ON HOLD - Caramel [G.W.]

three.

Orion frowned as he huddled close to Cedric under their combined umbrella charm. It was pouring rain and he couldn't risk getting wet lest he wanted a nasty infection. Cedric was the only one who knew, though it would've been more surprising if he didn't, considering that the two boys had shared a room for four years. It's not very hard to put the dots together once you think about it, which obviously, meant Fred and George either hadn't done a lot of thinking about it or didn't care enough to mention it. Orion wasn't sure which he hoped more. On one hand, the boys didn't know but they also didn't care about the fact that he was constantly injured. On the other, they knew.

He looked up quickly when one of the twins slipped on some mud and ended up falling on his ass. He chuckled and shook his head as he looked down at George, whose robes and face were now caked in mud. He reached a hand down to help him up, still laughing a bit because George was absolutely covered in mud.

"Hey!" he frowned and pulled the other boy down into the mud with him, leaning up on his forearms and grinning down at him but it slowly faded when he saw the look on the other boy's face.

"Oh now you've done it George!" Cedric scolded as he knelt in the mud next to Orion, cursing under his breath when Fred mentioned that all the carriages were leaving.

Orion lay curled in on himself, letting out laboured gasps as he clutched his side. One of the wounds on his side had split open and the blackness of his blood in the moonlight was mixing with the mud. He let out a very canine like whimper when they attempted to pull him to his feet, the motion only opening the wound further.

"Shit.." Fred mumbled and grabbed Cedric "George stay with him, we're going to go get Pomfrey and Mcgonagall." he called over his shoulder as they broke out in as fast of a run that the slick mud would allow.

"Wow, I've really gone and messed things up.." George muttered and put his hands over Orion's wound, pressing down to try and stop the bleeding.

He let out another canine like whimpered and jerked away from his hands. The combined pain of his wound reopening and now having hands pressed against it was sending him over the edge. His vision started getting fuzzy around the edges, though he could faintly make out Fred and Cedric returning with Madam Pomfrey as well as the utterly devastated look on George's face before he slipped out of consciousness.

-

When Orion stirred some hours later he was immediately met with the familiar scent of the hospital wing and the feeling of hands in his hair. Though, upon closer inspection, there were two underlying scents. One of them deep and earthy, like the smell just after it's rained with undertones of sweet chocolate. The other, the smell left on one's clothes after sitting around a bonfire and a hint of sweet vanilla. For a moment, they mixed to create a scent that brought back too much all at once, but it lacked the familiar bite of citrus.

He slowly let his eyes open, not at all surprised to find George and Remus in the room. He was however, a bit surprised to find that it was George with his hand in his hair and not Remus. He blushed faintly and looked up at Remus who just smiled with relief.

"Ah, Moony you're awake." his father breathed out as he stood and crossed the room to deposit himself in the chair opposite of George. Ever since the night he was bitten, Remus had taken to calling him by his own nickname. It brought back pleasant memories of dancing in the kitchen with his fathers and their friends.

His voice was no more than a whisper and he came to realize why when he looked up and found George asleep. He looked rather young like this, long eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks. Orion smiled a bit when he realized that George had his cheeks puffed out slightly while he slept, as though his mouth were full of food.

"Couldn't get him to leave, kept saying he needed to be here when you woke up. Make sure you weren't mad at him." Remus smiled fondly and slowly removed the boy's hand from his son's hair. "Cedric said he pulled you into the mud with him. I honestly thought he might have punched Mr. Weasley had there not been adults around. He's very protective of you."

Orion scrunched his face up at that, he knew what his father was insinuating. "It's not like that, with either of them.. We're just friends, and besides. I don't even like boys." he tried to laugh a bit at that, only to wince and screw his face up in pain. The stirring woke George and he sat bolt upright in his chair, muttering something about being awake and to not poor water on him. His face softened into a small frown when he saw Orion awake. He gave his father a small look and the man gave a curt nod before leaving to give the boys some privacy.

"I thought I'd killed you back there.. There was so much blood Ri.." he didn't look up from where his hands fidgeted in his lap. He nor his brother had ever been very good at talking about heavy topics. "What even happened to you? Why did you start bleeding like that..?" he finally looked up, his face all screwed up in worry. This made him look older, far too old for a 15 year old.

"I um.." Orion pretended to adjust the way he was sitting while he thought up a reasonable lie. "Was practicing flying, a cat jumped at me and I sliced my side open on the gate." he gave a sheepish smile and forced himself to blush with embarrassment. Though it wasn't very hard with the way George was looking at him, hanging on every word and looking as though Orion would shatter if he breathed to hard.

"Some seeker you are." he gave a small smile, his top lip curving in a way that had always made Orion's stomach do this weird thing. He always chose to ignore it.

"Yeah well, there's no cats nor iron gates on the quidditch pitch." he stuck his tongue out at the redhead and stuck his middle finger up indignantly.

"Sometimes I question whether you're really a Hufflepuff." George snickered and shook his head. "Though I suppose it's better than you being a slime ball Slytherin." he stuck his tongue out in mock disgust.

Orion couldn't help but laugh despite the jolt of pain it sent through his side. "I think I'd be doing the Rosier name a little too much justice." The two boys turned toward the door when a knock came before it swung open.

"Madam Pomfrey is on her way to do night rounds, you better head back up to the towers Mr. Weasley." he gave the boy a small smile and stepped out of the room once more.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow. I'll bring you something from the Great Hall." he reached down and lightly ruffled the boy's tawny curls before turning to leave.

"Good night George." he called to the boy's retreating frame, trying to get the unwanted blush off his face before Remus came back in. He really had no idea why that kept happening.

He knew he'd failed when his father walked in and raised an eyebrow at him, Madam Pomfrey in tow. They had one of their silent conversations as the healer applied various potions and had Orion drink a couple. It was full of reassuring words that it was alright if he was gay, but he wasn't. He knew he wasn't because he remembered how jealous he got when George went out on a date with Alicia Spinnet last year. She was a chaser on the Gryffindor quidditch team and it was hard not to be jealous when someone went out with one of the girls on the team. Though it was really Cho Chang, Maxine O'Flaherty, and Angelina Johnson everyone fancied. All this thinking about girls and quidditch, and girls who played quidditch was starting to wear him out.

He sighed a bit as he thought about what George had said earlier. Sometimes I question you're really a Hufflepuff. The sad thing is, he really wasn't. The Sorting Hat had tried to put him in Gryffindor but he begged it not to, so it put him in Hufflepuff instead. He knew he should be in Gryffindor, but he couldn't bear the thought of being in the house. His fathers had been Gryffindors and he knew he wouldn't be worthy of following in their footsteps. He'd screw up, he was too afraid of getting other people hurt to be brave. Which he guessed was rather fitting for Hufflepuff. Though, it was rather ironic; a wolf among badgers.