With his textbooks piled next to him, George leaned his head against his fist, elbow against the table. Study time was necessary: he had an essay to finish. That’s right, George Carter was making himself write an essay, on time. Or trying, anyway, which was quite an improvement in most of those who knew him the six-ish years prior to being expelled. His extra quill (he actually owned more than one now) was resting behind his ear while the one he’d all ready resharpened was lightly tapping against the parchment.

Glancing around once again, George let out a huff of a breath and frowned. Waker had been acting odd the past couple of weeks, being illusive at times and being… not herself. During the study break before lunch, he thought he could try and push her, to see what was bothering her. Because, really, he could only apologize so many times for being completely honest in Potions class. It wasn’t his fault he’d been under the influence of the truth potion.

Which reminded him of his work. Opening the closest book, he started to leaf through the pages, yawning as he settled on the ingredients used to make Veritaserum. Glancing at his watch, he figured he could get a head start on that section before Waker showed up. It wasn’t too long after her DADA class, after all.

Twenty minutes later and he had two sentences written and a stick figure drawn. With his wand drawn, he was making the stick figure do little tricks on the paper, from jumping over drawn obstacles to doing a little dance because he was bored. When the animated stick figure tripped over a comma, George decided he’d had enough fooling around and once again attempted to focus with a deep sigh and a picking up of a book.

Another ten minutes and he hadn’t even gotten through the paragraph he’d started with.

Lifting his head from the palm of his hand, a red mark on the side of his forehead evidence of how much he’d been leaning, George once again glanced around. His eyes narrowed in irritation—what was taking her so long?! Maybe she was just… having a long conversation with the professor. After glancing around for a whole five seconds, he scribbled a quick ‘reserved’ on a note card, propped it up on the books, and pushed himself up from the table with a renewed sense of purpose.

He’d go find her himself. And maybe a biscuit or two to help motivate his essay writing skills. He strode towards the front of the library, hand buried deep in his trouser pocket while the other swung at his side. He was glad he was being more productive now. Waker seemed to stimulate more writing than he did on his own anyway.

Waker held her breath as she slipped through the doors and into the library. It wasn't the stack of books alphabetically arranged in her backpack that weighed her down and made her feel like she was wading through the reeds of the lake (really, how did George ever get used to such a sensation?). It was her conscience, and the little devils on her shoulders in the forms of Kitty Li and Vasilky Volkov. The angel on the other side, however, had a different face... George's own, crowned with a little halo that was more of a Quidditch helmet.

Like a child turning blue, she was forced to exhale. She straightened her stance, tightened her non-hold on herself, and headed for the target. Or tried to. Before she could take another step in the direction of the table (their table, the one they always used), she nearly ran head-first into George himself. Blinking at his sudden appearance (had she really been so stuck in her own head not to have seen him?), she offered a belated smile. "George..."

The awkward lateness of her realization was followed by an even more awkward physical greeting. The hug was stiff, like a child trying not to step on toes while she danced at a wedding. The kiss to the cheek was brief, a bird's peck. "Sorry, I had to talk to... my adviser... about something. You know," she offered vaguely, looking at him, but not really. She was a terrible liar, and it was harder if she kept her eyes locked on his.

"Where are you going?" She asked suddenly, her voice surfacing from the water, her body dropping its defenses. She grabbed both of his hands, placing her daintier ones in his sportsman's grasp. She looked around for the source of the disturbance.

He’d been so excited to leave the library that he had been focusing on the doors more than anyone in his way. People were merely objects to maneuver around or through, and if they got in his way, then they were simply a casualty. He was on a mission! And anything to keep George from doing his work was to be treated with the most careful consideration. Nothing could mess it up, or it meant he’d have to go back to work…

Thankfully he didn’t collide with Waker, though it took a moment to realize she was right there. He grinned and his eyebrows rose, though it dropped slightly as he realized he wasn’t going to be able to leave the library now. “Hey Love.” Glancing wistfully to the ‘prison gates,’ he gave her a hug, trying to pull her in to a more natural greeting. Frowning slightly, it only soured more at the peck on the cheek after he went in for a full frontal.

