Written for Round 4 of Season 2 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition as Beater 1 for the Falmouth Falcons.
Round 4: Beater 1s had to write a story that began and ended with the same adjective.
Prompts: (2) ground, (13) disaster
Word Count: ~1,200
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters herein and make no profit from this.
A/N: Title from the song Timshel by Mumford and Sons
.x.x.
Vibrant eyes stare up at George and he knows not what to make of them. They are young, innocent, mischievous. Just like another pair he remembers from a time in the distant past. A time he tries not to think about; a time he thinks about much too often.
"Uncle George, Uncle George! Come play with us!" she says, tugging on his arm.
He lets her pull him up, pull him through the kitchen and out the door.
The sound of children playing draws his attention. Hers, too. She takes off almost as soon as she's outside. He doesn't join them, though he has been invited. He can't bring himself to go. He smiles as she runs circles around her brothers and older cousins, dragging Hugo along after her, her laugh ringing, clear, freeing. She isn't letting her age be a disadvantage. To her, it's an advantage she has over everyone else.
She stops to look his way, to laugh, to point and wave. He waves back.
He takes a seat next to her mother, his sister.
"Gin," he says. Ginny is laughing as well. A part of him remembers a time when he too could laugh like that, when he was whole.
"George," Ginny says, tipping her glass at him. He catches a whiff of alcohol and raises an eyebrow at her.
"I need it to keep up with that daughter of mines sometimes," she offers as explanation. He laughs. Mum had needed it, too, he remembers, when it had been the two of them and not just him.
"So Ron tells me you've started a new project," she says. It's clearly a question and an accusation all rolled into one. What she really wants to know is why he hasn't stopped by for dinner last week. Or the week before. And maybe one or two weeks before that, too.
Why he hasn't told her this himself.
"Got the idea last Christmas," he says. He has no answer for her real questions—no answer he wants to tell his baby sister, anyway—and doesn't attempt it. "I've already a name for it,"—he pauses, watches her, waits for the moment—"Percy's Knitted Abominations."
She spits her drink out, a spray of his mother's punch laced with liquor. Her laugh is booming, surprising because you'd never expect it from the classy lady she's become. But Ginny is nothing if not unpredictable. And also the sister of six older brothers.
He smirks—a Fred and George classic at half power because he's only half of Fred-and-George.
"How are you going to get him to agree to that? Percy'll murder you," she says, taking deep breaths.
"He's my brother; I'm allowed some liberties," he says, then winks at her because he hasn't told Percy about it at all. Besides, Percy doesn't even know they've named his knitting and it's better if he never does—well, until his next product release that is.
"Make sure you don't tell him unless I'm there, all right? I need to see his reaction," she tells him and he swears he won't unless the whole family—kids and all—are present. He crosses his heart for good measure, his face blank. He has to bite his lip to keep from smiling when she starts laughing again.
.x.x.
He's sipping punch (unlaced because today is a good day and he'd rather not cry tonight) when she comes back—runs up to him, out of breath from playing. Hugo follows her and his eyes are as alive and gleaming as hers is.
They aren't twins, separated by months and days and two sets of parents, but it still reminds him.
She clutches his trouser leg and he clutches his other. They are friends, cousins—siblings in every way except the one he realises matters the least.
And they are not troubled by it.
"Can you play with us?" they ask almost in unison except her words rush out of her, loud and a little jumbled, while Hugo's are a little slower, more clear and precise.
He takes another long sip before he stands. Ginny has fallen asleep in the chaise, a blanket wrapped lightly around her that Harry brought out because the weather isn't quite warm enough to be sun bathing in.
"What're we playing?" George asks them because he hasn't really been paying attention to their game.
It's just them now: George, Hugo, and her. The others aren't there, gone before he's noticed.
He listens as they take turn explaining. He listens, but a part of him doesn't follow, too caught up in another time when he explained his own games and ideas with someone by his side.
She pauses, stops mid-sentence—mid-word—and Hugo looks at her, frowns, then follows her gaze to him. He looks back at them. She nods once, looks at him gravely, before they both raise their arms as if they want off the ground.
He smiles at them because he's sure he's heard her tell Harry she's too old to be picked up. This doesn't ever stop Harry and he realises perhaps she doesn't want him to stop, either.
He bends down, arms open, but never manages to pick them up. Before he has a chance to lift, they've both thrown their arms around him, squeezing him in a mostly awkward position making it hard for him to stand again.
If he squeezes them back and maybe lets one or two tears go, no one else knows.
.x.x.
She approaches him again after dinner. Her eyes shine as she leans in, waving him closer.
"Uncle George, Uncle George," she whispers as if she has a secret that she wants to share with no one but him.
He leans closer, to humour her.
"SURPRISE!" she shrieks, giggling.
Something hits him, a cloud of some sort. He sputters, trying to spit whatever it is out of his mouth. He tries to brush the stuff from his face so it doesn't end up in his eyes but they cling to him, to his face, his hands, his skin refusing to get off.
"Oh my god! Lily!" Ginny shouts as his own wife bursts into laughter.
He opens first one eye, then the other, and looks down at his youngest niece. Her hands are still in front of her, the glitter sticking to them the incriminating evidence. She doesn't look guilty; she's smiling. Mischievous. That's his niece.
And he laughs. Laughs long and hard. And when he does, she joins in, laughing like it's normal for her to see him laugh, like he laughs like this every day. And maybe he does sometimes when he's had a bit too much to drink and laughing seemed better than crying though crying always seemed to follow.
Finally, he hears everyone else laugh as well. The dissipation of a tension no one else will talk about, least of all him.
"She's a walking disaster, just like you and Fred," Ginny says, shaking her head.
And he thinks about his brother, his twin, his other self. Because he never not thinks about him.
It's Hugo who finally says it because she's too busy still laughing to do so, who finally walks up behind her, takes her hand like it's the most natural thing in the world, and tells George, "Happy Birthday." And it's from both of them, he knows.
He smiles at them because this—this—is how birthdays should be: alive with laughter and vibrant.