A sad little one-shot about George after the final battle. I was watching the last movie again and all the deaths bummed me out-so I wrote this.
Disclaimer: The characters and world belong to JK Rowling. If they had been mine, I would've kept Fred alive :(
Left
It took a while for any of them to notice George's new quirk. The war had only just ended a few months prior and their minds were still in that in between state, both happy for surviving the horrors of battle and grieving for their lost loved ones. They were all in a daze, unable to look back because of the pain and yet uncertain as to how they would go forward. Yet, they had to try.
To cope they leaned heavily on each other, latching onto whatever form of happiness or hope they could find and when that didn't work, vehement denial sufficed. During this period in which they could only focus on making it to the next day, they missed many of the little details. Their metaphorical blinders were in place and they were only looking ahead.
It was because of this unacknowledged, mutual agreement that it took weeks for them to notice what George was doing. Harry, who was much more accustomed to grief and loss, was the first to notice something wasn't right.
The first instance that piqued Harry's interest had occurred a week before, when they had all gathered for the weekly Sunday dinner at the Burrow. George had been talking about re-opening the joke shop, when he dropped his quill. Said quill had fluttered to the ground, landing benignly beside the redhead's left foot. Not pausing in his conversation or taking his eyes off of Harry, George held his hand out and silently called the quill back to him.
It seemed, at first, to be such an inconsequential thing. George was a wizard, who was comfortable enough with his own magic to do simple spells absentmindedly. Magic was simply second nature to him. It wasn't until the same wizard had dropped his quill a second time while gesticulating wildly that Harry paused.
The quill as it had done before, floated innocently to the ground, this time landing beside George's right foot. Instead of magically calling the quill back to him again, George instead bent over to pick it up manually.
Strange? Yes, but Harry paid it no mind, dismissing it as unimportant. What did it matter anyway how the wizard picked up a quill? Moment forgotten, Harry's blinders slid back into place.
A week later, Harry was once again at the Burrow. He was talking with Ron and Bill about the Chudley Cannons when out of the corner of his eye he saw Hermione slide onto the sofa beside George. Before she could say anything to him, George jumped up as if something bit him. He made some funny comment to Hermione, laughing with her, before he moved to another seat so the witch was to his right. Again, Harry dismissed it.
Had Harry not gone to visit Ginny at the Burrow that next Tuesday, he might have been able to completely wipe those two events from his memory. Perhaps if he had also not been late for his auror training that morning and thus have to stay a little later to appease his supervisor, he might have been able to hold onto his denial.
As it were, Harry was late for training that morning and unwilling to cancel his date with Ginny, rushed over to her house the minute he was able.
While running up the pathway to the crooked house, he accidently crashed into someone else sending them both to the ground with a loud, "oof!" Papers danced around them in the air.
"Ah mate, is this how you treat your elders?" George joked, sitting up carefully. The older wizard scrambled to his knees and began to gather up the papers in front of him and to his right.
"Sorry about that," Harry said, getting up to collect the few papers that had managed to fly far away from them. He brought the papers back to his friend. "Here you go-oh wait! You missed a couple there," Harry said pointing to two sheets that were off to the redhead's far left.
George's face scrunched up in confusion as he checked the ground again, patting at the dirt to his right. "Where?"
Not sure, if George was just messing with him or not, Harry shrugged, grabbing the papers and handing them over to the wizard.
"Oh! Duh! Thanks mate," George responded with a smile, getting up and heading back to the house. Harry stared after the wizard, uneasy and now suspicious.
Watching George became a new past time for Harry, and the more he observed the more worried he became. He noticed that the wizard would often veer away from anyone who came up on his left. He sat at the very end of the table now, so he only had to deal with the people sitting in front of him or to the right. Whenever someone sat to his left on the couch he would find an excuse to get up and relocate. When they were all talking in the group, his eyes would meet with everyone's except for whoever was standing to his left. If they tried to capture his attention despite his evasive maneuvers he managed to weasel his way out of the group.
Harry could only come to one conclusion: for whatever reason, George didn't want to turn left.
When Harry brought his concerns to the rest of the Weasleys he was met with skepticism. Admittedly, it was an odd quirk to have, but who didn't have odd habits after the war? Harry wasn't going to judge. After all, he had his own weird habits. For instance, every night before bed, he checked the wards around Grimmauld Place three times, before he was satisfied. Ron, he knew, couldn't sit still for five minutes anymore and Hermione was constantly checking her wrist watch for the time. They all became a little bizarre after the war.
So, despite their reservations, the family began watching George discreetly and thus found themselves just as puzzled at his behavior as Harry had been. No one could figure out why he was doing it. Was it trauma from the battle? A head injury? No one had an answer.
It wasn't until two weeks later that Hermione finally realized the reason George had been acting so strange. She was relaxing at the Weasley home, in the sitting room with Harry and Ron. For once she was not in the mood to read, and had instead wandered around the room, taking in all the moving photos of the family on the wall.
As she came upon a photo of the twins, she smiled sadly as she watched photo Fred sneak up beside photo George, startling him with a firecracker. George jumped two feet in the air before he grabbed his twin in headlock. Together the two boys, stopped fighting to look up and wave, before the photo looped back to the beginning.
Watching Fred sneak up beside his brother again, the answer to George's behavior finally dawned on her. Rushing to the other photos in the room that had the twins in them, she was able to confirm her suspicion.
Tears welled in her eyes, as she choked back a sob. Harry and Ron looked up at the sound, immediately concerned for their friend.
"Hermione, what's wrong?" Harry asked, bringing the witch into a comforting hug.
"I get it," she whispered against Harry's chest, "I get why he won't turn left."
"What?" Ron asked.
"George," Hermione clarified. "I understand why he wont turn left, now."
Surprised both boys looked at their friends expectantly. "Well?" They asked together.
Hermione pointed to a picture of the twins laughing beside her and answered sadly, "Fred was always on the left."
A/N: Kind of depressing, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. Let me know what you think, reviews are always welcome :)