Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell. -Edna St. Vincent Millay

I woke up to the sound of a teacup clinking onto my nightstand. Immediately, my eyes flung open as I fumbled for the wand that was far from my side. It was this time, though, accidentally locked up in my trunk. Across the room. Far, far away, leaving me vulnerable in this most vulnerable of times.

This potential attacker, though, came not to kill but to bring tea. "Blueberry. One sugar. Splash of cream. Drink up," Angie ordered. "You haven't had anything to eat or drink since you got the news."

"M'not thirsty," I croaked, my voice giving away the lie. Rather, my throat felt raw and as cracked as untouched bar soap. I really could use the tea, and my stomach gurgled its discontent at a full day and a half without any food. "Or hungry. Let me sleep."

"It's after ten. Do you want to sleep the whole day away?"

I wanted to sleep my whole life away, and I think the look I gave her said as much.

Angie sank onto the bed next to me and soothingly brushed my hair off of my forehead. "Why don't you drink your tea here in bed while I make you up a bath, yeah? And while you clean up, Mum and I will fix you some bacon and toast."

I did not want to do any of that, but my body answered instead of my brain, so I found my head nodding instead of shaking. Angie gave me a soft smile with far too much pity in it, and she helped shift the pillows behind me so I could sit up. I grudgingly took the tea from her outstretched hands and drank up.

My morning ran on momentum. As much as I did not want to do anything, once I started, it was easy to keep going. Angie's list of tasks – drink tea, take a bath, eat breakfast – seemed dauntingly impossible as I lay in bed, but once I actually sat up and finished my delicious tea, I found that the bathroom was not that far away. The warm water helped wash some of the fuzz from my mind, although it could not completely snap out of the fog the past few days had filled me with. And, I had to admit, it felt awfully good to have clean hair. Smelling of lavender and vanilla, toweled off and dressed in some clean muggle jeans and George's sweater, my stomach grumbled so loudly that I had no choice but to follow Angie next door to her parents' house for breakfast.

Her mother, bless her, kept conversation light as I mechanically chewed and swallowed and chewed and swallowed. She talked about how the muggles were upset over the poor response of the street plows in the last snow storm. They were predicting another in a few days' time, and the whole street bemoaned another day of being forced to call off work because the school bus could not pick up the kids and their little cars could not conquer the snow. The Hanovers were moving to Cardiff, poor things, because of Mr. Hanover's job. The price of milk went up again. Turtlenecks were quite the fashion item this winter, especially in colors like turquoise and hot pink.

I really didn't care. But, Merlin, I was so glad she kept talking. Otherwise, we would have just sat there in silence as I chewed and swallowed and chewed and swallowed, because everyone knew I had nothing to say.

What was I supposed to talk about? "Oh! Did I tell you how my boyfriend left me because I told him his twin brother and I are going to be killed but slipped a potion in his tea so he wouldn't remember, but a blow to the head made him remember anyway? That was brill! And, then, guess what? My mum was murdered. And I have to clean up the place. I don't know what to do with all her things. I can't sell it all. It's hers. I don't want or need any of it, but how can I give it to perfect strangers? What am I supposed to do with it all? I can't let it sit in that big old ruined house. I can't get rid of it. I can't ask George. What do I do? Do you know what to do?"

So, I listened to the neighborhood gossip. I ate my bacon, spread jam on my toast, had some more tea (not blueberry this time, but still good). I offered to help clean up, but Mrs. Johnson refused. I pretended not to see the looks passed between my best friend and her mother during the silences of our half-hearted conversation. I did not need to acknowledge their pity. I knew it was there. Poor Mel. All she's been through. It's a wonder she can even stand. And George, not even here to help her. What could have happened, d'you think? To set him off like this. Poor Mel. Poor dear. So fragile to begin with. Hasn't been quite right since Cedric died, and now all this. It's a wonder…

I found that the Johnsons' house felt just as suffocating as my mother's, and I much preferred a house that felt of death to one that reeked of pity. Death, that I Knew. That was sort of my thing at this point. I could handle it because I knew I could not change it. The dead could not be brought back; Death could not be removed from the air. The dead could not be changed. Pity came from the living, and the living could always be changed. You could grab the living, shake them, yell at them, scream, tell them to stop, beg them. But the worst part of pity is that your best efforts only made it worse. The more you tried to prove you did not need it, the more of it you got. Look at how strong she's trying to be. Poor thing. Feels like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. No one should have to deal with so much, so young. Poor thing. You couldn't escape it. Like a disease.

But, the house did not help. Angie spent last night working some wonderful magic to clean up downstairs so it looked as if nothing ever happened there, but I saw the blood on the floor even though it was gone, saw the splintered wood where there stood a pristinely repaired one. The kitchen looked spotless, although there was absolutely no furniture in it. We would have to buy new appliances before I could sell the house. I had to do that, of course. I could not keep it. I could never be here again.

"Oh, Mum," I breathed, standing in The Spot in the middle of the gutted kitchen.

