a/n: thanks to all reviewers, and if you're reading, i'd love a line to let me know what you think. enjoy- timeline wise, the first piece is end of the first year (march), this is shortly into the second year without fred (approx. august)
II.
One night he headed for Grimmauld Place, hurting for food and family but not enough to burrow to the root of it. Ron'd insisted he take the night off and that he'd close up, and had extended an invitation to Harry's. Harry probably was unaware of this, but worst case scenario he was interrupting a highly romantic double date with candelabras and singing dwarfs. George actually hoped so, it would make gate-crashing even more distractingly entertaining.
He'd always liked Harry. Doubted he could cook, though. He thought longingly of his mother's cooking but reaffirmed his destination with a thought of her teary-eyed lip-trembling in his direction amid the strawberry shortcake last time he'd gone home for dinner.
Besides, Mum'd only fuss since he'd gotten the eyebrow blown off a few hours back, forgetting he had to watch his own left side, when skittering around a brawl in Green Dragon Tavern.
It was much easier to stay in London, away from home cooking and gnome gardens and corners where a young Fred and George could come reeling round the bend out of memory, smelling of sulfur and howling with laughter.
He walked in the unlocked door when he got no answer at the doorbell and nearly jumped out of his skin. Something small was moving very quickly across the floor. "Whoa! What's that, a dog or a cat or something?" he asked loudly, shaking it off.
Andromeda Tonks shot him a particularly nasty look that reminded George incredibly of Narcissa Malfoy.
He realized, then, that Teddy Lupin was crawling at a practically surreal speed across Harry's plush new carpet.
Harry was glad to welcome him, though Ginny wasn't there as he'd half-expected. Hermione was visiting, clutching a book on child care, and Neville as well, who greeted George to his shock with a surprisingly strong bear hug. He'd been at Mungo's earlier and seemed strangely protective of everyone.
The baby- toddler, really, who could walk too but did so under protest- was there for the night.
Upon his arrival, Andromeda looked even more nervous about letting Teddy stay while she dealt with a "personal matter". Neville, mouthing across the room, either suggested he provide Teddy with 'toys' or informed George it had to do with the 'Malfoys'. He assumed the latter but nevertheless produced a Nicely Nibbling Teacup from his left robe pocket, which made Teddy giggle with delight (hair bubbling to his mother's bubblegum pink) as it gnawed gently on his chubby little toes. George pretended her nerve-wracked gaze wasn't taking in his missing ear and recently scorched brow with motherly concern.
He let it slide without comment. Tonks' mother was clearly ill at ease in the house of her forbearers, even though Harry'd remodeled. He'd expanded the hallway by having Ron demolish the walls and Hermione remove them, preserving the pieces with Permanently Stuck heads of Kreacher's predecessors and entrusting them to him somewhere where they were a bit less in one's face.
Hermione, patching up George's eyebrow, began to loudly voice concerns the moment she'd assured Andromeda out the door. Granger seemed unlikely to leave anytime soon.
"I was entrusted with the fate of the wizarding world, and you don't trust me with my godson?" Harry finally exclaimed, exasperated.
Hermione sized him up, hands on her hips. She pursed her lips. Then she trained her eyes on Teddy, who was at Neville's startled feet like a small Crup, chewing on one of his shoelaces. Neville could not have been wider-eyed or more immobile if she'd Petrified him. Teddy's nose scrunched smaller in size by a good few inches as he apparently found the taste unpleasant. "No," she said, quite certainly.
George smirked, but it changed to something like awe as Teddy headed off for new ground at progressively increasing speed. "Say, Harry," he asked curiously, mentally ticking off seconds and gauging the distance. "Got your watch on you?"
Ron arrived after store hours, trying to be grumpy because he hadn't had anything to eat and they'd forgotten about eating in favor of timing the boundless Teddy. He perked up to tease Hermione for canceling dinner plans for another bloke- namely, one with currently teal hair rainbowing up to indigo.
Under Ron's encouragement, they took turns attempting to cook in the wizarding fashion, because the Grimmauld kitchen was never intended for Muggle cooking, the way both Hermione and Harry were familiar with. Ron, George, and Neville were still somewhat unaccustomed to feeding themselves. Neville had wondered why Kreacher wasn't cooking, but Hermione hurriedly suggested otherwise. The house-elf was apparently slipping in his age, and despite his bright intentions, eating his constructs was not really in their stomachs' best welfare at the moment.
