Name: Solitaire
Series: Harry Potter
Summary: George is alone for the first time in his life.
Category: Angst
Rating: PG-13, R for language
Spoilers: Books 1-7, primarily Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows.
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Harry Potter. This is intended for fun and in no way intended for profit. All copyrights belong to their respective owners.
Author's Note: I wrote this because I felt it needed to be seen in the books and wasn't. Placed during the autumn following the end of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows. It is intended to be canon regarding the actual books. First written August 2007, final version December 2007. Thanks muchly to Circular Infinity and cootiedoon for beta-ing.
Solitaire
Everyone else had paired off, they'd all found someone. Mum and Dad had each other. Ron had finally got his Granger, Ginny her Potter. How very agrarian of them. Bill was married, and Charlie had been talking about some witch he'd met during the war. Another dragon-wrestler, no doubt.
Hell, even Percy was back in the fold, the prodigal fucking sheep.
It was a helluva irony, that everyone else in the world finally had someone and he was alone for the first time in his life.
He shuffled the cards and started dealing onto the coffee table again. He'd always liked Exploding Snap, Dead Wizard's Curse, Fireskirt Betsy -- games that took speed and skill. And took two people. He set out another game of solitaire, hidden cards in depressing little rows, and mechanically began to move them around.
It's not that he wasn't into girls. He'd snogged his share of girls, at Hogwarts and elsewhere, although he'd never exactly had what you might call a girlfriend. GF. Gred and Forge. An old joke, one that made someone laugh every Christmas.
He uncovered the king of wands, who waved his scepter imperiously and futilely. He'd burned the sweaters, a great heap, nineteen years' worth of matched sweaters, and two days later the stench of burned wool and dust still stung his nostrils. He'd almost kept one set. Maybe he should have.
It would be Christmas again in a couple of months. He wondered if Mum would make him another, or finally do something else.
He turned over an eight, moved it atop a nine, shunted both to a ten. Their first year at school, before Christmas, they'd enspelled the tip of McGongall's hat to dangle a phantom twig of mistletoe, then dared older students to kiss beneath it. The Professor hadn't realised what was happening until the third couple bumped into her. The two of them, watching from a safe distance with a goggling crowd of other first- and second-years, had almost fallen down the stairs laughing.
He'd never needed a relationship. There was always someone to laugh, someone to marvel at the latest experiment, someone watching. If it wasn't an adoring public, Gryffindors to scold but cheer and Ravenclaws to sneer but look impressed and Slytherins to cackle but watch with avarice and envy, then there was always at least one person. Just being there. Three was a crowd, sometimes.
Except that now even two was a crowd, because the second person was always the wrong one. Even Lee Jordan had finally stopped coming by.
He hadn't been called by the wrong name in months. Even casual acquaintances who couldn't remember which one haddied tiptoed around the issue, avoiding names altogether if they could. "Mr Weasley. My condolences on your loss. I'm so sorry to hear about your brother."
His dad was Mr Weasley, not him. He was you, and you liars, and you charlatans, and you scalawags, and you geniuses, and you awful boys.
Plural.
The clock on his mantelpiece chirped quietly as the alarm went off, then chirped twice more. He ignored it and moved a stack of cards to a different pile, uncovering another ace. Mum cried whenever she saw her kitchen clock these days, with only eight hands now. Or at least she did whenever he was there. It was unbearable; he'd stopped visiting a month or so ago. He didn't mind not having to see the clock anymore himself, either. It had still been screaming when they got back to the Burrows that first night, after it happened, one hand stuck on Mortal Peril and quivering as though trying to get to another level that didn't exist.
The other hands had all, as they watched, slowly returned to Home for the first time in two years.
Bloody clock.
Besides, Percy was always there, hovering. Even when he'd been living at home he'd managed to stay out of their way; now there were empty rooms galore and he turned up around every corner. And he kept wanting to talk, as if he'd ever had anything interesting to say.