The apology was ruffled, but he put it to her being late—she wasn’t often one for tardiness. After shrugging a shoulder in disinterest, George glanced over her face, tilting his head and smirking as he bit down on his lower lip. “Sure.” Then he paused and made a face. “We have advisers…?” Scratching the back of his head as his gaze drifted, he wondered how he’d missed that.

“Where are you going?”

Blinking, he glanced back up at her, dropping his hand to his side and accepting her grip. Smirking, he pulled her in by her hands, finally pressing his lips to hers. “To find you. My essay wouldn’t write itself.” Giving her a childish pout, he pulled each hand, twisting them slightly on the spot. “You know I’m not a fan of staying longer than I have to.” There was fresh air to be had, after all.

If he was disappointed in her greeting, she failed to notice. Or, rather, smoothly sailed right past Reaction to Observation and continued with her plan.

Or un-plan.

For the first time in her conscious life, Waker Nolan had no plan.

She wrinkled her nose and narrowed her brows, her cheeks bunching against their will. "It's called your Head of House, George. Why do you think they exist? To steal points from your soul?" But then... "No, I forgot, yours is--" She mimed her hands over her face, and then dragged them downward, pausing in an awkward car-wash scrubbing motion around her chest. It was Waker Language for a babe. "Not Bombay," she finished simply.

"Not that I'm complaining!" She added, face returning to normal, perhaps with a hint of a panicked plea in it. "Bombay is lovely... in his... in his own way, you know." It was just like when they'd first met-- she was a practiced mess, he was smooth and slick and directionless. And now she felt her heart jump, but for a different reason.

With a sigh, her eyes lowered to their hands, lashes beating against the apples of her cheeks much more quietly than her heart thumping against her chest. "Maybe your essay," she said, personifying it in a small voice, and meeting George's eye for only a fleeting second. "Will... how did you put it? Write itself--" Ha! "Once you've got some food in you. But no cakes. You'll crash before sundown. Come on."

She whirled and tugged him toward the exit, finding that walking-- and facing the walls, the ancient stone and carpeted expanses of the castle, escaping the library, her once-upon-a-time refuge-- was much easier than saying what she'd come to say.

His face screwed up in slight shock. Was he being scolded?! His lips pursed and he frowned at her. That was all he’d seen the Head of House do to him. Why else did he get called in to see them? Maybe they had talked once or twice about his future, but… he hadn’t really paid much attention to that. What was a repeat sixth year needing career advice for anyway? Didn’t they expect him to end up doing janitorial cleanup at the Ministry? Or bussing tables at the Three Broomsticks?

Watching her hands made his confusion deepen, showing on his face with a raised eyebrow and parted lips, clearly mesmerized by her… hand show. Not Bombay was right. Nodding in agreement, his eyes clearly slower than usual, he blinked at her exclamation. Not complaining about what now?

Looking up at her face, he closed his lips and shrugged slightly. “I wouldn’t say so much, but you… can?” He was an all right professor, and George had actually been attempting in his class the past two years. But he wouldn’t call Bombay (or any other man, truly, other than Trent) lovely. His head of house, however, was something to be admired. Now George knew where she’d been going with it! And he was grinning like he knew. For pretenses, he quickly wiped the grin and bit down on his lower lip.

Now it was back to her professor tone. His essay didn’t want written. Maybe. Since it was George’s essay and he didn’t fancy writing it. But then she mentioned food, and his eyebrows perked up in agreement. Cakes? He could hide one or two in his pocket for safe keeping. Grinning, it didn’t take more than a couple tugs to get his feet moving, pushing forward and up against her backside, slowing them down long enough to give her a hug, his arm around her waist, and a kiss on the neck.

She was such a smart girl, knowing food was the way to his heart. And… essay writing skills. Letting go of her, loosening his hold long enough to step back up beside her, George swung their hands in the space between them. “I thought I’d never get out of there. So…” Eyeing her carefully, he smirked. “I know something I have an appetite for.”