No one suggested George cook. They'd learned long ago not to take any food he offered, especially when his eyes glittered. There was a certain luster to them tonight, certainly, though he owed that to earlier in the evening.
Hermione, when she tried, produced a perfectly formed and completely alive fowl. She shrieked and hollered too much for George's good ear when Ron tried to subtly sneak a knife from the multitude of sharp skewers leftover from the Black years.
The chicken got away, disappearing somewhere into Number 11 Grimmauld.
She was equally unamused when George suggested feeding the grey lump Ron managed to conjure to Kreacher. Harry was too busy giving the baby a bottle, tickled he'd actually taken it and obsessing over its temperature worse than Hermione, to pay any attention. "He likes me," he repeated, in rapture, lifting Teddy to watch his eyes go emerald green when they met his own.
Clearly, he was useless.
"You give it a go, Neville," encouraged Ron, who seemed completely unaware he was licking his chops.
He looked dubious, but followed suit. "Comeditus," he tried uncertainly, although the charm was really meant to be non-verbal, and a turkey of no great size- but with a fantastic smell- sprouted.
It was both very well done and decidedly dead, so its edibility was agreed upon and they dug in.
Immediately it was apparent the meat was neither turkey nor particularly appetizing. Nor necessarily actual meat. The gristle took some chewing, but it grew on George.
"Eight and two-thirds seconds," Harry noted on Fabian Prewett's watch as Teddy zoomed under the table.
George's youngest brother was thoroughly absorbed by his speed, as he was seeing it for the first time. "We should buy him a broomstick," he advanced.
"Yeah!" said Harry, sitting bolt upright.
"Harry!" cried Hermione, scandalized.
"In a few more months," he added. "Did Lupin or Tonks play at all?"
They looked around at each other, realizing none of them had any idea, unfamiliar with that chapter in the histories of their friends. The silence was uncomfortable.
George coughed. "Well," he offered limply. "If he takes after his mother, I'd give him a couple years to stay up on it before you start plotting to have him play for England…"
Harry, with Seeker reflexes, snatched up the little Lupin as he scurried from underneath his godfather's chair. He was making for the pretty red light in the fireplace.
"He's a very coordinated crawler," Neville offered, shrugging. Then he grinned. "According to Gran, though, so was I."
They all cracked up, except Teddy, who hiccuped. Hermione's laughter turned quickly into cooing. She made to get up to grab him, but Ron beat her there, scooping up the baby with an almost calamitous casualness and swinging him around while making a whooshing broomstick noise.
George and Hermione watched for the inevitable thud, one with anticipation and one with trepidation.
However, he didn't drop him, merely swiveled him about. George, finding himself disturbingly disappointed, turned back to his food as Ron held Teddy up to scrutinize at arm's length. "Harry, you know, with the hair black like that, he looks like Padfoot a little."
George choked on his tofurkey. Harry had to leap up and clap him on the back.
Hermione paid no attention, clucking disapproval. "Honestly, Ron-"
"I don't mean as a dog!" he protested. Teddy had been treated like something small and fluffy a few too many times that night.
"I should think-" Hermione tutted.
"Alright, mate?" asked Harry quietly.
He reached for a glass of water and drained it. George cleared his throat a few times. "I'll live."
Dinner progressed more smoothly when Neville changed the topic, asking if anyone had heard from Luna since she went traveling, opting not to write for the Quibbler after school. From her letters, it sounded as if she was looking into Hairy MacBoons, which everyone else generally called Quintapeds or the 'horrible furry things with five legs and the nasty gnashing teeth'.
They sincerely hoped she'd be back, and intact, but since Luna had insisted she wouldn't return until she'd found her nargles…
George, however, had fallen into a brood and was entirely unconscious to the topic of discussion, which left Hermione casting worried glances at him and Ron trying to provoke a reaction by making unnoticed faces at him. The two of them were the first to leave, despite Hermione's earlier protestations of leaving Teddy alone with Harry. They headed out the door, Ron making bombast good-byes to Harry and Hermione struggling to keep her composure and finish her conversation with Ron's other hand tangled comfortably into her hair and easing her out the door.
