Going Nowhere Fast
Written by Joyce Malevolence
...
Disclaimer: All characters and material related to the world of Harry Potter were borne from the imagination of J.K. Rowling, and though I wish it were otherwise, I had no hand in that process whatsoever. As such, I cannot, and dare not, claim any of these characters as my own.
...
"George."
George spun around. He was still alone, alone in the endless white room.
"Fred?" He called. Thump thump. Only his heart responds. George put one hand over it, begging it to be quiet. It beat against his palm, clanging like a hammer in an iron cell.
"Fred?" Fred, fred, fred, fred. His voice mocked him, bouncing back at him from every direction.
"George." George jerked back towards the direction he came from.
"Here. George." A hooded black figure."George.. Brother." George grabbed his chest. Thump thump.
"Fred." The figure in black did not respond. "Fred, mate. What're you doin here?"
George reached out and grasped the figure by its shoulder.
"Fred?" Fred, fred, fred, fred. The hood fell.
A flash of bright blonde hair. Grey eyes. An all too familiar smirk.
"Wrongo, Weasley."
George Weasley's eyes snapped open in the darkness.
Forehead beaded with droplets of cold sweat, George gasped and stagnant but blessed air rushed into his deprived lungs. George unclenched his hands from his blankets and covered his mouth, trying to bring his panicked breathing under control. He rolled sideways to sit up but slipped on his spilled covers and thumped onto the floor. Jerking back into a sitting position with his back against the mattress of his bed, George scanned his surroundings with wild eyes, shifting crazily from one random reference point in the room to the next. Book, quill, ceiling, sock- notes- ink- sock window pillow bed-
… Bed.
Eyes locked on the unoccupied mattress in front of him George took a deep breath in… then exhaled slowly out. Breathe in… Out. In... Out... In... Out.
As the blood began to cease rushing past his ears in rhythmic, audible beats, George lowered his hands, which were now damp from a combination of perspiration and the collected humidity of his panting.
"Bloody hell Fred…" sighed the disheveled red head. George looked upward at what would be the floor of Ron's room, imagining the sky beyond it.
A singular dim streak of light squeezed through the top most blind covering his window, illuminating dust particles that languished in the air.
Distantly, he registered the sounds of an overachiever's alarm clock going off, alerting her that she had but roughly five slim hours to prepare herself for her first day back at Hogwarts for a proper school year since four tumultuous seasons ago.
It was time.
"Don't worry Fred." George muttered quietly to the empty bed across from him. "I'll get you out of that blond git. You'll see mate. Everything's going to be fine."
...
Chapter One: The Summer Before Everything
...
Two & a Half Months Earlier, Mid-June:
High pitched tangs and clangs sounding the beginning of dinner echoed through the vents into George's room, where they faded away into the thick rug that covered much of the floor. Glowing azure light, shaped roughly in the image of human hands burst forth from the tip of his wand. Like a pair of gloves worn by an unseen performer putting on a puppet show, the hands bent to give themselves legs and knobby arms, the knuckles substituting for elbows and knees. The left hand puppet, which George had just decided to name Lefty, gave the right hand a slap at its cuff, effectively insulting Gerard, the right hand. Gerry, outraged by the show of disrespect, puffed out its chest and produced a miniature glove of its own from behind itself, and challenged Lefty to a former duel with a loud smack. The blue puppets wrestled across the invisible stage set in the air above George's head in a Three Booges like fashion, producing their own props from thin air to add insult to injury, drawing mustaches on eachother and sticking rude words on one another's palm-sides.
All the while, George watched in silence, his face expressionless as he lay on his back, spread eagle style across the small mattress, one leg hanging off the side. It must have been about six in the evening, judging by weakness of the sun leaking in through the shutters on his window. The room had sneaked its way into darkness without his noticing again.
Exhaling loudly through his nose, George heaved himself into an upright position, his other foot landing onto the barely visible floor with a soft thump. With a tap on the air, the puppets burst into tiny blue bits of light confetti and disappeared. George padded through the worn path between the papers and trinkets that littered the floor to the window and tousled his overgrown hair, shaking out the flatness from the back where his hair had bent outwards, a result of the hours he had spent in the same position.
George pushed the windows open with a light groan. Warm wind blew in as the stale air was sucked out of the stuffy room like a process of osmosis. George breathed in deeply, closing his eyes. His lungs expanded, his chest puffed out, his ribs complained against the pressure. And yet, as he exhaled, George couldn't shake the suffocating feeling that wouldn't leave his body. There was a weight hanging off his heart that would not let go.
Loose leaves fluttered in as another summer breeze blew into the room. Brushing past his arm, they landed on a piece of paper on his desk, rustling it a few inches to the right, just enough to expose the ivory corner of an envelope bearing the Hogwart's crest.
