Notes: Written for "a_shadow_there" who provided me with all the quotes and most of the inspiration, for the georgecentric fest on lj.

I warn you, this includes Cigarettes, alcohol, vomit, scars, canon character deaths, oral sex, cross-gen (30/19, 20/18).

A.U. only in that Tonks doesn't exist.

Many thanks to "lilmisblack" for very speedy and picky beta work.

The section titles are taken from You're My Waterloo, by The Libertines. Characters and setting are the property of JK Rowling and her agents, including a direct quote from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Only As The Hollow Men

"Remember us - if at all - not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men" The Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot..

"You'll never fumigate the demons,

No matter how much you smoke" You're My Waterloo, The Libertines.

|___|_____Stumbling around________|||:~~~

Bill had scars, of course, but at least he was whole. He had the love of his girlfriend, too. Well, she was his wife now. George was incomplete. He had an ear missing; he was alone.

He and Fred had gone into a dark corner with two of Fleur's Veela cousins, but he'd left Fred to handle both of them on his own. He was losing Fred. When they were young it had been the two of them against the world, but now his twin found girls more interesting than he found George. That was probably normal. Fred and Lee certainly seemed to think so. They never wavered when it came to a choice between seeing their mates and the possibility of a tit to grope: the mammary gland won every time.

Ron was dancing with Hermione. He loomed over her protectively. Lee was dancing with Ginny. It was only dancing though. He wouldn't dare to try it on with his best mates' little sister. Would he? Should George be thinking that would be normal, too? Across the lawn, Charlie and Hagrid were singing "Odo the Hero" and he wondered whether he should join them: the bachelors.

He rubbed at the side of his head, fingering the burnt, shrunk skin. He knew too well how it looked: blackened, with bruised, purple areas and that hideous, unfixable hole. Even if he had been interested in the girls, they wouldn't have been interested in him.

Marie-France and Nicole had made it quite clear which twin they found more appealing. It was fine. They were welcome to Fred. George was sick of it all. The kissing was okay, but he never knew what to do with his hands. He didn't understand why Fred and Lee were so keen.

The music floated: soft and romantic. There was no beat to it, no bass, no balls. The dancers gazed into each others' eyes as they moved together. Some were more graceful than others but all were in contact, all part of a couple, even if their relationship lasted only until the end of that song. Ron and Hermione; Lee and Ginny; Bill and Fleur; Mum and Dad – boy and girl; boy and girl; boy and girl.

George sighed and backed out of the light, seeking shadow in which to be anonymous and alone. Better still, he knew just the place, the right place, the place he and Fred had gone to when they were younger and Fred was only interested in games and excitement, too: the den.

The den was around a corner, under a bush; it was created out of an anomaly of architecture and a sheet of plywood held together with the best unschooled magic a pair of eight year-olds could produce. It was a little awkward for a fully grown man to crouch down to the doorway and, as it happened, impossible for him to enter there.

'No grown-ups' had been the instruction built into the Wards. His eyes and nose prickled. His old den thought he was an adult now; he didn't feel any different. Laying his head against the bricks of his family home, he sat quietly and breathed slowly, aware of the music and murmur of voices from the other side of the house, seeing the sun set slowly, not taking much notice of either.

Then there were footsteps close by followed by a grating sound and a deep inhalation. Then the smell. He moved silently to a crouch and looked over the top of the den. It was only Lupin. George stood up and his old professor jumped a bit, nearly dropping the Muggle cigarette between his fingers. Then he smiled.

"George," he said. Before he'd lost his ear, nobody had ever been sure enough to say his name as soon as they saw him. "How are you?"

"Fine. You?"

"Yes. It's a great reception. Your family certainly know how to throw a party.

"Yeah. Not a lot of parties these days."

"I was just…" Lupin waved his cigarette. "Thought I'd nip round here to have this. Some people don't like the smell."