"See," George whispered to Neville, winking knowingly though he felt blank inside. "They're in that phase of the relationship."
He stuck his fork in the mashed potatoes forcefully when Longbottom wasn't looking, twisting it with satisfaction until it scratched violently against the plate and both Harry and Neville turned to stare.
Teddy burst into tears.
"I'm getting a drink," George announced, as he remembered where Sirius had hid the firewhiskey Remus hadn't taken from him.
Harry's green eyes flickered to him, then back to Teddy, before nodding assent.
"Neville?" the Weasley twin asked.
"Aah," said Neville uncertainly, as he was Apparating home.
"No," George assured him, "it won't turn you into a big yellow bird. It could make you think you're one… Butterbeer?"
"Yes, please," said Longbottom, with relief.
He knew better than to ask Harry, but George tripped his way hurriedly into the kitchen and poured a deep glass for himself. Considering, he drew his wand and cast it back into the bottle, and seized the bottle instead.
He tossed the butterbeer at Neville, who fumblingly caught it, triumphantly saving it from shattering on the floor. It was a surprisingly good catch, as George had intended him to miss.
Closing his eyes, he slugged three mouthfuls back. The firewhiskey burned its way down his throat, bursting behind his eyelids like a Whiz-Bang gone awry.
Neville and Harry kept talking but their voices slunk away from his ear, Snitches moving too fast to catch on his beat-up old broomstick.
He loved his broomstick, that Cleansweep Five, and Fred's too, since they traded off plenty. They had a couple bendy old Shooting Stars of Perkins' from Dad's office to practice on after outgrowing their toy broomsticks, but when the two of them went off to Hogwarts they understood for the first time where they fit in, wearing Percy's outgrown robes that were too tight and Charlie's that fell short. They knew what it would take to make the team second year, because Charlie was phenomenal but at the worst of times could be outstripped by a better broomstick. They'd scrimped for them, selling their Christmas gifts from Aunt Muriel and overcharging their year-mates for butterbeer and sweets they'd pick up in Hogsmeade whenever they felt like it. They would never have afforded them by themselves, but they came up with enough for half of one. Charlie would have left them his, but they begged and pleaded and reminded him broomsticks were wood and dragons breathed fire. He gave them the money for his new broomstick, because Quidditch was already his past and their future. From there it was more imitating Percy, in the best of ways, and polite, carefully timed requests, and Mr. Weasley caved and bought a broomstick.
…Harry and Neville were muttering something, asking him something. He nodded, smiled, and mulled over the firewhiskey, which on second thought he took another swig of…
They bought the other, and marched their way onto the Hogwarts Express clutching them, like half the other second years relieved to finally bring their broomsticks to school.
Fred had gleefully spun a tale to Lee, Angelina and Kenneth Towler, of their daring escapade across Ottery St. Catchpole's quiet skies which sounded more like a zoom above an airport.
George'd thrown in the hot air balloon.
Fred had added they'd popped it-
-but still managed to save the Muggles-
- Muggle women, Fred hastily dashed in zestily-
-before they hit the ground-
-well, I should hope so-
Angelina'd interrupted then, to ask with a skeptical eye, how they'd wiped the Muggles' memories.
George, as usual, had looked to Fred, hopefully imperceptibly.
Why, they'd fainted, Fred'd said easily, and proceeded to swoon into his brother's waiting arms.
He missed-
"George!" Harry half-bellowed, his emerald eyes flaring. He was in George's face, having risen from his chair in concern after his friend had proceeded to drain the bottle in a go or two.
He blinked furiously, absorbing their sincere and concerned looks.
George swallowed and set the bottle down, spinning and teetering on the tabletop.
He needed to say something funny, but Fred wasn't there to give him his cue. "Whoops," he said, laughing nervously. "Think Sirius' – or should I say Padfoot's- stash malted too-" He stopped, the pity in the back of their eyes too much. "Y'know, mates, I'd best shove off-" He stopped, wondering why his feet weren't on the ground.
