𝘀𝗺𝗲𝗲, george weasley

˗ˋ 05

CHAPTER FIVE
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-: the beginnings :-

── IN WHICH SHE WAKES

. . .

"Hey - hey Lovegood." Crouched down in front of her, George was prodding the girl's shoulder, head tilted just like her own against the door frame. Above him, Fred was peering over him, trying to see what was going on.

"Shit-" The only-just-about-older twin said, and George looked back from Rhea, hands scrambling through his pockets. "George - do you have the keys?" Standing up, the second twin quickly searched his own pockets, confirming his thoughts that he hadn't. "I must've left them at the inn... wake her up, I'll run back and get them."

George watched as Fred disappeared among the small early morning crowd, head of ginger hair easily visibile - just like the girl below him. Who didn't exactly look like she was waking up any time soon.

And so, carefully moving her bag by her side, George sat down on the doorstep next to her, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and palms propping up his chin. "Rhea." He spoke in his normal tone this time, rather than the gentle one he had favoured to try and be a little kinder about waking her up.

Instead of prodding her, George shook her shoulder. But his efforts were futile, as they didn't wake her up, but the chocolate-coloured cat on her lap. "Oh - hey." George mumbled, hesitating in case the cat wasn't as nice as he suspected.

But the cat pushed it's head up into George's palm, and the Weasley boy stroked it, a smile on his face. "I'm assuming you're Mrs Bixby's cat?" He was talking to a cat, and somehow it didn't bother him as much as it should do. But it seemed like the cat could understand, blinking lazily in the dawn sunlight. 

"In that case, would mind waking up the newest resident of your owner's fine establishment?" George tilted his head, hooking a finger and stroking it's chin. And it appeared that had worked, as moments later the cat was standing it up, kneading it's paws into the material of the girl's dungarees and it's tail drifting under Rhea's nose, tickling her.

She woke with a start and almost instantly sneezed, rubbing her eyes sleeping as looked down at the cat. "Clemency?" The Lovegood asked, still half asleep. Extracting her arm from where it was squished besides her side and the wall, she twisted her wrist to view the watch sitting there.

The clock face, George noted was shaped (like her earrings and the buckles on her shoes) like dirigible plums.

"Clem, go back to sleep. I still have.. eighteen and a half minutes." She murmured, hand finding Clemency's head and petting her, thumb dragging across the fur.

"Boo!" 

The yelp of surprise that left Rhea's lips had various store owners looking up at her in disgust for disturbing the peace, and the girl hurried to apologise to them before turning to see where the noise had come from.

"You certainly are early." George Weasley said, back pressed up against the wall to his shop and moving his arms when Clemency didn't settle on Rhea's lap and into his own. "And if you're that tired, why didn't you just sleep in for a bit?"

"Clemency woke me up." Rhea shrugged, dainty hand absolutely covered in rings of all metals and colours stroking the cat's back. "She likes to sit on my feet or right by my face. And that kneading thing she's doing.. well it doesn't bode well." 

George was wincing as she dug her claws into the material of his trousers and barely catching his skin, and he couldn't imagine what that could be like on a face. "Ouch." He hissed as Clemency dug particularily hard. Rhea reacted immediately, unhooking the cat's claws and pulling her back onto her own lap, where she finally settled.

"What happened to your twin?" She asked, glancing around the area just in case she had missed him. "I'm yet to see you as anything other than a package deal, so to say one of you is here and the other isn't, well I'll admit, George, it does feel rather odd."

"Can you tell us apart already?" George narrowed his eyes slightly at the girl - barely anyone had managed to do so that quickly.

"My mother, when she was alive, was interested in many things. She was very smart, and created many things. But one thing that she seemed to like the most was a mask that she had been asked to put together. And to get an accurate size, she learnt various types of facial features and other elements that make up appearances by heart." Rhea replied, and when it seemed that she wasn't giving any more explanation, George had to push for one.

"Meaning what, exactly?" He asked.

"You have two moles on your neck, and Fred has a scar over his left eyebrow and a scar on his nose, which is another point. You have a bump on your nose, just-" The girl reached out, a single dark-green painted fingernail placed upon the bridge of his nose, "-here."

"And you got that out of our first meeting yesterday?"

"That wasn't our first meeting. But it was the first time I was able to properly tell the difference. All the times at Hogwarts I was rather far away." Rhea shrugged. 

"Ah good, she's awake." The sunbathed doorstep was shrouded in darkness as Fred stood above them, holding a pair of keys and reaching over Rhea's head to fit them in the lock. "Let's get to work then, we have tons to do."

And with that he pushed the door open, his twin and the Lovegood girl almost falling back as he did.

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