Hand in hand with their break from classes, came Spring.
The grounds that rolled on for hills around Hogwarts were growing a deeper shade of green with each passing day and the warmth of the afternoons seemed to seep into the castle walls where the light breezes would come whistling through.
Most days, Marigold would be found lounging near the edge of the lake with her friends - they would laugh and talk and feed themselves off of what they'd gathered from the dining hall. It reminded her of the previous Spring when Cedric used to sit down there with them, daring Marigold to stick her toes into the still freezing water. Some days, she swore when she looked quickly that she could still see his figure lying languidly against the grass between Angelina and Diego.
The twins joined them down there too, Lee was an obvious attachment. Marigold would smile, Cedric would've liked them, she just knew it.
While the days were filled with seemingly warming contentment and the evenings sprawled around the fire in the common room, pouring through textbooks as the seventh years prepared for their upcoming NEWTs - Marigold's chest grew every day tighter with unease.
At dinner, almost nightly, she could feel the hot violating gaze of Umbridge from the staff table at the front of the Hall. Sometimes she'd look up to meet the poisonous blue eyes of her Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and cold dread would fill her chest. Marigold's copy of the letter Umbridge had written to each of the captains warning them of possible expulsion lay flat against her bedside table and every night she would eye it carefully before slipping into anxious slumber.
Crippling the initial hope that the night of the twins' birthday party would blow over, Dolores had wasted no time in her pursuit for anything to nail the twins with. In the nearly two weeks since that evening at the Quidditch pitch, numerous students from each house were spotted leaving her office at odd hours of the morning and night. With each rumour, Marigold became sure that the next owl that flew over their heads would be a letter of final expulsion for the twins, or Angelina or even herself. Despite it, the letter never came - but with each passing hour the walls of the castle inched ever closer in around them and Marigold knew it was only a matter of time. What Dolores Umbridge wanted, Dolores Umbridge got.
To her deepest confusion - but not surprise - the twins seemed to be the least concerned over the whole matter. Each time Marigold would bring it up to George, he would shrug her off: offering a grunt of nonchalance and a "you shouldn't stress so much, Knight".
Cool evening was beginning to close over Hogwarts on a Tuesday afternoon near the end of their spring recess. The sun had turned a dark orange and the sky was a hue of deepest purple when the group of youths were enjoying the last few moments of lounging beneath a willow by the rim of the lake.
Marigold had her thickest coat swallowing her physique because despite spring's prompt re-entry, a chill still hung in the air at the end of the day. Her eyes lifted from where they were tracing the silhouette of the castle blackened by the shadows of the evening to where Diego tossed down his pile of cards against the grass in defeat.
"How did you get so good at this?" His voice was dripping in disbelief, "I was the one who taught it to you!"
Elin shrugged innocently, a small grin busying her face: "Don't hate the player, hate the game. Isn't that what you taught me?"
Diego grunted unhappily, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever."
Angelina lifted her watch to examine it's face in the dimming light of the sky, "It's almost seven, we should start heading up. I'm starving."
Winslow nodded, "I second that."
Marigold's stomach grumbled, they hadn't eaten anything but a handful of grapes since midday. "Yeah, but I need to stop by the greenhouse to feed my Wiggentree."
"Why didn't you come with Ang and I earlier?" Winslow enquired, rising from the grass and dusting off his cloak.
Before classes broke up, as their last big assignment before the start of exams, Sprout had given each of her seventh years a Wiggentree to look after until recess finished and they would be marked on it's state at the end of the twenty-one days.
Marigold shrugged her off, "It's nicer to go past in the evening when the greenhouse is empty."
"Well, mine is looking stupendous." Fred quipped from where he was pulling on his shoes beside Lee and Bernie. "Best in the whole greenhouse, if I say so myself."
"I've seen yours, Fred, it looks like it's halfway to the grave." Angelina chirped and the Weasley twin feigned a look of deepest hurt.
"I rebuke that notion."
Marigold chuckled to herself, she too had seen Fred's plant and it indeed did look as if it hadn't seen a feeding in at least ten days.
"Listen guys, before we head up," Fred spoke up again, making deliberate eye contact with his twin. "Georgie and I have some news."
Marigold looked up from where she was tying the laces on her boots to meet George's face, she was surprised to find their eyes meeting. He looked away, "That we do. Should I tell them or are you?"