The kiss tickled her warmly, lingering even as they stepped into the hall. She squeezed George's hand more tightly, reflexively as he suggested he had a different sort of hunger. A blush came to her cheeks and she eyed him, miming in some non-mime-ish Waker language that he ought to keep his voice down. A pair of third year girls in Hufflepuff robes passed them, looking over their shoulders even as they floated away, and giggling so loudly that Waker swore it would wake every slumbering portrait in the Headmistress's distant office.

She leaned into him carefully, cautiously, and the changed the subject as if they'd been discussing... the weather. "He's really not so bad, you know," she insisted, picking up on the forgotten Bombay The Adviser conversation. "If you do what you're supposed to do, and volunteer when you have an answer that isn't just cute or clever-- but right--" That was the sticking point. "He sort of offers up a mutual respect, you know? He's just quiet and to the point about it. Very practical. Very... Ravenclaw."

Surely George had some sort of connection with a professor in the past. One that didn't involve losing points or raking up detentions.

Not knowing the same sorts of secret passages to the kitchens that girlfriends of years past might have explored with the flirty rebel, Waker headed for the stairs. It was a long way down to the kitchens. Four flights of lies. She tried not to think about it. Maybe if she put it off just a little bit longer...

"George," she said suddenly, pausing in the second step from the top of the landing. She kept hold of him like an anchor, forcing him to stop with her. She looked left, right, up and down the stairs. No one. "We need to talk." Her voice became a murmur. She gazed down at their shoes, there together on the narrow, ancient step. How many pairs of lovers' shoes had stopped on this very step? How many hearts had been broken in the same spot?

She took a deep breath and looked up again, staring just past him. It came out in a rush before she could change her mind. "I was in Hogsmeade when I wasn't supposed to be. A couple of weeks ago. I need to clear my head." She felt a bitter little laugh catch in her throat, and die. "I met this boy. He just moved to town and he... he looked like he needed some company..." Now her cheeks were pink again. It was a lie. Vasily looked like company was the last thing he needed. "We shared drinks, and he walked me back to the castle. And we... he kissed me, George. And I kissed him back." She swallowed hard, her fingers curling into themselves in the hand that wasn't holding George's. Finally her eyes shifted, landed on his. They were sad, pale ghosts of her usual gaze. She knew it was a losing battle, but she knew she had to forge on, to tell everything. "He invited me to meet him again, and I did. The second time, we weren't drinking."

And they were back to Bombay. Why was the creepy Herbology professor a necessary addition to their conversation? George was trying to get somewhere with Waker, out of the library. It had been a little too long… “Very boring. Clever responses keep the class focused.” The professor was supposed to teach them the right thing anyway. That was the point of a lesson, wasn’t it? Learn something new you didn’t know before.

“George”

He almost missed the next step, thanks to Waker’s sudden stop that involved holding on to him. Something about Newton’s law of gravity started to take over before George was able to balance himself out, swinging slightly with his leg and teetering in that unknown balance. Finally regaining his footing, he stepped back up to the stair with her, raising an eyebrow. Seeing her eyes roam made his follow, slower, uncertain of what they were keeping an eye out for.

Then the dreaded words entered the space between them, and it felt a lot hotter than usual. His smirk twitched as he tried to keep it up, and failing that, he glanced around once more for good measure. “I was working on the essay, honest…”

The Head Girl went to Hogsmeade when she shouldn’t have? And didn’t invite George? Raising his eyebrows, he smirked a little—she had to get that off her chest? But then it just kept going, and he felt a heavy feeling start in the pit of his stomach. Met a boy. It’s ok, George, probably nothing. It’s hot in here, remember, that’s why her cheeks are flushed. Deep down, he was starting to piece it together with a sickening foreboding.

Kissed. He rocked back slightly, a foot finding the next stair down, his hand limply holding on to hers as it stretched out. Shock filled him—his face showed every emotion he felt: confusion, disbelief, a desire to not believe it.

