Sparks Fly || A George Weasley Story

Year 3: Holiday Plans

I left the library, books on nocturnal beasts, valerian, and animagi held against my chest. I checked my watch, making sure that I had plenty of time to get to my common room without fear of getting house points taken. It was 9:45, I had fifteen minutes before I was supposed to be in bed. That was plenty of time to get me from here to there, but what I didn't understand was how I had managed to spend almost four hours in there without realizing it.

I had only read through the transfiguration passage that we had gone over in class twice and taken notes from it, hunted down a book to tell me what kind of plant Fred and George had given to me was and how to properly take care of it, took notes from that, found the books I had in my possession and read through the first chapter of Niches of Nocturnals. However, I can't say that I'm surprised. I always spend more time in there than I meant to. I mean, literally every time I go into the library, I come out hours later not knowing what time it is.

Before I could take a single step down the hall someone bumped into me, hard. I managed to keep my footing, but turned around, ready to give the big klutz what for. Honestly, how hard is it to see someone standing in front of you.

Instead of some snooty seventh year, I saw a girl who couldn't have been any older than her second year. Her frizzy brown hair was clouded around her shoulders and hid her face as she was squatted down to pick up the books she had dropped. I caught the title of a few of them, she had about five, and recognized them as normally only being in the arms of sixth year students. That's when it clicked, this was that muggleborn girl, Hermione Granger.

I had never spoken to her before, but several people had compared me to her when they see me in the library. Some of them will swear that we're related. I can see where they get it. I mean, we both have the same obnoxious frizzy curls that we didn't seem to know how to handle, we both seemed to go above and beyond when it came to our studies, and right now I'm sure we were both feeling the same type of awkward.

"I'm sorry, darling, are you alright?" I asked, quickly picking up two of her books for her.

"Yes, I'm fine. Are you okay? I ran into you awfully hard," She said, a flush of embarrassment fresh across her face.

"I didn't even drop my books, don't worry about me." I smiled at her, helping her get to her feet.

"You're Juniper Clemonte, from Hufflepuff, right?" She asked.

"The one and only," I shrugged, wanting to make my way to my common room, so I didn't lose anymore points.

"I'm Hermione Granger, and I'm in Gryffindor." She nodded, her embarrassment fading, "My friends Harry and Ronald talk highly of the way you play Quidditch, but I think you're insane."

"Insane? Quite the charmer aren't you, Mione?" I laughed.

"You're terribly reckless, it dangerous for you and everyone else." She said matter-of-factly

"Listen, everything I do out there on the pitch, I've practiced for months beforehand. I'm not your average showy meat-head." I assured her.

"Still, I feel as though you should take more precautions. If you died out there, Hogwarts would surely be shut down and that would be a tragedy." She stated, "What are you doing in the library so late?"

"I think I could ask you the same thing, little lady," I said, taken aback by the sudden change in her demeanor.

"I was doing a bit of light-reading," She said, her lips pursing together in a way that made me think that she was up to something that she had no business doing.

What was up with these Gryffindors?

"Five books that I've only ever seen students older than I am read is light reading for you, Ms. Granger?" I asked, making my suspicion a bit obvious.