It's Better If You Do

A large plume of pearlescent, iridescent colors smoke rising from the cauldron in front of her caused Bellamy to gag and choke a bit. She leaned back a bit, waving a gloved hand in front of her face as she fought to get clean air into her lungs. However, after a few moments of breathing in the vapors, a wide, goofy grin curled her red lips. Bellamy let out a heavy, dreamy sigh as she rested her chin in her palm. She stared down at the potion with a far-away sort of look in her doe-like brown eyes.

George, having heard a great amount of hacking from the backroom and a tiny puff of smoke from underneath the curtain in the backroom, excused himself from a demonstration of a Fainting Fancy and decided he would check up on Bellamy, just to be sure she wasn’t going to burn the place down. It wasn’t uncommon to see smoke in the shop, since they set off fireworks all the time, but it usually wasn’t accompanied by loud coughing. Pushing aside the curtain, he stepped into the room. He noticed that Bellamy looked up at him with half-lidded eyes through pearly vapors.

“Hello, George,” she said in a dreamy sort of voice that he likened very much to Luna Lovegood. “Lovely day, isn’t it?” Bellamy asked with a wide smile. George stared at her for a moment before begin hit with the overwhelming smell of flowers, strawberries, lavender, and baby powder. It finally all fell into place and he scrambled to grab a lid and slam it down onto the cauldron. Bellamy blinked a bit before clearing her throat, looking away from George as an embarrassed sort of blush tainted the apples of her cheeks.

“Thanks for that,” she said in an incredibly weak sounding voice. George merely shrugged a bit.

“Don’t mention it,” he said in an equally weak voice, before clearing his throat. He nodded down to the cauldron and said, “That’s some powerful sort of Love Potion.” Bellamy looked up at him and gave a terse nod, pulling her lips in.

“We’re low on Love Potions so I thought I’d make a batch,” she said softly before biting her bottom lip. George raised a brow as he glanced between her and the potion.

“Are you sure it’s safe for people? I mean…that’s really strong,” he said, feeling a bit hesitant about how quickly he had been affected, and only by the plumes of smoke at that. Bellamy stared up at him for a moment before standing and crossing her arms over her chest.

“It’s how I made it when I was at Beauxbatons. I made it better than my potion’s master,” she said with a proud smile. George merely stared at her, wearing a slight smirk. He then let out a laugh and shook his head a bit.

“Fred and I had some slimy git for a potion’s master, so we never cared to properly learn,” he said, inciting a small hum of playful disagreement as she shook her head.

“That’s very dangerous you know,” she said, looking up at him through her eyelashes, “I’ve lost track of the Beauxbatons’ students who lost their eyebrows from a cauldron backfiring. There was even one instance of a boy who completely lost the feeling and movement on one side of his face he got burnt so bad. But half of that was because he had gotten the potion completely wrong.” George stared at her wide-eyed for a moment. She grinned, seeming a bit too happy at his discomfort. “But I’m sure you take all the necessary precautions against things like that. You know, not wanting to damage that charming face of yours,” she continued, patting him on the shoulder as she walked out of the room.

George had encountered his fair share of cauldron explosions and singed off his eyebrows, and occasionally in eyelashes, in the process. However, he had never heard of someone losing the feeling in movement in their face. He would certainly take more caution when experimenting, that’s for sure. He glanced over to the Pygmy Puffs and heaved a great sigh, a wave of guilt washing over him. George leaned over and picked up the box, toting it back into the shop, prepared for the high-pitched squealing of young girls at the adorable miniature puffskeins.

Bellamy, who had just gotten done taking a count of how many Love Potions they had left, noticing that Rose was on the second floor with her back to the rest of the shop. She frowned a bit at this, since she seemed to have stayed close to Fred on the first floor, throughout the majority of the morning. Forgetting about the Love Potion, she made her way up the staircase, mindful to step around the children who barreled down them with no restraints. As Bellamy got closer, she noticed that Rose was sniffling lightly and wiping her cheeks with her fingertips as she straightened out the already tidy fake wands.

“What’s wrong?” Bellamy asked softly, placing a hand gently on the back of her arm. Rose turned and looked over at her sister, sniffling loudly.

“It’s stupid,” she said in a watery voice, “I don’t know why I’m crying over it.” Rose added on a light, forced laugh as if to prove her point, but Bellamy would not be swayed.

“What’s wrong?” She asked again, this time with a bit more force. Rose gave a heavy sigh and glanced down to George, who was carefully placing the Pygmy Puffs into the cage.

“George placed Ryussi in the box with the other puffskeins and they ended up breeding overnight. They…he-he-” her bottom lip gave a slight wobble at the thought of having lost the tiny purple puff she had gotten attached to. “He gave him to someone else on accident.” Bellamy suddenly looked furious.

“He what?” She asked in a low voice, her jaw set and her cheeks flushed with anger.

“He said he didn’t mean to,” Rose quickly said, shaking her head as she tried to disarm her sister before she blew up at George, “and it was an honest mistake, really. It’s stupid for me to get emotional over something that I only had for two days.”

“But he was your pet and George had no right to give him away,” Bellamy said through gritted teeth. Rose stared up at her for a moment.

“They all look the same though, Bellamy. And honestly, I can get another one to take its place,” she said, staring earnestly at her sister. Bellamy merely gave a heavy sigh and shook her head.

“I wonder if that man always has this much luck…or is it just for us,” she said with a sarcastic sort of dark tone in her voice. Rose gave a small laugh and glanced between her sister and George.

“I think it may just be for us,” she said in a lofty voice, inciting a laugh from the older sibling, “and since it is only for us, this must mean that we, in turn, are made the lucky ones.” Bellamy rolled her eyes, giving Rose a fond smile before shaking her head.

“Oh,” she said through a sad sigh, “ it is truly a shame how lucky we are.” The girls sent each other a look before bursting into laughter, adding to the already noisy atmosphere. To joke around with each other, like before Bellamy had her life flipped on its side, made them both realize how much they missed being younger and carefree. It had taken Rose’s mind off the lost of Ryussi and taken Bellamy’s mind off of how angry she was at George.

Once their laughter had subsided, Bellamy decided that she’d get a jumpstart on making lunch, since their lunch hour was closing in. As much as she liked fish and chips, it would do no good for her health and figure if she ate it everyday. It would also give her an opportunity to let the marinara sauce simmer for a good couple of hours, so it’d be really tasty whenever Rose and Fred separated from snogging to actually partake in it. Stifling a laugh at that thought, she ducked into the backroom and began to collect the ingredients needed for a marinara sauce and a four cheese stromboli, since that was what she was going to cook for lunch.

As she pulled a large pot onto a burner, she gave a small smile at the aspects of a blind date. To have someone who was actually interested in her made her slightly happy. It had been nearly a year since she felt like someone besides her sister paid her any attention. Her thoughts suddenly turned sour as she remember all of emotional turmoil her fiancé had put her through. The smile quickly faded as doubt and fear flooded her. What if this guy was just going to turn out like Julian, building up her hopes only just to cut her down? She let herself linger on the negative thoughts for just a moment longer before pushing them from her mind and focusing on getting the meal done.