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𝐀𝐂𝐂𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘-𝐎𝐍-𝐏𝐔𝐑𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐄
chapter nine ─ rise to the occasion
(of catching things that fall)

┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛

Dear Padfoot,
You're a kind soul,
And a work of art.
Of all these stars above us,
I'd dare you to have my heart.
Mystery Girl.

Dear Mystery Girl,
You are one soppy git.
Padfoot.

Heidi mourned the apparently recent death of romance as she tucked Pride and Prejudice back into her bag, resisting the urge to glare across the library table at its killer, who had spent the last hour on the same three transfiguration theory questions. It would have been funnier if they hadn't been third year level.

"I'm never going to get this," George said miserably. He had said the same thing on the first day Heidi had met him in the library, the two of them armed with books, quills, and resentment. The difference was, on that first day he had looked at her like a lifeline. Now he was not looking at her at all.

Heidi took a deep breath. "You will get it, if you put in the work," she said gently. She had said the same thing on the first day, despite her still jaded feelings against George after the prank he had pulled. The difference was that on the first day she would have been willing to see him fail. She was tired now, but she would save him if it killed her.

Martyrdom. It was less noble when it was figurative.

"I have been! Do you not see how much work I've been putting in?"

Heidi shrugged. "We just need a different way to study. We'll get there."

She wasn't sure they would, but she couldn't say that to him. She would try, and he would try, and that would have to be enough. Heidi and George ─ not the most formidable team, but the only team there was.

"The test is in four days, Heidi." The skin under George's eyes was marred by purple shadows. "I have no idea what any of this means."

"That means we have those four days, and I know what all of it means." Heidi said. "We can meet up every day, before quidditch practice." In the aftermath of their loss against Hufflepuff, Oliver had taken to training the quidditch team every evening.

George sighed. Those would be long days ─ school, studying, practice, the detention he and Fred were still serving after the Incident, sleep. Rinse and repeat. "Okay, that sounds good. I mean, it sounds awful, but ─"

"It sounds good," Heidi finished, smiling for him.

There was nothing overtly malicious between the two of them anymore, not really. George still bristled slightly when the volume of Heidi's voice rose too high, and Heidi still rolled her eyes at George's attempts to make her laugh. But there were smiles now, and ongoing jokes, and blossoms blooming in Heidi's chest that even the November chill couldn't kill.

The weekly tutoring sessions had, at first, seemed redundant. George was convinced he couldn't do the work, so he never could. Heidi had not liked him well enough to go out of her way to help him, and so she listened to his complaints without pity. The only reason anything had changed was because of something so small, so insignificant, yet somehow endearing to her.

Heidi had been sitting with her head bent over her notebook. George was attempting to transfigure a ferret into a feather duster, and Heidi was scribbling theory questions for him to answer when he had finished. He had taken longer than her, so she was drawing little flowers around where she had instinctively written her name in the right-hand corner.

When they traded, she checked his feather duster for any lingering ferret-ness while he answered her written questions. She only looked up when she heard a heavy sigh from him. He had his chin resting in his hand, lower lip pushed out a little.

"What is it?"

"How can something be simultaneously so difficult and so boring?" His question made her smile.

"Now you know how I feel about quidditch."

George snorted. "Quidditch ─ it's fun. It's exciting. Transfiguration is impossible."

"Clearly," Heidi deadpanned, noticing a tuft of fur on the handle of his feather duster. "I only understand it because I am equally as impossible."

"That's certainly how it seems, " George muttered.

That silenced her. What did he mean? Was it a joke? A compliment? An insult? Was it supposed to make sense at all? Heidi eventually elected to ignore it. The only way to figure it out would be to ask, which Heidi decided would be to painful and embarrassing to even try. She glanced over to check his process instead, only to see that he had given up and was doodling in the margins. She leaned over to explain the questions better ─ it didn't fix all of his work, but he got more right than he had before.

When she checked his work, she saw that he had added to the field of flowers around her name. That was the boy she was helping, she told herself. Not the quidditch player, or the boy who pulled juvenile pranks in class. She was helping the boy with the flowers, who called her impossible.

