and George looked down at her from where he'd been staring into the flickering flames of the fireplace.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you, for staying. And for this morning." Her voice was soft, but strained. George smiled, he knew it took a lot for Marigold to accept help.
"Anytime, Knight." He paused, debating whether he should allow the next words to fall off his lips or not. He sighed deeply, "I missed you this week."
Even as she was faced away from him, George could practically feel the heat of her smile. "Is that so?"
"It is," He responded, bravely. "Not being able to talk to you was doing my head in."
Marigold twisted to look over her shoulder and meet George's eyes. They were sparkling in the light of the fireplace. "I missed you, too." Her arm moved and snaked down to find his hand over the blanket, taking it gently into her own scabbed and still barely bleeding grasp. Cedric Diggory was a reckless fool.
She brushed her fingers against his his so that the warmth of her hand began to sink into his and George sighed. Marigold turned back to face away from him, "Goodnight, George."
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hi lovelies! i'm sorry updates are so few and far between, uni is so crazy but I'm trying really hard to write when i can - i love you all endlessly! <3