Chapter Text
George sleeps for three days after the battle. Not because he’s tired, but because it’s easier than being awake. Eventually though, his mum puts her foot down, as she is want to do. So George drags himself back to Hogwarts and starts helping with the rebuild. It’s exhausting, which is good. Doesn’t give him much time to think.
They celebrate when they’re finished, several months later, a big party held on the school grounds. Everyone who’s anyone is there—or so the Prophet proclaims the next day. George wouldn’t know. He doesn’t attend. Apparently he’s a nobody.
He’s not sure he minds that.
For a few weeks afterwards he does nothing. He gets up, he eats, he stares at his empty flat, he goes back to sleep. Of course, his family stops by, because they can’t help themselves. And Harry, though he doesn’t mind those visits so much. And Lee. Lee’s there. But it’s Angelina who eventually forces him out into the real world again.
“Oh Christ George,” she says, after practically breaking down the door to his place. It’s his now. Not theirs. Not ours. Everything he does these days seems to be painfully singular. She looks around at the dim, dank room with something like disgust, before turning that expression on him. He’s in joggers and a baggy t-shirt. He can’t remember the last time he bathed.
“No,” she says decisively.
“No?” George arches his brow.
“We’re not doing this,” she motions to him.
George is unfazed. “Well, I don’t know what you’re doing, but I most definitely am,” with that he walks over to the sofa and collapses into the corner, looking up at her defiantly. A mistake. There’s nothing Angelina likes as much as a challenge. Her eyes narrow the way they always did before she walked onto the quidditch pitch.
“Weasley, get your ass up.”
“I’m not—“
“Get. Up. Now.”
She’s using her captain voice and George finds himself obeying almost against his will.
So he gets up. He showers. He gets dressed.
The next day she’s back on his doorstep and they do it all over again.
After a few weeks of that—and of Angelina’s constant nagging—he opens the shop. Everyone around him seems thrilled. Like it’s progress. Like it means something.
It doesn’t.
Still, it makes them all happy, and gets his mother and Angelina off his back. So he does it. It isn’t really that different from before. He gets up. He opens the store. And then he retreats upstairs to their—his—office, and lets Lee take care of the customers. And Ron, when he joins, though that’s some time later.
“Why?” he asks for the second time, a flustered Ron standing in front of his desk.
“I just think working here would be a better fit for me that’s all,” he’s barely making eye contact.
George gives him a skeptical once over, “Did mum send you?”
“Merlin George, paranoid much?”
“Can you blame me?”
It’s clear from Ron’s expression that no, no he can’t.
“Mum doesn’t know,” there’s a very poignant pause, George sitting back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest as he waits for his little brother to continue. His little brother who was instrumental in the defeat of Voldemort. Who, if George is being perfectly honest with himself, he barely knows anything about.
“No one knows, actually,” Ron finally mumbles.
That piques Georges’s interest. “No one?” he asks, brow raised. “Not Harry? Not Hermione?”
Ron shakes his head. “I didn’t want to tell them until you said yes, didn’t want to cause a whole,” Ron waves his hand in the air, “a whole drama for no reason.”
“So you just decided one day that you’d rather work in a joke shop than become an Auror? Pretty radical career change there buddy. Are you sure you’re not having one of those crises they’re always warning us about? Unresolved trauma, blah blah blah.”
“Oh fuck off,” Ron says, face red. “I’m just tired, okay? Is that good enough for you? I’m just bloody tired of it. Of the bad guys and the danger and the violence. I don’t wanna do it anymore. Maybe that makes me a coward I don’t know, but I just…” his voice breaks. “I just can’t.”
There's a pause.
George really doesn’t know Ron. Not at all. Has no idea what the last few years have been like for him. But the look in his eyes then? Fucking heart breaking.
“Okay,” he says finally.
“Yeah?” Ron actually sounds surprised.
“Sure Ron, you wanna be here? Go for it.”
There’s a moment of silence that’s far too long for George’s liking, and he’s afraid that something emotional is coming his way. But luckily, Ron just ducks his head and mutters a quiet “thank you” before heading out the door. George is grateful.
He’s gotten pretty good at predicting when people want to have a heart to heart with him, gotten even better at quickly extracting himself from those situations. He doesn’t want to talk about the war. About the battle. About all the people who he’s never going to see again. He isn’t entirely sure why everyone has suddenly decided that those are acceptable topics for small talk. Personally, George longs for the days when they all just sat around discussing the weather.
