The Black Sheep | George Weasley

Nineteen

The first meeting was coming up for Lyra and she was nervous. She was scared she'd get caught. She knew she couldn't tell a soul, she didn't want to have permanent pimples! No teenager likes pimples arranged on their forehead saying "SNEAK".  How embarrassing to have that for the rest of your life. And not for your whole life, for a day or week even. Where the emphasis was put on Lyra's appearance, it wasn't smart to do anything that could harm her appearance. 

She nervously looked over her shoulder to see Fred and George with their mouths wide open at the Gryffindor table, showing Alicia and Angelina their chewed up food. Lyra caught Angelina hitting Fred on the crown of his head with a tied scroll of parchment, making George snicker. Lyra felt a flood of embarrassment. How embarrassing, honestly. She told that bloke she fancied him! 

For a week now, she refused to make eye contact with him. Alicia and Katie have had secret meetings with Lyra in order not to get her seriously in trouble, after hearing her torment over the summer, they hoped it didn't happen again and they understood why she didn't try to talk to them when they all arrived at Hogwarts. When her spilling her feelings to George came up, they told her not to worry about it. That he was probably flattered, but Lyra was convinced he'd tease her, perhaps use one of his foolish patent prank devices on her. He was probably making something special to ruin her life. To have the whole school laughing at her. 

She wasn't excited to find out what he had in mind. Perhaps to have a firework sign follow her around calling her a "Blood Traitor Lover" or "LYRA MALFOY FANCIES GEORGE WEASLEY AHA!", no, she wasn't excited. She had cried in her dormatory from the embarrassment. She knew her new roommates have heard her sob, but thankfully pretended they didn't notice. 

"Ah, Lyra!" Pansy greeted, sitting next to the eldest Malfoy. 

Lyra had been looking at her porridge, it had her favorite, cinnamon and raspberries but she barely touched it due to the dark thoughts of George Weasley tormenting her. She glanced over to see Draco was no where near. Pansy had butterfly clips in her hair and green sparkly eyeshadow. She even had bubblegum lipgloss that suffocated Lyra with the stench. 

"Er... good morning, Pansy." Lyra replied as she forced a spoon full of porridge into her mouth.  

"I was thinking about what to get Draco for Christmas, do you have any ideas? I've run dry." She sighed with a frown. 

"Maybe new pants." Lyra giggled as she ate. She caught Pansy smirking. 

"Come off it! I mean it, what does he like?"

"I don't know. I'm sure he won't be picky." She shrugged. "The best gift you can give is a heartfelt one, not materialistic." 

Pansy scoffed. "That's rubbish. The best ones have the highest price tag, everyone knows that. My mink fur coat, it was a luxury, lined with silk as well." She wore such a smug look on her face. 

"Yes, but would you perfer that over a locket with a picture of you and Draco inside?"

"Of course!" Pansy gave her a confused look. "You're quite strange sometimes, Lyra." She laughed. "But maybe I should get him something meaningful. Like a 18K gold pocket watch. He's always asking me for the time. You're so smart, Lyra." The girl gave Lyra a quick side hug before getting up and running off, possibly to send a letter to her parents. 

Lyra glanced back at George to see him already looking at her. Lyra felt her cheeks turn bright red and she quickly looked away. He's surely plotting. 

Lyra went to class like normal. She couldn't figure out how to learn nonverbal spells without doing it in class. Professor Umbridge found it challenging as well and moved along quickly to this dark creature called Inferius, they were corpses that dark wizards used to do their bidding. They sounded interesting to Lyra but also incredibly scary. It was a good think the other professors started teaching nonverbal spells as well, giving Lyra a fighting chance for her NEWTs.