George wished the other man hadn't explained why he had snuck away from the crowd. It left him feeling that he should start explaining, too, and he had no intention of doing that. Instead he said. "I don't mind it."

There was a pause. Lupin tried to fill it with the actions of his smoking, putting the brown end into his mouth, hollowing his cheeks – which made the other end glow red – then taking it out and blowing the smoke into the air. It was an awkward silence nonetheless. George couldn't think of anything to say. Fred usually started his sentences for him.

Lupin coughed, then remarked, "Don't usually see you on your own." It was clearly just something to say, but now George had to answer.

"Fred found a girl," he said. "Two, actually."

"That's greedy." Lupin laughed. The humour barely reached his eyes.

"Not in the mood," George muttered.

Lupin looked at him more closely then. George was a little worried that he was about to ask him if he was all right, or worse, whether he wanted to talk about it. George looked back, just sideways in quick glances. He wasn't the only one who was depressed. He wasn't about to ask Lupin what was making him unhappy either, though. It wasn't like it was a happy time for anyone.

Instead, George indicated the cigarette. "Does it help?" he asked.

Lupin's expression darkened. He bit his lip and turned away.

"What?" George asked.

"I'm not going to be lectured by a child," Lupin growled.

George launched himself away from the wall, off into the dusk, towards the woods, away from the safety of home and people, with a fury brewing inside him. He was as angry at the den as he was at the teacher, not sure whether he wanted to be adult or child, but knowing that he didn't want to sit where he did, treading water in limbo while Fred swam away from him. He heard the pounding steps behind him, but he didn't turn.

"I'm sorry! I'm on a short fuse. I'm not coping well, takes nothing to set me off these days. I'm sorry."

George kept walking determinedly. "I wasn't going to lecture you." Lupin kept pace. "I was just asking." They stopped, they had reached the hedge at the boundary of the property – the end of the safe space. "Was going to ask you for one if it did. If it helped." He swivelled his whole body round to look the man in the eye. "And I'm not a child. I've been of age for two years."

"I know. I'm sorry." He looked it. "Something happened, it's not about you and I shouldn't have ... I lost someone, someone, um ... important. My temper, since then ... I'm not very sensitive any more. I'm sorry." He took a deep breath.

"So, can I?" George asked with adolescent surly bravado and defiance, undermining the point he'd just made.

Lupin pulled the packet out of his sleeve. He stared at it, tapped it. George noticed that his own cigarette was gone. "They're not very healthy," he said.

"What do you mean?"

The werewolf shrugged. "Cancer, heart disease, that sort of thing."

"Then why'd you do it?"

"Chances of me living that long ..."

George thought about it and decided that he didn't care very much. "Give us one, then." He added "Please" as an after thought.

Lupin shrugged, making the patched material on one shoulder of his robe slip forward. He pushed up the cardboard lid of the packet with two thumbs, up, over the foil. Smoothly, he slid forward one of the tubes so that it stood proud of the rest. He offered it to George.

Swallowing, George took the filter between finger and thumb and pulled it free of its fellows. He sniffed at it, as Lupin got himself out another. Then he watched closely and copied as it was placed between chapped, pale lips.

"You just breathe it in." Lupin lifted his wand. With a grating pop, a small, blue flame came from its tip. Lupin put that to his cigarette, then he angled it towards George.

He leaned over and got the white end into the flame. Nothing.

"Suck."

George's mouth filled with smoke, which was warm and tasted woody; his throat started to close over. Rather than choke like the cliché smoking novice, he got it out of his mouth and blew hard. He sucked deep on the evening air, then inhaled tobacco again.

He looked over the blue-grey smoke as he did so, to see Lupin smiling lightly and nodding. He turned away immediately, looking back towards the house. George did the same. From this angle they could see the dance floor, all lit up. The band in their matching gold jackets were still churning out the slow stuff. George and Lupin smoked and watched the couples.

"I never danced with him," Lupin said suddenly. "Not in public, not like that."