***

November had moved into December with all the grace typical of the Scottish Highlands ─ that is to say, none at all. By the time Lydia's birthday rolled around, the four girls had begun travelling the school halls linked at the arms to preserve heat.

They had spent the morning of the prefect's sixteenth watching Ravenclaw thrash Hufflepuff in what could be called the most predictable quidditch match of the century, before heading back inside to remind themselves what it was like to feel their fingers. They were met in the Great Hall by a rather pissed-off-looking Hufflepuff co-captain.

"How was the match?" Heidi had asked politely.

"Was alright," Jackie replied, nonchalant as ever. "Made one of the Ravenclaw beaters cry."

"That sounds like fun!"

"You ready for tonight?" Alicia nudged Lydia's elbow as they sat down at the Gryffindor table. "The best, most fabulous, most memorable truth or dare game of the year! Fifth anniversary, baby!"

"About that," Lydia cleared her throat, shifting slightly in her seat.

"Oh no," Heidi groaned. "Don't tell me you're changing the plan. Don't tell me Little Miss Prefect is throwing a party, or sneaking off school grounds."

"Nothing that drastic." Lydia was blushing slightly. "I just thought we could, you know. Expand. Maybe invite Jules and, you know, the others. Maybe we could play some other games, too?"

"Define 'the others'," Angelina said, her mouth full of peas. When Lydia grimaced at her gross lack of manners, she stuck her tongue out.

"You know, August and . . . Lee . . . and the twins? Sounds super fun to me!"

Heidi almost spat out her tea, amongst the clamour that arose. "You want me to play truth or dare with the Weasley Twins?"

"You are burning tradition down to the ground!" Angelina protested, thumping her fork onto the table.

"You have no respect for my nerves at all! No respect!" Alicia's hand flew up to cover her chest.

"Alright, okay! If it's that big a deal, it can just be us. As normal."

Angelina huffed. "No need to get testy, Hildrey. We were joking. If you don't think I'm funny you should tell me."

"I would like to clarify that I was joking too," Alicia said, raising her hand.

"I would like to establish that nothing I said was in the spirit of good humour, and that the idea of playing truth or dare with the twins and Lee makes me want to rip their hair out and then mine." Heidi sighed, pouring herself another cup of tea to sooth her nerves. "For you, lovely Lydia, I will go bald."

"Hey, Wood."

Amidst a groan sounding from the three other girls, Heidi spun around on the bench to see possibly the most poisonous blight on the Wizarding World.

"A dark cloud has descended on my lovely, positive day," Alicia mourned.

"What do you want, Davies?"

Angelina glared at him from the other side of the table. "Take that lovely, punchable face somewhere else and spew your garbage there."

Roger laughed, his hands in his cloak pockets. "Why does no one here think I'm capable of anything nice?"

"Experience," Heidi said drily. "What is it that you came here for?"

"Penelope Clearwater mentioned that you were tutoring George Weasley. I was wondering whether or not his marks had improved." He paused, looking Heidi straight in the eyes. "An unlikely outcome, in all honesty."

During their relationship, Roger had developed an ability to take Heidi's confidence and self worth, and break it into pieces small enough to ridicule individually. Despite the physical distance Heidi had worked on giving herself, enough to build herself back up again, it was almost comical how easily Roger could destroy every inch of her being.

"Do you want to fuck off?" Angelina spat. "Or do you have something worthwhile to say?"

"Don't get your wands in a twist!" Roger held up his hands, as if he would ever actually surrender. "I was joking. Really. I came here to ask you to pass this on to your brother."

He handed Heidi a scrap of parchment, folded over. "Why can't you do it yourself?"

Roger shrugged. "I'm not sure that's a good idea, all things considered."

"Compared to passing notes through Heidi, which is a stellar idea," Lydia said dryly.

"Is that because the last time you saw him, he chucked a milkshake onto your rebound? Because Heidi did that too. I believe ice cream was also involved." Alicia's wide eyes appeared innocent, but her tone was daring.

Heidi unfolded the parchment. "These are just shitty quidditch tactics. I don't understand why you think this is so important."