You could never rely on Percy for anything, except to be a pompous git. And now, apparently, to stalk you everywhere you went, and mumble a lot. Since when did he mumble? That was Ron's job.
But Ron had delusions of being an Auror, except on second Thursdays when he thought of going into the Ministry. Always following Potter or Granger, he was. At least he wasn't still going for the Chudley Cannons.
And at least he'd stopped mumbling. He just didn't talk at all, not with snogging Granger all the time.
Hermione. They'd thought of going for her, once or twice, but Ron had been so blindingly blunderingly hooked that they'd never done anything. After all, they were family, and what girl could look at Ron after being kissed by them?
Well, one of them, presumably. They would have offered Hermione her choice, of course.
Angelina had been at the funeral. Gorgeous girl, still. She'd usually been able to tell them apart, and she'd laughed at their jokes. The good ones, anyway.
He tried to remember what the good ones had been like, the days they dissolved whole classrooms into hysterics, sent teachers off-balance and fumbling their spells, lit up the common room with cheers.
He couldn't. He turned over another card.
Percy had tried to make a joke, last time he'd been to the Burrow. God, what a sap. Mum and Dad had smiled and Ginny, who was breathing a laughing gas called Harry Potter, had actually giggled until her ears turned pink. Nobody had warned him about that kind of blood traitor.
Percy had smiled, stiffly, and looked at him. What was he expecting, a roar of laughter? Applause? Congratulations on getting the stick out of his arse? The Fred-and-George Seal of Approval? There was no Fred-and-George Seal of Approval anymore, and he wasn't going to pretend to satisfy the ego of Percy Ignatius Weasley.
The damn clock was starting to vibrate. He found another jack, who made a rude gesture. He covered it with a ten and went back to a different stack.
It wasn't like either of them had been perfect, or they always got along. They'd fight, bitterly at times, who didn't? He was no bloody saint.
The card game was hopeless, but he went through the cards again, dully looking for a missing link.
They just didn't do it in front of Others. What happened between them stayed between them. It wasn't a matter of just sticking together in the face of the world. You do that with family against outsiders, but it doesn't mean you can't give your family a bit of fun, even with people around. Like the first time Ron got smashed and retched all over the door to the girls' dorm, or Dad's ridiculous bastardized Muggle contraptions, or Percy's existence. You defend family, you stick with them, but it doesn't mean you can't rib them a bit.
Doing that to him, in front of Others, would have been like cutting off his own toes. Pointlessly self-destructive.
The clock's vibrating reached a fever pitch, and a tinny voice burst out raucously, "You're going to be late, you tinderheaded fools!"
He got up, expressionless, and walked to the mantelpiece to pick up the clock. It buzzed in his fingers like a Snitch trying to get free. Wordlessly, he smashed it onto the mantelpiece, again and again, until it was nothing but a few twisted bits of cheap metal. He dropped it in the fireplace, took his coat off the hook, and headed out.
Back to school.
Professor McGonagall -- no, Headmistress McGonagall, now -- turned around and set the cup of tea down in front of him. "Sugar, George?"
"No, Pro -- no."
She added a cube to her own cup, stirring delicately, and sat down across the desk from him. She was looking better than she had at the Order of the Phoenix meetings last spring. Having a war over and a Dark Lord defeated and dead would do that for a person, he supposed.
"Well, W -- George. How have you been?" She was smiling, if a little stiffly. It was...unnerving. He looked around the room instead of at her; he'd only been in the Headmaster's -- dammit, Headmistress's -- office a couple of times in his six-and-a-half years at Hogwarts. It was less cluttered than he remembered it, and a little better colour-coordinated, albeit with tartan curtains. It was odd to see it without Dumbledore's phoenix sitting on a chair back somewhere, scratching itself.
"I hear your shop is doing quite well." McGonagall's voice brought him back, and he blinked at her.
"Shop. Yeah. It's -- it's doing all right."