George looked at the edge of his cigarette, at the layers of ash building there and at the paper which glowed red and then faded as the breeze smoked some of it for him. He was starting to feel a little dizzy. He took in another mouthful. He was determined to take this slowly, not to make a show of himself by being sick.

"We couldn't, really," Lupin added. "Or he wouldn't." He had sounded as though he was talking to himself, but then he asked, "Why aren't you out there with a pretty girl, George?"

George snorted. "Not being trampled by the mass of pretty girls asking."

"Good looking young man like you --"

George turned his head angrily, presenting his deformity, indicating it with his fag: "Not the most attractive thing on offer any more, am I?"

"Don't be silly."

It was the patronising teacher's tone which made George march off again. He didn't know exactly where he was going and anyway, he didn't get far. Lupin actually grabbed his arm this time.

"Is that why you're moping around feeling sorry for yourself?" His fingers were bruising, and the strength with which he spun George round to face him knocked the wind out of him. "You're still a very attractive young man. Don't waste your life, don't dwell on the one thing you haven't got --"

"You can talk!"

"I'm trying to move on. It's not the same. Is that all this is?"

"I had my fucking ear hexed off!" George yelled.

"You're alive!" Lupin yelled back. Then he took a deep breath. He took a drag of nicotine, hand shaking. His other hand slipped off George's arm. "Sorry. Just could be much worse. Any woman who can't see past that's not worth it. If it's just the ear, if that's all you've got to worry about ..."

George set his face to impassive. He wasn't about to tell a teacher anything about his personal emotions - even if he hadn't been a teacher, nor George a pupil, for years. George looked back to the dance floor. Still no sign of Fred there. He took a long drag on the cigarette he'd almost forgotten. Distinctly dizzy now. That was nice, though. He heard Lupin do the same and looked at him. He was staring at George, looking him up and down: face and body.

"You're so young," Lupin whispered. "And fit, strong. Handsome."

George looked him straight back, eye to eye, and dared him: "Prove it."

Amber irises met blue for a moment, then flicked down towards his mouth. Slowly and softly, Lupin dropped his fag butt onto the grass and ground it out as his large, rough hands reached for George's cheeks. He tilted his own head slightly. Then he stopped, his attention drawn by a disturbance near the house.

A large, silver lynx had just landed in the middle of the dance floor and Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice was coming from its mouth: "The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming." Remus' intense eyes locked with George's for a moment, before he turned George's head and placed a light kiss on the edge of his jaw, on the freckle closest to where the blackened scarring began. Then he let go and ran into the crowd, wand out, as the Death Eaters descended.

|___|____Fumbling around____|||:~~~

Remus had scars. Of course he did. He had scars from where his teeth and claws had worked over his body once a month for thirty years. Some were longer, some shorter, deeper or more shallow, older, newer, paler, thicker, redder, straighter: none were light, forgettable scratches. His body hair was at least as grey as the hair on his head. His ribs showed and the whites of his eyes were yellowed, with red lines through them. He knew what he wanted though, and what he wanted was George. Under the older man's hot, famished gaze, George suddenly felt complete and beautiful.

It was a week after Bill's wedding that George first smelled the smoke under his bedroom window. It was evening, Fred was still down in the shop, packing away and making ready for the next day. It was George's turn to cook, so he was in the flat. The potatoes were baking and he wouldn't need to heat the baked beans for a while, so he lay down. His feet were throbbing. It distracted him from the tight feeling at the side of his head.

In the past few days, he'd thought about what might have happened with Lupin a lot – with relief as well as with regret – so much so, in fact, that he wasn't sure at first if the tobacco smell was really there. He sat up and looked out of the window just in case. There he was: standing in the shadows and looking up. When George waved, though, he ducked his head and sloped off.

Months later, when it happened for the third time, George left the flat and followed him, down the dingy street, between boarded shops: just the two of them on cobbles that had once felt the busy footfalls of thousands of shoppers. George caught up with him just before he went into the Leaky.