George stared at it. He picked his way through the rubbish to the desk slowly, blazing a new, unfamiliar trail through the various floor items that mapped how he spent most of his time in the room, and picked up the letter. Blowing the envelope open with a puff of air, he removed the letter from inside and unfolded it, yet again. The creases of the paper were now so worn that the parchment was threatening to fall apart into three equal pieces.
Rubbing the corner of the paper between his fingers, George traced the line that kept him from chucking the request altogether into the bin.
For Fred. He would wish for your return, for your peace. Please think about it.
George traced the letters that made his brother's name again.
"What do you know about what he would have wanted McGonagall…" George closed his eyes against the sight of the half empty room, the shade of his eyelids blinking out the last of the diluted sunlight that shone dully into the room, as if through a clouded filter. In the darkness, the distinct scent of the empty room became clear. Old athletic wear that still smelled of victorious sweat, the tinge of burnt parchment paper that clung to everything in the room as result of the numerous explosions that had taken place. The smell of Fred's old cologne. George took in a deep breath of it and turned on the spot.
The ironic twittering of the birds outside his window disappeared. The air had taken on the light citrus flavor of broken leaves. George opened his eyes.
The familiar willow stood alone by the lake. Its tendrils dripped in and out of the placid water as the wind blew gently by, depositing flakes of ash at its feet. Behind it, the decimated shell of Hogwarts leaned against the darkening sky, tired, beaten, and stripped.
George Weasley stared blankly at the castle in the distance. A heavy quiet had settled upon the school that had just hours before been packed with the yells of Ministry orders and repair spells.
Though a month had passed since the Battle of Hogwarts, as George knew the day would officially be recorded as, the warm breeze still carried bits of singed parchment away from the rubble. The grounds still felt tainted, invaded and dirty. The air still vibrated with echoes of voices George could not hear. The voice of Tonks, who distorted her face on command to distract everyone from what wasn't being said at the dinner table. Of Lupin, to whom life had not been kind. Of Fred. Who had not seen it coming.
"Is this what you wanted Fred? You really want me to be here mate? To see this? To… to remember everything?" George let himself fall into a pile on the spot. The wind blew through his thin t-shirt. He savored the sting of the cold that reminded him that he was alive. Then recalled sadly, the days when Fred's presence had always kept him warm.
"I shouldn't be here." He muttered into his arms. A strong gale rushed past George, enveloping him in its coldness, blowing the smell of ash into his face, making him remember.
Making him remember the explosions, the screams. The fact that while he was facing a cursed fire out in the courtyard, Fred had been lying under a pile of cold, clammy rubble.
No, no, no, "no no." Was that his voice? "No. I should've been there. You should be here. You should BE here! Fred you bloody idiot, you should be HERE!"
The grounds remained silent, unmoved. The sun made one final reach for George's attention before hiding behind the western horizon. The world grew darker. The water lapped the shores of the lake calmly. The wind rushed by, stealing George's cries away, apathetic to his wishes.
The world was moving on. It did not matter to it that Fred was no longer with it. It would do nothing. No, it would do nothing.
But George could.
He lifted his head from where it had been nested in the folds of his arms. Hogwart's torn silhouette had long disappeared into the ink of the night sky. He could not see it, but it was there. And with enough work, there would come a day when it would stand whole and strong again, as if the battle had never happened. Just as it had been before.
"Just like before…" George whispered to no one. How many times had he and Fred created spells that had never existed for the sake of their Weasley Wheezes. How many times had he and Fred done more with a charm than it was meant for?
Just as the stars made themselves known, George pushed himself onto his feet. "You should be here mate." In his mind, George was already making a list. "And I can make that happen."
As the lights of Hogsmeade flittered on in the distance, George took a sharp turn into himself and disappeared with a sharp crack.
…
One Month Later, Mid-July:
"Hermione, have you seen George?" Hermione looked up from the hefty, leather-bound book on her lap that she had leaning against the now vacant dining table. Ron had just entered the kitchen, already dressed for bed in his worn Chudley Cannons bottoms and a loose t-shirt.
"Gone again? I can't tell if this is an improvement from him never coming out of his room. Wasn't he upstairs?" She thumbed her bookmarker into place and pushed the great volume onto the asymmetrically cut wooden table.
"He was yea. But he disappeared sometime after dinner looks like. He was at Hogwarts again til a bit after sundown. But his needle's been on traveling since. Mum's just about ready to shake the clock down for more information." Ron sighed and plopped himself into the chair next to Hermione, head hung, shoulders rounded. "He's not usually this late the git. Makin everyone worry."
Hermione reached out a sympathetic hand. Ron grasped it quickly and, turning himself to face her, pulled Hermione into his hunched form. Hermione landed in his embrace with a small squeak of surprise. Only two weeks had passed since Ron stopped ignoring her, and to the best of her knowledge, Harry. He had been unreachable, inconsolable. Then, one evening, he walked out of his room, marched straight down the stairs to her makeshift chambers, came in without announcing himself, and took her wordlessly into his arms, apologizing for everything in a single word.