"Good." She took a sip of tea, her blue-veined hands elegant and precise. "While your...inventions are not appropriate for a school, I can appreciate their value for entertainment and morale in the greater world." Her eyes, no less sharp for the bizarre new familiarity in her voice, settled on him. "Not to mention the skill they clearly take. I am sure that you will go on to great things."
"Thanks," he muttered. He would have laughed, once, to hear her say that, laughed because they never needed a teacher's approval to do great things and laughed because the great McGonagall knew they were brilliant. He picked up the teacup, hand shaking a little, and put it down again.
She set down her own cup. "I imagine you are wondering why I asked you here this evening. I have spoken with the school governors and they have unanimously voted to offer you a singular honour."
Oh, God.
"We believe you have shown the maturity and skill Hogwarts wishes to instill in its students, as well as the courage fitting to the finest of our House. On behalf of the school, therefore, I wish to present you with an honourary certificate of graduation at Hogwarts, in recognition of your valiant defense of its students as a student and as an adult."
She was smiling at him again. Tough as nails McGonagall, who'd never given an inch when they were pushing every limit they could find or invent, was offering him academic recognition on a golden platter.
It was like a bad dream.
"We have scheduled a presentation ceremony for next week," she went on. "The governors, the student body, and the faculty will all attend, and of course your family are invited. I feel that -- "
"I don't want it."
"Excuse me?" She blinked behind her black-rimmed glasses, suddenly more owlish than feline.
He stood. "I don't want it." He turned to go but she rose, too, and caught him by the shoulder.
"If this...I would be happy to award a second degree to your brother if that is what is troubling you, George."
He looked back at her, eyes narrowed. "What makes you think he'd want one either?"
"Mr Weasley, that is an inappropriate tone of -- "
"What -- " the anger in his voice made her blink again " -- did Hogwarts ever do for us?"
He turned suddenly to face her, jerking his shoulder out of her grip, his voice venomous. "Hogwarts never taught us what we needed to know. We're -- " his voice wavered for a second, then sharpened " -- I'm a great damn wizard, that's right. And I sure as hell didn't learn any of it in a classroom."
"Weasley!" Her voice crackled, his old professor and Head of House. "How dare -- "
"You told us Hogwarts -- " he spat it venomously, cutting through her words " -- was the safest place in Britain and you kept telling us that while our own teachers turned into Death Eaters and traitors and cowards and you couldn't fucking well protect your own Headmaster let alone a bunch of gits armed with Stunning Spells!"
The portraits were staring at him, aghast. McGonagall drew herself up, steely and Scots to the tip of her hat. "We tried our very best to protect you, Weasley, and there is no need -- "
"Yeah, well, you bloody well failed, didn't you. Half the casualties of this war happened here, and a lot that came damn close." His rage was sharp in his throat, and unconsciously he took a step towards her. "Ginny got possessed by the Dark Lord and kidnapped by a basilisk. Bill got his face torn off. That girl with the poisoned necklace. The ones who got Petrified. What about the ones tortured by Umbridge, or the Carrows? What about Cedric Diggory? What about Mr Crouch and Professor Burbage? What about Lupin, and Tonks, and Creevey, and, goddammit, Crabbe? What about Harry, ten times a year since he started coming here, except that he's the Boy Who Won't Fucking Die!"
McGonagall opened her mouth, but nothing came out, and she closed it again slowly, her lips thin and old.
His voice was shaking. "It isn't a school. It's a deathtrap."
He turned and headed for the door. "And I don't want your bit of paper."
As soon as he reached the edge of school grounds, he Apparated right back into his own flat and punched the wall, adding another dent to the plaster. He could have fixed them with a simple Reparo, but it would have been false, like magicking away the scabs on his knuckles and fingertips.
The abandoned card game was where he'd left it. With a bellow he turned on it and upended the table, scattering cards everywhere. The rage was boiling in his stomach and throat; everything he'd said to McGonagall hadn't helped, had just pried open the lid. He wanted to smash things. He wanted to kill them. He wanted to tear himself in two.
