Learn to Love Again | George Weasley

35. Flourish & Blotts

November 1999

Eloise was spending her Saturday morning sitting on the floor of the living room watching over Victoire. The baby was making her best attempt at crawling over to Eloise, but she only ended up kicking her back legs and scooting a few inches along on her belly with loud giggles.

In Eloise's mind it seemed like the six month old had been growing up in just the blink of an eye and she could only imagine how Bill and Fleur were feeling. But all she could think about now as she smiled down at Victoire, was the trouble she could cause whenever did finally start crawling.

Fleur entered the room from the kitchen looking slightly sleepy, but still beautiful. She was holding a small stack of envelopes, three of which she held down towards Eloise.

Tearing her eyes away from Victoire, she reached up and retrieved the envelopes from Fleur's hand and quickly shuffled through them to see who they were from.

One was from Dhani, replying to a letter she had sent to him earlier in the week. The second was from her parents, hopefully finalizing their plans for her to visit them over the holidays.

After everything that had happened between her and George she was itching to go home. Not just because she missed her parents, which she did, but because she had started to feel trapped in England.

She originally wanted to go home for just the week of Christmas and New Year's. But after everything that had happened with George, she decided she wanted more time away.

When she told her parents that she wanted to return home shortly after Charlie's birthday and spend most of the month with them, they were initially shocked. But they missed their only daughter dearly, so there was no way they were going to object.

The main reasoning behind her extended visit was because recently, in the back of her mind, she had been considering moving back home. There was nothing left keeping Eloise in England anymore, beyond her career. But she could easily transfer to the Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France and do a similar job, even though that wasn't really her dream.

Of course she hadn't brought up this idea to anyone yet, she decided to wait until the end of the holidays before making a decision. As bad as it sounded, she was planning to use her visit home as a trial run to see if she truly wanted to move back. But she decided to put those thoughts aside for now and focus on the present.

Finally, her fingers grazed over the last envelope, immediately recognizing the handwriting on it as George's.

Without a second thought, Eloise quickly discarded George's letter into the junk pile next to the fireplace, fully intending for it to be burned without ever having to read a single word of what he had to say to her.

But unbeknownst to her, as she opened the other envelopes, scanning over the letters from Dhani and her parents, Fleur had walked across the room to retrieve her daughter as well as George's letter.

The usually blunt witch walked up to her friend, only coming Eloise's attention when a pair of grey slippers came into her view below the letter she was reading. As she brought her eyes up, she noticed look in Fleur's eyes was uncharacteristically sympathetic which worried her. But when her eyes fell to the envelope in her hand, a frown formed on Eloise's face.