the baby project — act one
" almost like a pregnancy "
﹙ 𝗟𝗜𝗕𝗥𝗔𝗥𝗬 𝗣𝗔𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗟. ﹚

     ADDIE SWEENEY SENSES SHE MADE A MISTAKE by granting George Weasley access into, not only her house common room but also her dorm room. Because the boy is the epitome of nosy.

     The book ─ her book ─ was still grasped tightly in George's hand, held high above his head, and completely out of her reach. He also happened to be flicking through the pages, as best he could, with the distance.

     Addie let out a low grunt, feeling something she only ever did when arguing with her two siblings. "George whatever-the-fuck-your-last-name-is Weasley, I'm asking you kindly to return my book," she said, her eyes flicking from her personal possession to his gaze. "That way, I can assure you, there will be no damage done."

     When Addie Sweeney makes threats, she means them. It wasn't as though the contents of her book (her parents named it "Addie's Guide To Life") was embarrassing, or held her deepest darkest secrets that she would never want to utter to anyone, but George Weasley was quite possibly the last person she'd want to show. Joint with his twin brother, Fred. Addie has only ever shown two people ─ two! ─ her advice book; one being her best friend and the other, her older sister. George Weasley has no desired traits that would lead Addie to even consider sharing the information her book held with him.

     Addie was scared. Because she didn't know what to do.

     George's smirk softened to a sympathetic pout, as he cocked his head. Addie watched his arm lower slightly, and her lungs loosened finally. "Well, since you asked so nicely," he said, his arm and the book almost reaching shoulder height.

     Addie let a silent sigh escape her mouth, as she reached an arm forward, ready to take the book from his hands, "Thank you."

     But just as the words came out of her in a relieved hurry, George's smirk had returned, and his arm whisked the book away from her reach once again. "I'm kidding," he chuckled, and within a second, his arm was outstretched above his head, and Addie ground her teeth at the sight. "Of course," he added. Addie wouldn't have been able to tell whether George was prepared to do the right thing and return her book ─ she had been too preoccupied with her alleviation. "You should have predicted that, I'm sorry," he shrugged, his arm rotated behind his head.

     Addie gritted her teeth as he turned his back on her, his words mumbled as he spoke, "So what is this anyway?" George asked while Addie heard the rustling of papers. He had brought the book down to waist height and was now flicking through the pages.

     Addie didn't have the energy to fight him. Nor did she want to give him the satisfaction of her struggling to get it back, of which, would most likely end in failure. She ground her teeth and walked around his stationary figure, to face him once again. "None of your business," she said flatly, folding her arms.

     George didn't look up from the pages of her book, but his smirk remained plastered on his face as he read the inked words intently, his eyes focused on every scrawl of her quill. "I should have guessed that was what you were going to say," he said.

     His eyebrows furrowed further as he continued to read. Addie felt helpless, but she wasn't prepared to attempt to retrieve the book back ─ she didn't stand a chance. Even if this was quite possibly her worst nightmare.

     Finally, he glanced up from where his eyes were buried among the pages and met her glaring stare. "What is this," he said, "some cult shit I don't know about?"

     Addie gulped, and her shoulders raised lazily, "It's just . . . advice."

     "What, are you a fifty-year-old woman going through menopause, or something?" One of George's brows tilted upward, mockingly.

     Addie did not appreciate his insinuations, but she was also not going to stand there, in her own dorm room, and violate him back ─ they'd be there all day. And Addie had plans in the library for later. She decided to keep her cool, and answer his question simply: "It's all just miscellaneous pieces of information I have gathered over the years that I think will be useful at some point, that's all," she said calmly.

     George, unlike Addie, did not take the mature direction: "That's weird."

     She smiled sarcastically, "Thank you," she said through gritted teeth, not meaning her words in any way. "I'll be taking it back now," Addie drawled, her arms falling to her sides.

     Addie doesn't exactly know why she expected that to work, because as soon as she had uttered those words, George brought his pointer finger in the air, and held it in front of her face, his eyes now glued to her book once again. He began reading out the sentences that intrigued him most: "Do not buy sweets from the Weasley twins." George's once flat brow began creeping upwards like it had done before. 