He burst into the shop, door rebounding off the wall to slam shut again. Walls of brightly coloured boxes, stands of false wands, racks of magical costumes and fripperies. Years of thought, of experimenting and testing, of errors and mistakes and theories, years of progress and ten thousand Galleons of investment.
"Incendio!"
Fire burst from his wand and enveloped the front counter, and the entire display went up in flames. A forgotten stack of receipts turned to ash on contact, and the glass case turned black. He whirled and pointed his wand deeper into the shop.
"Incendio! Incendio! INCENDIO!"
The Anti-Fire Protection spell went off: a sharp ringing filled his ears and it began to rain, but he ignored it, screaming the spell over and over again. Detonating Rings began to go off their boxes, blue and white flashes of light and the smell of lemons. Extendable Ears melted and hung off their racks in gooey strings. Smoke filled the shop, shrouding the bright flames in thick wreaths of grey. His eyes were burning from the smoke, the heat, the Noxious Handkerchiefs blazing on their hooks. The magical rain got heavier, drenching him, hissing as it hit the raging fire, but he whipped his wet hair out of his eyes and pointed his wand at the workroom door. It blew in with an earthshattering roar, revealing tables and test products and prototypes, waiting for him. He staggered over, half-blind, and pointed his wand through the doorway.
"In -- " He choked on a lungful of smoke, and a billow of heat rushed around him. The tears from the smoke dried on his cheeks; he tried to take another breath but the hot acrid air seared his throat and he choked again, losing his balance. His knees hit the floor, and his wand fell from his fingers as he fought to breathe.
The fire roared in his ears, seared his skin. Something snapped and a shower of embers cascaded over him, pain scoring across his back, his hands, his cheek. The heat was unendurable, his lungs tighter with every second, his skin scorching.
It was almost a relief.
There was a distant crash, of flame or splitting beams he wasn't sure, but the wall of fire around him bent sharply, then sprang back with an answering roar. He looked up and saw a massive set of shelves toppling towards him. So it'd be under rubble, then. That was...good. Fitting.
"Protego!"
The shelves crashed onto the glimmering shield and off, exploding into sparks. He stared at it, bewildered, and heard a familiar voice.
"George!"
He turned, staring through blurred eyes at the figure appearing out of the flames, surrounded by a pearly nimbus; the flames licked at its legs, unheeded, as though it walked through a field of long grass. As he watched, it lifted its hand, calling something, and the heat faded around him, the pain transmuted into a feathery brushing all over his body.
Fred.
His lungs wrenched inside him, raging for air, and he convulsed on the floor.
"George!" A hand seized him, hauled him to his feet. Ron's face, hair singed and eyes red with smoke, stared at him. "Are you okay? Where's your wand?!"
Numbly he looked down to where it had disappeared, but his knees gave way and Ron barely caught him, yelling something. Air rushed into his lungs; he choked, coughed, tasted blood, and breathed.
"We've got to get out!" Ron howled, pulling him towards the distant door. "Aguamenti, dammit, Aguamenti! -- Come on, George!"
Still coughing, he staggered forward, Ron's arm around his shoulders the only thing keeping him on his feet. The door had burst apart and was lying in two pieces on the floor, burning. Ron hauled him through the doorway, and they were out on the street.
The fresh air hit him like a wall. It was cool and clear, no rain, no suffocating flames. The Flame-Freezing Charm vanished as they cleared the shop and reached the street, and the heat hit him again, beating against his back, but it was only heat now, manageable, understandable.
Ron was bent over, hands on his knees, coughing, ignoring him. He turned slowly, his lungs still laboring.
The shop stood there, blazing from doorstop to chimney. Fire roared out every shattered window, and as he watched the sign above the door, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, cracked and fell. It splintered, still burning, on the pavement at his feet.
"What the hell d'you think you're doing?!" He turned to find Ron staring at him, face ashen as the flush of heat wore off.
He looked back to the blazing building. Air was good, air was sweet, but it brought back the sick knot in his belly. He wondered when the airtight boxes holding the Wildfire Whiz-Bangs would burst. A fireworks display for half London, that.