Shyly, Lupin turned to him. "A drink?" he asked.

George shook his head. Lupin looked down at his cigarette, watched its tip for as long as he could as he brought it to his mouth, avoiding George's face. "Of course not," he muttered.

George took hold of the ragged end of Lupin's sleeve and tugged gently. He nodded, then took a couple of steps backwards. He exhaled when Lupin followed him. He led the Marauder into a snickle between two shops, then round the back where they crept in through a missing tradesmen's door.

Downstairs was dark, damaged and dusty, but upstairs the ransacking could have been worse. And there was a bed.

George wasn't even sure what he wanted.

Remus was.

When they kissed, George found that he knew what to do with his hands. He caressed. Then he pulled off the patched, faded robes. He kissed down the rough skin of Remus' chest before stepping back to look at him. Slowly, he pulled his own robes over his head.

They didn't have long. He hadn't said anything to Fred before he left and he didn't want him worrying. Worrying? He was going to be scared shitless. Most of the people who went missing these days never came back. George allowed himself another couple of seconds to relish Remus' desire, then he took a step forward and he was pulled into a rough, desperate embrace. Their mouths found each other and they tumbled onto the bed.

Remus tasted of tobacco. His hands shook as he ran them over George's smooth, clear, pale skin. He whimpered when he touched his tongue to George's neck. George allowed himself to be led, not quite sure what he was supposed to do, following instinct when it guided him, and Remus the rest of the time. They did not speak.

Remus hovered above George's body and bestowed light touches which made the younger man buck his hips; both of their bodies heated quickly. Looking down, George saw his underwear being pulled away and then hard hands and chapped lips and a long tongue were all over his straining cock and he stopped knowing anything except for sensation.

Fred was in the doorway of the shop when George got back, looking frantic and holding a trunk.

"Wanker!" he said in greeting. "We're going to Muriel's."

"The fuck?" George asked, but the only answer he received was a gut churning Side-Along Apparition.

Fred never did bother to explain. It was George's punishment for making him hollow with fear by going out without warning him. In retaliation, George never told him where he'd been. He probably wouldn't have done so anyway.

George found himself in the sitting room of his second-least favourite relation (after Percy, of course) surrounded by most of his family, who all seemed to know why they were there, and to think that he knew, too. He kept his mouth shut and pieced together facts. Ron had been seen with Harry, and so the Weasleys were being protected.

He'd never said that he would meet up with Remus again; they hadn't said very much at all. He would have, though. If he could have, he would have tracked the werewolf down and they would have done that again. And again, and again. But he was imprisoned, unable even to let Remus know that he wasn't avoiding him, that he did want him. Very much.

He tried not to think about that hard, coarse body. In the evenings, though, in their shared rose-wallpapered bedroom, he ignored Fred, and sank into his melancholy. The first night, Fred found Ginny and played cards with her, coming upstairs late enough for George to be able to pretend to be asleep.

The second night, Fred asked, "You gonna tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"Fuck you, then." And Fred went off to pat Mum's shoulder and tell her everything was going to be fine.

The next day, Fred came up with the idea of setting up an Owl Order Wheezes and running it from Muriel's place. George got caught up in the organisation of that and almost forgot for a while. They spent the evening scheming.

But then they went to bed and, as he lay down, George's sigh must have been just a little too long and loud.

Fred strode across the little bedroom and looked at George the way only Fred ever could.

"Look, mate, it's shit about your ear."

"I wasn't thinking about my fucking ear."

"Liar!" Fred loomed over him. "Nobody mentions it; they think they're doing you a favour. But what you're thinking is right: it's the first thing they notice when they look at you. You've got a fucking ear missing."

George turned his head to the side so that he couldn't see Fred any more, his one ear pressed against the pillow so that he couldn't hear him properly, either.

"Get over it! People are dying. You've got a hundred percent more working ears than they have. And you know what else?"

