Atropos → george weasley

xlvi. the strangest dance

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forty six

the strangest dance

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Justin was the first person in the world Ottilie told about how much pain she had been in since five years old when she realized her own parents were scared of her. How isolated she felt. She told him about how much anger she held for her father, who preferred to pretend that she wasn't a witch rather than face it.

She told Justin that she was angry at her mother, too, for being a doormat. How Kanna would say nothing when Simon took on extra hours at the hotel when he should be helping her. How she would never call him out on the fact he was obviously ashamed of his daughters.

She told Justin about how draining it was to constantly do the emotional labor of taking care of her mercilessly bullied, extremely sensitive little sister. How her parents would've allowed Adelaide to be tortured into depression if it weren't for Ottilie, who was now in a different country and had to rely on owls to know what was going on.

About how she was worried every day that Adelaide's heart would fail, or she'd get an infection and die from septic shock. She finally told him about Adelaide's Williams syndrome diagnosis—because Justin and Ernie had been too polite to ask what was wrong with her before.

She especially told him about how incandescently furious she was at her father for abandoning his family. Leaving Kanna alone because he was too weak and pathetic to handle it all.

Ottilie had never felt so exposed. Forget being insecure of her bare shoulders—she may as well have been completely naked in front of Justin.

Justin, on the other hand, was staring at her like she was a completely different version of Ottilie he had yet to meet.

She avoided his eyes, silently pleading with him to not ask her any questions. She hadn't meant to be quite so brutally honest about everything, but once she got started, each word she said came tumbling out before she could consciously choose it.

George had been right—Graham had poisoned her.

"Don't tell Ernie. I wasn't actually ready to tell you."

Justin didn't say anything to agree, though she knew he wasn't going to tell Ernie. She avoided his eyes until she felt a warm palm on the top of her hand. She looked down to see Justin gently thread his fingers through hers.

And he held her hand and continued to say nothing.

"I know I'm hard to help. I'm sorry if it frustrates you."

"It does frustrate me. But that's only because I care about you, and I don't want you to hurt like I know you sometimes do."

Ottilie shifted her perspective for a moment. When she had made the split decision to tell Justin, she had expected to feel the familiar dirty feeling of making herself vulnerable to someone. She was just waiting for the heavy nausea to set in.

But it didn't. Maybe it was the few shots' worth of vodka, but she somehow felt lighter.

"Mudbloods in love! That is so sweet!"

Justin jumped, releasing Ottilie's hand at once, and spun around in his chair. It took Ottilie a bit longer to turn because she was suddenly feeling murderous and wanted to calm down slightly so she didn't rip Pansy Parkinson's face off on sight.

There she was, standing next to Draco, who was strangely not even looking at Ottilie. Vince and Greg were behind them—Greg stuffing Christmas biscuits into his mouth with disinterest.