George isn’t famous like Ron or Harry or Hermione. But he is “known” whatever that means. Known as Ron’s brother. As one of the hosts of Potter Watch. As one of the creators of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. As the living twin. There’s some paparazzi here and there, and when he goes out, which is rarely, sometimes people recognize him. It’s an absolute bloody nightmare if he’s being honest.
“What’s it like, you know, looking in the mirror and seeing his face?” a girl asks him who he had, until that moment, been trying to pull.
“Er—cheery,” he says, downing the rest of his drink in record time. “Excuse me.”
Due to instances like this, George largely avoids meeting people in bars or clubs. Or meeting people at all. Which is really a shame. He didn’t have much of a chance to spread his wings—sexually speaking—before the war, but what he had done had been glorious. He quite likes casual sex. Sex in general really. It’s simple and it feels good.
That’s how he and Angelina end up in bed together about a year after she first breaks down his door. Two years after Fred’s death. If it matters. Which George reckons it probably does, but they don’t talk about it. He knows her and he trusts her and she understands as much as anyone can understand. And he likes her. Though probably not enough to do what they’re doing. To risk one of the few relationships he’s managed to maintain since the war.
But George misses sex. And Angelina misses her boyfriend. And broken people rarely do what they should.
Every few months George tells himself he’s going to stop.
But he never does.
That’s how, four years after the Battle of Hogwarts, George finds himself still hiding in his office while his best friend and his little brother run a business that hasn’t produced new products since before the war. Barely speaking to his family. And fucking his dead brother’s girlfriend.
Cheers.
George is reading when he hears a knock on the door. He’s got his feet up on his desk and a well-loved copy of an adventure novel in his hands.
“Fuck off Ron,” he says without looking up.
Someone snorts. “Er—not Ron, but I’ll pass along the message shall I?”
George looks up to find Harry in the doorway, self-deprecating smile on his face as he shoves his hands in his pockets. “Got time for me?” he asks, even though it’s clear that George is doing fuck all.
“I think I can probably pencil you in,” he swings his legs off the desk, sloppily folding down the page of his book and tossing it to the side. “What’s up scar head?”
Harry rolls his eyes, still smiling as he takes the seat across from him. “So—er—I just got back from Hogwarts,” he starts awkwardly.
George arches his brow. “Oh yeah? They building a statue in your honour or something?”
Harry fidgets uncomfortably.
“Oh my God,” George gasps. “They are aren’t they? This is amazing. I am gonna desecrate the shit out of that thing. Tell me, what’s your stance on having a dick carved into your face?”
“Impartial,” Harry smiles, before growing nervous again. Which surprises George. It takes a lot to make Harry nervous these days. “But—uh—but it’s not quite that simple. They want to do a sort of memorial for the battle. For the five year anniversary.”
George blinks back at him. “For the five year anniversary? What the hell kind of anniversary is that? Who celebrates five years of anything?”
“Yeah I don’t know, they don’t really involve me in the decision making for these things,” he rubs the back of his neck. “They just…”
“Want you to be their poster boy?” George supplies.
“Something like that.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence before it really starts to hit George how weird this is. “So…not that I don’t love seeing your handsome little chosen-one-face,” Harry rolls his eyes again. “But why are you telling me this?”
“Well,” Harry clears his throat. “They’re gonna be making plaques for all the members of the Order who died that night.”
“Just the Order?” George asks. “What are we forgetting about everybody else that was there?”
“I guess there are…too many names to fit everyone,” Harry doesn’t sound particularly pleased by this either.
George lets out a humourless laugh. “Shafting the dead kids for aesthetic purposes? Sounds like a bloody Ministry call if I’ve ever heard one.”
Harry grimaces. “Yeah, I—I got into it with Kingsley, it wasn’t…pretty,” he sighs, frustrated, running a hand through his hair. “Anyway, they were going to contact you but I told them to let me do it.”
George frowns. “Contact me? Contact me for what?”
Harry gives him a look, a “don’t make me say it” look, or possibly a “you can’t be that stupid” look, they’re very similar looks on Harry. George just stares blankly back at him.
“Well, they were wondering if you’d want to give a speech. They’re having family members talk about the victims and they thought—“
“No.”
The word snaps out of his mouth so quickly George barely has time to think it.
Harry doesn’t look surprised.