George cried out as his head was yanked round by the hair. He stared at his brother, who lifted one hand in front of his face before very slowly and gently, but determinedly, placing it over the scorched area on the side of George's face.

"You know what?" Fred repeated in a whisper. "With or without this deformity, you're still the second best-looking bloke on the planet."

George couldn't quite believe that Fred had touched him there; nobody had since the attack, he'd never even touched himself there. It didn't hurt, though. Nor was it numb. It was ok.

George grinned weakly. "Second to you, you mean?"

"Same as it ever was." Fred grinned back.

|___|_Tumbling around_|||:~~~

Draco Malfoy had scars. His torso was slashed with puckered, blackened skin: like George's, they were unhealable hex scars. One split his right nipple in two, leaving it twisted and discoloured. This only made his other nipple look more lovely; it was soft and pink and symmetrical. Both of them lay on a slim chest of moon-white skin and fine, platinum hair. The same hair was under his arms, around his groin and on his head.

Almost hidden by the magical scars on his back, there were the claw-marks dished out by a bored Greyback. Not all of Draco's scars were on the outside of his body, though. Sometimes at night he coughed up blood from the internal lacerations caused by regular iCrucio/is. Under his eyes were dark shadows which no sleep could cure. Mostly, his eyes were dull, reflecting the hollowness within him. George knew how to create sparks in that grey flint, though.

They had both fallen out of Hogwarts at the same moment after the battle: Malfoy had been vomiting, but George was way beyond that. They both forced the fresh Highland air into their lungs, exhaling the smells of death.

There had been plenty of times over the previous few months when George had thought that he might never see Remus again. That would have been hugely preferable to seeing him like that: cold, twisted and lifeless on the table among all the other corpses. His eyes had been open and empty. George had caught sight of him suddenly, as he backed away from the rest of his family where they gathered around Fred. Fred, who had dropped dead beside him, whose lungs he had tried to inflate with his own breath when there was no longer any point. Losing Fred was too much; he could not even begin to think about Fred.

So George retrieved a crushed packet from his back pocket and lit up a cigarette. It tasted like Remus. He held the smoke tight in his mouth for as long as he could. He closed his eyes and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. When the last of the smoke had drifted out of his nostrils he stepped back. The stone of the wall was behind him. It should have anchored him but that was no longer possible. He tried to dig his nails in, but the surface did not yield. He took in another drag and opened his eyes.

Malfoy was watching him. He was crouching on all-fours, saliva still dripping from his mouth.

"What's that?" he asked, his eyes flashing, daring George to answer, iFuck off and mind your own business, you Death Eating piece of shit./i

So George mumbled, "It's a cigarette." He cupped it between both hands and sucked in some more of the tangy smoke. Remus' tongue. "It helps," he added.

"Can I have one, then?" Malfoy defied again.

He might have been trying to pick a fight, but George wasn't about to give him one. He shrugged, proffering the packet and then, when pale, bony fingers had extracted one, his lit wand.

"Suck," he said, and in his head it was Remus' voice. His nose ran again – not his eyes, though. He wished he could lose himself in sobbing. He didn't think there was enough of himself left at his core for that, though.

As an afterthought, he added, "It is Muggle, though. Which might choke you."

Malfoy pouted as he blew out hard. Then he said, "Muggles bleed the same colour as we do. They die begging and screaming and shitting themselves just like wizards, too. I can't see the difference any more." Then he put the fag back between his lips and hollowed his cheeks, watching George, imitating him the way he had copied Remus at Bill's wedding. He was careful not to cough, too.

Smoking did help; it made George feel calmer. He wished he still got the dizziness – that would have been welcome now – but he'd smoked too many cigarettes in the past weeks for that. Remus had given him this release. He couldn't help thinking about the other kind of pleasure Remus had introduced him to. That would be welcome now: the temporary oblivion of being lost in someone else's body.

He looked back over to the blond youngster who was squeezing the filter too hard between his index and middle fingers. He wasn't exactly ugly. Maybe. Then Malfoy threw up again.

