Spellbind

19. Finally Found

A/N:

>>>>> = Time Skip

<<<<< = Flashback

*=*=*=*=* = Next Scene

Niyla POV:

I felt so strangely optimistic, I half wondered if George's lips were laced with something to make me feel so high. Dramatically intense, was the simplest way to put my first kiss. Mortifying, but worth it since it was with George. Whether or not we were truly ready to cross that line, I didn't care. He was mine for the moment, and, that's all I wanted to think about now. We walked hand in hand to where I thought was nowhere in particular,— I couldn't take my mind off of him long enough to wonder where we were headed.

"I have Magical Creatures, right now," I commented the moment I noticed we were nearing the greenhouses.

"So, you skip a class or two," George smiled, his cheeks still very flushed.

"I want to show you something," he added, towing me along.

I felt my face redden, my body temperature rising, so when a rush of wind hurled against us it cut right through me; I struggled to covertly hide my exaggerated shiver. But George was too preoccupied to notice. He stopped suddenly, looking down at a large almost oval-shaped patch of grass, a wide cluster of long stems with unopened buds and spiked-like leaves. He brought me down with him to get a better perspective of the plant, which looked quite out of place with the seemingly newly placed tufts of grass canvassed around them.

"I couldn't stop thinking about you," he said in a soothing voice.

My face felt even hotter than before, and I knew then my body temperature would never go back to normal now, so long as I was with him. When I caught his gaze, my heart dropped as it has many times before when looking at him, but this time I was almost sure he could cause it to burst.

His eyes moved back to the flowers in front of us. "A friend helped me. He knows far more about plants than I do."

I brushed my fingertips over the tops of the young buds.

"They'll bloom completely in late spring," I thought out loud to myself, remembering what I could at the time about the flower that holds the same name as my father.

"No, not these," George grinned,— a sort of gloating kind of grin.

"Longbottom helped me to charm them so they'd sprout in snow. I got the idea back in September," he started to explain.

"Took us a while, but we were able to find a powerful enough charm... I've come to check on them every day," George began to say his words slowly. Found my hand again, and easily had me copying his shifting body; so we'd sit directly in front of each other. Right next to the mini meadow of unopened flowers, that we could both lay across and still be surrounded head to toe by.

A subtle pucker appeared in the center of his brow, our knees no more than an inch from one another; he held my hand with both of his, rubbing his thumbs repeatedly over my knuckles as he spoke looking downward.

"I can't tell you how sorry I am, Niyla," his words sort of faltered and he messed up on the heart-shaped pattern he was drawing over and over again on the back of my hand.

I wanted to interrupt him, tell him I couldn't see myself holding any more grudges— if there were still any to uphold. But I only kept my attention on him, waiting patiently for him to look back up and entrap me in his momentary stare.

"I was foolish and weak with jealousy... I hope you can forgive me enough to wait along with me, for these flowers to bloom. I chose for them to grow completely in snow because I was reminded of how you're so much like it, when you're in your wolf form."