“Yeah, I figured you’d probably say that. But I wanted to give you a heads up. Because, well, they’re probably gonna contact your parents about it. See if anyone else wants to, you know, do it in your stead.”
George groans, slumping down in his chair. “Oh fuck me, they’re gonna tell my mum?”
Harry looks genuinely sorry. “I’m afraid so.”
“Can’t you stop them? You know, do your whole “I saved the world” thing and make them just not tell my family anything about this?”
Harry looks at him, mildly amused. “Can’t I get the Ministry to not tell your family that they’re putting up a memorial for your brother?”
“Yes,” George says petulantly.
“No. Mostly because Ron would kill me and then your mum would bring me back to life just to kill me again,” when George glares at him Harry goes on: “They deserve to know George, you know they do. And they deserve the chance to speak, if they want to.”
He throws his arms up in the air in frustration. “Oh sure, why don’t you go and be all reasonable on me.”
Harry smiles weakly. “Sorry, I promise it doesn’t come naturally.”
“Oh I know,” George says. “This is all Hermione’s doing, goddamn her.”
The younger boy laughs. “Yeah, probably,” he gets up out of his chair but doesn’t start towards the door. “Look, there’s a lot of time between now and…and the anniversary so…if you change your mind, let me know yeah?”
“I won’t, but sure,” they held an event the first year after the battle too. George didn’t go to that one either. In fact, he hasn’t gone to anything with the words “remembrance” or “memorial” or “tribute” in the name, the very thought making his skin crawl.
Harry nods. “I’ll try to help run interference with your mum but…” he shrugs. Harry’s a softy when it comes to Molly. Always has been. George doesn’t blame him exactly, I mean, he is a goddamn orphan so it’s natural that he’d have a weakness for the only parental figure in his life who hasn’t gone and croaked. But George’s relationship with his mother is a little bit more complicated.
“Sure,” he says again. “Thanks. I suppose you better get back to fighting evil or whatever it is you do.”
“Mostly rescuing broomsticks from trees these days, but yeah. My lunch is over.”
“Well, go on then, go be your upstanding self.”
George gestures at the door but Harry still pauses in front of it. “Will you come over for dinner sometime this week? Ginny’s back from training camp and the proper season hasn’t started yet so she’s got some free time.”
George would like to refuse but he’s not quite that much of an asshole. “Yeah okay, I’ll come for dinner.”
“Cool,” Harry nods, and then, looking awkward again. “You can—uh—bring Angelina if you want?”
George does his best not to grimace. His family finding out about the two of them is definitely not something he ever wanted to happen. “I’ll ask her,” he says vaguely. It’s been two years but they still aren’t really—I mean they’re not dating or anything. Not exactly.
“Alright, see you George.”
“Yeah, see y’ah.”
When the door closes George sinks down lower in his seat, hands scrubbing at his face. He wonders if this is going to be the rest of his life, people constantly asking him to talk about his dead brother. Which is a stupid question because of course it is. He just wishes they would all stop acting like he should be grateful for the opportunity to relive the worst day of his life over and over again. He knows it’s harder for Harry, knows that he isn’t able to become a hermit the way George has. Isn’t able to give the world the middle finger and just live his life. People depended on him before the war and they depend on him now. He’s their hero, and they’re not done with him yet.
“Fucking assholes,” he mutters to himself.
That night, after Lee and Ron have gone home and the store is locked up, George finds himself puttering around his flat. He can’t settle, something uncomfortable thrumming under his skin—an itch he can’t scratch. He drinks, reads, tinkers with the same prototypes him and Fred were working on before the battle.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to make anything new. Well, mostly it’s not that he doesn’t want to. He just—he can’t. He gets stuck, like everything he thinks is only half a thought and he needs someone else to fill in the blanks. Eventually he gives up and drinks some more, and when he runs out of firewhiskey he grabs his coat and heads out.
He shoves his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, Apparating to Diagon Alley and then quickly exiting onto the busy Muggle street outside of it. He finds it easier, going out in Muggle London. Makes it less likely he’ll be recognized. He walks into the first bar he sees, not really paying much attention to anything about it except its very clear supply of alcohol.
“Whiskey, on the rocks, please,” he says to the bartender as he slides onto one of the stools in front of him.
The guy looks George over before smirking. “Sure babes.”
George doesn’t recognize the music blasting through the room, but then, he never does. Harry’s gotten into Muggle stuff recently, so sometimes he’ll hear things when he goes over to his and Gin’s, but other than that George has never strayed far from Wizard rock.
