A/N: This fic is written for Esrelda Snape's Learning to Cope challenge from the detailed plot challenges. This fic is also written for the Multi-Chapter boot camp challenge.
Learning to Cope
Chapter 1 (prompt #020: bar)
His ear tended to hurt at certain times, and the current one was no exception. Not many people bothered remembering the death of Mad-Eye Moody; it didn't matter that he was one of the greatest Aurors of his time and a hero of the First Wizarding War. The Second War had drowned all that out, the lies and confusion weaving a fog so thorough that most of the world only remembered the Battle of Hogwarts and the casualties there…and even then, not by name. War Memorials were scattered all across Britain, but few of them had names engraved. Too many lives had been lost to note, and with bodies removed or destroyed, they had no way of knowing who had simply vanished into the void of time.
It was the anniversary of Mad-Eye's death that day: the same day George was suddenly and without warning parted from his right ear. He didn't remember much of the day, ultimately swooning to blood loss and trying to buzz off a hangover induced by more Firewhiskey than he should have indulged himself in. He had been overage at the time and no stranger to the strong alcoholic beverages of the Wizarding World regardless (he had tasted his first shot of Odgen's finest halfway through fourth year), yet it still left a buzzing sensation that fogged over a few precious hours of his life.
Somehow, it was a fitting action to replicate every year at the anniversary, even if he was alone in doing so. Perhaps Tonks would have joined him; she had been Mad-Eye's protégée after all, but she too was dead along with a good deal of other people he had come to know over the years…and his own twin brother.
He tossed his head back, letting some more of the bitter liquid slide down his throat. It scratched, like Angelina's flu remedies or his tickling beverages did, but it was distracting enough for him not to care. Like the melting wax of a flame it slithered through his chest and warmed his heart, though not as much as family and friends and a good helping of happiness did.
It was impossible to always be happy though, and Aberforth, well used to George's rituals, was obliging. That day, the Hog's Head was rather empty – for the day George lost an ear wasn't nearly as famous in recent history as the Battle of Hogwarts – and had pulled up a stool across from the young adult.
'Wife treating you good?' he asked eventually.
'Sure,' George shrugged. 'It's a little weird, knowing Angie dated my brother back in the day, but we're both happy and about to be parents.'
'Sorry to say this laddie,' and Aberforth's thick eyebrows almost vanished behind his large white mane of hair, 'but you're never looking very happy whenever I see you.'
'Sorry about that,' the red-haired male said, a little off-handish. 'This place is just odd to visit without the need for a strong drink.'
Aberforth waved a wrinkled hand. 'I take no personal offence at the statement,' he said. 'I'm just stating an observation.'
He looked solidly at the other as he said this, the bright blue eyes he had shared with his late brother all the more prominent in the dim surrounds. And like the once-Headmaster of Hogwarts, those eyes seemed capable of piercing through shield, wall or nest of lies.
George shrugged though. 'Angie and I are fine. It's just the first pregnancy, you know.'
Aberforth did not mention that he'd been seeing the Weasley since that fateful year they had met on the battlefield of Hogwarts.
'Well, I don't know anything about raising babies, but good luck.'
There was a large scraping sound as the proprietor pushed his stool back on the squeaky tiles and grasped his cane. George returned to his drink, but the next gulp of Firewhiskey slid down the wrong tube as a Patronus suddenly flared to life before him.
It was Audrey's voice, clipped and professional as she was while at work…which was quite often. Indeed, she was a perfect match for Percy. 'Come to St. Mungo's maternity ward. Angelina's gone into early labour.'
It took a moment for the words to register, and by then the flash of light had disappeared and even the disgruntlement of a few drunks that frequented the Hog's Head had diminished into unintelligible mumbles. When he realised that his wife had gone into labour two months prematurely his own stool went crashing loudly to the ground, inviting a new round of grumbles.
The tiles were of poor quality, and whatever Aberforth saw in them they only served to aggravate the after-effects of alcohol. Back when they were still students at Hogwarts, Fred and George had taken great delight in charming them a wide array of colours and heights, but the last charm they had cast during their sixth year had long since faded, taking its glimmer along. Aberforth still tapped his cane on each tile before stepping, just in case George took it upon himself to create one of their infamous invisible tiles for tripping drunks. Truthfully, the old man was a good sport and didn't mind for all his grumbling and dirty looks, but the job was now left to the new generation of daring students at Hogwarts. George made it a point to always be at his Hogsmeade branch on Hogsmeade weekends (the dates which Headmistress McGonagall was more than happy to provide); their endeavours at Hogwarts had become as legendary as the Marauders before them, and the onus naturally fell upon him to spread the tradition and keep alive their legacy.
