A/N: Quidditch League Season Four – Seeker (Wasps) – Prompt: Each prompt is a quote that is widely associated with one particular character, but it's your job to make somebody else say it in your story.
SEEKER: "I did my waiting! Twelve years of it." - Sirius
George packed away the last box and waved his wand to lock the front of the shop. It was so cold outside that the windows were frosted over, and all that could be seen outside were the occasional drifting pieces of snow against the darkness.
He extinguished the candles and turned away.
The creaking of the stairs was something he had never gotten used to, and yet, he had only noticed it after Fred was gone. When the two of them had bounded down the stairs in the morning, the persistent creaks and groans of the wood had been drowned out by the sound of laughter. There was still plenty of laughter in the shop, but to George it sounded muted, like he was standing on one side of a cage of glass, peering through.
He pulled open the door to the tiny flat, waved his wand in the direction of the kettle, and sat down at the kitchen table. A clock ticked in the background, and somewhere outside his window the crooning notes of Muggle jazz were being played on a curious Wizard's gramophone.
What about a gramophone that turns you into a flamenco dancer?
The memory of Fred's laughter echoed through the silent room, rattling doors and shattering windows until George had to cover his ears with his hands and rest his head on the table until it faded away. He let his hands fall away, but stayed with his forehead pressed against the wood while the doors and windows stilled and glass that had never been broken reformed its shape.
It didn't get any easier. Years passed, and George felt more and more like he was trading in the currency of laughter. Day after day he sold more of the remaining pieces of Fred – the jokes and gags they had created together – and in return his patrons paid him with laughter. They told him jokes and squealed with delight at the many strange contraptions he presented them with, but no matter how much they paid him, he couldn't seem to find enough left over for himself.
Molly had spelled a tiny wooden owl to sit on top of the clock and talk to him when he was lonely. He didn't know if she had meant to make it so personal, or if she had slipped up when making the spell and accidentally poured all of her love and concern into the tiny thing. It would speak to him and tell him all the things she kept inside, everything she wanted to say to him.
For the first week it wouldn't shut up, so he took a whole roll of spellotape and tied its beak shut.
Quietly, he stood up from his chair and walked over to lift the tiny bird down from clock. He used his wand to make an incision in the spellotape, and the bird broke free with a gasp.
"George, darling, your father and I love you so very much."
His fingers clenched around the bird, and he stood very still.
"We barely see you these days. Please come over for dinner?"
He picked up a new roll of spellotape and began to unwind it. The bird squeaked in alarm.
"No! George, I know you don't want to hear it, but things will get better! Time will pass and you'll feel alive again. I know it feels like you won't, like you can't, but it will happen. You just have to give it time; you just have to wait."
George hurled the bird across the room and watched it shatter into pieces against the wall.
What about a cockroach cluster that makes you shatter into a million cockroaches?
Fred, that sounds ridiculous. What if part of you ran away before you transformed back?
Then you'd just have to run around after your missing fingers. Keep your friends fit as a fiddle as they chase after the perfect body – their own!
A pause.
No?
No.
It had been nearly twelve years, and George hadn't created anything new, hadn't researched any new spells. Their stock had dried up, and it was only thanks to Ron that existing orders were replaced. The shop slowly gathered dust, and the expressions on his patron's faces faded from barely contained excitement to poorly concealed pity. The laughter was strained, costing them more and more each time, and the children no longer raced eagerly inside, but dragged their parents back out the door, cringing in embarrassment at the sight of the worn, dated shop.
"Time will pass." The words were whispered in more of a wheeze than anything else, forced out of spelled lungs that were quickly losing their potency.
"Time," hissed the bird, "time, time."
There was one thing that George had researched. As far as he figured, an Unforgivable Curse was only unforgivable if it had a victim. And if anyone thought to counter him on that, it wasn't exactly as though he would be around for the consequences.
"George!" the bird pleaded, its voice fading until the spelled chirping tone was unrecognisable, and all he could hear was his mother calling to him. "Just... have to... time..."
He leaped to his feet with a strangled cry, upturning the table as he went and pointing his wand straight at the mangled bird.
"Just... wait..." it whispered, just before he blasted it into a charcoaled lump on the kitchen floor.
"I did my waiting!" he cried, turning away from the cold night outside that seemed like it would never end. "Twelve years of it."
And he turned the wand around.