More and more of the Ronald Weasley she had unknowingly fallen in love with over the course of seven years had been resurfacing since. He smiled like he used to. He blushed like he used to.
He even kissed her again the way he had once before.
Yet, as she rested a hand on the back of his head, guiding him to her shoulder, comforting him with small touches as she had so many times before, Hermione felt herself to be acting a role. Something had not returned.
He complied to the pressure of her hand, letting himself be drawn in.
"He'll be ok." She said once again. A deep inhalation was his only response. How many times could one pretend to believe the same assurance after all.
The seconds ticked loudly across the face of the kitchen clock. Ron breathed quietly, tiredly. From the other room, Hermione could make out Molly's voice posing worried 'what if' questions. A water droplet plipped into the full basin.
The Burrow was swollen with a pregnant silence. Ginny and Harry were upstairs in Ginny's room. Molly and Arthur were in the living room. Charlie was walking about overhead. Yet, the house felt cold and empty. A desperate waiting game of which everyone had become unwilling participants, had cast a spell of clammy silence on the once warm Weasley household. Everyone was waiting, waiting for that magical, promised moment when time will have healed all invisible wounds. And the sad impatience was damn near tangible. Hermione had to stifle a shiver.
"Hermione," Hermione knew from the trepidatious manner in which Ron was calling her what he wanted to talk about. "Harry's accepted the offer."
"What?" Hermione leaned out of Ron's arms. "What about school?" Silence. "What about his final year? His classes, his-"
"Harry's more ready to start that program than any normal Hogwarts graduate Hermione… we all are. You know that." Ron retracted his hands from Hermione's sides as she crossed hers' across her chest. Seeing this all too familiar gesture, Ron wrinkled his brow, readying himself. "The matter's not closed Hermione."
"Yes it is Ron. We have holes in our education, all of us. Harry shouldn't go. He should come back to Hogwarts with us and finish his-"
"He shouldn't, you say. But you're certainly not going to stop him are you?"
"Oh, don't think I won't try Ron. He's just crazy if he think I'm going to let him launch himself right back into the throw of things-"
"Let him? That's his choice! Just like it's MY choice-"
"Do you UNDERSTAND what you'll be doing if you join that Auror Program Ronald? Haven't you had enough these last few years?"
"Don't make me sound stupid Hermione. Of course I know. Of course I'm tired of it too. But I can't go hiding in Hogwarts because I'm tired."
"Ron, I told you to stop putting words in my mouth. I never said to hide. This is important for you to- to- to have time off. To not have to live not knowing who's still alive every... I mean…" Ron looked away and blinked hard. Hermione folded her hands around his. "Ron please. Don't-" CRACK!
Ron was already up with his wand out by the time George turned around, batting his eyes in the sudden brightness of the kitchen.
"Ronnie. Wotcher mate, feeling a bit jumpy are we?" The couple blinked dubiously at the older Weasley's nonchalance.
"Where the BLOODY HELL WERE YOU?" Ron burst suddenly, chucking a stray bread roll from the table at George, who though still adjusting his eyes to the light, batted the baked bomb away casually.
Hermione took a moment to let out the lungful of air she had been unaware she was holding. Behind her, Molly and Arthur had rushed into the room. George disappeared quickly between his petite mother who pulled him down to her height, and Arthur, who hovered behind Molly, waiting for a chance to detach her from their son. Ron stood to the side and continued to wave his finger disapprovingly at his brother. Pursing her lips, Hermione lowered herself back into the chair and felt unsure what to do with her hands.
Despite the years of Christmas dinners, late nights in the Gryffindor common room, and daily interactions, Hermione had never quite understood where she stood with the twins. With Harry, Ron and Ginny around as social buffers, Hermione had dipped in and out of conversations with Fred and George comfortably. Left alone with them however, she had found herself at a loss for words. The hyperawareness inducing discomfort had only gotten worse since Fred died. Every instance when George was being fussed over felt like a private moment for the Weasley family upon which she was intruding. Even now as George detangled himself from his mother's stubby embrace and put on a pained smile in response to his father's inquiries, Hermione wanted to look away.
Settling on a compromise with herself, Hermione looked instead towards George's legs, where a tightly packed knapsack leaned against him, barely visible behind his traveling cloak, the top of a glass vial flashing as the bag was rustled by his leg.
"Alright there Hermione?"
Hermione looked up in surprise and was met straight on by George's curious expression.
"I'm fine." She replied hurriedly. "I mean, I think I should get ready for bed… Good night George." She glanced back down to his legs. The bag had disappeared. Struggling to keep a questioning eyebrow from climbing upwards, Hermione collected her book from the table and stood.
"Good night Granger." Hermione turned to acknowledge that she had heard his reply, smiled faintly, and scurried through the swinging door into the living room.
Scurried.