     He kept going, as Addie's patience ran thinner and thinner. "Keep any Spanish dictionaries away from George Weasley." He read, his words laced with amusement, breathy chuckles following his reciting. "Stay far away from the Weasley twins if they're playing Quidditch just for fun." George clawed his eyes away from the book and looked down at the girl, his smirk more like a confused and/or presumptuous child. "God, you're obsessed with me," he said, his eyes narrowing into hers. "Maybe this is a cult thing. Do you have a George Weasley fan club I should know about?" He hastily asked, causing Addie to roll her eyes.

     There was no need to address his last query because frankly, the idea was absurd. "I learn from my mistakes, Weasley," she said. "That's all that book is."

     "This book is a physical representation of your superstition and/or memory problems," George concluded, dismissing her actual explanation behind what he held in his hands. Addie's tongue tutted against the roof of her mouth, and her eyes wandered to the side, dismissing his irritatingly stupid comments. George reacted by coming up with another one: "No seriously, I'm scared I have a stalker." He had the same pointer finger as earlier, pressed onto the page that he had held open.

     "And I'm scared you weren't brought up right," Addie snapped, as she identified this moment of George's apparent ─ and very much undeserving ─ concern as her chance to snatch the book from his hands. 

     She did just that because George was too preoccupied with her statement to care an awful lot, "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, while Addie closed the book carefully, holding it tightly behind her back as if she wanted to hide it from his nosy gaze.

     George stood, seemingly offended, with his mouth hung open. And Addie decided that she was rather tired with his shenanigans and that George was very much done with his visit. "It means," she sang, holding her book with one hand, rather than two, so she could push him towards the door with the other. George stumbled backwards as Addie held a hand to his chest, opening the door when they reached it, shoving him through the door frame. "Stay out of my way, dipshit."

༺༻

     GEORGE WEASLEY HAS A PROBLEM ─ whenever someone tells him to not do something, he'll do the exact opposite. It's only logical.

     George had seen Addie and her friends walking to the library later that evening, and couldn't help but use this as his opportunity to do exactly what Addie had told him not to. He wasn't prepared to "stay out of her way" because that's not how George and Fred Weasley do things. In conclusion, George Weasley is also a hypocrite ─ he's the stalker, not Addie. But if you ask him about any of this, he will deny it.

     The only problem was with his carefully crafted annoy-the-fuck-out-of-Addie-Sweeney plan that was actually just a scheme to force her to like him was that he had to have a justifiable and plausible reason for going to the library at six o'clock on a Wednesday evening. 

     Normally, George would just tell his brother that he aimed to piss someone off and that would usually do it (Fred would even offer to help), but Gryffindor played Slytherin the next day, and although they didn't have another team practice until the morning, the brothers always spent the night before a game playing exploding snap and building up their adrenaline. It was almost a tradition, but George had other plans. It's also important to note that George Weasley (nor Fred for that matter) does not go to the library voluntarily.

     "I'm not letting you go to the library the night before the big game, I'm sorry." Fred looked almost disgusted as he and George strolled to the Gryffindor common room after dinner, Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson trailing closely behind.

     George rarely did what he was told ─ exhibit A: "I'm sorry too," George said, wincing.

     Fred's brows knitted together, "Why?"

     George shrugged, "Cause I've already made my decision."

     Fred Weasley saw nothing but a flash of red hair before he got the chance to reply to his twin because George was already skipping his way to the library. Even Angelina looked startled at the boy's departure, but remembering she doesn't care that much, she resumed her conversation with Lee and let Fred be confused all by himself. Fred would have followed if he didn't hate the library. But he does, so he didn't care enough to follow his brother.

     Exhibit B of George Weasley never doing what he is told would be him strutting into the library, making far too much noise for the environment and for the rules of the establishment, and stalking around until he found his target and her group of friends. George plucked a random book from the shelf behind him and perched on the chair at the end of the table, where he stared into the back of Addie Sweeney's blonde head.