George left him to it and wandered back into the Great Hall.

The next time he saw Draco was in Muggle London. George had finally got the nerve up to go back to the shop. Without telling anyone where he was going, he Apparated away from the Burrow early one wet Thursday morning. Diagon Alley had been full of the dazed but determined beginning to piece their lives back together. George stood among them, smoking his last fag, facing the shop; for many minutes he actually thought he was going to go inside. He hadn't got his hand to the door handle, though, before he saw Fred. Not Fred's ghost (which he dearly wanted to see) but the memory of him the last time they had been there: standing in the doorway with the trunk in his hand and a scowl on his face.

George backed away. Automatically, he shoved his hand in his pocket to get another smoke before he remembered that he was out. It was something to do, anyway.

He slipped through the Leaky, over to the grimy little newsagent's opposite, the one where he usually bought his smokes. A blond lad was hunched at the counter, looking shifty, trying too hard to be inconspicuous.

"I'd like some cigarettes, please."

George froze as he recognised the voice. He hung back by the display of faded birthday banners.

The big bloke behind the counter looked down at Malfoy. "What sort?"

"Erm." He stood upright. "Er, the gold ones."

At school the little bastard had always sounded a lot more sure of himself.

"How many?" The shopkeeper lazily scratched at his stubble.

"One packet."

"Ten or twenty?"

"Twenty." Malfoy's hips shifted as he felt in the pocket of his tight trousers for money.

"You'll be needing one of these, too." The big guy handed over a little red disposable lighter.

"Ok." Then Malfoy got out a note.

The shopkeeper stared down at him like he'd just let a niffler loose on his stock. "I can't change that. This time of the morning? You having a laugh?"

"I'll pay for his," George said, loud and clear.

Malfoy startled. The shopkeeper eyed George suspiciously. Malfoy still looked rattled, but he had the presence to say, "Thanks, George," which pacified the shopkeeper. Malfoy snatched his fifty pound note up off the counter and pushed it back into his pocket.

"And I'll have forty Marlboro."

The man behind the counter reached his meaty, hairy hand back to the tobacco display, but kept his eyes on George as he asked, "He old enough to smoke?"

"He's eighteen. Same age as my kid brother. They were at school together."

Those were enough details, apparently, to satisfy.

Malfoy was acting so shaky that George was a little worried that he might do something magical. He thought he could see a wand-tip poking out of the sleeve of his incongruous tweed jacket. He paid quickly and herded him out of the shop.

"Thanks," Malfoy said. It didn't sound like a word he was used to saying. "I'll have to pay you back in Galleons." He pulled the fifty pounds out of his pocket and his hips made that cute movement again. "Bloody goblin told me this was Muggle money."

"It is," George replied. "But it's worth a lot more than one pack of cigs."

"I didn't know how much ..." Malfoy trailed off. He started fiddling with his packet, scratching and twisting at it.

George took it out of his hands. He smirked. "Shall I help you get that open as well as getting it bought?"

Malfoy shrugged. "It's all your fault anyway," he muttered. "You said it helped."

George laughed as he took hold of the little tag and pulled it round the box. "The one I gave you made you puke." He lifted off clear plastic. He loved that flimsy, transparent little box-end: the promise of a new pack. "You wanted to try that again?"

"It was the stink of corpses that made me sick, Weasley." Imperious fingers snatched the packet back.

He did offer George a fag, though, and they smoked them on the way back to the Leaky. George had to work the lighter of course. Grey eyes watched the mechanism with a fascination which reminded George of his father. Ironic.

"What am I going to do with this then?"

"Get it nicked if you keep waving it about like that," observed George, coolly snatching the bank note.

"You can have it. I can't spend it, can I?"

"Not in a little place like that." George had an epiphany. "But we could get pissed on it!"

George left the Off License with one bottle of champagne, another of whisky and a pocket full of change. They swigged from the bottles in the street. Nobody seemed to care much.

