Author's Note: Another George/Hermione story. This one is going to be longer; possibly in the ten chapter range. I hope you enjoy and please review if you like. Title is stolen from a very good Awkward Stage song (if you've got the time, look 'em up; they can make my melancholy day anytime).

Youth is a War

Hermione Granger waits upstairs, pacing the floor, her arms swinging uselessly in tune to the music playing downstairs. She can hear their voices, sucked up from the floorboards and thrown upward into her ears. She wishes that they hadn't chosen to play something here; it seems morbid to be listening to some jaunty tune when she's about to go downstairs and deliver a eulogy.

She pulls at her hair in hopes of calming down; it feels as though her heart is about to slam up and out of her throat. Her eyes are dangerously near the point of leaking out old tears but she blinks furiously and hopes to Merlin that she doesn't cry during the funeral. She doesn't want George to see it.

She's gone down the stairs by now, wishing to at least catch a glimpse of someone who might offer some sort of comfort but Ginny is standing off in the corner with Harry's arms around her shuddering form, her tears silent, and Ron is sitting at the table, wearing his ashen look of grief.

She doesn't see George anywhere. She looks over the crowd in hopes of seeing a shock of red hair that's grown too long. Disappointed after not seeing him, Hermione makes her way over to the coach and plunks down, preparing herself to go outside and say things about Fred that she had never known until several minutes ago, when she'd been furiously scrubbing at the angry tears that had been streaming down her face, enraged and nearly hysterical with the thoughts that she would be reading words at a boy's funeral whom she had only partially known, and finding herself stupidly wishing that she had bothered to laugh at more of his jokes.

George had come to her in the middle of the night several days ago with a small slip of parchment in his hands, had stopped her in the hallway just outside of his bedroom, for he never went in there alone anymore, and asked her if she would read what was written on it at the funeral.

"I would do it, Hermione, but I just don't think I can."

And then his face had crumpled, and because she'd never seen a person's face genuinely break open in front of her, she'd wanted so badly to wrap him up in her arms and hold him in place like that for weeks. But they just stood there in the dark, regarding one another with looks that she realized would one day, years from that moment, cause her to fold herself up and wail into the sheets on her bed. As the minutes passed, and neither of them said a word, she thought of how simple all of it had seemed, the war's ending, because Harry had not died and neither had Ron, but George was walking around in the carcass of his brother's memory, a morbid mental image that made everyone look around for Fred after George stumbled into the room. She finally looked up at George then and he was still waiting for her answer and even in the dim light of the hallway, she could make out the redness around his eyes. So she'd nodded and taken the parchment from his hand, briefly wrapping her fingers around his and finding a small pleasure in the fact that his hands were warm. And then she'd fled to the room she was sharing with Ginny, thanking gods she no longer felt any affection for that her friend had decided to spend this night with Harry. She slammed the door behind her, momentarily forgetting that she was in a house with nearly ten other people, and then slumped to the floor, falling over and pressing her face against the floorboards until she could feel her screams reverberating underneath her.

When the door dug slightly into her back, she scuttled away from it and rolled onto her other side to see who had opened it. It was George: she could tell by the build and the slight smell of Firewhiskey laced in his hair. Without a word, he sat down next to her on the floor and picked her up off it, brought her to his chest and then wrapped his arms around her waist until she felt the vibrations of his sobs against her chest. The piece of parchment was still clasped in her hand as she wrapped her fingers around his forearm and she knew that he could feel it scratching him. She wondered momentarily if her hair was bothering him so she asked him, the first thing she had said since he'd told her he would not be able to say what was written on the paper in her hands.

He'd laughed softly against her neck, something that sounded both familiar and strange, a laugh that would grow to be his new one. She felt a burgeoning happiness and she'd smiled into his shirt while he said that he hadn't even noticed.

She'd woken to find herself still wrapped up in an embrace on the floor, the piece of parchment lying a few centimeters away from her open hand. From where she was, she could make out the words:

Out of everyone, I never expected to lose you. I thought that we would go on to master every prank we could, that we would be right old bachelors until the both of us fell in love and got married and moved in across from each other and had a bunch of kids and trained them for our own little Quidditch teams. I thought that you would be here when there were funerals, telling me that story about how we spiked the punch at the last one we went to. I never thought you wouldn't be.

A quick slam of a door lifts her head. George walks into the room, his hands shoved into his pockets, his jacket crumpled. When he sits down next to her, she can once again smell Firewhiskey and wonders if it will become a part of his permanent smell, mixed in with the smell of gunpowder and leather.

"George?"

He doesn't even look up at her. "Please don't, Hermione. The last thing I need to hear right now is some speech about feelings."

She tries to conceal that she is affronted because she honestly does not want to make this day any harder for George than she knows it will be. But she places a hand above his wrist bone and curls her fingers around it, hoping to Merlin that he'll figure out what she's trying to say. He looks at her and places a hand above hers and squeezes, and she knows that he understands. I'm going to be around for you, George Weasley, says the tentative hold on his wrist. I'm not going to let this destroy you. And his reply in kind is that he knows, because you cannot spend a night crying in another person's arms without something like this happening.

"I just wanted to say that Fred would have liked what you wrote," Hermione says and it hurts to say Fred's name, especially when she sees George wince after it's come out of her mouth, but she knows that Fred would not be able to stand it if no one was able to say his name out loud. "Especially the bit about the Quidditch team."