A fist smashed into his jaw and he went flying, to land sprawled on the kerb. Ron was breathing hard, fists still clenched. "I said, what d'you think you're doing?!"
He stared up at him, resentment building as he pushed himself to his feet. What the hell right did Ron have to ask that? What the hell did he think he was doing?
"I'm saving your sorry arse from being turned into a cinder is what!" Ron yelled, and he realized he must have spoken aloud. He tasted blood and spat, dark threads clinging to his split lip.
Ron pointed to the shop, voice shaking. "You set that. You did that on purpose."
"Clever boy." He hardly recognized the croak on his own. "No wonder you made Prefect."
"At least I'm not clever enough to set fire to a building I'm locked inside!"
He drew breath to answer and began to cough again, covering his mouth with the crook of his arm. When he lowered his arm again, the sleeve was dotted with dark stains.
Ron took a step closer. "We need to get you to a healer."
"Yeah, 'cause healers have done so much for me before." It hurt to talk. He coughed again and spat, dark on the kerb and reflecting red from the flames.
Ron looked ready to hit him again. "This isn't Dark Magic, you arse, this is you went and breathed smoke on a lark!"
They both looked up as another window shattered, one on the second floor. "You're burning down the whole building," Ron said softly.
Ron always had been thick. "Yeah, well, not like I'd be using it again anyway."
More glass breaking, another series of bangs from Detonating Rings. Ron looked at his feet. "You could always start over."
He laughed, a raw, ugly sound, and looked at his brother. "You stupid wanker. Yeah, I burned down the shop 'cause I wanted to make it all over again? Alone?" His voice was harsh, and Ron flinched at the last word.
"No," he said, then again, more steadily, "No. But it doesn't -- you don't have to stop. Making things."
"Making things," he sneered. "Is that all? I don't have to stop?"
"We could help you. I -- I could put off going to the Auror training, for a year or two. Or Percy, he's been saying he needs some time off from the Ministry for a while and -- "
"Are you joking?"
Ron shifted uncomfortably. "I bet he'd like to feel useful. And he's not a bad wizard, I mean all those O.W.L.S. mean something, even outside of school..."
He jerked away, his breath coming in gasps. "I wouldn't let Percy in our shop even if it weren't burned down! I wouldn't let him in our shop if he were last wizard on earth and it was to save my own neck!"
"He's your brother, George -- "
"No. No. He's not."
Ron took a breath. "I know he was -- was a real git for a while. But he came back. He did what was right."
"Yeah, big fucking hero, right in the nick of time! Saved us all, didn't he?"
Ron was holding himself very still. "What are you saying, George."
"He's a traitor! He pandered to Umbridge and Fudge, he abandoned us, and then he comes back and acts like we'll all love him, like we'll all tell him how bloody wonderful he is, and he's just a bloody coward!"
"He came back!" Ron bellowed. "He fought with us! He was a bastard but he came back and he's sorry, doesn't that mean anything? He was there, he was there when we fought Voldemort -- "
"Then why didn't he die instead?"
Ron rocked back on his heels. "George..."
"He was right there! Standing next to him! It could have been him, it could've been anyone, why was it him?" His anguish rose until he felt it might split his skin from the inside. "Why couldn't they kill the one we don't need?!"
Ron turned bone-white, then hurled himself forward. They went over backwards together, heads banging painfully against the kerb. Fingers, surprisingly strong, wrapped around his throat and pinned him down, and suddenly Ron was on top of him, rearing back and hitting him again and again. "Don't -- you -- fucking -- say -- that!"
"F-Fuck -- you -- " he choked, and twisted. Ron's fingers slipped, and he struck out wildly, then twisted again and they were rolling down the kerb, half in the street. Bits of gravel and broken glass bit into their backs as they went over and over, punching, kneeing, clawing at throats and faces and arms. This wasn't a wizard's duel, this wasn't even a proper fistfight, this was the blind, vicious, full-body struggle of boys fighting with every bone in their body, as they had when they were children. The only sound was their gasps for breath and the crackling roar of the shop burning to the ground.
