Age Five
When George Weasley went to bed on the night of his fifth birthday he expected to dream about the pranks that he and Fred got up to that day. He expected to dream about his birthday and the things he got. He expected to dream about the days when he’ll finally be old enough to do magic. What he did not expect to dream about was a girl.
The dream started off as George had expected it to, with him and Fred playing a prank on Percy. Sometime during the prank he and Fred decided to split up and George felt an inexplicable pull towards the field that sat behind the Burrow. He wasn’t sure why he went out there, considering that Percy was in the house, so the pull had to be because of something else. He was about to turn around when he saw a girl walking towards him. He watched her walk to him, her blonde hair gently swaying in the breeze. She stopped in front of him and smiled. George couldn’t help but to think that she’s very pretty.
George couldn’t remember ever seeing the girl in his life. He thought that he would remember seeing this pretty of a girl. She continued to stare at him as he waited for her to say something. George had always been the quieter twin between him and Fred and it seemed that that trait followed him in his dreams. The longer the girl didn’t say anything, even though it had only really been a couple of seconds, The more uncomfortable George became. The girl opened her mouth, and it seemed like she was about to say something– “George!”
George was shaken awake by Fred. When his eyes opened, they immediately closed to try and stop him from being blinded by the sun. He could’ve sworn he just fell asleep. “I had the strangest dream.”
“Stranger than the three headed dog dream you had the other day?” Fred joked. George had felt confident in telling Fred about the strange girl that appeared in his dream, they always told each other about their dreams, but now wasn’t sure.
“We were going to play a prank on Percy and we split up and I ended up out in the field. Then there was this girl who came out of nowhere and she walked up to me and didn’t say anything.” George started explaining, but as he got further into his explanation he realized that maybe it’s not as strange as he thought it was. That dreams can change in an instant and in theory all dreams could be considered strange.
“Maybe she was afraid of you, you know, since I am the better looking twin.” Fred laughed. For a five-year-old, he’s quite cocky. George laughed along, even though he didn’t feel like laughing.
The next few nights his dreams are normal, well as normal as dreams can be, and he’d started to think that maybe he was thinking too much about the strange girl. Just when he was finally forgetting about the dream, he had another one.
It had been two weeks, to the day, since he first had the dream, and tonight, as George was falling asleep he once again expected his dreams to be normal. His dream did start out normal. It was of him and Fred playing Quidittch with Charlie and Bill when the quaffle seemed to get a mind of its own and zoomed out towards the field behind the Burrow. George went after it and he stopped in midair as he saw the girl from his previous dream standing in the middle of the field, holding the quaffle.
George almost fell off his broom. He couldn’t believe his eyes. How was he dreaming about the same girl? Now, his family wasn’t one to believe in reading into dreams, but George couldn’t help but to think that maybe he needed to get into that. “Are you looking for this?” The girl tossed the quaffle into the air and caught it.
“Well? Are you?” The girl dropped the quaffle in front of her feet and put her hands on her hips when George continued to stare at her.
He clambered off of his broom. “Uh...um, y-yeah.” George stammered and he could feel his cheeks get hot.
“You’re going to have to catch me first.” The girl lets out a laugh and for a second George thought she was mocking him. She sent him a smile and George then recognized the laugh as the type of laugh that he and Fred let out when they’re pulling pranks. George grinned at her, finally realizing that she wasn’t being mean.
The mystery girl took off running with the quaffle in her arms, not giving George any warning. He chased after her and as he was about to catch up with her...he found himself looking at Fred instead.
George wanted to scream at Fred. He couldn’t believe that he dreamt about the girl again, let alone that she talked to him. Maybe all his thinking about the dream was what caused the new dream to happen. Yeah, that’s probably what happened.
George kept the dream to himself, knowing that he would only get made fun of, even though he wanted to tell someone so he could get it off his chest-about how he couldn’t wait to go to sleep to hopefully continue the dream. He continued throughout the day in a daze that concerned his siblings. When has one of the Weasley twins ever been that quiet? George knew that it was stupid to be so caught up in a dream that he’d had twice, but he was only five and he didn’t need to be realistic.
That night, he didn’t dream.
Or the next night.
Or the next.
Soon a week had gone by and he hadn’t had a single dream. For a five-year-old who’d gone his whole life having dreams, mainly consisting of pranks, it was quite sad. He’d started to think that something might be wrong with him. Almost every morning, he had to listen to Fred tell him about the adventures that he went on in his dreams. For George, well he had to make up his dreams. He didn’t want Fred to think that there was something wrong with him.
George went on with his life, because what else could he do, and each night he hoped that he’d dream. It didn’t matter what he was going to dream about, it could have even been a nightmare. Even if he dreamed that he became boring like Percy he wouldn’t care because that meant that he was dreaming.
As the weeks went by and he continued to not have any dreams, the thought of bringing it up to his mum and dad entered his mind. The thought was quickly dismissed because what if not having dreams is a sign of being a squib? What if he told his parents and they confirm that he probably will be a squib and the family shuns him? What if Fred no longer wanted to be his brother? He didn’t know how he would go through the rest of his life without Fred. He didn’t even want to think about that.
George finally convinced himself that he didn’t need to have dreams. That it was okay that he didn’t have any and that it was completely normal. It was then that he finally had a dream.
Unlike the other two dreams, where he started out doing something else and somehow found himself in the field, this dream started in the middle of the field. Surprisingly, the girl was already there.
George wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Every time something started happening in the dream he got woken up, so he was going to make sure something did happen before he woke up. “I’m George.” He stuck out his hand and the girl stared at it as if she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with it. George awkwardly brought his hand back down to his side.
“Serenity, though nobody but my mum calls me that. Everybody else just calls me Ren.” The girl-Ren-said very quickly, that if George hadn’t been paying rapt attention to everything about her, he probably would’ve missed most of what she was saying.
Ren started walking away from him and he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to follow. She didn’t go far before she let herself fall onto the ground. George couldn’t help but to think that she was going to get her dress dirty. He slowly followed suit, sitting down instead of laying down. He was still not sure what he was supposed to do.
Ren threw her arms behind her head as she closed her eyes to keep the sun out of them and asked, “Do you ever wish that you could turn into an animal?”
“I’m not old enough to do that yet.”
George wasn’t expecting the reaction that he got. Ren’s eyes popped open as she sat up, her mouth falling open. “You can change into an animal? That’s so cool. Imagine just turning into an animal whenever you wanted, I would never not be an animal.”
“Yeah, though you have to be older and it’s supposed to be very hard.” George wished that he was able to do magic and be an animagus, just so he could impress Ren. “What would you want to be?”
“I would want to become a -”
This time when George woke up it was of his own accord, although he was upset at himself for waking up before finding out what animal she would want to turn into. George hoped the next time he dreamt about her, she would finally be able to tell him.