Love at the zoo (George Weasley fanfiction)
Pairing: George Weasley + reader warnings: nothing I believe but let me know Summary: You take your nephew to the zoo and you meet a lovely young girl and her uncle. word count: 2.2k
“I want to see the Giraffes now!” my gremlin of a little nephew says, stomping his feet on the ground, ignoring the glorious elephants beside him, that he asked to see less than five minutes ago. He tugs on my hand, tilting my back towards him while I stumble to get my footing. I fold, “Okay, okay, we will go see the Giraffes as long as you act more calmly, okay?”
A satisfied grin rests on his face, and he juts his nose up to the sky and skips a few steps ahead of me towards the Giraffe exhibit. How my sister deals with toddlers I don’t know. The sun is beating down on us, just enough for a little sweat to rest on the top of my forehead. I keep my eyes on him and walk faster to fall in step with him. He stops for a second, abruptly enough that he almost tumbles forward and I reach out to catch him. His eyes fixate on something. He whispers, “woowwwww.”
The giraffes aren’t for at least two minutes, is it possible that another animal caught his fancy? I look to where he is looking, past the few people that surround us and smile. He runs off towards the little girl with the ginger hair and a beautiful little floral dress. She’s fixing her tiara on top of her head when he asks her, “Are you a fairy?”
The girl smiles back and she nods her head proudly, “obviously, I’ve got magic too!”
A man with ginger hair (related to her definitely) pants as he reaches the little girl and he chuckles nervously, “No, no, no sort of magic here.” He grabs the little girl, lifting her on his shoulders while she clutches him tightly, her legs flailing around as she excitedly giggles. His eyes take a look at Lucas and I, stumbling slightly, eyes widening. He clears his throat, straightening his back as he rests his hands firmly on her legs, keeping her secure. She says, “but you said-”
“I’ll tell you when we get back to granny’s, Roxanne,” he says, tapping her leg while his left hand. My nephew shakes his head and he looks at the man in annoyance, just about ready to roll his eyes, “You’re wrong! She’s obviously a fairy!”
The man looks at him curiously, and I laugh. He’s never had a problem with telling people that they’re wrong especially when it comes to things like these. I take a step forward, putting my hand on his shoulder, I say, “Sorry about Lucas, he loves talking about mythical creatures. Just last month I got a stern talking to when I mistook a Griffin for a Hippogriff."
Roxanne exclaims excitedly and starts, “I just saw a Griffin last week-”
“No! No, we haven’t!” the man replies quickly, his eyes shifting around and he gets Roxanne off his shoulders and back onto the ground after she wouldn’t stop moving her legs, hitting him on his chest. He says, “Except in a flim that we saw last week.”
“You mean a film?” I say, making sure that I heard him correctly. His cheeks turn pink and he nods his head. Roxanne interrupts, now bored of us, tugging on her father? Brother? relative’s hand, digging her heels into the ground to tug as hard as she can, “Come on! Come on! I want to go see the giraffes!”
“We’re going there too!” Lucas exclaims happily. He starts to run off towards the exhibit following the colorful signs posted. Roxanne follows him, dropping the man’s hand. I shout, “Don’t run too fast! Stay close to me!”
He nods his head and slows down to a jog, not too happy about the interruption. The zoo isn’t too crowded today, a strategic decision I took. Only a few people would visit the zoo at ten am on a Tuesday. Lucas could take a day off from school, but there was no way I’d take him here while it was crowded, the smell of the animals was bad enough, hard to imagine what it would be like with crowds of people.
Roxanne and Lucas start talking about giraffe facts, just barely in ear-shot:
“Giraffe’s have unique spot prints, the same way we have unique finger prints!”
“Their tongue is purple so they don’t get sunburned when reaching for leaves!”
“They only sleep for thirty minutes a day and take two minute naps.”
I listen attentively, hearing facts that I didn’t even know myself. Guess that book I bought him on animal facts for his birthday was doing some good. I remember the person walking alongside me and I shoot the man a small smile while we walked behind the kids. He says, “Hello, I’m George.”
I shake his hand and offer him my name. Or my nickname, Birdie.
I notice that the kids have stopped running and instead started ‘walking’, I say ‘walking’ because they’re taking each step with their legs stretched out as far as they can, and snapping their fingers together on each hand. I guess they’ve moved on to the topic of crabs. Next thing you know, Lucas will get bored of the zoo and ask me to take him to the aquarium.
“I take it Lucas is an animal lover too?” George asks with a brilliant toothy smile, and I nod my head, trying to show the same positive attitude when the sun is shining right into my eyes, I image it’s more a grimace than a grin, “Yes, and all types too, doesn’t matter if they’re mythical or real.”
“Roxanne is the same way.”
“Is she your kid?” I ask, the ginger hair is already a give away and he seems a little bit too old to be her brother, though they do look very similar. It’s a shame, he’s actually quite handsome. I wish I had combed my hair better. He shakes his head, “Roxanne’s my niece.”
Hmm interesting… I say, “But the both of you look nearly identical.”
“She’s the daughter of my twin, so she’s got my looks,” he explains and I nod my head. I find it hard to believe that there’s two of that face. He adjusts his bag on his shoulders, a large one, similar to the big duffle I’m carrying full of Lucas’ stuff, except while mine has lions, his has…a phoenix? A beat passes before he asks, curiously, “Is Lucas your’s?”
“No, he’s my nephew,” I say, and his grin widens, as his mouth makes an ‘o’ in understanding. Lucas claps his hands when he sees a giraffe’s head only a few feet away. He taps Roxanne on her shoulder and points at the giraffe. She exclaims, excitedly, and runs back to where we are. She grabs her uncle’s arm and pulls, “come on, you’re both walking too slowly!”