"Hang on to Teddy," Harry said to Neville casually, plopping the baby on his lap.
George realized then the chair was tipped back onto its hind legs, and slammed it and himself forward with a thud. He pushed himself up, waving Harry off, but his friend- brother's friend, he corrected- gripped his arm in the stern, friendly way he and Forge had grabbed Percy on a Christmas a long time ago.
He thought Harry would take him to the porch outside, into the Muggle world, and see him safely home. Or worse, call his Mum, who would cry.
Instead he walked him up the stairs, tugging him and threatening under his breath to float him along if he didn't come quietly. Soon enough they were at a room George had not entered the summer he stayed there.
His vision blurred, and he was suddenly seated on a bed, staring at the not-jiggling breasts of a still girl in a bikini that had probably been a vibrant pink before the poster started to fade.
Harry's hands were clasped behind his back, facing away from George. He followed his gaze with a frown as Harry sighed and sat down next to him.
There was a picture of four boys tacked high on the wall. One looked like Harry, one looked like Lupin before life had a few cracks at him.
One was handsome in a way that would have made Alicia Spinnet and Katie Bell giggle desperately and Fred roll his eyes at him. He recognized the smirk from the vestige he had known as Sirius Black.
The other boy, he'd never seen before in his life.
"That's my dad," Harry said quietly, pointing, as if George was blind, not half-deaf, and couldn't tell.
He grinned, slightly, when he saw George's pained expression. "I've been told I resemble him slightly. Once or twice."
"Thrice, maybe," George suggested weakly, throbbing. "So," he said conversationally, or what he hoped sounded as much. "That's them, then. In the-" Not flesh, he decided. "Moving print?"
"The Marauders." Harry's voice was a study in melancholy, wistfulness, and faint reproach.
"Flashy," George agreed with nobody. "We did alright with 'Weasley', but then they didn't have the-" He struggled, having planned something nifty to say there but lost it in its slow path from his mind to boggy tongue.
"No," Harry said slowly, scratching his head absently. "They weren't brothers by blood."
Rubbing blood into his face, George stared at the long-gone boys, some of whom he'd known as men. He studied the lineless faces, the twinkles in the eight eyes, the broad grin of trouble he knew too well.
"I always figured you knew," the young man who had been a boy who lived muttered abashedly, self-critically.
"Nah," George dismissed, trying to brush easily at the air and whacking Harry's ear instead. He frowned judgmentally at his misbehaving hand. "Busy. Gathering doxy dung, whatnot, sneaking round Mad-Eye- tell yah what, I'd a been a bit more willing to sing along with poor ol' Sirius on 'House Elf, Go A-Wassailing' if- I- wow." He considered the picture and Harry's studiously calm features. "We were thick." Moony the werewolf, Padfoot the big black dog galloping around Grimmauld, the number of times they'd seen Harry's Patronus in DA meetings…
"Ron never told you?"
"Maybe tried. We don't listen to him much," he said listlessly. "I do now," he amended, voice slipping in decibel to almost nothing.
He had always thought of the Marauders as part of a distant past, long old or dead. Fat and happy with small grandchildren whose teddy bears they regularly turned into spiders, for gits and shiggles. Possibly part owners of Zonko's.
This was positively depressing.
"Who's the fat kid?" he asked abruptly, with a sick feeling that wasn't from the alcohol.
"Worm-" Harry interrupted himself, under George's continued 'painfully obvious' look. Harry's jaw clenched itself, and his wand hand flexed unconsciously. "Peter Pettigrew."
The real Secret Keeper who Sirius Black had supposedly killed. Mum had explained that, back in the 'why we're going to stay in the house of a mass murderer' period.
"Scabbers," Harry elaborated, under his look. George frantically rubbed at his face again. "You really didn't listen to Ron much," Harry said, amazed.
Percy had been displeased over the fate of his old pet, which they had all been certain of. "Crookshanks ate him," George said weakly, bewildered, and vaguely tried to listen as Harry began talking, his firm, business voice something solid to grasp beside from the grinning faces of four boys as dead as Fred.
Harry had taken a lot for granted, but pieces rang familiar as elements he knew clicked with what he didn't. Apparently neither Ron nor Dumbledore particularly wanted to inform the family Weasley they'd housed for more than twelve years a Death Eater responsible for the return of Voldemort as well as, directly, the deaths of Harry's parents. George wished he'd known, even so.
