𝘀𝗺𝗲𝗲, george weasley

˗ˋ 21

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
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-: the beginnings :-

── IN WHICH RHEA RETURNS

. . .

Mrs Weasley had left Rhea in the teashop in a fluster of announcements of all the housework she had to do at Grimmauld Place, the invitation to the opening night in just a couple of days accepted and hanging above the rest of their conversation as they ate their soup and scones, which mostly consisted on the Lovegood further advising her against particular creatures that the woman wasn't too sure anyone other than her father and sister had ever had heard of.

After ordering a second round of the lavender scones in order to take back to the twins who were still working hard on their sorting, Rhea began her somewhat hazy walk back to the shop, more focused on wondering how she would tell them that she had invited Molly and Arthur to come to the opening night.

She couldn't quite figure out whether it was a good idea or not. It didn't help that after returning back to work with still no consensus on the morality of her issues, all she could hear whenever she was near either twin was their muttered complaints; why had she come there, why had she not returned following her lunch with their head of staff, was it just to shout at them again? Or was it to somehow throw the fact they ran away from their NEWTs and forfeited a safety net just in case they went bust?

It was obvious enough that the final question wasn't exactly a possibilty at all (Weasley Wizard Wheezes, shop open or not, was already insanely popular and more often than not Rhea was having to re-stock shelves after taking boxes off to quell the growing pile of owl-in orders), but rather a wonder if their mother doubted them so much that she had to come in and berate them. 

As well as accuse them of stealing from Harry bleeding Potter - not the Lovegood's words; Fred was particularly loud when he went blundering into the storage room to get another box of their Canary Creams - quite frankly to the two twins, it was despicable. And Rhea agreed.. but she supposed she didn't know whether her thoughts that Mrs Weasley was possibly just worried about them were correct or not. After all, most of her memoriees of her own mother were insanely childish. 

There had hardly been a mature, feeling-based conversation between them, and almost entirely consisted of Pandora trying to do her very best to teach Rhea the usual lessons that Xenophilius definitely couldn't do as well as answering all the odd questions imposed by the slightly crazed nature of her father.

Either way, Rhea hadn't mentioned it upon coming in, and although she tried her very best to help it came to attention of both herself and the twins that it would be best to let the other workers get to grips with the shop and for the blonde to just instruct them.

And so instead, she came to sit on the closed front counter again, but instead of doing anything worthwhile despite her wish to do so, she was busy preparing some of her lemonade whilst simultaneously writing a letter to Fleur, after it became obvious to herself that she had hardly contacted her friend since graduating months earlier. 

It wasn't hard to see her interest in the letter, and as the afternoon progressed she was writing pages and pages, late into the evening. And when all the workers had disappeared, Fred and George found themselves stood at one of the levels of stairs, exhausted, looking down on her.

"She's writing to Fleur." George said. "I asked her earlier.. wanted to know who she was writing so much to."

"Didn't think to ask her what she talked about with Mum?" Fred's eyebrows raised, watching the expression forming on his twin's face. It was gentle.. different to how he usually appeared but held that same sort of mischievous gleam they shared.

George's eyes widened, glancing at him before down at Rhea, chewing on his bottom lip. There was a lull in their conversation, before he cleared his throat. "I didn't want to disturb her. Felt like I did too much just asking about the letter."

"Godric, you're useless." He shook his head, reaching to clap the younger on the shoulder. "I'm going to go get something to eat. I'll bring food back for you both. Now go and talk to her, and ask her out before I lose my bloody mind."

"Alright, Jesus fuck." George ran his hand through his hair - it was growing longer now - before swallowing. "Do I look like an idiot?"

"What do you think?"

Well. He had his answer there. 

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a/n
i think i've decided
that this isn't
going to be a long book,
i'm not sure how it'll end up being
but it won't be as long as some
of my others

also you can't convince me that
fred didn't swear like a sailor