George went out of his bed and sighed. It was in the middle of the night and once again, he couldn't manage to sleep the whole night through. The room seemed hostile in the dark. He shivered and went to turn the lights on. Ever since Fred died that night in the battle, George couldn't stand the dark and especially not in the room that they both used to share. As the lights turned on, the room lit up and revealed an unbelievable mess. You could rarely see the worn wooden floor through the layers of dirty and clean clothes. George's bed stood in one of the corners. The smell in the room was slightly stale, due to the old food remains and that George hadn't open the windows for three weeks. He walked to the biggest window and held aside the curtain. The night outside was beautiful. The sky was navy blue and the stars glowed like thousands of candles. With a grunt he put the curtain back in its place and sat down on Fred's old bed. "It's weird isn't it?" he said to himself, "that the world continues to be so beautiful when everything you've ever had has disappeared." Tears started to stream down his delicate cheeks as he caressed the old covers of Fred's bed. It was the same ones as Fred slept in the last night before he died. With the memory of Fred's death, George squealed and curled up in fetal position with Fred's soft pillow held in his arms. Slowly, the tears stopped coming and George went completely silent. He stared out in the room and held the pillow even harder. Soon he went back to sleep only to suffer from nightmares where he saw Fred die over and over again.
George lived alone in the burrow since the rest of the Weasley family couldn't stand his behavior. He felt betrayed since he thought that his family would be there for him at all times, even though he had behaved very badly. He was angry with them; he felt that they didn't understand his sorrow at all. Fred was his everything. They did all sort of things together. Oh, the memories that came back to him when he started thinking. In the middle of the sorrow, George laughed a bit when he remembered how they used to apparate down the stairs and scare the crap out of their mum and how she used to shout at them with a gleam in the eye.
The day was once again lovely. The sun shone so bright that George had to place his hand above his eyes in order to see anything. He was out in the garden chasing gnomes. They had destroyed his bush of roses that he had raised so beautifully. The gnomes were very quick and George had a hard time catching them. After a particularly silly crash in the mud, he got one of the little gnomes in its pinky toe. "Ha! I got you ya little bastard". He yelled with mud covering his entire face. He stood up, grabbed the gnome more steadily and went to throw it in the trash. George laughed as he walked back to the bush to catch some more gnomes. "I'm not that bad after all!" he said happily. George hadn't been happy many times after Fred's death but one thing that made him glad was to be in the garden and work with his plants. He had raised his rose bush to the memory of Fred. As he bent over to catch another gnome, he heard a laugh surprisingly near him. He looked up to see a girl in his age outside the fence that surrounded the garden.
"You're very cute with all that mud in your face." She said laughing. She was beautiful; in fact she must have been one of the most beautiful creatures George ever seen. Except for she wasn't a creature, she was a human. Yeah of course, she must have been the most beautiful human George ever seen. He couldn't take his eyes of her. She had thick blonde straight hair that went down to her waist. Her eyes sparkled green with a hint of mischief. Freckles covered her nose and the lips, oh the lips, were luscious and apricot-coloured.
George suddenly became very aware of that he was standing on his knees in the grass with mud all over his face. He stood up very quickly and hoped for that the mud covered that he was blushing intensely. When he felt that the blushing was under control, he wiped away the mud with his old t-shirt that he had taken off. Now he stood there, with his abs showing.
"Well not as cute as you are right now when you're blushing." Said George and smiled the most gorgeous smile as he walked over to the girl. She blushed from the sight of his muscles but recovered quickly. "Well it doesn't seem like I have a choice, right?" George shook his head and laughed. "Nah sorry madame, you're right." The girl grinned. "Oh, I almost forgot, we haven't introduced have we? I am Shirley and I live just 2km away from here." She said and stretched out her hand to George. He took her hand and shook it. "A pleasure, dear Shirley. I'm George and I live here, just 2km from you." He said and winked at her. George opened the gate and waved at here. "Come in, come in Shirley. Welcome to my humble home." She walked in and stopped on the gravel path that led to the front door of the house. The lawn wasn't very nice looking at the moment. All the gnomes that were running around the garden had made the grass worn and at some places there were even missing big pieces of grass. It was also quite muddy and slippery, due to the rain the day before but the bushes and the plantings that George took care of were in an excellent state.
George and Shirley went inside the burrow and sat down at the kitchen table. "Tea, Shirley?" George asked as he stood up and walked over to the pantry. "Yes please, that would be great" said Shirley and smiled. George waved his wand and two enormous blue cups came flying from the cupboard and stopped in front of Shirley on the table. Then suddenly, George remembered something and turned around in fear.
"Oh shit. I completely forgot. A-are you..? I mean. You're not a muggle are you?" he asked with a flustered look on his face. Shirley took one look at him and began to laugh. She had a loud, cackling laugh. Her body shook from her laughter as she leaned back and threw her hair out of her eyes. Tears had begun to stream down her face and as she looked at George's now really confused face, she laid down with her head on the table and collapsed in a roar of laughter. "Euhm…Shirley..?" The red haired man asked and sat down next to Shirley. The woman now tried to contain herself and sat strait up as she giggled and swept away the tears from her cheeks. "Oh George, you should have seen your face!" she said and shook her head, her shiny curls moving with grace.
George just stared at her, clearly chocked and puzzled, he shook his head as if the woman next beside him was as mad as a hatter. He cleared his throat. "But seriously now, you aren't a muggle, right?" he asked again, hoping for an answer this time. Shirley laid a hand on his muscular shoulder and smiled. "Me, a muggle? Haha you're so funny. Of course I'm not a muggle! Did you honestly think a muggle wouldn't be surprised by the look of this house? Or the fact that you were cleaning out moving, alive creatures that looks like potatoes only bigger out of your garden?"
"Well, when you say it like that I guess I was stupid when wondering if you were a muggle" George answered with a sigh of relief and grinned at Shirley.