He put his head in his hands, because it was very heavy and the alternative would be to cry in front of Harry Potter. Which would feel darn stupid.
"They could have told us how they made the map," he found himself moaning. "Y'know how much we could make selling copies?"
Harry half-jumped from the bed in surprise, then broke into a choking laughter that died when George snorted into his hands.
"Wish he-"
"He knows," Harry assured him immediately, because he too was getting desperately nervous about George crying in front of him. "Lupin maybe, or Sirius- possibly my dad- one of them'd have broken it to him-"
He was sitting up at once. George was staring holes into him, expression fevered.
Harry stammered. "I did die," he offered at last, throat trembling. "They're still there."
George looked away for a long minute, finally locking his eyes with Sirius Black's photographic ones to avoid Harry's examination. He bit the inside of his lower lip to keep it from trembling. "He's not here."
Harry grasped his wrist, then his hand as if they were about to arm wrestle. At last George met his gaze. He felt very drunk and deeper, lost, but Harry Potter has become the sort of man who could anchor quite a lot of trouble. "George," he said seriously. "There will be no hurling yourself in any lakes, as you'll probably get chucked back out by giant squid anyhow."
He chuckled, warily. "Fred'd be the one getting soaked. He had the flair."
"So do you, mate," said Harry, with a wavering grin.
"Is this," said George wearily, sliding his arm free, "the part where you say I'll be alright?"
"No," his friend replied, earnestly solemn this time as he lept to his feet. Harry was a pacer, he looked poised to get started. "I hope you'll be, but… that's up to you, George." The twin did a confused double-take as Harry's eyes flicked to the young Marauders, Sirius in particular. "I can't tell you what Fred'd want you to do, but you'd know, I reckon."
The worst part is that he doesn't, really. Because they weren't the same person, not really, because he and Fred endlessly surprised and surpassed each other. He can't finish his own sentences, because he can only guess- though he's probably right- what Fred would say.
"I still think we could do with more laughs in the world," Harry said. "And as far as I knew him, I think Fred would say the same."
George nodded, weary. He was trying. It was hard.
He gathered, from his expression, that Harry got that. "I hope you don't mind staying here," Potter offered after a silence. "Neville'll want to be getting home, and I'm no great hand at Side-Along Apparition. I think it goes without saying you won't be Apparating or Flooing home from my house."
Home. Funny thing. He decided to pretend he hadn't noticed Harry pocketing his own trusty, prank-friendly wand, until morning, at any rate. "Wouldn't want to lose another ear," he said off-hand, flopping on the bed, which was lumpy. Harry Potter stifled a laugh.
"Promise me," said George without looking up, "I won't wake up to find my sister wandering around here in her nightie."
"Promise," said Harry, resolving to insure Ginny knew not to swing by after the team meeting after all and hoping she wasn't already downstairs chatting with Neville. Kicking her out for her brother would be awkward, but it was an honor code, sort of, though he supposed he could get around the wording of it… "G'night, George."
"Night, Harry."
The door closed behind him with a resounding click. George thought he might get under the covers, but his head was muzzy and limbs leaden, so he stayed where he was.
He didn't know how long he stared at the ceiling, watching James Potter mess up his hair and glance outside the photograph and Remus Lupin silently laugh as George had never seen him laugh in life, not with Sirius around Grimmauld, not with Tonks.
Of course he might not have been looking.
Sirius Black ruffled Pettigrew's hair and beamed at him, or whoever was taking the picture.
George tried not to think of Colin Creevey, and Dennis with his forlorn eyes.
Instead he focused on the Marauder's Map, their first year at Hogwarts, the handwriting of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs scrolling across the bit of old parchment and remembered how Fred had crowed in delight, and how the two of them had done a jig atop of the sleeping Lee Jordan in the middle of the night.
He'd cursed them silly, naturally, but the boils faded, while the delight hadn't. Ever.
At last he forced himself to his feet to flick off the aching light, then collapsed onto the stiff old mattress.
Ignoring his burning eyes, he laughed himself to sleep.