"You still play Quidditch?" Malfoy asked.

"Not since Umbridge banned me for not punching you."

"That meant to make me feel guilty?" Malfoy unscrewed the whisky cap. "Guilt reserves overflowing, I'm afraid. No room for that one." He wrapped soft, pink lips around the end of the bottle and tipped his head back. He winced, but he kept swallowing, his Adam's apple jerking steadily up and down.

George wished he hadn't remembered that day, Fred smashing his fist into Malfoy's face. He drowned his ache for his twin in expensive fizzy French plonk. He closed his eyes as he swallowed.

Malfoy gasped loudly for air. "Fucking Beaters," he muttered. "Violent bastards."

George looked at him. "You reckon?"

"You wouldn't get a Seeker to torture someone, would you?"

"Don't see me getting anyone to do that."

"You know what I mean."

George didn't.

He was dizzy now, properly numbed, in a vortex no cigarette could take him to. He wished Malfoy would do more drinking and less talking bollocks. To shut him up, he filled his own mouth with Champagne and grabbed a handful of blond hair, to pull him close, to make him open his lips as he cried out. Then George poured the drink straight in from his own mouth.

He let go and walked on. Nobody knew them round here and he didn't care what anyone thought they'd seen, but he scanned the passers-by for a reaction anyway. No interest. Steps scuffled behind him as Malfoy caught up. Neither of them spoke.

George stood for almost as long as before in the same place in front of their shop. He smoked another cigarette, barely aware of the lad smoking beside him. He took one step forward. Then he stopped and inhaled deeply.

Suddenly his follicles were being tugged from his scalp; Malfoy lowered the bottle; George's mouth was full of the burn of Scotch; Malfoy's lips stayed on his long after he had swallowed.

Nothing mattered except for the closeness of their bodies. One slim hand was on his head, the other pressed the bottle against his buttock. George realised that he was rubbing at skin. His tongue pushed itself into a warm mouth.

He realised that this was the only way he was ever going to do this: that his need for that bed, which was a short walk across the shop floor and up the stairs, had to be greater than his resistance to walking over that threshold.

He had forgotten how narrow the bed was. When they were both sober they would expand it, but for now they just fell onto it sideways with their feet still on the floor. They shoved fabric out of the way to bite at each other's flesh.

He woke to the sound of retching and realised that he must have dozed off as they were groping each other. Draco stumbled, naked, back into the room. As he searched both their pockets for cigarettes, George saw his scars for the first time. He lay on his side with a pounding headache and admired Draco's perfect body.

They both had nights when they woke alone. They never asked where their lover had been, or what he had been thinking about. They just rolled over and went back to sleep, or dozed to their own mental ramblings. In the morning the other body was always back, as it should be, in their shared bed.

Then there were the other nights, the ones where screams woke one or both of them from nightmares. They didn't bother with the platitudes, with, "It's all right," or, "Just a dream," or "I'm here." Determined arms would wrap around a feverish body and just silently hold tight. They seldom told each other what they had dreamt of.

One night, though, it was obvious. George howled them both awake and sat upright, both hands clawing over the side of his head where his ear had once been. He sobbed out, "Snape! Shit!" then his hands stilled and laid flat.

First Draco grabbed George by his shaking shoulders, then pulled their bodies together. He moved his palms onto the middle of that broad, freckled back, which was running with sweat. He held tight until the sobs stopped.

As George's breathing evened out, Draco did something he had never done before. Keeping hold with one arm, he put his other hand over both of George's. His strong grip pulled off one finger at a time, and then he pulled George's head round by the hair. He pressed his lips firmly against the puckered, blackened, purplish skin where the ear had once been.

When George stopped struggling, he lifted his mouth away, then he brought it back. He kissed softly all over that malformed space, right up to the edges of the hole. He kissed with little noises which had to travel to the other side of George's head to be heard, but which tunnelled far and deep inside him, fumigating the hollowness.

|___|__THE END |||:~~~~