“Here you are,” the bartender slides the glass to him and George lifts it up in a silent cheers, the alcohol burning when it drips down his throat. George’s eyes flutter closed for a second, savouring the feeling.
“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns,” says an amused voice. George opens his eyes and turns to find a man sitting next to him, a smirk lifting up the corner of his mouth. “Sorry,” he says, eyes dancing, “couldn’t resist.”
George blinks, the bar is dark, with coloured lights that are not remotely helpful when it comes to picking out the features of someone’s face. The man beside him has dark skin, high cheek bones and big brown eyes he’s outlined in gold. George squints, feeling something like recognition tugging at the back of his mind but he can’t quite place it. The man is objectively beautiful—maybe a model? It’s possible George might have seen photos of a Muggle model—on the street, in passing.
“Oh no, how embarrassing,” the stranger says, though he doesn’t sound remotely embarrassed. “I see I’ve been forgotten. Well, this is really no good for my ego at all,” he gives George a wink.
“We know each other?” George asks, feeling a new sense of uneasiness that even the copious amounts of alcohol he’s consumed can’t suppress.
The man shrugs. “After a fashion. You really don’t remember me huh?”
“Sorry,” the word comes out of his mouth flat, making the other man laugh. It’s a whole production. His laugh. All megawatt smile and shaking shoulders and a noise that comes right from the pit of his stomach.
“Jesus, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone mean an apology less,” he says, once he’s pulled himself together.
“Might’ve,” George sips his drink, trying to decide whether he’d rather deal with this conversation or his empty flat. “Maybe they were just better at faking it than I am.”
The man grins again. “Nah, not possible. I’m excellent at reading people.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Absolutely. Basically a mindreader—actually, I might’ve had a great aunt who really was a mindreader now that I think about it. Agatha,” he shivers. “The woman always smelt like clam chowder.” For some reason George can’t help but smile, the man noticing, his eyes dropping right to George’s mouth.
“That’s why I’m so surprised by you,” he says eventually. “Usually I clock people right away.”
“Clock people?” George keeps getting distracted by the gold on his eyes. The way it catches in the light. Merlin, how drunk is he?
“Yeah, clock people, as in….” the man waves at the space around them and then back at George, like that explains anything. Clearly reading the blank expression on George’s face correctly, he continues. “I never clocked you as queer George Weasley.”
George lets out a startled laugh. “What?”
“Oh come on, I mean, this place isn’t exactly subtle.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” George says, downing the rest of his drink before catching the eye of the bartender and lifting his glass for another.
The man beside him is looking at him with a bemused smile. “You really don’t know do you?” he asks, leaning back slightly.
“I really don’t.”
The man looks like he’s going to say more but it’s then that George’s drink arrives.
“Blaise, you’re killing me here,” the bartender says as he passes George his whiskey, giving him a conspiratorial smirk. “He’s always stealing my hottest customers, never leaves any for the rest of us. The selfish bastard.”
“You know it’s only because I can’t have you Mickey,” Blaise teases, fluttering his eyelashes. The bartender laughs.
“Sure it is.”
Blaise gasps. “Are you trying to say my declaration of undying love isn’t genuine? Mickey, you wound me.”
The other man just shakes his head, turning away. “You lads make sure to play safe now,” he calls over his shoulder.
George feels the moment that his neighbour’s attention returns to him, it’s a palpable thing—a hand on his shoulder or his arm or the back of his neck.
“Blaise,” George repeats, staring at his whiskey for a minute before he looks up. “As in Blaise Zabini?” there is the hint of something darker in his voice, something that growls and scratches and raises its hackles.
He sees Blaise register all that. Sees the slight dimming of his amusement. “That’s me.”
“And you think I’m queer because…?”
“We’re currently sitting in a Muggle gay bar.”
That brings George up short.
“Oh.”
It’s not that he minds, though he isn’t really sure why this bar is gayer than any other. What makes something gay in the first place? He understands what makes people gay. Mostly. But what makes THINGS gay? Like a building or a place? It’s not like this bar can suck anyone’s dick.
He looks down at his whiskey.
He probably didn’t need another one.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Blaise biting on his lower lip, holding back a smile. “You really didn’t know?” he asks again.
“I really didn’t know.”
“Anyone else I would assume was lying.”
“Not me though?”