A word George usually used to describe the movements of small animals and Slytherins, not Hermione Granger. But it was the only term that came to mind that could adequately describe Hermione's behavior over the last couple months.
When he entered a room where she was the sole occupant, she quickly made an excuse and scurried out. When they were ever caught alone in the kitchen together, she collected her things and scurried to "bed", though on more than one occasion he passed by her makeshift room by the landing on the second floor and heard her studying on these nights when she had supposedly wanted to go straight to sleep. Like tonight.
Careful to avoid touching the creaking floorboard, George put his ear to her door. On the other side, Hermione was muttering directions for old potions and charms to herself.
'Perhaps it's for the best,' thought the gangly twin. Perhaps it was for the best that she felt uncomfortable around him, didn't want to be around him.
Who knew if it would work after all.
…
End of July:
Draco Malfoy had better things to do than loll about Muggle London. That much was for certain. He had a long trip to pack for.
Lucius' sentence was to be carried out in a month's time. After, Ministry Officials would all but be living at the Malfoy Manor as they flipped every Italian marble tile and rifled through every stained mahogany panty drawer in the place for more cause to call a trial for Draco and his mother as well. The young Malfoy didn't have time to report to the makeshift Misuse of Magic offices for a demeaning pat down. Honestly, it was not as if he would be returning to Hogwarts to threaten the place with magically rigged toothbrushes anyway. Not that they were aware of any of his plans of course.
"Watch it ya wanker!" Draco quickly jumped back onto the curb as a bright yellow automobile rushed by, nearly clipping his bag as it passed him like the Muggle version of the Knight Bus. Scowling, Draco cursed the Ministry for locking down his wand and apparating capabilities until Malfoy senior was safely confined within the walls of Azkaban.
"Of all the ways to add insult to injury. Forcing me to take muggle transport. Like an animal." Muttered the silver eyed former Slytherin. Dressed in a typical muggle suit that was made from a material that was a far cry from the elvish fabric that usually graced his body, Draco was a man on a mission. A mission to get this shite over it as quickly as possible that was.
Though he was in the heart of the muggle side of London, Draco could not shake the feeling that he was being watched. Mocked. His back pointed at as he passed.
"There he is. The shame of the house of Malfoy. The failure."
"…the little boy who ran."
"He didn't even have a side. Too cowardly to fight at all."
Draco quickened his pace. Not that it made much a difference. The walk back from the middle of Richmond Park, where the temporary offices of a handful of Ministry Departments were located, to the Leaky Cauldron was still agonizingly long. For more reasons than one. The sun was already making its way down the inner curve of the sky by the time Draco reached the hole in the wall entrance to the magical world. Ugh, what he would have given for his wand back, if only to not have had to see the look on this old beast's face as he unlocked the way to Diagon Alley, snickering at Draco's wandless situation.
He'd come back for him, thought Draco, stepping into the familiar street.
'When?' snarked his younger self at the present day Draco. 'When you get your wand back or when you get your nutsack back you sad traitor?'
Hands balled into fists, Draco yanked his traveling cloak over his eyes and tried to walk at a normal pace through the entry tunnel leading to Diagon Alley.
Diagon Alley had recovered remarkably well since the fall of the Dark Lord. The once abandoned streets had been revived quickly as endless celebrations brought demand back to the popular street.
Summer flowers were bursting out of store fronts. School children were admiring the latest broom on display. Old witches were gathered at antique café tables, chittering like squirrels about the scandalous affairs of their neighbors. Diagon Alley was indeed quickly becoming was it used to be- a constant mockery of Draco's less than sing-song cheery thoughts.
In all ways but one.
From at the end of one of the smaller side alleys, a shadowy cul-de-sac peered down the way at Draco. Before he could begin to scold himself for considering walking towards it, once again, the young Malfoy found himself standing before the peeling façade of the abandoned Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
The bright purple paint had faded to a sun stripped violet. The mosaic windows were opaque with dust, its playful images obstructed from view by unattended ivy. All in all, the entire structure looked far more dilapidated and abandoned than half a year should have caused a building to appear.
Only one area showed signs of having not been forgotten.
At a glance, it was easy to mistake the fluttering scraps of paper pinned to the lime green double doors as litter. Upon closer inspection however, Draco had discovered that what he had mistaken to be eviction notices and graffiti were in fact, attempts by the magical public to get in contact with the absentee owner.
'Please come back to the shop Mr. Weasley. The new term is starting soon and I've got but two Dungbat Bombs left.'
'What has happened to WWW?'
'I'm sorry for your loss…'
'…I will miss him too…'
'…He was a great wizard…'
Draco had heard that one of the twins had perished in the battle, and that the other one had fallen off the face of the earth. Out of all the reports of death that Draco had been questioned for over the last few months, his was the only one to remain ingrained in his memory verbatim.
