stardust ⋮ george weasley

eleven :

E L E V E N

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Astronomy had never been one of Adeline's favorite subjects at Hogwarts. It wasn't that it was boring or that it confused her. In fact, Adeline loved to look at the stars and galaxies. The problem with it, in Adeline's mind at least, was that this was one of the only subjects at Hogwarts she could easily study in a Muggle school. And when she was in a school filled with magic and potions and fascinating creatures, it just made Astronomy pale in comparison to her. Adeline liked to look at the starry sky. Just not study it.

Adeline liked the Astronomy tower though. Sure, Adeline had discovered the hard way during patrol one evening that most students went up there to snog. But it was a beautiful tower, and the view at night was absolutely gorgeous. Adeline often found herself distracted by the night sky when she was supposed to be doing her star charts, and usually ended up having to copy off of Melanie.

So after the incident in the music room, Adeline found herself standing on the balcony late that night. The balcony was covered with snow, but Adeline muttered a spell that warmed her up so that while the cold didn't go away entirely, it wasn't as if she was freezing.

She didn't know how long she sat out on the Astronomy balcony that night. It was incredibly quiet up there, minus the sounds of the occasional chimes and one of Hagrid's creatures crying out into the night. The sky was the clearest Adeline had seen it for weeks, allowing her to see constellations and stars going on for ages. The full moon was large and bright in the night sky, and she would've given anything to sit out there forever.

Adeline eventually realized that Fred was probably trying to make a joke earlier. After years of classes together and seeing him in the halls, she figured out that Fred tended to say things without thinking, especially when it came to jokes. But it didn't make his words sting any less.

A small sound from within the tower interrupted Adeline's thoughts, and she turned her head to see if she could find the source of the noise. When she found nothing out of the ordinary, Adeline moved to face forward once more.

"Adeline? Is that you?"

She hoped that if she didn't move, George would think she wasn't there and leave the Astronomy Tower. But what Adeline didn't realize was that not only did George borrow the Marauders Map from Harry to see where she was, the moonlight shining down made her form easily visible to him.

George moved next to Adeline, but still kept a bit of a distance from the girl who had yet to even speak to him. The whole way up the stairs, George didn't think about anything but what to say to Adeline when he saw her. He kept trying to go over the words in his head, but they all just sounded stupid and not the right thing to say.

So George just settled on apologizing.

"I'm really sorry about what Fred said earlier. And he's really sorry too, but he figured it might be best to give you a little bit of space before he apologized to you in person."

"Don't worry about it," Adeline responded quietly, still not looking at George and instead looking back up at the sky. "Fred probably didn't mean for it to be so negative. I've kind of noticed Fred tends to be the more reckless one out of the two of you."

"I think my mum would beg to differ."

She shook her head. "Fred is definitely the more outgoing one out of the two of you, and you're the one the drag the both of you back in. You think a lot more before you act."

"You...you noticed all that?"

"It's hard not to."

Despite the cold air, Adeline felt her cheeks begin to burn, and she almost felt like looking away from George. Adeline was not only embarrassed that she had actually admitted that out loud, but there was also this twisting feeling in her stomach that she couldn't seem to understand.