His head smashed into the kerb edge again, hard enough this time to send sparks through his vision, and his arms went soft. Ron reared back and hit him again, then stopped. "George? George, you all right? Oh, damn -- " He scrambled off and pulled him upright. "Dammit, now your head's bleeding, you stupid arse."
"Clumsy sod -- " Pain throbbed through his head, and he squinted and blinked as Ron's face drew slowly back into focus. "Trying to smash my head open?"
"Shut up and hold still." He felt Ron's fingers touch the back of his head, gently but firmly enough to make him suck in his breath again. "You stupid arse. Trying to kill yourself?"
He flinched. Ron was watching him steadily, his face tight. "no."
Ron raised his eyebrows and looked at the shop, blazing with vicious glee, and he said again, more loudly, "No, I'm not trying tokill myself, you stupid -- stupid, fucking arse, I'm just -- I'm -- " Bitterness clogged his throat. "Not like it makes much difference, though, does it."
Ron looked down. "I'm glad you're alive," he said quietly.
His chest contracted, and for a heartbeat he didn't know if he was going to scream, or hit him back, or laugh. What he did was cough, his lungs pressing for air, until he was on his knees, vision blurred, filthy blood flecking his lips and a terrible ache all down his throat and through his chest. Ron was next to him, talking urgently, but he couldn't make out the words. He was hot, and hurt all over, and wished Ron had never come into the shop.
"Anapneo! Dammit, George, breathe, breathe -- Anapneo!" Ron dropped his wand and grabbed his shoulders. "Breathe! Can you hear me? Breathe!"
The pressure in his throat eased, and he pulled in a dry gasp. He was shaking. Ron let go of him and sat back on his heels. "You've got to stop doing that. You do need a healer. We'll catch the Knight Bus, head straight to -- "
"Don't," he choked, blinking his eyes clear. "Just -- just leave me alone."
"No."
"I said sod off!"
"No. You shouldn't be alone."
He swallowed, tasting blood and ash and bile. "Someone should've told Voldemort that, then."
Ron looked at him, eyes crinkled in pain. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It's not right, and -- and I'm sorry, mate."
He opened his mouth, and began to cry.
Ron didn't say anything, didn't touch him, just sat wordlessly next to him as he rocked on the sidewalk and keened to the flames.
The fire was flickering low when his voice gave out at last, his eyes long empty. He took a shuddering breath, coughed once weakly, and looked finally at his brother, who looked back steadily. There was a moment's silence.
"I feel like shit."
Ron shrugged. "Yeah."
Another silence.
"You don't mumble anymore."
Ron considered this, then shrugged again. "Don't have to."
He took another breath, almost experimentally. It worked. Maybe he'd make a habit of it. "Good. Bet Granger appreciates it, too."
Ron's face softened, the bizarre mixture of tenderness and embarrassment and guilt that he still got whenever they mentioned her. "Dunno."
"You going to marry her?"
"What? I dunno, seems a bit early to figure that." He looked alarmed.
"And have lots of kids. Fat curly-headed kids for Mum to coo over."
"What?!"
"Just make sure you have the marrying first, and the kids second."
"What!"
He found he was grinning. It felt odd, and it cracked his dried-out lips, but he thought that, perhaps, it worked, too. Like breathing.
Ron hit him in the shoulder, not very hard. "I should beat you up, saying something like that."
"You're such a prude."
"You're a wanker."
"You're repressed. You're probably going to end up owning fuzzy handcuffs and a whip. You should buy Granger some of those lace-up heeled boots, I know a great shop -- "
Ron hit him again. "You are such a wanker."
"Ambidextrously so."
"You," Ron said ominously, "are still going to a healer."
"Fuck you, mate."
"Fuck you, too," Ron said amiably, and they waited on the corner for the Knight Bus to come as the ashes of the shop drifted silently down the street.
fin