Tea
Leigh had ended up forgiving Nova quite quickly. She stumbled upon her in the corridor one day, and Nova had immediately started to profusely apologise. The words seemed to exit her like a flood, and Leigh had to strain her ears to fully distinguish the words from each other.
She told her of how she had felt bad and had been a horrible friend and how, when she saw Leigh "–in the common room the other night with Hermione and God I felt so bad. I was really blunt and horrible and I know you're going through something right now, and that's fine, and I just – you know – I just didn't mean it!" She had grabbed Leigh's arm, looking at her pleadingly. "Please forgive me?" Judging by the grip she held on Leigh's arm it seemed like she had to forgive her to ever again know freedom.
She looked at her friend's face, her big eyes and slight pout as she awaited Leigh's answer. Finally, Leigh sighed, dismissing their last encounter with a wave of her hand. "It's alright, forget it."
She barely had time to finish her words before Nova flung her arms around her neck, squeezing tightly and almost asphyxiating her. By some miracle she survived the hug, which she loosely returned.
Herbology was spent partnered up with Nova. Louise, Neville's partner, was back, and the two of them seemed to be very giggly and close throughout the whole class. Everything seemed to have gone back to normal.
Still, Leigh felt this constant state of embarrassment ever since she had cried so heavily in the common room, in Hermione's arms. She was used to keeping her emotions to herself, and all of a sudden she had so clearly displayed them to her friend, and Leigh couldn't seem to come to terms with it.
Thankfully, only Hermione and Nova knew. Hermione had said to her time and time again that it was fine, and Leigh was sure neither of them had told anyone of the encounter. Still, it felt embarrassing and awkward no matter what.
Despite her minor breakdown where she had been comforted by Hermione, the guilt kept eating at her, and she desperately pushed it down as she attempted to continue with her studies.
Sometimes she cursed herself for being too high-functional. Now here she was, feeling drained, left having to keep up the act, with group-work, advanced classes and projects, when all she really wanted to do was drop everything.
On top of all her usual classes, homework and group assignments she had agreed to visit Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes today, to see the finished shop before their grand opening on Saturday.
Once she arrived to the familiar building in Hogsmeade she decided not to knock, but instead just step inside, and was soon faced by a colourful view in front of her. Much more colourful than the last time she had been here.
In the midst of the colourful, organised chaos, George Weasley was darting around, seemingly searching for something. His gaze rose to meet hers quickly before returning to whatever he was doing before. "Oh, hi," he uttered, rushing over to yet another corner of the room.
Fred, who had heard the sound of the bell as she entered the shop, appeared at the top of the stairs and gave her a small wave before loosely shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. She blushed, remembering their last encounter on the quidditch pitch. It was fun and she cherished it more than she was willing to admit.
Her attention was returned to George, who finally seemed to find what he was looking for and held it firmly in his hand. "I'm sorry for the bad timing, but I have to go," George admitted hastily. "Have to go to Diagon Alley. Issue with a supplier. Will be back for the grand opening though, so don't fret!"
Then, with a faint cracking noise, he disappeared from the floor in front of her. Suddenly the space became surprisingly quiet, and Leigh looked up towards the stairs where Fred stood, hands still in his pockets.
"Sorry about that," he dragged out sheepishly, a crooked smile forming his lips. "He'll be back before the grand opening though. Hope just me is fine. If you'd rather come back Saturday morning when we're both here that's alright too."
She looked at him quizzically, "It's fine." Shuffled another two steps forward. "We've already spent some time alone, so I don't mind."
She subconsciously whacked herself on the head for phrasing it like that, all weird. She forced the blush away from her cheeks and avoided his gaze as he stepped down the stairs, but could still spot the faint grin in the corner of his lips.
"Alright then," he started, and Leigh took a breath before looking up at his face, which now held a cheery smile. "Let the tour begin." He rubbed his hands together childishly, apparently excited about the prospect of showing her around the newly decorated shop. "You know our shop in Diagon Alley?" He started, and immediately she pressed her lips together.
"Uh.., I've never actually been inside..." She twisted her lips into a regretful frown. For the first time she actually felt bad about not enjoying their silly antics. "Pranks aren't really my...thing." She drifted off.
He looked at her understandably. "Well, can't say I expected much else. But–," his eyes lit up, "–you'll be happy to know that prank items aren't the only items Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes holds!" He seemed to have put on his salesman voice, and she forced back a giggle.
