Honesty

I had debated on which character to go as for a short while, after all, the theme was my idea, and eventually settled on Belle. I recalled seeing the animated film in cinemas with my mother during the Christmas holidays of my second year at Hogwarts and she’d started to refer to me as Belle as an endearment. I’d never told anyone before, but it felt nice to do something that made me feel connected to her again, even if it was for a costume.

I was going to go for the iconic yellow dress but felt it would be too difficult to manoeuvre around in, and the blue one wasn’t elegant enough for what I wanted, so I settled with the green dress from the library scene ¬¬— my favourite scene naturally. In terms of making my costume, how lucky I am that I’m a witch, as all I had to do was transfigure an existing dress into a replica of the one from the movie. Making the work easier for myself by starting off with a dress with a long skirt and long sleeves. I already owned some flats, which I simply transfigured on the afternoon of the party the colour to match.
All in all it was all very simple. That is until I came to my hair.
Thanks to Ginny I’d now learnt how to magically tame any frizz, but unfortunately Belle’s character didn’t have a mane of bouncing curls, and being one to not be absorbed in purely vain pursuits I still wasn’t sure how to straighten it down to a relaxed wave. So I called in the big-wands.

Ginny.

Never one to pass up on even the most meagre opportunity of a ‘makeover’, Ginny came through at the end of our floo-call after accioing a few things.

“A little keen there Ginny,” I huffed, quickly moving out of the way.

“Are you kidding? Of course I’m coming through now. I’ve got to get ready myself you know. Oh Merlin, and don’t even get me started on Harry. He’s been a right prick all morning trying to put his together…. I told him I could do it for him, but he kept going on about “If I can’t put some leaves together for pants I’m a shit wizard, and Harry Potter is not a shit wizard.” He’s a damn lucky wizard I’ll give him that. I swear though, if he has had too many pre-party drinks, and he is thoroughly sloshed before we even leave, he’s not going to be the Boy-Who-Lived anymore, or at least he’ll be the Boy-Who-No-Longer-Gets-Some”, all the while Ginny was ranting, she was pulling out a few Witch Weekly’s and a couple tubs of I-don’t-know-what from a bag she had sat on my dresser.

“Okay so, how do you want to do this? Are we going for sweet and innocent or sultry and alluring? I’m doing both makeup and hair right? Cos as much as I’m in a rush, I’m not going to play coy on how good I am at beauty charms…”

“Wow, Ginny take a breath. Sure you can do both, I kind of can’t be bothered to tell you the truth. Just go easy on the makeup, please. Here, I’ll find something to show you what I’m after.”

I reached over to one of the Witch Weekly’s and did a quick flick through. I eventually came across a few good options and passed her the magazine.

“Hmm, okay. Not really over the top, but definitely you. Can I at least put an extension charm on your lashes?”

“Yeah okay why not.”

“Excellent! Let the magic begin.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle as I sat in front of my dressing table. Merlin, Ginny loved this. Just 30 minutes later and a bit of swearing from Ginny and we were done. I couldn’t be happier with the results as she did the finishing touches, adding a lightweight fixing charm to my hair (like muggle hairspray, but with protection against water) and puffing up the meadow green silk hair bow.

Ginny broke me out my quiet reverie by smacking her hands together, “not to be completely conceited but Godric I’m good!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle, twirling a strand around my finger. “Thanks a million Ginny, you’re a life saver”

“I know,” she responded with a cheeky wink “I swear if I didn’t love quidditch so much I’d go into business. Wish George would bring me back in to help with his WonderWitch line.”

Ginny noticed her melancholy line of thought and quickly pulled herself out of it but I couldn’t help but ask, “Have you spoken to him recently, Gin?”

She seemed to hold her breath a moment before blowing out air, “Yeah. I mean he’s better… but I dunno, conversation just feels stilted you know? I feel like I worry too much about bringing up the wrong subject rather than just talking to him.”

“The business seems to be doing well after that break he took for a year.”

“Yeah Ron has certainly helped out there. Massive surprise that! Although the biggest thing, I think, is how little I actually see of Angelina.”

That got my attention a little bit because I’d heard her and George had been near inseparable.

“Truly? I’d have thought they be together every moment they could get?”

“You’d think so, but… I just feel something is wrong there. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but the few times I’ve seen them together recently, they don’t exactly appear madly in love or anything. They barely touch for crying out loud!”

“Gin, it’s been a while since they moved in together. I’m sure they’re over the honeymoon stage.”

Ginny’s hands seemed to gesticulate wildly as she exclaimed, “Yes, yes! But even in the beginning you can’t tell me they didn’t seem… I don’t know…. Stiff in their affections!”

I couldn’t help but agree with her there, but I also didn't want to say that I'd thought something similar for quite some time. It all rode far too closely to my unvoiced attraction to George and I didn’t want to re-spark an ember that should’ve been long since dead. George was in a relationship for goodness sake, and no matter how much my heart seemed to flutter when I saw him (for years on end) that’s not a road I should be going down, let alone considering. This attraction unwittingly put an end to my short-lived quarrel-filled relationship with Ron as I’d regularly laid out comparison after comparison of the brothers. Constantly venting on my relationship with Ron to George (or sometimes Charlie), over wine, at every Weasley family gathering and silently wishing I were dating George instead. I’d found him to be well versed in muggle literature and he had an intelligent wit beyond the pranks and scheming, he also had a hidden talent at drawing and thoroughly enjoyed gardening (although the latter he would never admit to his siblings) he also seemed to have a similar passion to mine for the rights of magical creatures, albeit without my over-demanding energy.

“You’re right Gin. But maybe we shouldn’t get into this right now?”

“Yeah, well I’ll need to let off some steam about it later.”

“Okay, we can do it another day.”

“Another day with alcohol? Damn the tea, this topic calls for hard liquor.”

“Okay, Gin. Seems fair to me.”

“Excellent! Well, I better go see how Harry is getting along. Merlin knows that man could get himself into a fix in a padded room.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the truth of it as I saw Ginny to the Floo, her bag in hand.