And Oliver said, "What? I love you."
And summer had just begun.
--
George's mouth kept dragging down Oliver's jawline, and then Oliver's mouth would battle and drag down Georgie's jaw and somewhere in the middle of this somebody muttered "I'm glad Black got away."
--
Oliver hated quiet rooms, and at least when Percy was there he had the rustle of paper and the light tapping of a quill to keep his ears occupied. So he jumped when he heard the door creak open and George, unmistakably George, poke his head inside.
"Percy here?"
"No, he's downstairs. Prefecting."
"Good, because --" George's whole body was in the room now and it was silent again except for the slow click of the door closing, then "Fred told me and -"
--
Fred leaves the room without saying a word, Oliver sinks down into the couch and covers his face, and George stands watching from the top of the stairs.
--
"I'm sure the bird will like you. So when did it happen?"
"Right after we won the cup. Everyone was so happy and we were standing there on the field --"
"Whoa, one of the Chasergirls!"
"No. Beater boys."
--
Eskimo kiss. George's mum used to pull the twins on her lap and give one to each of them, Fred first. She'd just wiggle her head, her bright mass of hair flopping from side to side, and the boys would fall into fits of giggles. George misses them when he gets older, something about them tugs at his thoughts. Slower, it would be nice, and another person's breath against your lip...
--
Bumping noses. Oliver couldn't get it out of his mind for three days, and then he figured that if he didn't understand it, maybe someone else would. Plus he'd just won the cup and any seemingly odd questions could be brushed off as side-effects of Quidditch-induced exhaustion. So he asked everyone: Alicia ("Bumping noses? Is that a euphemism for...are you hitting on me?") at breakfast over soft-boiled eggs and cinnamon toast (Oliver's was burnt); Percy ("We call it a 'busy kiss,' you know? Because when we're too busy to") in the bathroom between swipes of his Puddlemore United toothbrush until Percy turned a shade of red ("Well! I mean! How could you ask!") that Oliver apty termed "pissed-off prefect" and came as closing to cursing as Percy ever did, so Oliver slipped around the shower stalls and quickly away; and then, finally, Fred.
--
The twins, despite all evidence to the contrary, did study. And outside at that; Oliver had thought a passing butterfly would catch their eyes and their already short attention spans would be snapped to oblivion. But they actually kept focused for hours, scribbling notes and reading passages with the kind of resolve Oliver usually saw displayed only in Percy. Perhaps they were really brothers, and Percy wasn't switched at birth as the twins liked to say. Not that Oliver really gave much thought to that, what with the line of George's neck bending just-so across the way, and the way his hair got caught in a tiny gust of air and pushed almost stick-straight-up from his scalp. Oliver was staring.
--
"Fred, what do you think it means when somebody rubs noses with you?"
"Like rubs their nose against your own? Like Perce does with his Cantaloupe bird in the hallways like a right ponce?"
"Right." Oliver was blushing.
"Ollie's got a girlfriend!" Fred proclaimed in a sing-song voice.
Oliver blushed even more.
--
Oliver hates silence and the clack-clack of Fred's shoes along the stairs and he hates knowing that he'll be leaving tomorrow without any answers.
--
Kissing George happened like all his dreams, sloppy and frantic and too rushed to be remembered properly. He falls off the bed and George follows, and then it gets even better than he ever imagined.
"You taste like breakfast," he'd whispered after the first kiss, and then desprately hoped George couldn't hear him.