"Fred Weasley. Age twenty. Reported to have been crushed by a fallen wall in Hogwarts castle, caused by an explosion, the morning of May 2, 1998. Witnesses place you in the vicinity. How do you plea?" As if everyone wasn't in the "vicinity". Dungbrained Ministry Officials. Draco frowned at the memory as he rounded the corner of the building.
Fred and George Weasley. The freckled wonder twins of the Gryffindor house.
Though Draco had spent most of his days at Hogwarts time loathing the Golden Trio, he had always been dimly aware of the red headed twins, with whom even weak minded Slytherin girls had been enamored.
"I hate them… But they're brilliant aren't they?"
"Pipe down you lot, I'm trying to watch the game! Shouldn't you be rooting for your own team?" Draco recalled yelling out during the first Gryffindor-Slytherin match of his first year.
What was it- or rather, what had it been about the identical wankers that had had the entire school so intrigued? Why was it that even after their ostentatious departure from Hogwarts, they were whispered about in awe and so sorely missed even by members of other houses- while he, who had gained so much power under Umbridge's reign, was only sneered at? Laughed at and dismissed?
"Power leads to fear. Fear is not forgotten. Thus, power leads to immortality." Wasn't that what Lucius had always said?
But then again, how well had Malfoy senior's advice served Lucius himself?
Lucius Malfoy. Lord Voldemort's right hand.
His sentencing garnered a corner notification on page 18 of the Daily Prophet. No photograph included. The Ministry had not made a single move to defend him, out of neither fear nor loyalty. Even the Death Eaters that cornered Draco on occasion to get information about who his father has or has not yet betrayed to the Ministry did nothing to help. He may as well had never committed his entire adult life, and those of his wife and son, to the service of the Dark Lord. They were already forgotten by the world.
Fred Weasley, however, kicks the bucket and an entire street takes on an atmosphere of mourning. Strangers drop by in hopes that his brother is doing well in his absence, while the brother himself is so rocked by the loss that he goes missing.
Trailing his fingers on the cold, stone exterior of the shop, Draco wondered if the world would have felt the same, had it been him. Would his death have left the world feeling as empty as this store was?
Glancing at a missing corner of the window closest to him, Draco had turned to begin his trek to his preapproved Floo fireplace- when a metallic clang stopped him in his tracks.
It had come from inside the building.
…
"Another day another galleon."
"Another ten-"
"'Nother hundred!" Fred laughed. George smiled at his twin. He joked about it often enough, and the glitter that came to his eye at the mention of an interested sponsor or customer could have, and often easily was, mistaken for a fondness for money, but George knew that wasn't it.
Fred, like George, harbored no love for gold.
Sponsors only meant more funds to support experiments and research. More customers only meant that their gadgets and charms and candies were well liked and bringing joy to the lives of others, even if, at times, innocently at the expense of others still.
George plucked at the strings of his guitar, a novel muggle item that his father had given him as a celebratory present when he and Fred first opened shop. Though he had yet to bother learning how to actually tie the pleasant sounds that came from picking at the strings together to make a song, he enjoyed listening to the tones that resonated from the random notes he discovered in different positions as he and Fred unwound at the end of the day.
Slapping the updated ledger down on his desk, Fred spun around and collapsed into the overstuffed armchair, yawning. Arms splayed over the sides on either armrest and legs stretched out in front of him, Fred was the picture of happiness. He let his head loll over to lean on his shoulder, and peered out the window, through which he could see their life's work.
"Livin the good life eh George?"
George sat in the plushy chair by the great semicircle window of the office that overlooked the shop at the level of the chandelier, allowing him a perfect view of the entire store. Across from him, an identical armchair sat empty, decorated only by the green throw that had been carelessly tossed over the armrest by it's last occupant.
"You COULD fold it."
"YOU could fold it, I could cuddle up in it. Leave my chair be George."
"Prick."
"Hen."
"I'm hungry."
"You read me mind."
The sun had begun to set by the time George actually managed to let himself into the building. He had left the Burrow early morning, but somehow, the trip here took much longer than he had anticipated. His feet wandered away off the intended path, taking him to old lurks he hadn't visited in ages.
The vintage doo-hickey shop where he and Fred first met Lee. The bookstore George hadn't known existed next to his favorite pasty shop until Clearwater had challenged him to that book bet. The corner where he and Fred ran away to when they were rebelling against the institution of school the day before they left for their first year of Hogwarts. George let himself smile at the memory, recollecting how determined Fred had been to tough it out on that corner for the entire day, and how stubbornly he had tried to keep his angry tears at bay when, later on that evening, their father revealed that he had found them an hour after they ran away and had been watching them sulk on that corner all afternoon.
George sighed, breathing in the scent of settled dust, and breathing out the memories of the endless hours he had spent with Fred in that office, agonizing over notes and tweaking recipes to avoid lawsuits.