"This is our new play. We wanted Gryffindor to know that we're taking their fainting seeker's incompetence into account."

"Oh, that's it," Angelina said, Alicia scrambling to man-handle the riled girl back onto the bench. August arrived just in time to see Angelina break free from her confines with just enough time to hit Roger with the Jelly-Legs Jinx.

"Oh," August said, his eyes fixated on Roger, who was desperately trying to regain control of his legs. "I don't know if I should make a joke or fix him."

"It's okay to make fun of him, August, he's an asshole." Heidi waved her wand, and Roger got to his feet as Heidi pointed her wand at the offending parchment, which promptly burst into flames.

"Let's get out of here," August said, heralding the girls towards the door, "before Angelina joins Fred and George in detention."

Heidi fixed her fringe back into place. "August, do you want to come to Lydia's birthday party?"

***

"Merlin, Alicia, can you keep a lid on it?"

The four girls were leaving their dorm room in an attempt to make it to the Gryffindor fifth year boys' room undetected. For the first year ever, their annual game of truth or dare (always on Lydia's birthday) was taking place outside of their own dorm, as the boys couldn't even make it up the stairs to the girls' dormitories. This objective would have been easier if the group hadn't contained Alicia, who was incapable of doing anything surreptitiously, and had fallen down the stairs.

"Feel free to ask if I'm okay!"

"Arbor, are you okay?"

After the birthday party invitations had included the fifth year boys, the idea of excluding the last unofficial member of their makeshift wider group had been preposterous, and the girls had been hiding Arbor in their bathroom since dinnertime. Alicia's trip down the stairs had brought her down too, as the four girls had decided that hiding her under the blanket Alicia had been wearing as a cape was a good idea.

"Now I know where your loyalties lie," Alicia said miserably, but she helped Arbor to her feet nonetheless.

"Everyone, shut up," Lydia hissed, before making her way up the stairs to the boys' dormitories and knocking on the fifth year door.

It opened to reveal Jules, who beckoned them in and shut the door quickly.

"Can't have Percy coming to investigate," he said, bending to kiss Lydia's cheek. On cue, Angelina and Heidi retched.

"Welcome to our room!" Fred bounced over, strong-arming Alicia and Arbor into a hug. "We tidied just for you!"

"I tidied," George contradicted. "You did nothing."

"I provided moral support."

"You threw crumpled up pieces of parchment at us." Lee appeared behind Fred, poking him in the back. "That's hindrance, not support."

"Pish posh." Fred clapped his hands. "Come on in from the cold!"

"Where did you get all this?" Lydia exclaimed, staring at the bed closest to the door. Heidi peeked over her shoulder to see what looked like the entirety of the Honeydukes storage cellar, twenty bottles of butterbeer, and ─

"How did you get your hands on firewhiskey?" Heidi asked, reaching for the bottle and holding it up for inspection.

"Oh, we had help," Fred said airily.

"From Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs." George winked, taking the firewhiskey from Heidi's hands and replacing it with a sugar quill. "Got your favourite."

Heidi was too preoccupied by George's mention of Padfoot to notice that he knew that. It didn't matter, however; his smile, just for her, was enough to send her reeling to the moon and back.

Lydia appearing at her shoulder brought her straight back to earth. "Don't say a word," Heidi threatened, flouncing off to sit on the floor.

Hours later, the firewhiskey had been consumed; there was a pleasant fire blazing comfortably in Heidi's chest, washing away the taste of the every-flavour bean she had been dared to eat ─ presumably earwax? The game of truth or dare was still going strong, and Fred was recounting his most embarrassing moment.

"So there I was, running across the quidditch pitch, twenty minutes late the only time I was bothered about being on time ─"

"He was trying to impress Vixen Heron," George cut in. "I can't remember why she was there."

"When my broom gets tangled between my legs and I trip over it. My own broom. I go down, splat! Straight into a puddle. My quidditch uniform was ruined. A different colour. I still haven't recovered."

"Neither has Vixen Heron," George said, grinning. "I've never seen someone have to be taken to the Hospital Wing for laughing too much."

"Liar!" Fred gasped, making his best effort to punch George over Angelina's head. "That is not true!"