I felt him before I saw him, knowing that someone stood behind me, changing the feel of the air around me in the way only he could. I would have run to him, but so much had changed in the last two days that I was no longer sure I was allowed to do that, so I stayed put.

Truth be told, I wanted to be mad at him. I wanted to be furious that he never even tried to see my side of it and condemned me so strongly that I hated myself for it. After all, the idea had enough merit to it that I did decided telling him about Fred and my fates but not letting him remember was worth doing. There was a reason for it, and I knew it had to be strong for me to act on it. If only I could remember why. And I wanted to hate him for making me feel the way he did, so broken and alone.

I couldn't.

I could only be mad at myself. I could only hate myself. I could only miss him and wish he was here to tell me I could get through this and help me figure out what to do next and hold me so I could finally cry.

"Mellie."

The sound of his voice, strong and so familiar, filling the silence was too much for me. I had to squeeze my eyes shut against a spell of light-headedness brought on by all the changes around me – George back, the kitchen empty, Mum gone. Suddenly, eating all that food seemed like such a terrible idea. There was a very strong chance it would just end up right on the floor.

Knowing I was completely overwhelmed, George cleared across the kitchen and caught my waist, engulfing me from behind. I immediately spun in his grasp and buried my face in his chest, and let my hands roam his back to make sure he was there. I needed to feel him, feel how solid and human and alive he was, to be sure he was really there. After a deep breath that filled my nose with his scent, which his old sweater could only barely compensate for, I let out a garbled sob and sank into him. To support me and keep me standing, he squeezed my waist even tighter to the point of bordering on uncomfortable, but I did not mind. I liked the bit of pain, the constricted airflow, because at least I could feel something. And with George there, holding me up, rocking me slowly back and forth as my knees refused to keep my legs straight, I felt so much. I felt everything.

"I'm so sorry," I heard him murmur. Whether he was sorry for leaving or for fighting or for what happened to my mother, I didn't know and I didn't care. He was finally with me, and that was all that mattered.

"I-I…" I tried, but there were too many things to say and no way for me to calm enough to say anything. I love you, I'm sorry, I can't bear for you to ever leave me again, I understand if you still hate me, I miss her so much, I think my heart is actually physically broken, I am so glad you're here.

"Shhhh," he hushed. He planted a soft kiss on my temple and then pressed his cheek to that spot. "It's all right. I'm here. I love you. I'm not going anywhere. Everything's all right."

Very few things were all right. My mother was dead. The Carrows knew I was alive and were probably actively searching for me, or at least had plans to kill me if we ever crossed paths. I had a funeral to arrange and a house to pack up and sell. I couldn't even remember the last time I told her that I loved her.

At least one thing was all right, though. George was there, and, as he said, he was not going anywhere. He still loved me. He forgave me. Knowing that, I could get through this. Knowing that, I could get through anything.

FGFGFGFGFGFGFGFGFGFGFGFGFGFG

My mother, it turned out, had very few friends due to her life of seclusion. In fact, she had two. And that, perhaps, hurt more than her actual death. Knowing that there were so few people to remember her. Her funeral mainly consisted of people coming for me, not for her. The Weasleys came, of course, making up most of the crowd around the hole in the ground that looked simultaneously much too big for such a small woman and much too small to contain an entire life. Ron could not make it, of course, and Percy wasn't there, either, but the rest of the family was, including Fleur. Angie stood by Fred's side, her parents next to her. Our core group of the Order – Moody and Lupin and Tonks and Kingsley – also came.

The rest, I admit, surprised me. I was not aware of the story in the Daily Prophet, since I stayed fairly secluded in the days following my mother's death, but word spread in the wizarding world, as word often does. Katie and Alicia and Cho sent flowers since they could not get time away from school. Some of my fellow Ravenclaw alum showed up, Bradley and Chambers standing side-by-side as they had in their Hogwarts days with their hair combed and their faces uncharacteristically somber; I was not used to seeing them doing anything other than laughing or tearing down the Quidditch pitch. Roger Davies came, too, and stood with them since he knew precious few others.

Perhaps the most surprising attendants, though, stood not far from me as I watched my mother's casket get lowered into that massively small hole. Amos Diggory stood with his arm around his wife, a small beacon of strength in this day of confusion. Yes, George kept my hand firmly clamped in his, tightening his grip when my hand wavered or a fresh round of tears began, but there was only so much a man who had never lost a loved one could do. The Diggorys, though, understood. They knew what this moment was like, the burial of one taken long before the proper time, taken violently and senselessly for knowing the wrong person and being in the wrong place. So, having them there gave me something no one else could.

Hope.

Hope that this would get better. Hope that this had to get better. Not just the pain, but the world, because how many people could suffer like this before something had to give?


Sorry for the delay, everyone! School is…ugh, well, it's school. Papers and reading (so…much…reading…) and work and yuck. I don't have a title for the next chapter yet, either, so sorry I can't give you that right now. Thank you all for the wonderful reviews, and the angst will let up soon. This isn't going to be one massive downer, honest!