Except everything you had: Jo

Love is a Battlefield Chapter 51

Of course my Patronus was a canary.

"Maybe we should have charged you for that Cream," Fred remarked. "You've gotten a serious amount of life direction out of it."

"I was under the impression I was doing you a favor by being a test subject," I shot back. Fred and George were all smiles as my Patronus flew about. I pointed my wand at George's head to see if it would go that way, and to my delight it did, settling on his head in a flutter of tiny shimmering wings.

"Aw, her Patronus likes you, Gred. We can put that in the wedding invitations."

"I quite like him too," I smirked, tilting my head at George's rapidly reddening face. George still turned into a blushing schoolboy when it came to public affections and teasing—it was only when we were alone that I actually had to work to for it. "Maybe we should get Colin to take a picture. The canary's started to preen," I continued. "Maybe it'll set up a nest."

George was about the color of a turnip when Harry came to his rescue. "Congrats on the Patronus, Jo," he said. His green eyes flicked between the Twins. "How are you two come along?"

In an instant, the twin act was back. The boys closed the distance between them, taking each other arm in arm. I had noticed before that the Twins were always together and mostly always standing next to each other, but I hadn't really understood the implications of it until I was the girlfriend of only one of them.

"Not very well, Professor Potter," Fred said seriously, face mock-solemn, putting a apologetic hand on his chest.

"However, we have hope—"

"—seeing as we're such positive rays of sunshine in everyone's existence—"

"—that our very presence will deter those nasty buggers," George finished, grinning ear to ear.

"Failing that—" Fred said.

"—our girlfriends will probably kill all of them for us."

"That's kind of what Wildes do."

"Okay," Harry laughed. "But please do practice. Search your memory for something really happy. Lavender and Neville are still having trouble too."

"Right-o, Professor Potter," the Twins said in unison. I giggled. I know it was a bumpy road to get there, but how did anyone not fall in love with these two?

Harry continued on his rounds, and from behind I wrapped my arms around George's waist, resting my head between his wonderful shoulder blades. "Have you two been using the same memory?"

I watched their eyes meet for a moment before nodding. "It's very happy," George said. "We made our first product together."

"Perhaps you need to focus more on it or pick a different one," I commented. "Think. I'm going to sleep here in the meanwhile." I closed my eyes and nuzzled my head against a shoulder blade for emphasis.

I was beginning to love the Room of Requirement. True, George and I could probably sneak into any empty classroom and transfigure ourselves a bed, but the Room had the hum and buzz and itch of magic in its pores, in the very air of it. Between our almost nightly activities we performed in it and the DA meetings, it was my favorite place in the whole castle.

My grip around George tightened for moment as I thought of what exactly were spending our nights doing. Of how I'd made him gasp and moan, how sweaty we both became, how his singular scent amplified through the musk, how time fell away, how refreshing in the morning it was to wake up next to warm body eager for a cuddle. Or a shag. Mostly a cuddle though.

I don't know if the Room simply put in George's smell when it appeared because I wished it, or if we had been in that same Room so many times that the smell of us together had really stained the bed covers.

I had used the memory of George and I's third night together to power my Patronus—with my virginity entirely gone and George's insistence on "taking care of you," the night had been more pleasurable for me than the first two. I don't know if I would tell him. It might be too much too soon. I wasn't going to go back to not being with him—I had promised and I honestly didn't want to—but George's confidence in this assertion was rightly still building back up from all the tearing down I had done previously.

But it felt so good: not just the sex, but the actually having George. He had been nothing but faithful since Fourth Year; he truly was someone I could rely on as well as my sisters. I would talk to him, and no matter the topic I would feel happy, satisfied. He entered the room, and my whole world became a little brighter. It was like…before I had valued my wand above all else, because with it I thought I was capable of something important. With George though, all that pressure disappeared. I could be me. An individual me that didn't need to do something important to prove herself. When George looked at me, he didn't see Emma or Val or Joss or (Merlin forbid) my mother or even my broken past. He saw me exactly as I wanted to be seen, yet understood the utter mess behind it. And I…. When I saw George, I saw happiness.

I sighed in the feeling. But suddenly George straightened, and the Room went quiet.

"George, what—"

"What are you waiting for?" Harry bellowed from farther on. "Run!"

Run! Run from what? Who? George grabbed my hand and together with Fred we crowded towards the door. "What's going on?!" I shouted. "Is someone after us?"

"Umbridge!" squeaked Neville, who was squashed into us. "She's found us. We've got to get away from here!"

"What about Disillusionment Charms—" I was cut off by our abrupt exit through the Room's door, which promptly slammed shut and melted into the wall. George had my hand in a vise of a grip as we ran. Slytherins were running after us, screaming at us to stop. "This is idiotic!" I shrieked. "For Merlin's sake, we're wizards!"

Our group had reached a staircase and was leaping up in double time. I gripped my wand tight and cast a Tripping Jinx behind us without looking. For good measure, I hit two suits of armor with enough wandless force to knock them over, further delaying our attackers.

"Passageway!" Fred shouted. "Hide!"

He slipped behind a tapestry and I was about to shout that hiding behind drapery was a terrible idea when George tugged me after. Instead of encountering a stone wall, there was a passageway, which sealed behind us.

We were huffing and puffing for breath as our eyes darted around in the dark, taking stock of who was who. Neville, Lee, Seamus, and Luna were crowding in the small tunnel space, some doubled over for running.

"How long do you reckon we should stay in here?" Seamus huffed.

"Forever," Fred said bitterly. "That toad just found out about the DA."