Fred grinned, holding his arms out as if he was addressing a large crowd: "We are leaving Hogwarts." A grin laced his words as if he'd just dropped the news of the century.
A confused silence followed, but Marigold's stomach was twisting in panic. Despite not knowing exactly what Fred's words meant: she was smart enough to realise it was nothing good. Her fingers slackened against her laces, and her eyes blinked up at them in apprehension.
"Leaving Hogwarts?" Angelina was the first to split the silence, "What do you mean "leaving Hogwarts"?"
"Well," George spoke up as if he'd been practicing his response, "We all know Umbridge is just a few days away from kicking Fred and I to the curb, so we thought we'd beat her to it."
Fred nodded gleefully, "Exit with a bang, if you will."
Marigold's stomach was sinking again and she found that her throat was tightening around a hard lump. George looked as if he was avoiding meeting her gaze, if he did he might've noticed the desperation spread across her face.
"Uh," Diego spoke, but the air was still one of unsureness. "Congratulations, I guess."
He stuck his hand out and both the twins shook it.
"What's the plan then?" Bernie's voice was laced in curiosity, "When are you guys leaving?"
The twins exchanged a look, "Friday." They said together.
Marigold rose on wobbling legs, Friday was three days away. Each swallow she took stung worse than the last and her heart was thumping against her chest. This was hurting.
She didn't want George to leave. Not yet anyways, she always thought she would have him at least until they graduated. George was going to get back to his life in London, to his family and time would pass - leaving Marigold Knight as a distant memory in his review mirror. The thought made her stomach churn harder.
It took less than a few seconds for her face to harden from hurt to chagrin: she pulled her cloak closer around her, turning towards the greenhouse before stomping her way up the hill.
"Goldie, where are you going?" Elin called after her, but she didn't turn back to face her.
"To feed my tree." Marigold responded waspishly over her shoulder - unworried about whether she was actually heard or not. She'd later regret being so short with her friend, but that wasn't a worry she currently held.
The Hufflepuff girl had trudged less than halfway to Greenhouse Three before the sound of falling footsteps in the distance caught her attention. She didn't have to turn around to know who they belonged to.
"Goldie!" George called but she refused to look back, focusing instead on the nearing entrance to the greenhouse.
Marigold swallowed hard, allowing the anger that thumped around her heart to rush to her head. What a selfish set of pricks, the voice in her head scathed, leaving the rest of us to face the consequences of their actions.
Deep inside, Marigold knew that wasn't the case and she was just as much to blame for being at the party as the twins were for hosting it, but the voice of reason had long since escaped her. Desperation and fear and anguish clung to her like a bad stench.
George caught up, as she knew he eventually would, and he stared down at her. "Knight, what's wrong? Why the rush?"
"Nothing's wrong, George." she scathed, still refusing to look up at him. "I just have to go feed my tree because I'm going to be marked on it and some of us are actually staying in school. So don't mind me if I'm a bit preoccupied."
A confused silence rang, and Marigold could practically picture the confused look that graced the features she knew so well. The features of the face that lingered in her mind in the moments before sleep.
"Marigold,"his voice prickled with seriousness, "Umbridge is going to expel us anyways, there's no use prolonging the suffering."
The wind whipped at Marigold's hair and darkness seemed to be falling more rapidly around them than it had before. She couldn't hold in the guffaw that spilt from her lips and the humourless dry chuckle that followed after it. "And since when do either of you back out of a fight with anyone, much less Umbridge? Hm?"
Her hand closed over the doorknob of the greenhouse and she swung it carelessly open, Marigold was relieved to find it empty of other students. Only the rows of Wiggentrees and the four lone torches that were perched at each corner of the long glass room.
George's hand caught the door before it shut in his face, Marigold already halfway down the room towards where her Wiggentree sat by the open window.
"I don't understand why you're so angry." His voice was lower now and for a split second Marigold melted at the sound of it, before reminding herself of the fact that he was leaving in three days and would probably forget all about her in less than a week. "When we're gone, Umbridge will forget all about the party. She'll leave you alone, Marigold. You won't have to worry about losing captainship anymore."
It was that last sentence that forced Marigold to meet George's eyes, they were soft but heat lingered just behind them.
She couldn't find it within herself to care about his attempt at an excuse.
