Junoesque ✿George Weasley✿

95.

Blair nearly had a stroke when she saw that it was approaching the end of April. A stall in the street had a wooden calendar made out of blocks that had to be manually changed in order to show the correct date, and Blair had questioned the seller if he had changed it today. The man looked at her oddly before nodding very slowly, saying it was the 30th of April. It was lucky she and Fred had picked up some of the language during their recent ingredient hunting otherwise she might have brushed off the date as it simply being wrongly put. But when the stall owner confirmed it was nearly May, she hurried back to the hotel where she and Fred had been staying at for longer than they had thought.

"May is tomorrow!" she cried as she burst through the door. Fred jumped and dropped the pillow he was mindlessly levitating with his wand. He sat up and pinched his ginger eyebrows together in confusion.

"What?"

"It's nearly May, Fred!" she repeated, collapsing on to the freshly made bed closest to her. "We haven't been home in four months!"

"Wow, that is a long time," he hummed and swung his legs around the side to plant them on the floor. "Mum's gonna be so furious when we get back."

"And George."

The trip to Israel had seemed like only yesterday, but they had travelled to five other different countries up until today. After their trip to Russia which lasted a few weeks because of one stubborn goblin, they went to Poland, South Africa, Australia and to their current location, Peru. They had been able to collect all the ingredients they needed except for one. In her father's potions book, Peru was encircled in a thick, black line with the words 'Occamy beak' and 'Flytrap tongue'. These two ingredients were of course rare, expensive and native to Peru.

"Did you get what you needed?" Fred asked as he eyed the package Blair had put on the duvet beside her.

"Yeah," she unwrapped the brown wrapping and pulled out the small vial. Inside sat a pale yellow powder that shifted around when Blair shook the glass gently. "I could only get it already crushed up. Apparently unprocessed Occamy beaks are worth over two hundred galleons."

"Merlin, why is potion stuff so expensive?! No wonder Snape wears the same black robes and has greasy hair all the time. Probably can't afford a bottle of shampoo, the poor sod."

Blair sniggered and wrapped the bottle back in its wrapping for safe keeping. The silver ring on her finger caught her attention and she fell into her thoughts once more. So much time has passed since she had seen George and The Burrow and she felt guilty for only thinking of it now. Their time in foreign countries had been certainly exciting and thrilling while going into dodgy shops and exploring alleyways of unknown cities. There had been an uneasy feeling to these places but they had been cautious and safe about their actions. There had been unpleasant times of stingy men and attempts to rip them off completely, but for a majority of the time, they had walked away with the rare ingredient they had needed.

But Blair missed George. She missed him terribly. It was the first time they had been away from each other for so long since the summer holidays of her last year at Hogwarts. The last time she had seen him was on Christmas Eve, where he was near shaking from having to watch her and Fred leave The Burrow into the cold, dangerous world for rare potion ingredients. All three of them had thought that the ordeal would take less than a month, maybe even a week or two. But she and Fred had been gone for four months! The New Year had passed and they had celebrated it on their first day in Poland. And Blair remembered sparing barely a thought for George waiting for her back at The Burrow.

"I want to go home..." her voice was small and her soft tone made Fred halt levitating the fallen pillow back onto his mattress. He turned to see her staring down at her hands; more specifically at the diamond ring that belonged to his mother. He bit his lip at her downcast gaze and was nervous for what was to come.