first book in the Evelyn Black series
• • sequal: BACK TO LOVE
[ i promise the second book is better lol ]
• slow slow-burn (like years) friends to lovers •
• soft burn romance •
[ all books listed in prologue via chronological order ]
"As ador...
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When she opens her eyes, she's met with all kinds of smiling faces; the widest being George's... the most heavy-hearted being Hermione's.
She immediately tries sitting up, but George stops her. "Oh, no. I don't think so."
She glares at him, slightly confused as she slides up on the bed to inclines herself within his satisfactions. "What?"
"You have three broken ribs, two bruised, and a concussion," George tells her. He settles down on a stool at her bedside. "Like hell you're moving a muscle."
"George," she gives him a sleepy look, "I'm perfectly—"
"A concussion," he repeats.
She looks at Fred and he gives her an evenly concerned glance. She pulls her eyes back to George and pouts at him. He always babies her when she's sick... but Merlin forbid that she could treat him the same whenever he was feeling under the weather.
"Ev," Hermione beckons for her attention, which slowly switches over. Her brain feels like it's in a microwave oven having holes poked in it. "Do you remember what happened?"
"I fuckin' hope not," Fred chides. "That's trauma— owe!" He side-eyes Ginny who'd elbowed his side.
She tries to think... and hardly anything comes to her. Whomping Willow, the grim, Ron, Shrieking Shack, her father—
"My dad..." she begins. "And Professor Lupin was there..." Then she tries to think harder and her thoughts get too clouded, blending together like watercolors. "I— I..."
"It's alright," Hermione promises her. "I'll tell you later..."
"Is she okay?" Ron asks from across the wing. Ginny and Fred split at the end of the bed so Evelyn and Ron can look at one another. He grins. "Thank Godrick you're okay! You gave us a right scare."
She takes her eyes down to his cast and purses her lips.
The grim— her father.
"He's an animagus," Evelyn suddenly recalls. "He—"
"He attacked Ron," Hermione fills in.
"But it's okay," Ron says quickly. "He was going for the rat."
"The rat," Evelyn repeats, her mind already at work. It was involuntary... the thinking. She couldn't help but be curious, to know, and it always clicks. "Pettigrew," she remembers, her face suddenly lighting up. "He— he was the rat. He got Harry's parents killed."
"Ev," George picks his hand up to her face and brushes back from of the freshly washed hair, cleaned because of the scrape on her scalp from the willow root. "Please, just give yourself a minute."
She ignores him. "Where's Harry?" She asks Hermione.
Hermione purses her lips. "He's... not awake right now. He and Black got sort of... mixed up," she explains, "in the forest with a few dementors."