“No,” Blaise says, almost warmly—which surprises George. “Not you.”
George looks more closely at him. Now that he knows who he is he can feel the tendrils of memories coming to the surface. A boy in silver and green, Ron’s year, always with a haughty expression on his face. Somehow Blaise seems softer now—not physically but…around the eyes and mouth. Happier, George realizes. It causes something ugly to rise up in his chest. Of course Blaise is happy, what the fuck did he lose?
“I can’t believe you didn’t remember me,” Blaise says after a long pause.
“I do remember you.”
He scoffs. “Well now that Mickey’s gone and given it away, sure.”
George rolls his eyes. “We weren’t exactly running in the same circles were we?” he sees the sharpness of his words poke Blaise. “Besides, you were a lot more lanky back then.”
Blaise laughs, that big laugh, the noise running across the top of George’s skin. “My goodness, George Weasley, did you just call me fit?”
George snorts. “No.”
“Mm, pretty sure you just implied that I got fit.”
“I can promise you I didn’t.”
“Well I’m going to pretend you did anyway,” he says, preening.
George’s lips twitch, not wanting to smile. “Your prerogative I guess.” He swirls his whiskey before taking another drink. He should let this conversation end. Should shove Blaise off his stool. Should walk out. He’s not sure why he doesn’t.
“So, what exactly is Slytherin’s resident pretty boy doing in a Muggle gay bar?”
“Aha!” Blaise jabs a finger in George’s face that he smacks away instinctually. “You just did it again!”
George arches his brow. “Did what?”
“Called me fit!”
“Those words have never left my mouth.”
Blaise leans in, eyes all shimmering gold, smirk hanging from the corner of his lips. “Bet you’ve thought it though?” he says in a low voice.
George is pretty sure he hasn’t. So he doesn’t know why his stomach is suddenly squirming. He pulls away, focusing on his drink.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Pfft,” Blaise scoffs. “No fun.”
“I’m not interested in stroking your ego Zabini.”
“Would you be interested in stroking something else?”
George actually spits his drink across the bar, choking and coughing as Blaise dissolves into another fit of laughter.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says between giggles. “I couldn’t help it, it was just right there, you know? Oh Merlin, your face!”
George wipes at his mouth, looking hopelessly at the mess he’s made and wishing he could pull out his damn wand and clean it up. “You’re a dick, you know that?”
Blaise’s voice is still vaguely giggly when he talks. “Yeah, I’ve been told.”
George sighs, looking down at the—very literal—wet bar. “I should go.”
“Oh no, wait, wait,” Blaise reaches out and grabs hold of George’s arm, drawing his eyes immediately to the place where they touch. “I’ll answer your question, alright grumpy pants?”
“Grumpy pants?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not grumpy.”
Blaise snorts. “Sure you aren’t.”
“I’m not.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Maybe you bring it out in me.”
Blaise smirks. “It’s possible.”
“Why are you here Zabini?” he’s not sure why the question comes out soft or why Blaise is still holding his arm.
A bit of the performance falls away from Blaise then. His expression becoming more sincere. “Well, firstly, I am queer.”
He actually looks nervous for a second, like he’s expecting George to react to that. Like he hadn’t already made that deduction. He’s not surprised that Blaise Zabini is gay or whatever—well, mostly not surprised—he is, however, surprised to see him hanging out with Muggles.
“There are Wizard gay bars,” he says finally.
“Meh, I suppose, not many though.”
George didn’t know that, but it makes sense. There are still some hang-ups in the Wizarding world. Especially amongst Purebloods, though things have eased up since the war. He’s not sure if it’s different with Muggles.
“But it’s easier to come here anyway,” Blaise goes on.
George arches his brow. “Why?”
“For Draco,” Blaise nods over his shoulder and George follows the gesture to a table at the back where he can see a bright blond head in deep conversation with a dark haired woman. Those faces George remembers instantly. Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson. He feels his blood run cold.
“He gets recognized too often in our world,” Blaise is still talking. “It’s easier to go out here—safer—where he can just be…a person.”
George resists the urge to get up, walk over, and bash Malfoy’s head against the wall until his pureblood is staining the fucking floors.
“Poor little Death Eater,” he says coldly.
There’s a moment of stillness before Blaise finally retrieves his hand from George’s arm. “Ah,” he says stiffly, draining his drink and getting up from his seat. “That’s my cue then.” Still he pauses, George looking up at him.