His hand pulled away instinctively, resting on the banister to keep himself up. She kissed someone else. Glancing down, staring without seeing, he shook his head slightly. So much for his hunger. His mouth opened and then closed, unable to piece together words for a moment. “And…” His voice was too soft. Clearing it, gritting his teeth in irritation, he glanced out over the banister, out across the emptiness to the unmoving wall. “Did he need more company?” His voice was a little stronger. Feeling more secure in that, he fixed Waker with a frown, waiting.

She flinched, watching him nearly lose his balance, and then regain it last minute in that keeper's way. In that George way. Lucky George. She'd always thought him lucky. But now... Waker swallowed, her throat aching. She looked at him, her eyes attempting to say his name again without the help of her voice. Her voice my shatter if she tried.

The essay. She wanted to cry. He was worrying about impressing her with essays and clever little white lies. She knew he had no plans to study, and she might have been perfectly fine with that on any other day-- or in spite of this day. She would have failed three classes to take back what she was going to tell him, but it was the truth, and she had to be out with it, one way or another. She was a coward, but keeping lies was even harder. She was no Slytherin. Come clean and flee, that was the game.

If she hadn't been looking away, she might have seen the changes his face, from smirk, to suspicion, confusion, and hurt. Free-falling.

She flinched again as he evaluated her words and came to his own conclusions. His own investigative inquiries. The right questions. The awful questions. The exact ones Waker hadn't wanted him to ask. He would have earned an O, and she was the thing under the slide, worse than a bug.

"Yesterday..." She began, her voice so small, she might have been a mouse. "It just... it just happened. I mean, he owled me. He doesn't know anyone around here. And I just wanted to be his friend." That was a lie. Waker was about as likely to befriend a boy like Vasily as she was to befriend Devlin Matthews' gang. And as for, poor, innocent foreign boy wallowing in his loneliness...

Waker decided on a new tactic. "I wanted to know what it was like," she said, suddenly painting herself the Curious Victim. She was not a lion. "You've been with other girls. I haven't-- I didn't... not even with... with Devlin." Bad timing. "Just you, George." She reached out again, grabbing his arm, even though he was perfectly still on the stair, in no real danger of tumbling over. "I just wanted to know-- before you and I-- we... I love you, more than anyone. Please don't hate me."

She hadn't thought it would turn out like this. She'd thought she'd tell him, straight out, no guilty intonation. Get it out like a book report, and then face the consequences. Invite him to break up with her, to save himself, to cut his losses and leave her in the dirt, where she belonged. But she couldn't say those words. She needed him. There were tears in her eyes now, and she tried to bite them back. "You're the only thing I never planned in my life, and you're the only one who wasn't a mistake."

George’s gaze dropped from Waker’s face—he couldn’t keep staring at her, watching her eyes, her lips, the way the words moved through them, how beautiful she looked while stabbing him in the chest. Repeatedly. With every dripping drop of honesty. He swallowed. He swallowed again for good measure. He wet his lips, rolled his shoulders, and tried not to let the boiling rage take over.

Did it every just happen? George couldn’t focus long enough to think back to his past; if it just happened, it would have stopped, right? She would have realized the mistake she had made and put her hands up in a very obvious ‘no thank you, I have the best boyfriend around’ gesture. George had ‘just happened’ on a couple of occasions before, but he had been obvious of his indiscretion. Perhaps this was karma slugging the quaffle back.

And boy, did it hurt. Like a surprise smack from the side when you were expecting it from the front. Waker, the ever friendly Head Girl. His eyes narrowed at that statement and his grip on the banister tightened, but he let her keep talking. If she didn’t, he didn’t know what to say.

“I wanted to know what it was like.”

His mouth dropped open almost as fast as his head swung back to stare at her. Eyebrows furrowed as he stared in disbelief. It had never ended up very happy for him. Quickly his lips pursed—he had been with other girls before Waker. That was true. But how did that make up for this? George knew he was slow, but this… was taking longer than it should have, even for him.

Was she justifying whatever she did by somehow making an inference that George had done it at some point? Making a face at Devlin’s name, he shook his head and looked away again, feeling his frustration coming to a point quicker than he was expecting. Just him. Not anymore. Pulling his arm back, his hand up in some form of ‘hey, stop, don’t touch me, I want to beat a hole into the stone wall’ sign, George worried he was going to be sick.

