lost cause ϟ george weasley

005

"LIFE'S NOT OUT TO GET YOU DESPITE THE THINGS YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH."

—

HALLOWEEN was nearing. It was safe to say that George and Arden were friends now. Fred and Lee still haven't figured out who George was always sneaking off to see and it was beginning to really irk them. They were extremely suspicious and decided to get help from Hogwart's best investigators — Katie Bell and Angelina Johnson.

The four friends were outside, huddled together as they hid behind a Charms textbook. They saw George walk out to the courtyard in the middle of lunch and followed him but now they just couldn't find him.

"Where the hell does he go?" Katie groaned.

"He's obviously not with the Beauxbaton girls though." Fred concluded, staring at a group of Veela's.

Lee threw his arms up in defeat before slamming them onto the picnic table. "This is driving me crazy!"

"Preach. Katie and I have only just gotten pulled into this yesterday. How is he hiding from us?"

Meanwhile, Arden and George sat at a table in the back of the library, hidden behind shelves and books. They were laughing quietly as George retold a story about pranking a random student on accident because he walked into it instead of Filch.

"That's crazy!" Arden giggled, shaking her head.

George beamed at the girl seated beside him, glad he was able to provoke this kind of happiness from Arden. "Yeah," he said, dazed and smiling.

"Oh! I have something to tell you!" Arden said almost excitedly. "You know how my dad is just alone while I'm here? Since like my mum isn't around? Well, he sent me this owl this morning and look."

She slid the letter to George and the redhead picked it up, scanning it thoroughly.

"To my lovely Arden,
Not much has changed since you've left. Work at the ministry is the same, not much to fuss about. I just work, come home, wait for your letters, and sleep. It's awfully lonely without you here. Oh, by the way, I've gone on a date. She's a lovely person and I think you might know her son! We're going on another. I'll tell you how that goes in the next letter. I hope your studies are going good and I'm glad you've got a friend like George Weasley, darling. You deserve the best and he sounds wonderful. You have no idea how glad I am that you are making friends. Remember not to stress too much over your classes and do not listen to that god awful Harvey or any other students. As always, do not let anyone take your shine away.
Deepest of regards,
Dad x"

George noticed that her father didn't say "love, dad" or even "I love you." Sure, Neil Gosse has told his daughter a trillion times that he loves her, but he never did it in letters. He didn't want Arden to feel pressured to write it in her own letters to him. But George didn't know that.

George also realised that her father brought him up, which meant Arden talked about him. A slight, unnoticeable tint rose to his cheeks and his ears began to burn slightly. Arden talked about him to her father, which to many didn't seem like a big deal, but to him it meant a lot.

"You told your father about me?" George asked sheepishly, a goofy smile plastered on his face.

Arden shrugged. "Well yeah, you're like my only friend." She laughed, shrugging it off like it was nothing. And to Arden, it was nothing to tell her father about George. She knew her father would be ecstatic that she was finally making friends and letting people in. "But that's not the point, Weasley! My dad is dating! Dating! And apparently I might know her kid, like how weird is that? If my dad marries that woman, whom he won't even tell me the name of, then I'm going to have some weird step-brother and I'm going to have to deal with all of that. Like what if he's someone I know well and have multiple classes with?"

George grinned as Arden rambled on about the possibilities of having a new step-brother when her dad hadn't even gone in the second date yet. "Awkward." He chimed in, chuckling.

"Right?"

Arden still hadn't revealed her "secret" to George. The freckled boy didn't mind, he wasn't particularly waiting for her to tell him because he knew she would when she wanted to, if she wanted to. However, he was having a difficult time believing that Arden was cursed with the inability to love. He was watching her as she crinkled her nose and laughed, and she looked like a girl who had all the love in the world to offer.

George wanted to remember that falling in love with Arden would only hurt him but he was determined to find a way for Arden to love.

"Anyways," George sighed. "Halloween is like next week. They're picking the TriWizard Champions that day right?"

Arden nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and rolling her eyes. "It's honestly annoying. It's all everyone is talking about, but I don't really see the point in it. Like eternal glory seems great, but you could die and it's just dumb to me." She shrugged. "Plus, the age restriction is rubbish."

The Ravenclaw was attempting to open up to George and she hoped that by rambling about her opinions was considered opening up. She wasn't particularly ready to reveal anything personal but she did talk about her father and she mentioned how her mother abandoned her.

"Yeah, I know what you mean." George agreed, rolling his sweater sleeves up. "It doesn't make sense to me." He said, completely disregarding the fact that he and Fred had whipped up an ageing potion in order to attempt to put their names in the cup.

Arden grinned, "Finally someone who agrees with me! Everyone else is just like, 'Oh eternal glory fuck yeah!' Pardon my language." She laughed, mindlessly flipping through the pages of the book in front of her.

About half an hour later, Arden had to leave for one of her classes and that left George alone in the library. Instead of going to find his twin and friends, he started rummaging around for books on love potions and more specifically, children born under the influence of a love potion. He wanted to know if there was a way for Arden to love and if there was, he wanted to be the one to help her. Because within the month that they've been warming up to each other, he realised that she didn't deserve any of the bad things that happened to her.

With that in mind, George checked a few books out and shoved them in his bag, running down to meet his twin so they could put their names in the goblet together.