He doesn’t feel bad, obviously. Doesn’t even consider apologizing. If anything he probably isn’t angry enough, Blaise is lucky Ron isn’t there. Or Ginny. The pair of them go rabid anytime they see someone from Hogwarts who was on the wrong side, even someone as distantly involved as Blaise. It isn’t that George doesn’t see their point, just that he can’t muster up much feeling about anything these days.
He blinks, realizing that he’s been staring at Zabini for a socially unacceptable amount of time. But then, Zabini’s been staring right back, in fact, if anything, he started it.
“It was good to see you George Weasley,” he gives him another smile, something heavy in his eyes now. “Maybe next time you’ll remember me,” he winks before walking towards the table at the back, George turning around before he gets there. He doesn’t want to see Malfoy’s stupid face. Or Parkinson’s for that matter. He still remembers the sound of her voice when she’d suggested they give Harry up.
George finishes his drink before waving down the bartender. “Cheque please,” he says.
“Huh,” the man—Mickey, Blaise called him—pulls out a small machine. “That’s a first.”
George waves him off. “Cash,” it’s easy enough to transfigure Wizard gold into Muggle money, but George has never been able to figure out how those little plastic cards work. “What’s a first?” he asks, as he slides the bills across the bar.
The man shrugs, a cheeky look in his eyes. “Never seen anyone turn him down before,” he nods in Blaise’s direction before pulling out some coins from his apron pocket.
“Nah,” George says, getting out of his seat. “Keep it.”
Mickey smiles. “Come back anytime handsome.”
George laughs a little half-heartedly, resisting the urge to look over at the table in the back before he leaves. Not sure why he wants to in the first place.
His flat is still empty and dark and suffocating when he gets home, but at least now he’s too drunk to care. He should go to bed. But he doesn’t.
He’s kept Fred’s room intact. The sheets still unmade, clothes still on the floor, garbage and dirty glasses on the bedside table. It doesn’t really smell like him anymore, four years on, it mostly just smells like dust. Sometime after he died—George’s grasp on time is hazy in those first few weeks—their family came over. They wanted to pack it up, Fred’s stuff, they wanted to take it, as mementos. George hadn’t really been thinking clearly, if he had he never would have let them through the front door. It wasn’t until he saw them in Fred’s room, that he really understood what was happening.
What they were doing.
That they wanted to take him away.
Put him in boxes and bin bags.
George had a bit of meltdown, screamed them all out of his flat, struggling to breathe. He’d dragged himself into Fred’s room and curled up on his bed and promised through choked tears that he was never going to let anyone pack him away.
And he never has.
He sits on the end of Fred’s bed now, dropping his head into his hands and letting out a deep breath.
He’s caught Angelina in here a few times. Clutching at his shirts or his pillow. He always leaves her be. She’s the only one who never tells him to get rid of it.
Unhealthy, Hermione calls it, holding on like this. It’s not that George thinks that she’s wrong, he just can’t figure out why he should give a shit. There’s nothing healthy about grief, George doesn’t care what any Mindhealer or therapist or self-help guru tries to tell you. There is no healthy grief just like there is no healthy stab wound or bullet hole or brain aneurism. So fuck them and their steps. He’ll wallow if he bloody-well wants to.
“What do you think Freds?” he asks the empty room. “Draco Malfoy in a Muggle club,” George laughs dryly, rubbing at his eyes. “Guess he’s gone and changed his mind huh? How nice for him, to have the chance to do that. To have fought against the side that wasn’t keen on killing kids.”
His voice cracks and he grits his teeth, forcing the wetness to recede from his eyes. He will not cry about this. Not anymore. It’s getting repetitive. Fuck he’s so goddamn bored of himself.
He sighs, collapsing back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Fred charmed it, one of their first nights here. He’d always been obsessed with the one in the Great Hall, wanted to find a way to recreate it. Above him drifts the night sky, though it has dulled considerably. Fred wasn’t quite as strong as the wizards who charmed the ceiling at Hogwarts and the stars and moon have begun to fade. Eventually, over time, they’ll disappear completely. Leaving only the dark.
The alcohol and exhaustion make George’s eyelids sink down. He really should go back to his own bed. Instead he brings his knees up, curling in tight.
“Hey Fred?” He yawns, eyes closed. Mind already drifting away but feeling that it’s important that his brother knows this one last thing. Knows how much he means it. “I fucking hate you.”