     George knew Addie long enough to know the library was her safe place. He'd bet money she would spend her entire night here if she could. Maybe even miss dinner. She'd at least probably stay until close at eight o'clock. And so, George's plan had finished brewing in his mind ─ he was going to wait until she was the last one at her table, and complete his mission of doing the exact opposite of what she had requested an hour earlier.

༺༻

     GEORGE WEASLEY TAKES PRIDE IN THE FACT THAT HE knows Adelaide Sweeney a hell of a lot more than she thinks he does. 

     Before George and Fred made themselves known as the pranksters of their year group during their first year of Hogwarts, Addie did in fact take somewhat of a liking to the redheaded twins. They worked well together in class, they walked to lessons together. But maybe it was just the fact that Addie is a Hufflepuff and didn't see everything that happened behind the Gryffindor common room's closed doors because she must have been late to the party. Upon the boys ambushing the year group's first important test at Hogwarts ─ her first important test at Hogwarts ─ with fireworks they deemed amusing, she wasn't so much of a fan after that.

     But simply because of those first few weeks at Hogwarts, George Weasley had learned everything he needed to know about Addie Sweeney. And it's easy to say, she hasn't changed one bit.

     Which is why, George was confident in knowing that Addie, out of all of the six of them that had collated in the library on a Wednesday evening to study, would be the very last one to leave. 

     George was right.

     George isn't entirely sure when the five of their classmates had left the library, no doubt to go to dinner, while Addie had stayed, because he had fallen asleep. Two hours had passed, and although George claims he knows Addie well, what he doesn't know and understand, is why on earth she would want to spend her evening studying silently. In the library. On her own.

     It was a mystery to George ─ someone who had spent his two hours in the library making weird three-dimensional shapes out of scrap parchment, having a nap and flipping to random pages in random books he found on random shelves to see if he could miraculously find his name somewhere among the rabble of words he did not understand.

     All of this made him question why he was still willing to go along with his plan to annoy the girl with hopes they can build a bond with a dynamic he liked, sacrificing his pre-game traditions with his brother. But all of those queries were dissolved when he woke up after his nap to see the library empty, all for one Hufflepuff, who, funnily, had fallen asleep herself, on top of an open Potions textbook.

     George had never taken an opportunity faster. 

     He got up from his seat, making sure to stretch his neck and back before he strolled over to where the girl slept. He tapped her on the shoulder and got no reply. Whispering her name, George shoved his finger into her arm forcefully, his volume increasing as he continued to jab for her attention.

     George couldn't have been more annoying if he tried. Mission accomplished.

     Her groan was muffled from the pages of her book. George pulled away, smiling widely at his success and the prospects to come, as he took a seat in front of her, folding his arms onto the table. Addie's head shook from side to side, before she finally lifted it from the table. 

     It was rather obvious that Addie didn't expect George Weasley of all people to be the one to wake her up. As she squinted her eyes in an attempt to bring her body back to life, she suspected it was probably her sister that had come from the Hufflepuff basement when Addie hadn't returned from the library. Addie was wrong.

     Her eyes finally adjusted to her surroundings and the first sight she got, her hair frizzy from her nap, and her arms dead from a lack of blood flow, was a bright orange ball of fuzz. It was Weasley-shaded. George Weasley was sitting opposite her post-nap self. In the Hogwarts Library. Odd was an understatement. "Someone pinch me so I can wake up from this nightmare," Addie muttered, her throat croaky since it hadn't recovered from its rest.

     George's smile widened further if it was possible. "Just came to tell you that the library is empty and in fact, closed," he said.

     Addie rubbed her hands over her eyes to see if she could erase what she saw. It didn't work, and she spoke again, still half-asleep, still with George Weasley sitting opposite her. "What are you, Library Patrol?" she asked mockingly.

     George's bottom lip enveloped his top, and his head bobbed back to front. "Well," he said, "I just missed my chance at the Prefect position, so I quite like that title."

     Addie narrowed her eyes into his, suspecting bullshit. "Admit it, you were never in the running to be a Prefect," she said fed-up.