She wanted to know… what? Licking his lips, still staring at some unknown space between them, his hand up in defense, George shook his head. “Wa-” A quick clearing of the throat occurred as his cheeks flushed. He didn’t stutter over words. “Wanted to know what?” He felt like playing dumb a little bit.

“You’re the only thing I never planned in my life, and—”

George started to shut her out. His eyes were increasingly hard to see out of. Blinking, hoping it would clear up, he refused to look at her. His gaze dropped once again to stare at his feet, turning his head to the side and hastily scrubbing at the side of his head. He tried to tell himself to suck it up. And it took repeating her words again to snap him out of it. She planned this? Frowning at her, he stood up straight, finally letting his hand drop from the unrelenting air.

“What’s his name.” He felt weak and vulnerable, but he was going to quickly throw himself into the easy chair of arsehole. Anger and pain always helped. “Or did you catch it?” His hand came up to play the game of gestures, his index finger pointing in the unknown between them, circling slowly. “I mean, if you’ve kept in good enough contact to owl… Then I hope you know that much.” He gave her a smirk, his eyes  dark as he looked into her face. “Now you know.” Her curiosity was killing her big cat.

And then he turned around and started down the stairs, wanting to run as fast as he could.

“Wa- ... Wanted to know what?”

Waker could feel the lemon juice sting of tears on her cheeks, her silly big baby cheeks, which felt so much more... well, babyish when they were bracing themselves for the impending flood. Her spine felt hot and cold, the temperature playing over her back like a piano concert, and the muscles in her neck seemed to tighten and slack in simultaneous tension and defeat. She didn’t want to say the words, didn’t want to spell it out. Waker Nolan, girl of the answers, girl with her hand in the air in the first class of the day when every sane soul slept at his desk, wanted very much to swallow her words and sit on her fingers.

“You know what,” she whispered pathetically. Her voice was small, but dripping with confession and deceit and evil, a traitor’s voice in a schoolgirl’s throat. She wanted him to see how desperate she was, and felt horribly guilty for wanting it so badly. And as for the other thing she wanted, once-upon-a-time-last-week... “George, don’t make me say it,” she pleaded, her voice wobbling.

“I... you were my first, I swear,” was all she could add, between guilty glimpses of him and attempts to keep the tears away by staring at her shoes. He hadn’t asked. As if it made a difference at all, as if it absolved her crimes or lessened the sentence. Good behavior was hardly applicable in these situations. Prison would have made it so much easier. Why had they ever stopped chucking people behind bars for such things?

“What’s his name.”

Her voice, she found it again, and very suddenly.

“George, it’s done, it really doesn’t matter--”

“Or did you catch it?”

She flinched.

“I mean, if you’ve kept in good enough contact to owl… Then I hope you know that much.”

Blushing, she didn’t even bother with the tears that crept down her cheeks, one, two, the treasonous things. She looked back at him, and could only feel bewildered-- and a tiny pang of relief, there and then gone-- at his sudden and infelicitous smirk. She deserved as much.

“Wait!” She called after him, trampling down a handful of steps like a fawn on ice. She grabbed his arm. She’d officially become one of those girls. “Can we go somewhere less--” She looked around and then back to him. This, she thought.

But it was no use. They were nearly at the third floor, and Waker knew what that meant. Even from the staircase, she could see it looming, the glint of sunshine on silver in the afternoon twilight. The Trophy Room was no place to end this, lest gods actually exist and have a vendetta for Waker.

Stop pitying yourself, her mind hissed. She felt a breath stir in her stomach, well below her lungs, and somehow managed to let it out. In the next inhale, she tried to compose herself, flicking away tears with a frenzied, balled fist, and straightening her back on the stair below George, where she’d hurried to cut him off in his path.

If she’d been herself, the same person she was before this whole mess started, she’d have gone scurrying off by now, wand clutched in one hand and the other raised to deflect judgment. Waker was not a flier, but she was a fast runner. And why not put those skills to use when her social ones fell flat?