By the time the young magical community came crawling back to Diagon Alley for Christmas break to scour the streets for sweets, nick nacks, and gifts, there would likely be a new shop here.
"They wouldn't be as great as we were though." George muttered.
Checking the watch on his wrist that used to be Fred's, George rose slowly from his seat.
Reducing his armchair down to the size of a marble, George bent over to pick it up and place it into the small tin which held the contents of the store, piled into separate compartments like different colored beads in an arts and crafts kit. Standing up, George looked about the room. The back wall opposite the window turned a dusty orange, a dull red, then finally, a deep mahogany shade. The room felt cold.
All that remained was Fred's chair, the sole occupant of the now empty office. A green throw remained untouched, the layer of dust that had collected over it in the last two months unbothered. George could not bring himself to even touch it.
The taps of George's dress shoes reverberated off the walls, changing into clangs as he descended the metal spiral staircase. He stopped by the counter where the outline of the words, "Pay up" still showed faintly across the front despite George's half hearted spell to remove the paint. Picking up his black robes and bag where he had dumped them earlier, George walked down the length of the room where the over stuffed shelves used to be.
Hand on the golden pretzel that was the door handle to the main entrance, George paused. He turned to face the expansive space once again.
"Sorry Fred." George waved his wand over his head. The golden glow of the grand crystal chandelier that dominated the ceiling began to dull. The shadows cast on the floors by the railing of the curved stairs grew. The darkness from the farthest corners of the ceilings melted down the walls. The purchase counter became obscured from view as the light from the crystals ebbed.
The room went dark. Weak moonlight streamed through the front windows stretched across the tiles on either side of the beam of light coming in through the door, twin boards of illumination that were now all that was visible, save the lone silhouette of a young wizard standing in the doorway. George took a long last look at the room.
"Wow this is Our place. OUR shop. Georgey boy we've finally done it!" his voice echoed as George closed the door behind him. They had just been handed the keys and left by the landlord. Fred danced into the empty room, doing his best impression of a leprechaun's jig between the two rectangular patches of sunlight that were beaming through the front windows.
"Yea, and at a bargain too-"
"How much are we paying for the month anyhow? I mean, just HOW quickly have we got'a become great fat successes?" Fred asked, rubbing his hands together. George told him. Fred gaped. "You fool! That's too bloody much! You've been had- no WE'VE been had! Ohhhhh-why, WHY do I stay with you?" George shrugged in a 'beats me' sort of way.
"Sorry Fred."
"This is the end of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes."
The click of the lock sliding into place echoed through the dark empty chamber. A crack sounded through the door, and a lone armchair at the arched window that faced out over the barren store was the only thing that heard George apparate away, a green throw hanging off of it's armrest.
George opened his eyes to see the darkened Burrow.
Set against the cloudless night sky, countless stars glittering behind it like a shower of jewels sewn onto heaven, the copper haired young wizard breathed in the perfume of his childhood home deeply, memorizing it.
The change in his girth rustled the inner pockets of his cloak, causing the two glass tubes to clink together, bringing George out of his reverie.
Gently, he removed the vials from their hiding place and held them in the light of the full moon.
Inside, several strands of hair leaned against the edges of their respective containers, reflecting the night time shine on their narrow, lustrous surfaces.
George was finally ready. He had his last ingredients.
…
Hermione appeared on the back step of the Burrow with a loud crack. Wincing at her own thoughtlessness, Hermione whispered the Key, and opened the back door slowly. George was probably already asleep after all. Harry, Ron, and the rest of the Weasley clan were still at the Unity Game, watching the best of the best of the Eurasian Quidditch players play a marathon game on four integrated teams. Not surprisingly, George had opted out, despite his mother's repeated requests that he join them.
"A bit of air will do you good George."
"I'm just tuckered out mum. Don't think I'll make it through the game." Had been his excuse.
Hermione had not believed it for a second. Neither had Ron nor Harry, with whom she had exchanged looks behind the kitchen door, where the trio stood on a slight tilt, heads pointed towards the conversation.
"Tuckered out? Doing what? He's been sleeping for the entire summer." Ron hissed.
"He does leave on occasion." Harry pointed out. Hermione put a finger to her lips demanding that the two boys quiet down.
Peeling herself away from the entryway in slow, calculated steps, Hermione waved over Harry and her… boyfriend? Hermione tried not to let the thought show on her face as she watched Ron tip toeing across the soft living room rug to her, Harry trailing just behind.
"I think he's up to something." She announced once the trio were gathered in Ron's room. Plopping herself down on the edge of Ron's bed, she almost rose up instinctively when Ron lay himself down right behind her, one arm going around her waist to come to a rest on her lap.
"Please. He's lost all his steam to scheme since… you know." Tentatively, Hermione let her non-pointing hand rest on top of Ron's. Harry cleared his throat.
"Ron's right Hermione. What makes you think he's planning pranks now of all times?"
