She ran her finger along dusty volume after dusty volume. Each and every one was as grand as the last in her eyes. They held knowledge, inspiration… escape. She certainly wanted to escape after the day she had today. Stressful didn’t start to describe it. Agonizing, painstakingly slow and embarrassing could be better descriptions. She grabbed a book and moved to one of the free tables slightly more towards the back than others, away from disrupting students.
Opening her book to the first page, she sat back and put her feet up on the chair next to her, turning her back slightly to the chair on her other side. Sighing, she opened the book and, using the sunlight, started to read the slightly faded words written on the yellowing pages.
The moment she started reading, she was lost to the outside world, going on a journey written out by the author. A journey of mystery, discovery, and of course, romance. That was her favourite journey, even if she had never gone on it herself, only through the books she read. She didn’t go on those kinds of journeys in real life. She was the girl that was too involved with her studies for boys to pay attention to. But that didn’t matter. The library was her safe haven. No one disturbed her in the library. No one! Except…
She tried not to groan as George Weasley pulled out the chair she had her back to. Not again. Not here of all places. He was the one that made her want to escape. He had embarrassed her all day. He had made her spend the whole day looking at her watch repeatedly, wishing the day over with.
George leant towards her and rested his arm on her shoulder casually. He was so close that she could feel his hot breath rushing passed her cheek as he breathed in her scent and let out the air in a rush. Repeatedly! It annoyed her to no end. Having him so close to her, sent her senses into high alert. She could sense his every move. From the movement of his stomach muscles as he breathed, to his hand that was playing with the ends of her hair and brushing soot off of her shoulder. Why does he have to affect me so? I hate him. And the ends of his hair kept brushing her face softly, tickling her skin delicately.
“Good morning, Miss Hollows, you’re looking beautiful as usual. Perhaps even more so, although I didn’t think that possible.” George picked up one of her dirty blonde locks and twirled it around in his fingers. He brought it to his nose and smelt her shampoo. “You smell nice. New shampoo?”
Dawn rolled her eyes as she tried to concentrate on her reading, which was near impossible now. How he or even anyone could see her as pretty let alone beautiful was beyond her. She was the lesser of her and her cousin and she knew it. She had dirty blonde hair that fell in clumps and never sat the way she wanted. Her eyes were plain brown, not honey brown, not chocolate brown, not anything, just brown. Her complexion was plain and she didn’t have any outstanding facial features, her smile wasn’t anything special, on the rare times she actually did smile, and she was an average build. She didn’t have curves that made the boys turn their heads but she also wasn’t as flat as the house tables.
She was plain, average, invisible. She could walk into a room and no one would notice her until she answered a question, and even then it was just noticing her as a nerd. She was a shadow among light. The light was noticed but the shadow was ignored, like it was non-existent. No boy out of her house bothered paying her attention. The only reason boys in her house paid her attention was they valued brains. All Ravenclaws did. They held knowledge over everything else, that’s why she didn’t date them. They were all to busy studying and didn’t want to waste their time on the broom-wreck that was her.
George leaned closer to her, pretending to read over her shoulder perhaps. When he did, the ends of his hair brushed against her face softly, tickling her skin delicately. The touch was lighter the a gentle breeze but it sent pleasant shivers up and down her spin, causing her to gasp softly.
She thought it had gone unnoticed, but the wide smile she saw spread across George’s face out of the corner of her eye told her he had felt and or seen her gasp. Her cheeks heated up in embarrassment. She didn’t like him, she knew that, but his ‘Weasley charm’ as they called it, did have an effect on her, even if it was miniscule.
“Come on, Hollows, be nice and say ‘Good morning, George’,” the annoying boy pestered, breathing the words into her ear.
Dawn didn’t comment. She just kept looking at the words in front of her. Why did he want to talk to her so badly? Did he have money riding on whether or not she’d give in and accept his advances? He wouldn’t leave her alone! Not since he had busted ‘The Ravenclaw prefect, Miss Perfect’ cursing Mrs. Norris. If she knew that George Weasley, slacker and prankster would spend every class, free, break, study time and meal trying to woo her, she wouldn’t have done it. She had just been so annoyed! How dare Filch do that to her friend?
Although, George’s wooing was by far more annoying. Today was one of the worst. He had serenaded her in the middle of dinner. With the song from Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare. Everyone had turned and looked as one of the Weasley Twins kneeled on one knee in front of some mystery Ravenclaw and sung his heart out. She had been laughed at. Many girls had also seen it fit to glare at her. It was as though she had bewitched him into doing it. Put him under the Imperius curse perhaps? Yeah, she found him handsome, she was human after all, but she didn’t want his attention.
Her friend was actually deluded enough to believe that the only reason he got under her skin was because she liked him. Yeah right! She was a Prefect! She was most likely to become Head Girl next year, top of her class and she had a spotless record. (Well, besides that one incident with Mrs. Norris but, for some reason, George and only George, not Fred, was given detention for it.) Like she’d be attracted to a prankster, a slacker, a Quidditch played that is most likely not to even turn up next year, let alone become Head Boy, and the guy that held the record for most detentions in a year. She was to busy anyway. She had to focus on her studies. She was a Ravenclaw after all.
He still hadn’t left. He was just sitting there, with his arm resting on her shoulder and one of her locks twirled around his finger. He was watching the light, streaming through the window, hit her hair. He seemed truly fascinated by her hair, the way the light actually made it look a seamy descent colour, but she knew it was him and his great acting skills. You didn’t get away with at least half your pranks without having extraordinary acting skills. But she wasn’t going to fall for it!
Never ever!