If things could please stop going from wonderful to terrible, that would be fantastic.

I had finally stopped worrying about N.E.W.T.s and the war, just relishing my time with George, when Umbridge, of all people, had slapped me back to reality. I had been laying bets that it would be Emma.

We'd all made it back to our Towers safely, but upon entering the common room, George had left to go into Twin Land, an angry look on his face. Despite how much he loved me, I understood that he worked things out best with his brother, so I let him go, settling in to nervously wait and do coursework. Harry came in looking ready to set people ablaze. He went to the center of the room. Everyone quieted and looked at him, only the crackle of the fire making noise. He muttered into the stunned quiet that Dumbledore had been forced away. Ron and Hermione followed him up to his dormitory, and the common room burst back into excited, anxious life as soon as they were gone.

The blood drained from my face and I started shaking. I took deep breaths until I could hold my quill properly again.

The anger had not left George's face in the intervening hours between this and him coming to get me and, without a word, leading me back to our Room in the many Rooms of Requirement.

I sat on the bed, letting my feet dangle off it, and watched him pace back in forth, sorting through his thoughts. Something—too soon altogether by my count—was changing.

Finally, he stopped, sighed, and really looked at me. "Fred and I are going to leave the school soon."

Anger bubbled in my belly. "Please don't," I said, mouth forming a line. But this was George and I knew I couldn't stay angry long.

In a flash, George was on his knees in front of me, taking one of my hands. "Come with us." He cradled my hand in his, the hand that was going to be secretly scarred for the rest of my life, "Please come with us, Jo. I don't want leave you to get hurt everyday with that terrible woman." He put the hand to his cheek. "Please," he finished, almost muttered, looking already defeated.

"George," I sighed, running my free hand through his hair. He closed his eyes to feel my touches better. "I need to take N.E.W.T.s. It's important to my family."

"It's important to my family, but I'm not doing it."

I chuckled. "Our families are not the same." I should have known this was going to happen. I should have prepared. Anger already gone, I felt tears conjuring themselves in my eyes. "Don't go, please."

George opened his eyes and looked up at me from my lap, earnestness written all over his face. "You promised you would stay. That you wouldn't leave."

"That was big picture talk. A few weeks is small picture."

"It's big picture in a war when we could all—"

"Don't say it!" I trembled, putting a finger to his lips. "Don't you dare. Not here. Not ever."

He didn't say anything, just looked steadily at me, letting my finger rest there. I took this as a signal to continue, "It's only about six weeks. You could ditch the week of exams."

"No, we're leaving before that. We're going to show Umbridge off just like you did."

"We? You and Fred?"

"Yes."

"So you decided this without me." I knew it was happening, but it still stung, like that Mandrake bite from Fourth Year.

"You could help us. We have a place all set up in the Diagon Alley, Weasley Wizard Wheezes—we could use an assistant—Jo—"

He could tell he was losing me. I turned my head away from him. "That's in the heart of London. I can't be in London for at least a year after graduation. My mother will find out and demand to meet and I can't hack that."

"Or are you scared of the battlefield? London's the center of this War," he said, knowing full well how low a blow that was.

"The countryside matters too. Everyone forgets them. I could bring them supplies, tell them real news—not like that trash in the Prophet—keep track of those who support the Order or go on the run. People will go on the run, George. More than we can fit in Grimmauld Place with Sirius. My cover is going to be a travel journalist for the Prophet. I've already contacted the office about it and their response as been positive."

George stood, but still held my hand. "So you're not coming to London at all? This is how it's going to be? You do your thing, I do mine, we shag whenever we're in a mile of each other?"

"Yes," I said quietly, turning back to stare at him steadily, daring him to challenge me. "Apart but together. It's the only way to keep us both sane."

He was back on his knees, gripping my hips. "Did it ever occur to you that we would be safer together, instead of apart? Strength in numbers?"

"That saying hasn't been proven true in my experience."

"That's because you've always been alone. Even with your sisters. Even with them you've always tried to set yourself apart."

"Look, George—let's enjoy the time we have," I said, scrubbing my face with my hand. "I'm in love with you: what more do you want?"

"I want you to mean the same thing as I do when you say that."

"And what do you mean?" I said, finally becoming irritated and taking my hand from his. "What's this big language difference we're having?"

"It means you'd want to be with me more than anyone else. That would choose me. Always. That we live in the same house, share the same bed, that we face things together, going forward. That you come home to me from wherever you run off to."

He leaned forward as he said it, pushing me back to lay against the mattress, his body above me. I experienced a brief vertigo, as if George was my ceiling. I reached up and cupped his cheek, swiping a thumb across the bone. He closed his eyes to feel. "Jo…."

"I want that too. I don't want this to end either," I said. "But there's a war going on. We have to fight it the way we see best. It," My voice trembled, "frightens me more than I can say, and I can't hack London. But I promise I will come back to you when traveling no longer works, when it's no longer safe. I promise, George." I leaned up and kissed him softly, languid, taking in his taste. "I promise."

"I love you," he breathed into the dark. The lighting in this Room had always been rather low, but in this moment, his face seemed split in shadow, framed as it was against the classic Gryffindor four poster we lay in. I kissed him back and whispered the only possible answer, "I love you too."

Later, as we lay spent and lazy and sweaty on our sides in the same dark, my back to his front, his arm wrapped around me, he kissed the nape of my neck and said, "At least spend some of the summer with me. After you graduate, but before the job begins."

"All right," I whispered. I smoothed a hand down his chest. "All right."