Sadly, it seemed that the last batch to wonder into the Hog's Head had done nothing for its tiles, though one had to watch the bottles in case they spurted instead of poured. Pranks always wound down at the end of the school year, so their little holiday merriment turned out to be quite the damper in retrospect.
Of course, that made the folk of the Hog's Head a little more lax in the holiday seasons, for Aberforth wasn't cursing anyone with half a bad brain to make sure the students that crossed his threshold weren't in any physical danger from his other customers. The customers present in the holidays, as a result, were generally the less amiable sort without a screen to filter them out, but George just gave them a small glare and then slapped some bills on to the counter.
Aberforth inclined his head, waving him off and George gladly left. In the fresh afternoon air of Hogsmeade, the message from his sister-in-law replayed itself in his mind. Somehow, the fact that he would be a father in just a few hours, maybe less, had not quite registered itself in his mind. His ear was throbbing again, though dulled by the Firewhiskey he had inhaled, and as he spun on his heel to apparate to St Mungo's, and by the time he popped into existence in a dingy alleyway in downtown London, he had a cheesy grin on his face.
It really was a bad time for the Firewhiskey, but at least he wasn't plastered-drunk.
'George Weasley! Where have you been?! I called you ages ago!'
George's first thought was that his mother had arrived at the hospital – and it wasn't a bad first thought in the least – however it was Audrey, dressed in her green healing robes, who had her hands on her hips, brown hair tightly plaited and ending just below her shoulder-blades.
'Hogsmeade,' George mumbled, rubbing the ear that still stung. Fleetingly he wondered if he had splinched himself, but that was before he recalled his ear had been severed not by an apparition mishap but by dark magic. 'And it was ten minutes, tops.'
Audrey's strained – not fierce as one would have naturally concluded from her voice – melted slightly. 'Well, it's good you're here now. Things are a little…complicated.'
'Complicated?' George looked towards the maternity ward, whose doors had been spelled shut and curtains closed. 'What do you mean? Can't I see Angie?'
Audrey shook her head. 'Frankly, I'm out here with you because I just haven't had this sort of training –'
'Merlin's sake woman! Stop beating around the bush.'
Percy chose that moment to arrive with three cups of coffee. 'That's my wife you're snapping at,' he said, though somewhat sympathetically. Truthfully, that didn't make George feel better in the least, because the vibes coming at him said that his wife's labour had been complicated and no-one was telling him what the hell was going on!
'Angelina's labour has been…complicated,' Audrey, her tone now a mix between familial and profession, began. 'The baby's…well, the easiest way to explain it would be that the baby's stuck.'
'Stuck,' George repeated, for some reason envisioning the time his hand had gotten stuck in the bathtub. His mother had, after a little scolding, simply widened the hole and pulled his wrist out.
'I'm not specialised for deliveries.' The brunette shrugged a little helplessly. 'Healer Bones said things would be fine – it's not a serious complication –'
Either it was the Firewhiskey amplifying everything or the pair had very different definitions of "not serious".
'– and would take half an hour at the most to resolve.' The woman still looked a little anxious, but Susan knew her profession back to front and wasn't known to make misprognosis in the maternity ward she headed. 'I specialise with spell damage, so I –'
Percy put a hand on his wife's shoulder and offered the cup he had brought. 'Calm down,' he said softly. He murmured a few more words of comfort, but George tuned the pair out. His stomach was twisting; twisting painfully. The coffee in its cheap Styrofoam cup, magically spelled to keep its contents warm for a few hours, sloshed around in a manner that would make everyone dizzy. It would be better if he just drank it, but he doubted it would settle his stomach.
In a few minutes – but what felt like hours in the pristine and silently echoing hallway – the Hufflepuff that had been in Ron's year at Hogwarts emerged. Her expression, kind as always with the hint of sadness that came from losing everyone she had over twenty years of magical warfare, gave nothing away.
'George Weasley?' she asked, purely for profession as she knew his face from Hogwarts.
George's one good ear heard his name, slightly distorted in the spacey hallway to echo indiscriminately.
The maternity Healer waved her wand at a small door the Weasleys present had not noticed before then. 'Please come with me.'
George nodded, and made to follow as the brown hair vanished through the doors, but Percy's hand held him momentarily back. 'Would you like me to come?' he asked, concerned.
'Nah.' And George gave the best grin he could muster up, one worthy of a T from the late Fred no doubt. 'It can't be worse than one of Filch's detentions…or Mum's screaming.'
If Percy found the words in bad humour, he refrained from saying so.
