| Inked | (George Weasley)

Chapter One Hundred Four

George was surprised to find Olive waiting for him by the Gryffindor Tower. She was sitting by the steps, her hands tugging at the knot of her tie. When she noticed him coming, her angered eyes softened to almost defeat.

"Olls?" George furrowed his brows, "I thought we weren't supposed to meet until after-"

"I'm sorry." Ollie stood, her voice shaking a little, "I... I didn't know what to do... and I couldn't get it off-"

She practically ran into him, radiating anger and hurt and doubt. Olive was stubborn, and for her to find George and basically say that she needed her help meant that something was wrong.

"What's wrong?" George gently grabbed her hands, moving them away from her neck so he could get a better look, "Love, why is your tie so tight?"

"Can you get it off?" She asked him, "I tried, but the charm won't budge, and I was going to try something else to get it off but then-"

"Ollie." George interrupted, "I need you to relax, okay? Let me help."

His brows were furrowed as he inspected the knot, fishing his wand out of his pocket to aid him. At first he poked the knot, but when Olive winced at the tie tightened, he quickly found the solution.

With a very careful slice of his wand and the whisper of a charm, Olive's Ravenclaw tie was cut out from around her neck, falling to the ground in a deep blue heap.

Immediately Olive's fingers shot up to her collar, unbuttoning the first few buttons to give her comfortable room to breathe. She pressed her forehead into George's chest, taking a few deep breaths to ease to tight feeling of panic in her lungs.

"Thank you." She whispered, grabbing his hands and giving them a grateful squeeze.

"What even happened?" George asked, picking up the charmed tie curiously, "I thought you didn't have Charms until tomorrow afternoon?"

Olive's hair tinted a darker shade of red as she spoke, "This... didn't happen in Charms... I had DADA today."

George furrowed his brows, "Dueling on the first day?"

Her face paled, "Not exactly."

The Gryffindor was slowly starting to realize what happened. He grabbed Ollie's bag off the floor and slung it over his shoulder, wrapping his other arm around her.

"Come inside." He looked down the hall in the general direction of the DADA classroom, narrowing his eyes. He hoped that his anger could travel that far and slap that pink toad across the face, "Tell me what's going on."

-

Olive told George everything as soon as they got to his dorm.

She was apprehensive at first. Ollie knew this was something that she should handle on her own, but she was just too angry and shocked at what Umbridge did that she needed to tell someone before she shut down. George's offered jumper and forehead kisses also helped ease the anger she was feeling.

"You have to go to someone." George told her, "Dumbledore-"

"is away." Olive balled the sleeves of George's jumper into her hands, "He can't do anything. Umbridge is above him. She's from the Ministry, remember?"

"How can I forget when she tells us every five seconds." The ginger sighed.

"What makes this worse is that she's refusing to teach us any defensive spells. All we're learning about is theory." Ollie shook her head, "She kept saying that we're supposed to be the perfect students the Ministry envisions us to be."