HOAX | George Weasley

XX

Cassie's POV

"Alright, don't enjoy too much," she gave him a look with raised eyebrows and the minute her back was turned to him she wanted to slap herself in the face. 'Don't enjoy too much'? Who was she? His mother? She needed to learn to keep her mouth closed.

When the sound of George's footsteps could no longer be heard by her, it's when Cassie finally let herself lose control. She started to run her fingers through her hair, making a mess of it while her breathing became much more rapid.

She was mad. That was the only explanation for it.

The way that she had practically forced George to help her, making every concern he had brought up seemed unimportant, the only thing she didn't do was cry—and she wasn't completely sure that she hadn't. She didn't recognize herself.

Finally, when her hands left her hair alone, she used them to touch her chest and try to ease her breathing. One...two...in, one...two...out. She was fine. She was fine. She... needed to start working on this so-called 'plan'.

There was no use in regretting it now, when she had finally convinced George to help her. How hard could it be? Before dating Roger people actually believed that she was fooling around with both brothers, a fact that she had always loathed, but now it kind of worked in her favour.

If people wanted to think that she was an easy girl because she was starting a relationship barely a week after getting out of one, she was going to let them. It certainly wasn't worse than waiting only two days, as a certain boy had done. The problem, once again, were Grace and Olivia because they actually knew her, they knew that there was no way that after having her heart broken by her first boyfriend she was going to be so eager to get a new one. But she needed to try anyway, and if they still didn't believe her...that was a problem for the future.

For now, she needed to take it step by step, day by day. Her main concern was how to start her fake relationship, the ideal situation would be to go on a date to Hogsmeade, that posh tea shop, Madam Puddifoot's was the perfect place for a first date. The only time she had gone was when Roger invited her so it made sense to go now with George, to make the lie more believable. Convincing him to go though, that was another problem. Also the fact that they wouldn't have a Hogsmeade weekend for the next two weeks.

George hadn't kept it a secret how much he didn't like that place, but she was sure that with a little bit of convincing, he would agree to go with her. She was grateful to have thought of him and not Fred to pretend to be her boyfriend, it wasn't a lie when she told him that one of the main reasons was because Roger was jealous of him, but that wasn't the only reason. The thought alone of asking Fred to pretend to be her boyfriend filled Cassie with embarrassment, she could picture him laughing at her and making a joke about how 'she didn't have to come up with excuses, she could just tell him how she really felt'. It would've been a disaster even before they started.

Plus, she could never do that to Olivia. Even though Cassie would know that it wasn't real, Liv wouldn't. She could never forgive herself if she was responsible for hurting her friend, no matter how much she didn't understand why she liked Fred in the first place.

No, everything was better this way. She would start datin—pretending to date George on Monday and people would believe it and Roger would be consumed by regret and jealousy and—she had lost the plot. Remember, you're not doing this as revenge, this is self-preservation.

Sure.

The sound of quick footsteps alerted her and she raised her head just in time to watch as Prof. Flitwick walked past her, looking quite in a hurry. She considered calling after him, taking the opportunity to explain why she hadn't gone to his office to help Roger and Patrick with the Ball decorations but at the last moment she decided against it, he seemed like he had more urgent matters to attend to, so she continued walking, planning on going back to her common room and seeing what Olivia and Grace were up to, when Prof. McGonagall also walked past her in a hurry, completely ignoring Cassie's presence. That piqued her curiosity.