George sort of chuckles at that and Hermione feels as though she's just single-handedly liberated house elves. Her hand is still on his wrist and she rubs her thumb against his skin for a moment and then breaks the contact and heads into an empty room so she can reread the words, memorize them, make them knowledge, fact, and therefore much easier for her to say.

But when she's alone in the room, all she can remember is what George had done the day after the war had ended, how he'd stood in the doorway of his shop for hours until she, unlike everyone else, who said wearily that she he needed to be left alone, finally went over to get him. He'd told her to leave but she'd insisted and had finally managed to Apparate him back to the Burrow with her, reluctantly filling a canter with Firewhiskey, knowing that he needed the numbness.

She'd stopped by the shop later that night, staring at the scorch marks in the floor, battle scars from new experiments. She'd been able to smell some of the ingredients used for the Canary Creams; something like lemon and vanilla mixed in with the rest of the room. There was the unmistakable scent of cologne and Hermione had allowed herself to giggle at the name when she'd picked up the bottle – Musky Warlock (She'll Be Bewitched By You!). Faintly, she could remember Fred spritzing some on himself before Fleur and Bill's wedding. She could remember thinking how strange it was to feel such an insurmountable sadness at such a small memory and having to put the bottle back down because she did not trust her shaking fingers to hold it up.

George walks into the room then and announces that it's time for all of them to go outside. Once again, Hermione places her hand on his wrist and gently smoothes a thumb over his skin. He smiles weakly.

"I'll be fine, 'Mione. Don't worry about Your Holeliness."

She laughs at the bad joke just to make him feel a bit better and the two of them walk outside. George goes to sit by Ginny and after murmuring something to her, he puts an arm around her shoulders. Hermione can see that it's taking every bit of his energy to do it.

When she stands up to say what George wrote, perhaps weeks before, perhaps the night after Fred had died, and she thinks for a moment that she can't do it. That she didn't even know Fred, hardly at all, not the way Angelina or Katie or Jordan did, and that they should be here reciting this rather than her. That she doesn't understand why George even asked her in the first place, since they had never been particularly close, not until they'd sobbed on Ginny's floor two nights ago. That she might just pass out in the middle of the aisle or start screaming hysterically or start sobbing halfway through it and have to be taken to her seat. She glances over at George, who's trying very hard not to do anything, it seems; his jaw is set and his eyes are hollow and she tries to quell her dizzying thoughts, because she knows that he needs to hear someone say it and if it has to be her, she can surely hold it together for several seconds.

"I'll be saying a few words for George Weasley."

And she says them, and some people laugh about the Quidditch team, but everyone is silent after she says the last word. She hasn't cried, thank Merlin, and she hasn't fallen to pieces in front of everyone. Looking down at the piece of parchment in her hands, she peeks a glance at George, not quite sure what to do with it. She tilts her head to the hole in the ground and he nods. Carefully, she lowers the small bit of paper into the ground next to the coffin, trying not to think that inside of it is Fred, silent, not laughing, irrevocably gone, and then turns to go back to her seat.

Later, the sun has slid underneath the horizon and the Burrow is shadowy and morose. Most of the Weasleys have gone to bed and Hermione is one of the few people still up. She's sitting down in the kitchen, sipping tea that doesn't really taste like much but she wants to feel the warmth in her stomach and she's really not in the mood for alcohol. For a moment, she thinks she hears something from outside, as if someone is singing or talking. Unable to stay still, she grabs her wand from the counter and heads out the door.

George is sitting on the ground near Fred's grave; above him, the tree's branches sway slightly in the summer breeze. He is crying softly, his hands covering his face.

"George?"

His head jerks up and Hermione can see the redness around his eyes and the dumb, horrific pain in his face.

"I hadn't said goodbye properly." His voice cracks. "Bastard would want a proper send-off."

And he pulls a small WWW firecracker out of his pocket and lights it and the small pop of blue sparkles in front of both of them for a while, spelling out the words: Fred Weasley was always the handsome twin.

Hermione laughs a little louder than she normally would have, but she's starved of laughter and she's tired of this overwhelming sadness that has crept into her chest. George laughs too, also a bit too loud, and when they smile together in the pale blue light, she can see in his eyes that he's counting on her to keep her promise.

"Always had to have the last say about that, he did," George says and then stands, brushing his trousers off. The two of them hover next to the grave for a moment and Hermione finds her voice, saying what she's wanted to say ever since he'd given the parchment.

"George, if you need someone, I could help out at the shop."

His face falls a bit; the spark of laughter has vanished. Perhaps she had been wrong in her interpretation of their hands, for they were only hands, not minds, and they could not form thoughts, and she was incredibly dimwitted for thinking that she already knew him.

"I mean, I can understand if you wouldn't want me there, because I'm not really much fun. I'd probably be running off at the mouth about how many school rules you'd be breaking by selling students –"

"Hermione." He smiles a little at her babbling. "I'd love the help."

He sets off another firecracker: a red little light that hovers over the grave and doesn't go out.

"Besides, Fred would go bloody mental if I let the shop go."

End Notes: I know, I know, I rewrite freakin' EVERYTHING. But I wanted to amp this story up a bit, and make it sound a little less teen drama and a bit more, I dunno, "adult". Bear with me all you loyal readers (and new ones! I love new ones!) because I just want this story to have some meaning behind it, because George is not going to be able to get over the death of his twin very easily. So, strap yourselves in, loves. It's bound to be one hell of a ride.