"Well, I never said prank now did I?" The boys fell silent for a moment. Ron raised himself up onto his elbows.
"What're you getting at Mione?" He demanded. Hermione could tell the red head was becoming heated just from the sound of his voice, which sounded at once curious and defensive. "You sayin George is getting in on dark stuff or what?"
"Ron. She didn't mean that… did you?" Hermione chose to focus on the unresponsive hand that she held in her's, taking it as a good sign that Ron had not retracted himself from her at the first sign of bad news. Not like he did for the entirety of June.
"I've just… he's been collecting things. Ingredients I think. For something. Something that takes time. Something…" She paused. "Something… he doesn't want any of us to know about."
Something that may have something to do with Fred, is what she had wanted to say. But Ron's hand had slipped from her's.
"You don't know what you're talking about." The bed bounced, steps were taken to the door.
"Mate-" It opened, and slammed shut. Harry sighed. "Hermione. He's just-"
"You don't have to play peacekeeper Harry. I know." Hermione wiped a tear that threatened to spill over with her hand. "He misses him too. I don't want to think that we're losing George too but…I don't know Harry. I just don't know."
Hermione stared up the dark stairway leading to the second story.
Who was she really, to make accusations about a boy she hardly knew? She was not his sister who had grown up with him, memorizing the meaning behind each of his mischievous grins or laughs. She was not his mother. She was not his brother who saw him everyday, through every hard time and mistake.
But she was willing to bet that when she opened this door, George would not be there, sleeping his exhaustion away, like he said he would be.
…
"George!"
George spun around. He was still alone, alone in the endless white room.
"Fred?" Fred, fred, fred, fred. His voice mocked him, bouncing back at him from every direction.
"George!" George jerked back towards the direction he came from.
"George!" George George George… a hooded black figure. George grabbed his chest. Thump thump. His heart beat like a hammer in an iron cell, the inertia of each swing curving his body, every impact feeling like a boulder dropping on his heart.
"Fred?" The figure in black did not respond. "Brother…FRED!" Fred fred fred fred…
George reached out and grasped the figure by its shoulder.
"Georgey?"
"GEORGE PLEASE WAKE UP!"
Ringlets of hair the color of syrup.
Droplets of warm, salty water fell on his face.
"Please! GEORGE! PLEASE!" Thump thump- George clutched his chest.
…
Was it time for school?
Why was it so dark?
It felt… heavy… on his chest.
George opened his eyes.
He heard her before he saw her, felt her small hand gripping his before he could remember her name.
"Hermione." The weight lifted abruptly. The sobbing stopped. Hermione's face appeared over his, shadowy and flickering like a candle.
"George! You're awake!"
"I'm alright."
"That remains to be seen." She held something in front of him. "THIS. This belongs to Fred doesn't it?"
…
"What was the Van Gogh Weasley doing at the shop?" Draco's hand fell back to the table, too disgusted to feed his treasonous mouth. 'THIS again', a part of him groaned. Sighing, the young Malfoy pushed himself away from the empty dining table, his food nearly untouched, and made his way to his bedchambers.
Sprawled across his cold, expensive sheets, Draco ran a long fingered hand through his already disheveled hair, the picture of frustration. Failing to calm himself via aggressive harassment of his hair follicles, Draco let his hand fall onto the mattress. It landed on fleece; green fleece that stood out in stark contrast among his fine silks and satin pillows.
Grabbing an angry fistful, Draco threw it to the ground.
He was a wankin Pervert, capital P, that's what he was.
Hours it's been since he spied George Weasley moping about his shop, emptying the place like he was looting it. Bloke looked like he was preparing to off himself the way he was looking at everything as if for the last time.
But WHY did that matter to Draco Malfoy?
"WHY?" he pondered angrily aloud. Isolated in the east wing of the manor, far from where Lucius and Narcissa were sequestered until the sentencing, Draco indulged his insanity.
Stalking moodily to his window, Draco glared at the round moon.
"Fuck you." He growled pointlessly. "Fuck you, you bloody sodding WEASLEYS." He wasn't even a damned student anymore damned damn damn it! Why must he still be haunted by the Weasels? Not even the usual pimpley Ronald either, but his brother? Why did even he, Draco Malfoy, remember someone who had probably never thought of him despite his family name, wealth, and pure-blooded, prestigious status?
Draco paced before his towering window, not looking in the direction of the patronizing moon with its open face and bright attitude. He didn't notice it growing brighter.
"Sodding George Weasley-" he snarled. The light focused itself in the center of the moon's spherical body.
"-sodding," it seemed to vibrate.
"-bloody," Malfoy paced back.
"-DEAD-" he turned on his heel.
"-FRED-" again.
"-DAMN-"
If one could attribute feelings to an illuminated body, one would have said that the brightness shuddering at the epicenter of the moon's face had been shaking with anticipation.
"WEASLEYwhat in Merlin's name is tha-"
Malfoy was asleep before his body hit the ground.