     "I shall never admit that because one should never tell lies," George said, before examing the yellow robes that were hanging off the back of her chair. "Where's your Prefect badge anyway?" he asked, after not locating said badge on her robes.

     Addie shrugged, "Didn't want the job," she said bluntly.

     It was his turn to pierce his gaze, "But you were offered it?"

     Addie couldn't be bothered with the reasoning as to why she turned down Professor Sprout's offer at her being a House Prefect. Mainly because she lacked the energy at this moment in time but also because what point was there trying to reason with George Weasley? She shook her head instead.

     George slapped the table lightly, "By Lord," he said exasperatedly, but Addie could tell he was mocking her just by the hint in his smirk, "Adelaide Sweeney declined an extracurricular role that deems her more academically and socially important than other students? What is this sorcery?"

     She cocked her head, tired, "You're hilarious, did you know that?"

     George shrugged innocently, "I've been told a few times."

     Addie scratched at her scalp and rubbed at the ache in her neck from where she had been sleeping. Rolling her head to stretch out the muscles in her neck, she began gathering her things into one pile that simply grew with size. "So why are you the only other person in the library besides me at this time of night?" she broke the weirdly comfortable silence that had fallen upon them.

     George slumped his chin onto his elbow, not bothering to lift his head as he spoke, "I was peacefully reading if you don't mind."

     She continued to pack things in her bag as she replied, humming to herself, "Hm yes, and I was just training my pet alligator."

     He knew she was joking, but because he practised that very concept so many times, George went along with it, as if she wasn't joking at all. "Awesome," he said enthusiastically, before adding, "Can I meet him?"

     Addie bored her eyes into his, and she exhaled deeply, "It's a her actually," she said. As she continued to stare into his brown eyes, Addie tried to ignore the feeling that the coffee swirls that gazed back at her were familiar. Not something she recognised exactly, but something one would usually find comforting, a sense of solace. She only pushed that feeling down because Addie Sweeney most definitely did not find comfort in George Goddamn Weasley. 

     Instead, Addie concluded ─ most likely just to suppress those odd, unnatural feelings ─ that it was probably just because he would not leave her alone. "Why is it that I've seen more of you in the past four days than I ever have before?"

     George had noticed this too. But he can confirm he does not run, nor is he a part of an Addie Sweeney Fan Club. He and his brother just have a habit of attracting people. And not always in a good way. Not to mention, he had in fact followed her here tonight. But that was for him to know, and for her to be oblivious to.

     George's lips tipped up into his signature smirk, "It's a gift isn't it?"

     Addie rolled her eyes and pushed her chair away from the table. She slung her now very heavy, very full bag over her shoulder, and got up from her seat, eventually tucking the chair she was once sat at, under the now clear table. 

     George waited for Addie to show signs such as this ─ signs that she was leaving ─ for him to stand up too. He didn't bother tucking his chair in. Addie thinks he lacks basic library courtesy (she wishes to scratch the fact that she was talking in a library from the record because, for that record, there was no one in there for them to disturb).

     Addie began walking towards the exit, but George took one step out in front of her, and his large frame stopped her from making it any further. "I'll walk you back to your common room," he said. "You know, since-"

     Addie stared up at him with the same sleepy and irked expression on her face, "That's the closest you're ever going to get to being a Prefect?" she offered when she cut him off.

     "I was going to go more down the I'm tall and intimidating route, but that works too," he replied.

     Addie sighed, the sound of the air leaving her lips loud enough for George to tap into her annoyance. His mission sure was running smoothly. They'll be best buds by the end of the year. "I should have known your huge ego would make an appearance," she said, quite clearly sick of the boy. "Thanks for the offer, Weasley, but I'm perfectly capable to walk back to my dorm on my own."

     George shook his head in amusement, his shoulders bouncing slightly as his tongue traced the surface of his lips, while Addie brushed her side against his, making her way to the entrance of the library for some much-needed sleep.

     Addie was standing in front of the library door by the time George had jogged over. Her hands were grasped on the doorknob and she was shaking it to and fro, muttering irritated remarks to herself that gradually got more aggressive the harder she tried to pry the door open. The sound of the door crashing against its frame echoed right through the abandoned library.