The next hour or so was spent with Fred guiding her through the shop, showing her both new and old products, from fireworks, to prank items, to pygmy puffs, to their defence against the dark arts line, the latter which Leigh was especially impressed by.
She remembered reading about the products, but now facing them it felt much more inspiring. She couldn't fathom that ideas and magic such as that had come from the twins' minds. It somehow seemed unlikely due to their unserious nature.
Fred had shown her every item imaginable: the relatively new, small fireworks, like the small snake Leigh had seen in the corridor that day; the well-known Weasleys' Wildfire Whiz-bangs, which the twins had famously set off at Umbridge that time in 5th year; the different updated versions of the skiving snack-boxes, with new illnesses and horrible symptoms to choose from; and their WonderWitch products.
Leigh was suspicious of the love potions, and rightly so, but Fred quickly claimed that they were not at all as strong as costumers believed them to be. They had thrown a bunch of other, unrelated symptoms in there to make it more believable, but the love potion itself caused nothing more than a slight more attentiveness towards the target, and some fluttering in their stomach. Nothing that would severely impact any decision-making. Leigh seemed pleased with the answer. Besides, after receiving a cute, fluffy pygmy puff in her arms she was sure she would be pleased with whatever he said.
She had moved on to the next area, a shelf full of their new products, one of which Fred had set off at Ron a week or so prior: forget me shocks. Her eyes scanned over the options. Spiders, birds, roaches, a big ghost version of Umbridge, which made her chuckle quietly.
"I think that's the worst one yet," she hummed, pointing to the product with a grin.
Fred followed her finger and a smirk rose to his face. "Ah, yes, ghost Dumbridge. Big shadowy thing that. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."
She smiled, and her gaze continued to the next option. A dementor version. She shuddered slightly, remembering back to her many confrontations with the creatures. She was happy the currently appointed Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt had claimed dementors would not be used within the government again. She nodded towards it. "Do these react to the patronus charm?"
Fred took a step closer, nodding in response. "Yeah. We started developing them years back, supposed to help for practising the spell, but the magic was more complicated than we expected and it took a while for us to get it right."
She hummed, but said nothing else, and instead continued walking down through the shop. Suddenly a bright light buzzed past her, and she whipped around, following it with her gaze. The sparkly dot circled her a few times before flying back towards Fred and landing in his palm. With a cheeky grin he launched it in the other direction, and the two of them watched as it whirled around the room, hooping around the pieces of furniture and items in its path.
It swerved around the room before shooting towards Leigh, stopping closely in front of her face. Confused, she blinked a few times, looking at the sparking dot only a small distance in front of her.
The glimmering light lit up her face, and her eyes gleamed brilliantly with curiosity, something Fred was quick to notice.
Albeit uncertain, she slowly reached her hand out towards the sparkle, which jittered around slightly in place. It avoided the touch of her finger, but didn't fly away, and Leigh finally decided to scoop it into her palm and sent it in Fred's direction. If the sparkle had the ability to make sounds she would've expected it to shoot through the air with a "whoo!"
It fluttered around Fred ecstatically, and Leigh giggled. This tiny little dot seemed to be out of its mind. She looked up at Fred's face and was surprised to see he had his gaze focused on her, rather than the sparkle which spun around him time and time again.
"Feeling protonic?" She asked him with a muffled chuckle, and he scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion, although still giving her a smile. "It's...muggle science joke..," she trailed off awkwardly, scratching the back of her neck. Fred just watched her with an amused expression.
The dot soon zoomed away again, hiding Merlin knows where. Leigh could just imagine how many hidden corners and nooks existed in this place.
Fred's voice tore through the silence. "I was just about to make some tea, you want some?" He asked politely, and Leigh nodded in response.
"Yeah sure."
Leigh was surprised when he didn't move anywhere, but simply stayed standing beside her. She looked at him quizzically, and he seemed to catch on to her inquisitive gaze and shot her a grin. "Oh it's brewing, don't worry."
She blinked, one, two times. "You started from here? Wordless and wandless? From another room?"
"Well, I've had a bit of practise when I've wanted tea the last couple of days, but–," he shrugged with a grin, "–yeah."
She tried to hide how impressed she was, but seemed to fail miserably as Fred looked at her with a growing smile. She rolled her eyes, glancing away from him. "Quit showing off."
"Oh come on, I have to. Hogwarts number 1 student is here. What better reason to show off?"
She forced back a smile, instead shaking her head as she kept looking at the products in front of her. Fred's proud and teasing grin gleamed in corner of her eye.