…
Hermione rocked back onto her heels and swiped hastily at her tear stained face with her free hand.
The twins' room was in shambles. More so than usual.
Hermione had not been inside since the summer after her fourth year, when she was asked by Molly to wake the boys. It had looked very different back then.
Fred's side of the room appeared untouched. The floor however, was a different story.
Covered in hundreds of parchments, notes, and ink stains, Hermione had barely been able to reach George's body after being forced to blast the door open.
Then there was the inscription on the floor. The Norwegian invocation circle she knew to be forbidden.
Dark magic.
Groaning, George massaged his shoulders. He was propped up against the side of his bed. He was certain that without its support, he would not have had the strength to stay remotely upright.
His entire body ached.
No, ached was putting it lightly.
He felt as if every muscle in his body had been ripped apart, one strip of fiber at a time, then hastily spellotaped back together. His eyes were barely starting to get adjusted to the meager light of the four candles that surrounded them. One had been blown out, his groggy mind noted.
His heart…
George dragged a hand across his torso to grasp at the area.
His ribs felt broken. Fractured by repeated attempts by small hands to revive him.
"What happened?" He mumbled. Hermione shot him the dirtiest look her hazel hued eyes could manage. He didn't see it.
""What. HAPPENED?"" She hissed. "Why don't you tell me WHAT HAPPENED George? Or do you not care to fill me in about your plans? Do you not care that I might have been the one to discover you dead?" The tears had started to fall again. "Tell me George! Do you not care that I would have had to tell your mother that… that…" Hermione's voice nearly screeched as her tirade came to a sudden halt, the dark truth suddenly soaking her through to the marrow of her bones.
George had been watching the floor the entire time. He did not once look at her face. He knew that even he could not keep this masked under a smile.
He was still here.
He was still himself.
He was still alone.
It didn't work.
It didn't work. It didn't work. It didn't work. "It didn't work."
Had he said that out loud?
Catching sight of a shard of the broken mirror between them, George caught of glimpse of Hermione's pained expression. She was a smart girl, that Hermione. Always has been.
He was the stupid one who hadn't noticed her watching him.
Blood magic. Invocation. Good byes. Full moon.
She had figured it all out.
Hermione leaned forward, closing the gap between her and the older Weasley.
George felt her come closer, felt the pity on her face without seeing it. He could feel the heat of her breath.
"Hermione don't." too late. She was next to him, pulling him into her shoulder. He couldn't stop himself from falling into her arms, he hadn't the strength.
So he stayed, head draped over Hermione's petite shoulders like a shawl. He just hadn't the strength.
"Oh George…" He closed his eyes.
It didn't work.
…
The sun rose. Draco saw the ceiling. He saw the sun. The brightness of it sent his head spinning.
He saw a field he had never been to. A smile he had never received. The sun shining on a hideous knit sweater. Red. So much red. Night time came, and with it, oblivion.
Draco Malfoy woke up like he had been shocked, laid out like a dry starfish under the beam of sunlight streaming in from his open window with a great red welt on his forehead.
Above, the gold lattice that bordered his high, domed ceiling glittered brightly. Too brightly.
"Bloody hell…" Draco choked on the dryness. His voice felt rasp, as if he had been screaming for days. "Water…" Had he been drinking? What happened?
Slowly, Draco pulled himself off the floor, eyes scrunched closed. His body felt like over stretched rubber.
With great effort, he searched the room blindly for a point of reference.
CRUNCH!
"OW! Fuck!" His eyes shot open, pupils narrowing in shock. "What the fuck?"
The glittering on the ceiling had not been from the gold lattice borders. It was sunlight reflecting off the thousands of pieces of broken glass on the ground, one upon which, Draco had just stepped.
Draco's own disoriented eye was peering back at him.
The mirror?
Faster than he should have, Draco spun to find the ornate antique mirror that covered a great portion of the west side wall.
The great Venetian frame was empty. Empty, save, for a piece of parchment tacked onto the exposed wall behind it. A piece of parchment upon which Draco could make out the angry words:
"WHY THE BLOODY FUCKING HELL DID I WAKE UP IN YOUR PALE BODY YOU SLIMEY GIT? AND WHY HAVE YOU GOT ME THROW FROM THE SHOP?
-F.W."
…
…
Author's Quibbles and Notes:
Hello and thank you for reading the first chapter of "Going Nowhere Fast"
If you are an old friend, you may notice that this story contains chunks from an earlier work of mine which was also called "Going Nowhere Fast", published around 2011.
This is because I have reimagined the same basic story line of George and Hermione going back to Hogwarts, but with a darker twist which includes Draco and Fred.
I hope you liked this version and will return for the rest of the story!
I would love to hear everyone's thoughts, criticisms, questions, hopes and dreams!
If you like it enough to follow it, please leave a review!
Until next time ,
JM
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