The air is thick with heat, the kind that clings to your skin and coils around your limbs like a second layer. The sun blazes overhead, merciless and unrelenting, but today, you finally have a reprieve.

The lake near the Burrow shimmers in the distance like salvation. You’d barely paused to grab a towel, let alone a cover-up, before tearing across the field, laughter echoing with each step. Bikinis and swimming trunks flash in the sunlight as everyone sprints toward the water, carefree and flushed with the buzz of summer freedom.

Your skin is slick, warm to the touch and now dappled with glittering beads of water. A few strands of hair cling to your face, stuck by sweat and spray, but you don’t care. The dock groans behind you, creaking under the chaotic return of George and Fred for what must be their twentieth cannonball, though no one’s really keeping count.

The wood dips again under sudden weight, and you turn too late, George’s arms are already around your waist, strong and familiar, hoisting you up in one swift motion. “George!” you shriek, laughing, already knowing what’s coming.

“Hold your breath, love,” he grins, wickedly.

Before you can squirm free, the world tilts. The dock disappears from beneath you, and you’re flying, limbs tangled in his, the sun vanishing into a rush of cold water and a tremendous splash.

You break the surface, gasping, blinking droplets from your lashes, and he’s there, floating just a foot away with that stupid, gorgeous grin that makes your chest ache in the best way.

You swipe water in his direction with a playful flick of your hand. “You’re impossible.”

“And yet,” George says, eyes crinkling with mischief as he splashes you right back, “you keep coming back for more.”