     George, who was once amusedly observing the girl struggling, casually strolled over to where she was standing, something malicious brewing in his mind. Addie's arms fell to her sides in defeat.

     "Why is it locked?" she asked him, still staring straight ahead as if she had a bone to pick with the golden doorknob. "George, why is it locked?"

     George flicked his wrist into his view frame obviously enough for her to know that he wore a watch ─ shocking, he knows ─ and he took note of the time it read. "It's 9.51," he told her. "Shit, the library closed well over an hour ago." George didn't have one ounce of stress nor frustration in his voice that indicated the door being "locked" was a terrible thing.

     "So?" Addie said, her stress levels, unlike his, growing with each passing moment that the door was shut tight.

     "So, it's locked," George said plainly.

     "Till morning?" Addie's brows were furrowing toughly.

     He shrugged nonchalantly, "Probably."

     "Can't we use magic?" She was gawking at him now.

     George slipped his hands into his pockets, hiding his enjoyment of her face contorting in worry. "Unless you know the countercurse to the one they place on the library every night," he said, wistfully. George did not expect Adelaide Sweeney of all people to believe anything he said, let alone not make conclusions by herself without asking him for information but he sure was enjoying it.

     Addie couldn't believe what she was hearing. And George couldn't believe that Addie believed what she was hearing. "There's a specific curse they use to lock a Goddam library up at night?" she asked incredulously.

     "Books are valuable things," George said, knowing Addie wasn't identifying the mocking tone in his words. "I would have thought you know that better than anyone."

     Addie glanced around her, her feet swivelling on the spot as she examined the huge library, apparently overwhelmed by the situation. "Are you sure there's not another way out of here?"

     Another unbothered shrug. "Window?" he suggested absently.

     Addie knew she was not prepared to climb out of the window, no matter if they were on the first floor. Filch would surely catch them should they find themselves wandering outside past curfew. "Fuck," she cursed under her breath.

     George was latched onto her grievance like a kid in a candy store. His eyes trailed up and down the walls as if he was daydreaming. "Hm yeah, best get comfortable."

     Addie's body snapped in his direction, "Why aren't you even remotely panicked about this?" she asked, his presence more irritating than the situation they were in.

     George's hands came out from his pockets and he held them up in celebration, "Sleepover!" he sang, his face cheery ─ a complete contrast to Addie.

     He watched as her jaw dropped open, and her fists clenched into two tight balls of flesh. Her dissatisfaction was exactly what he had wanted.

     After a moment of teasing her to himself, George lowered his hands and took a step toward her, his smile softening to a post-prank one. "Addie, doll," he whispered, placing his hands on her shoulders. She shuddered at his touch but didn't pull away. Her scowl hadn't wavered though. "I'm joking. It's just a dodgy door," George held one of his hands out to the door beside them. He had had trouble with it earlier when he was second-guessing his plan of staying in the library for a whole evening and was considering leaving. Addie had never had trouble with the Hogwarts library door before. Maybe it was rusting with age and good use. 

     "You're so gullible it's hilarious."

     Addie shrugged off his hands, silently embarrassed, and took a step back, her mouth shut tight in one straight line, her eyes like daggers to his. "Why do you look like you're going to spend your night cursing me to the devil?" George asked.

     Addie smiled sarcastically, trying to dismiss the urge to dropkick the kid. Addie didn't want to feed into his immature jokes by making herself look immature. Playing it off like she wasn't at all affected by his childishness was how she was deciding to approach this. He couldn't know she was embarrassed. She couldn't think of anything worse actually. "That's because I am," Addie said, and George couldn't even tell whether she was annoyed anymore or not. Nor could he tell whether she was joking. "I'm in a cult remember?"

𝗔𝗗𝗗𝗜𝗘'𝗦 𝗧𝗜𝗣 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗔𝗬 ━━

(Side note from Addie:
She now vouches not to make so many of her daily tips about George Weasley because she does not run a George Weasley fan club)

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