George laughs, and picks her up in his arms, running towards the giraffe. It’s a stunning yet rare sight when you see a man taking care of a kid, especially one that’s not his own. Lucas gives me a pointed look and I too hurry up my pace. He runs after the two of them, until they’re winded and standing in front of the fence. Lucas and Roxanne watch the giraffes, all three of them in awe, their jaws slack.
I notice a woman in uniform selling small bags of romaine lettuce, I walk over to her and buy two bags of them. I walk over to the kids and hand each of them a plastic bag. They both jump excitedly and Roxanne thanks me while Lucas promptly ignores me and heads over to the feeding area. George says, thankfully, “You didn’t have to do that-”
“It’s alright, look at how happy they are,” I say, watching the zoo employee helping them both feed the smallest giraffe big bites of the lettuce, giggling when the giraffe’s big and slimy tongue would touch their hands. George replies, “That’s very nice of you, Roxanne looks very happy.”
I fold my arms and swallow the compliment thankfully. George puts his arms over his chest too. He suggests, “At least let me help you carry your bag, your shoulder looks just about ready to give up.”
I laugh and think about it for a moment, consequences defeated under the pain in my shoulder. I mumble a thank you and slide the bag off my shoulder, handing it to him, fingers brushing so slightly, his warm hand a contrast to my cold fingertips. The action makes me look away flustered as if I were just a teenager. I bite my bottom lip before asking, “so, what do you do for work?”
“Umm, my brother and I, we-uh, we own a shop together,” he stutters, and I nod while he brushes the back of his neck with his fingers then rubbing his hands together. He prompts me to say my own job, eyes twinkling. I say, “I’m getting my masters, right now but I teach part time.”
He listens intently, but almost too attentive as though he doesn’t understand something I said. Lucas and Roxanne come running back after feeding the giraffes and I notice the saliva dripping off his hands. I try not to act too disgusted. George acts more quickly, bringing out a few wet wipes from Roxanne’s bag. I take them both gratefully. Lucas says, “Can we go to the lions too?”
I take both his hands in mine and hand him two of the wet wipes. He removes the saliva from his hands and I make sure that he even cleans underneath his nails. He takes a step to the side and drops both the wipes in the trash bin. I ruffle his hair, supportively and he beams at that. Roxanne adds while George is cleaning her hands, “can we also go see the zebras? Oh, oh, and also the alligators!”
“I don’t know…we don’t know how much time they’re got,” George says, before giving me a sort of sly look in passing, only looking at in between glances while he focuses on making Roxanne’s hands practically shine, “Birdie might have plans after with her…boyfriend?”
“Oh, I don’t have a boyfriend,” I reply but catch on nonetheless. I take Lucas’ hand in mine and I ask, perhaps not as subtlety as I’d like to, my voice lifting at the end of my sentence, “But we wouldn’t want to keep you too long, especially if you have something to do after with your girlfriend?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend either,” he says far too gleefully, “we can stay for a while longer then, Roxanne go to the map and figure out where the lions are,” he says, and I look away, momentarily, hiding the tiny blush on my face. Roxanne and Lucas go to the paper map that’s framed on the wall next to us with some folded up tiny maps hung beside it. George says, “Excuse me for a minute.”
He heads to where Roxanne is and tugs her to the side, and they start whispering. Roxanne looks at me with a suspicious smile before listening to what her uncle is saying. Lucas comes rushing back towards me and he starts to explain the route that we’re supposed to take to find the lions. He holds up one of the tiny foldable maps, and he says, “Mom told me that there is supposed to be a cub that was just a few months ago, that means that he’s around my age in ‘lion’ years!”
“That’s great, Lucas!” I say, and I take the map from his hands, inspecting it quickly before giving it back to him. It’ll be good for his brain if he’s able to lead us there on his own with the map, I’ll let him try at least. I say, “Take a good look at the map because you’re going to be the one taking us there, okay?”
He nods his head, puffing up his chest with the new responsibility and then he focuses on the map with determination, staring at it a bit too hard. I subtly snicker and then I feel a small tug on the bottom of my shirt. Roxanne standing there with a big grin on her face, her tiara falling slightly over her eyes, I pushed it backwards with my index finger, making sure not to tug on her hair. George standing behind her.
“Yes, Roxanne?” I bow down to wear her height.
“Uncle Georgie told me to ask you if you want to go to the aquarium with us next week-” in the periphery of my vision, I see George slam his hand into his face, “he says it’s because you’re pretty and he wants to know you better,” she pauses for a second before scrunching up her face in confusion, “but he told me not to tell you that part-”
“Alright, Roxanne, that’s enough of that, thank you,” George says, taking her small hand in his and whispering for her to go play with the map with Lucas. He stretches back to his full stature, and he takes a shallow breath, stroking his chin fleetingly. I laugh, it’s something deep from my chest, kids weren’t made to be matchmakers, “maybe next time, don’t rely on a kid to ask someone out for you.”
“I thought it would make my odds better,” he chuckles, tucking a loose strand of his fluffy hair behind his ear, but it falls back over his eyes anyways. I roll my eyes affectionately, it is impossible to say no to Roxanne’s huge eyes. I reply, “I’d say your odds are pretty good either way.”
“Does that mean you’ll come with us?”
“Yes, but only if we go to dinner afterwards.”
a/n: I'll be honest, I feel like this is probably my least favorite or my second least favorite birdie fic I've written till now😭. I really like the idea of it but I feel like I wrote it all wrong *tears*. But anyways, checkpoints part four is coming soon, and either way I hope you enjoyed reading, you can find my other masterlists here, specifically my marauders masterlist and Harry Potter masterlist. This one-shot is a part of the birdie masterlist. If you wish to support me, you can buy me a coffee here.