George had burst into peals of laughter, along with the rest of the group. Fred, despite his attempt to defend his honour, was laughing along with them. As soon as he realised that punching George was a futile effort, he took to throwing every flavour beans at him. George, not one to back down, began pelting his twin with chocolate frog cards.

"Make it stop!" Angelina could be heard shouting between the fighting twins, who didn't seem to notice ─ or care ─ that there was a third, unintentional, participant in their squabble.

"Shut the fuck up," Lee hissed, coming up behind the twins and spraying them with butterbeer. "You're summoning Percy." He shook his head good-naturedly at them as he grasped  their pyjamas by the neck and forcibly pulled them apart. "Time out. Go to your corners."

"Their what?" Lydia whispered.

"Not the first time this has happened," Jules answered.

"What fucking terrors," Angelina said.

"Tell me about it," Lee joked, shaking his head.

Heidi had spent the last hour mulling over the events of the day, and the lull in conversation gave her the opportunity to invade George's time out, and interrogate him.

"I have a question for you," Heidi said, appearing at George's shoulder. "Actually, wait, I have two things to ask you." She paused again, frowning slightly. "That's not right either. I have one thing to tell you and one thing to ask you." She flopped down beside him, their backs against one of the beds.

George chuckled. "Okay, Wood, shoot."

"Roger Davies was rude to me today."

"No!" George was still smiling.

"I feel like you're not taking this very seriously."

"I am. I promise." They were sitting so close together, Heidi could feel the heat of George's arm alongside hers.

"He said . . . hold on, I'm trying to remember what he said," Heidi looked at the ceiling, humming slightly. "Oh! He gave me a piece of parchment with quidditch tactics on it and said something rude about Harry. I didn't think he was being very nice."

"What were the quidditch tactics?" George said, his eyebrows suddenly furrowed.

"I don't know exactly. They were mean things about Harry fainting so I set them on fire."

George's face lightened. "You're funny."

"Thank you."

"What was your question? Were you going to ask if me and Fred could take care of your rude ex-boyfriend? Because we've been working on ─"

Heidi shook her head, giggling. "That's not what I was going to ask. And it's Fred and I."

"I didn't know you also wanted to open a joke shop with Fred."

"Shut your yap," Heidi said, pushing him. "What did you mean earlier, about Moony, Wormtail Padfoot and Prongs?"

"Why do you want to know?" George inquired, suddenly suspicious.

"I recognise one of the names."

"From where?"

"Ah-ah," Heidi said, shaking her head. "I asked first."

"I'll do you a deal, Wood, so I know you're serious," George said, turning to face her. "If you can get me an 'A' on the transfiguration test, I'll tell you about Padfoot."

"Ooh, is it that hush-hush?" Heidi said, wrapping her arms around her knees as she drew her legs up to her chest. "I will get you an 'A' if it kills me. Unless you get an 'E', in which case I still get what I want."

"Ambitious," George said with a laugh. "You have very high hopes for me, Heidi." He held out his hand, and Heidi shook it.

A crash sounded from the other side of the room, and Heidi whipped her head around to see Alicia giggling on the floor, having tripped over Arbor's legs.

"Are you alright, Ali?" Lydia asked, making her way towards the fallen girl.

"She's not dead, she'll be fine," Angelina said, though she peaked over Lydia's shoulder to check.

August gestured for the room's occupants to silence, as he listened at the door. His shoulders tensed, and he drew back. "Shit, I think Percy's coming!"

Pandemonium broke out ─ the five girls were shoved unceremoniously into the bathroom, as the twins and Lee scrambled to hide the mess the group had created.

The door creaked open, and the girls strained to hear the muffled voices on the other side of the bathroom. Angelina's hand was covering Alicia's mouth, containing her giggles. Arbor knocked over the soap, and they each held their breath as it went down, down ─ until Lydia's hand shot out and caught it.

After what must have been five excruciating minutes, there was a knock on the door and the girls tumbled out. Alicia, who was by far the drunkest of the lot, would have tripped over yet again if all four others hadn't been holding her up.

"We should probably go," Heidi said quietly, "before we summon Percy back. What an overbearing head boy."