“You don’t need to know his name,” she reasoned, inwardly mortified that she was lecturing him when by all rights he should be expelling her from the datable population of Hogwarts. “Of course I’m not so stupid as to jump into bed with someone whose name I don’t even know-- we-- I...” She blushed madly. “I know who he is,” she said at last, finding that calm, cool, and collected Waker-Of-The-Practiced-Speech somewhere deep inside. “But you don’t need to know. It won’t change anything.

“But,” she added, all too hastily. “It was only once. Just that one time. Only him. At his place, in his bed.” She swallowed. “He doesn’t even go here, George, and he... he can’t reach us here.” Now she was using both hands, holding his arms like a reprimanding mother, trying to make him understand. “I don’t love him.”

This crushing feeling in his chest couldn’t be healthy. Why did things have to change? Why did people have to find their way into your inner self, worm their way into being what you cared about, and then start playing with nerves, pulling here, flicking there, finally taking a hearty bite and tearing through. This wasn’t what it should be like. Not for George… And it made it worse, knowing that he did know what she meant.

He frowned suddenly, brows furrowing together, the tension behind it starting to create a headache. “Don’t make you say it?!” He was at a tipping point. On the stairs. Not the smartest location… The outburst, the booming voice, disbelief echoing against the ancient walls, it all resounded back to George as he stared at her.

His back was straighter than before, staring at her with an odd mixture of horror and anger. He had never questioned that he’d plundered first—why was that such an important point to… point out right then?! Bewilderment was the main emotion there. It looked as if he’d be the first of many. The thought made him sick to his stomach. It hadn’t felt that way, so crushing, with other girls in the past. Then again, it hadn’t been built up into what it was with other girls.

And now she refused to grace him with the offending boy’s name. It felt like the most respectful thing she could do to him—the wand was pretty deep in his back, after all, why not add a little bit of salt and lemon to the mix? At least then he’d have a target.

He tried not to let her tears bother him. If anything, it made him angrier, his own vision blurring momentarily before he got a grip on himself.  And at that point, it was time to leave. The cry for him to wait for her was responded with a short, clipped, sarcastic laugh.

Of course, when she barreled in front of him, he could do little else but stop, or risk sending them both tumbling down to the next landing. An irritated growl escaped him before he stopped, staring down at her.

“Of course I’m not so stupid as to jump into bed with someone—”

Sometimes the details could be spared on George. His mouth opened, closed, grimaced, and was followed quickly be his eyes closing. He had to regain his composure lest he lose it. She knew the guy. And she ‘jumped into bed’ with him. And she had to keep reminding George of that.

His mouth opened and he took in a breath to respond to her statement. She didn’t know him! She didn’t know if he needed to know the bloke’s name or not! His face started to turn red from the humiliation and anger he felt. With the other guy. At his place. She willing and knowingly went back to some guy’s place, to some other person’s bed.

“I don’t love him.”

Too many things came to mind to say at once, and George started to let them slide out one by one, twisting his arms out of her grasp. “Bloody brilliant. Poor sod who does though, because it doesn’t matter then.” He stepped back, slipped and stumbled on the stairs, scrambling in a very un-George-like manner as he moved back up the stairs, away from her. “No, you’d betray someone you love—no, someone you say you love.” His voice started to get stronger, louder, angrier. Venom hung off his words as he retreated further, refusing to get close enough to be grabbed again. “Were you gagging for it?”

It still just didn’t make any sense. “Over someone you don’t love! How does that make any sense?!” Aside from it not making any, of course. His brain wasn't functioning as it should. He kept having the same thought process, and it basically stemmed from 'this has to be a joke.' His hands went from the side of his head and out into the air above, as if the heavens might have some sort of clue for the poor, gutted young man. When she started to come after him, he shouted towards her, roaring in his pain and frustration.  “NAFF OFF!” And with that, George walked around her and started to quickly go down the stairs, occasionally beating the banister on his way. Fresh air was needed.