"Surely even you don't believe that, George." The space between them was a few feet, but felt like it spanned kilometres. "You're a smart boy, the second you two are gone Angelina and I are going to be the first students she comes for."
George's chest puffed and he seemed to rise a few centimetres, she could practically feel the billow of his growing agitation: "Well, what do you want me to do, Marigold? Fred and I are trying to find a solution to all this, but you seem to have it all figured out. So you tell me, Marigold, what should I do?"
"I'm not your mum, George!" Her voice was too growing in volume, the hurt in her chest seemed to be radiating off of her in waves. By then, her arms were flailing around with each word and she felt she had no control over the syllables rushing past her lips. "I'm not gonna tell you what to do. Go ahead and do what you want! Run away with Fred, go on! But don't just expect the rest of us to sit around and be happy about it."
"Tell me to stay, Marigold." The sentence was simple but hit her like a punch in the gut. His face was stoic but held what looked like ever emotion simultaneously. "Tell me to stay and I'll stay. Tell me to jump off the west tower stark-bollock naked and I'll fucking do it!"
"This isn't about me!" Marigold let out in a hot breath, knowing that it was nothing less than a flat out lie. She knew she was making it about her, that she wanted him to stay - nay - needed him to stay, but she could never admit that aloud. Not when everyone she needed seemed to pick up and leave her in one way or another. "It's not about me, its about you--"
"Of course it's about you!" George's voice boomed and bounced back off the greenhouse walls to hit her ears again. "Everything's about you. It always is."
Marigold pulled in a deep breath, she suddenly wasn't sure. She didn't know what he meant.
"All of this is about you, Marigold." His voice still held pace and volume, but lacked anger or torridity. "It's about you when I wake up and you're the first thing I think about, when I'm forced to wonder how you're going to wear your hair or if you're going to give me that fucking smile that makes me feel like I'm dissolving. It's about you when your face won't leave my head before I fall and asleep and then it's still fucking about you when you show up in my dreams and I wake up to my empty bed!"
His voice was quieter now, calmer. "And the only time it's about me is when I'm sitting up wondering how I've managed to fall so fucking hard for you."
Marigold couldn't feel any part of her body, and in hindsight wondered how her legs kept her perched up.
She couldn't possibly imagine the expression on her face because the muscles in her cheeks and forehead felt like they'd forgotten their jobs and her jaw sat limp. The greenhouse suddenly wasn't on earth anymore, as if it were a galaxy away where only they two existed.
George's face glinted in the low light of the torches.
"Marigold," he whispered, "Please say something."
As if being brought back to life by an electric current being shot up through her chest: Marigold could suddenly feel everything all at once. She could count the vibrating of every nerve at every end of her body and every possible emotion pounding against her forehead: anger, exhaustion, grief, euphoria, surprise, joy.
"If this is a joke, George," their eyes were locked so firmly, Marigold wondered if they could ever be pried apart again. "It's not a funny one."
"It's not a joke, Marigold."
Marigold's jaw tightened, nodding just lightly - still digesting the weight of his words. There was quiet for a long moment and she took tentative steps towards George until they were less than a foot from each other. His eyes seemed to glitter in the light of the fire.
"Can I kiss you?" She whispered.
"Oh fuck yes."
Before Marigold could say or do anything else, her face became trapped between George's two cool hands and she was pulled flush against his chest before hot lips pressed against hers.
They stood for a long moment, both revelling in the feel of each other so close and so warm and so sweet after months of unfulfilled longing. Marigold felt as if she was on the precipice between tipsy and roaringly wasted without having touched a drop of liquor. A part of her wasn't sure this was real life and it seemed that George shared that sentiment.
The tall Gryffindor boy pulled her impossibly closer, if this was a dream: he was going to milk every second of it before plunging back into reality. He began twisting his lips against hers and she hummed so beautifully against him that George thought he might cry.
Marigold pulled off of him with a fleshy pop and George could feel her warm breath fanning his cheek, her hand lifted to caress a spot on his cheek before kissing it - leaving a wet spot behind.
"I hate to interrupt," Marigold's voice was barely a whisper. "But I thought you'd like to know that I've fallen pretty hard for you too."
George couldn't help but grin, he wondered whether he'd ever felt so happy in his whole life. "A stupid tosser like me?"
She nodded, "A stupid tosser like you."
His lips crashed against hers again.
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