Jules nodded, leading them over to the door. Heidi caught George's arm on her way out, making him promise to show up at the library the next day. "Test in two days, can't give up now!"

"Heidi, I have to tell you something," Alicia slurred, as they were making their way back to their own dorm. Heidi was holding her up, struggling to make it up the stairs.

"What do you have to tell me, Ali?"

"You have to come closer. Closer."

Heidi stood further on her tiptoes, trying to position herself exactly where the much taller girl was pulling her.

"I like girls," Alicia breathed into her ear. "Just thought you should know."

"Why are you two taking so long?" Angelina hissed from the top of the stairs, where she had already heralded Lydia and Arbor, who was going to stay the night, into their room. "It's five in the fucking morning!"

Heidi waved her away. "Glad you told me," she whispered to Alicia, before gently pulling her in the direction of their dorm.

"No, no, no, you don't understand," Alicia said. "I like that girl." She nodded forward.

"Angelina?" Heidi said, so surprised that she almost forgot to whisper.

"No, oh my god, you're not getting it," Alicia said, careening to the side as Heidi scrambled to catch her weight before they both fell over. "That girl. Arbor."

Heidi made the decision to wait until the morning to tease Alicia about her crush. "Glad you told me. Bedtime."

"Hey, Heidi?" Alicia said, finally conceding to being almost carried up the stairs. "I'm happy you're my friend."

Heidi smiled as they reached the top. "I'm happy you're my friend too, Ali."

"I'm just saying though, that in a different universe where George Weasley hadn't got his hands on you and my heart didn't belong to another, I would absolutely snog you."

"I would totally snog you too," Heidi said, laughing as they tumbled into their room. "Wait, Ali, George Weasley does not have his hands on me!"

***

George was standing, throwing a quaffle against the stone wall outside the school, catching it perfectly every time. Heidi was sitting on the grass, leaning against the wall and quizzing him on wand movements. Suddenly, he tossed the ball to her. She fumbled for it, only snatching it out of the air at the last second before it hit the ground.

He smiled. "Slick."

"If I have to choose between being able to catch quaffles and knowing wand movements, I'll take the latter," Heidi said. George's smile grew, and she thought that maybe she liked making him smile. She filed that thought away for later, when she was alone and could think it through without that smile making her lose track of why she was with him. Heidi tossed the quaffle back to him. "What's the transfiguration formula?"

"The intended transformation is directly influenced by bodyweight, viciousness, wand power, concentration, and a fifth unknown variable," George said immediately. He grinned when Heidi nodded, tossing the quaffle to her. "Heidi?"

"Yeah?" Toss.

"What do you do for fun?" Toss.

That gave her a pause. The two of them didn't typically chat. "Not this, that's for sure. Why? Also, what are the four branches of transfiguration?"

"I know nothing about you," George said. "Like, actually nothing. It's weird, since we see each other so much. You'd think that I would have picked it up through osmosis or something."

"That's not what osmos -"

"You know what I mean," he said. He caught the ball she tossed to him, spinning it on the tip of his finger without thinking. "How could I be friends with you for so long, but not know anything? Transformation, vanishment, conjuration, untransfiguration."

"You just weren't paying attention," Heidi said. She did get what he meant. She remembered him from years past, and she knew things about him that she couldn't remember learning. She knew that he liked writing in quills he made himself rather than in shop-bought. She knew that he let Fred connect the dots of his freckles in ink when Fred got bored in class, in the event that they were still allowed to sit together. It was odd to see somebody as a blank slate when they should have been covered in writing, but that's what they were to each other ─ only recently had they begun seeing each other lit from within.

"Well," he sighed. "I am now."

His words hit her harder than the quaffle did. She felt her face grow warm, and she had to fight the impulse to laugh it off. It didn't feel funny. At a loss for what to say, she opened your mouth in the hopes that something perfect would come out. "Define all four."

Nope. Definitely not perfect.

George huffed out a laugh, and she thought he looked a little disappointed. She was too, without a doubt.

𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 ─
god it's been so long but i
am so happy to be back with
lovely george and heidi!