Chapter 6

Normalcy...sort of

In the early hours of New Year's day, George could still be found in Angelina's room. The two of them fell asleep quickly after the din of celebrations calmed down.

Angelina had spent many a night with a member of the opposite sex, though this was different. It wasn't the least bit sexual, for a start. Not even an innocent brush of the hands happened or any other Jane Austin-type of encounter. She would have thought that because it wasn't romantic the whole thing would be awkward–Angelina wasn't used to sharing beds with men other than boyfriends or the occasional one-night-stand. But, it hadn't been awkward.

George was different from the other, previously mentioned men. She had practically grown up with George. They had plenty of sleepovers over the years, most notably the annual sleepover in the quidditch lockers. Though they had never been alone, just the two of them. When she thought hard, she couldn't remember a time when they had spent more than 10 minutes alone together before the war. Well, other than the once.

George said he had trouble sleeping, even with sleeping draught. He had remarked that his old room in the Burrow was too much like it had been when he was growing up and it was too full of memories. He had even tried sleeping in other bedrooms in the house, but that hadn't done much to help either. And he still couldn't step foot into Weasleys Wizard Wheezes.

But Angelina's room was new, it was different, and it didn't have any trace of Fred. Therefore, George could sleep a bit better.

If Angelina was being honest, she enjoyed the company. She had spent so many nights alone over the years and it was nice to have someone there, even if only in the wee hours of the morning.

She had expected it to be a one-off, especially since George was rarely found outside of the Burrow nowadays. But, the next night, George had apparated into her bedroom just as the clock struck 11.

"Sorry, I couldn't sleep," George whispered, nervously twiddling his hands together. "I should go."

"No," Angelina exclaimed a bit too enthusiastically. "It's okay, I haven't even gone to sleep yet."

Her side table lamp was still on and she had been procrastinating turning it off, not looking forward to the few moments in the dark before she fell asleep when her mind was still wide awake. Her thoughts were much worse in the dark.

"You sure?" George asked.

"Yep," Angelina said, scooting over and patting the bed next to her firmly, "definitely."

George shrugged and hesitantly walked to Angelina's bed.

"I won't bite," Angelina joked.

A faint smile could be seen on George's face, even in the dim light.

The two settled into bed next to each other, careful not to touch–to make an already intimate experience more intimate.

The light was still on, and Angelina could see George was wide awake, staring straight at the ceiling. Angelina thought it might be smart to turn off the light, but it was on George's side, and she didn't want to reach over him. Instead, she turned away from him, closing her eyes and hoping she'd fall asleep quickly.

Just as darkness was about to overtake her, she heard George murmur.

"Did you love him?"

Angelina was suddenly wide awake, adrenaline rushing through her. She turned to face the ceiling, not sure she wanted to see George's expression. He hadn't specified who "him" was, but she knew.

"Yes," was her immediate reaction.

She could see from the corner of her eyes that George's head turned towards hers suddenly, and she forced herself to look back at him. His expression was blank, or at least impossible for her to read. He was like that a lot–even before the war. When he wasn't laughing, it was hard to tell what he was thinking. Fred wore his emotions on his sleeve. But George was more subtle, sometimes infuriatingly so.

"Not like that," she specified. "I love…loved," she corrected, still not used to the past-tense-ness of Fred, "him like I love all of my friends. I mean, I loved him a lot, but we were never…it was never like that."

George nodded subtly and turned away from Angelina.

"What?" Angelina asked bluntly, "that's it?" She heard a small laugh from George and decided to continue on her fake tirade. "You can't just ask a bird personal questions and then go to sleep! Turn around so we can crack on," she dared.

"Fine," George smiled as he turned around. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Oh," Angelina sighed–she hadn't thought that far in advance. "Erm, what do you–why…?" her lips twisted in thought.

"I think he loved you," George said, ignoring her attempts to come up with a good enough question. She looked up at him and saw that his expression was no longer a happy one.

"Really?" she asked, feeling taken aback.

"Yeah, from the way that he talked about you…though I think it was the same, he didn't love love you."

"Gee, thanks," Angelina smiled, not feeling comfortable in such a serious and emotional conversation.

"You know what I mean," George shrugged.

"Yeah, I mean we only dated–if you'd call it that–for about a week after the ball."

They had one very awkward sexual encounter in some enchanted carriage after the ball. At first, Angelina tried to blame the inherent lack of space in the back of a carriage and how both of them were too inebriated to undo a zip, but after a few days of sobriety it became clear–they weren't meant to be like that. They were better as friends.

"I'm not sure he was ever in love with anyone," George said.

George's words hung in the air for an impossibly long time. Eventually, they both realised that there was not much more to say.

Angelina woke the next morning with an empty spot next to her and her table lamp still on.

George hadn't appeared in Angelina's room the next night, nor the night after that. They hadn't made any specific plans for George to come over. So, there was no reason for Angelina to expect him to come. Yet, despite her best efforts, she did.

She tried to distract herself with work. Which was bloody hard as a waitress. A bloke, who liked to come to the cafe whenever Ange was working, finally got the courage to ask her out. She found him creepy, rather than charming even though he had followed the RomCom model to a tee, being persistent yet charming. Though his charming facade quickly faded when he complimented her on her eloquence. She quickly denied him and made sure to apparate home behind the cafe, instead of walking home, just in case he was waiting for her after her shift. That, mixed with the neverending boredom she felt at work, made her decide to update her CV for magical careers. But she scrapped it quickly when she figured out she had nothing to add.

Nothing much was going on at home to distract her either. Except, perhaps, the love lives of her flatmates. Though they weren't doing much better than she was. Lee and Katie had broken up sometime after NYE. To be honest, Angelina was surprised they lasted that long. They were constantly bickering and making up (thank goodness for silencing spells). It had seemed to work for them, at least temporarily. Angelina supposed she understood it—it would be nice to feel something, even if it was anger, instead of the emptiness she was so prone to feeling.

She had missed the big blowout they had at the New Years' celebration which led to their relationship's demise. Another reason she was grateful to have spent that evening in.

After a few weeks, Angelina had given up on waiting for George to show up. Life got back to normal, or as normal as it could be.

So, when on one chilly March evening, George apparated into Angelina's room, she was startled. Both figuratively and literally—she nearly jumped a foot in the air.

"Sorry," George said through laughter, "I forgot how easy it was to scare you."

"That's surprising," Angelina retorted, struggling to talk without cracking up too, "since I'm pretty sure that was your, and the entire quidditch teams, prerogative for an entire year."

They had found nearly every way to scare or surprise Angelina, mostly just by popping up where she didn't expect. It wasn't difficult to make her jump or scream, though the team kept one-upping each other, trying to find more creative ways of scaring her. Lee had even stayed on the roof of the lockers overnight, just to have the chance of surprising Angelina, who was always the first to the pitch.

"Yeah," George smiled. "That was a bloody great year."

"For you!"

Without discussing it, the two of them got in Ange's bed, on their respective sides. The arrangement felt completely normal, even though they had only shared a bed a couple of times before. Angelina felt comfortable with George, even when he was overwhelmingly sad. She felt a kinship with him that she didn't with her other friends. It was likely because they were both the quiet ones in the group. Which she knew sounded barmy, neither of them were particularly quiet, but around their mates they were.

It wasn't until the middle of the night before Angelina's table light was turned off. It had taken them that long to realise how exhausted they were—they enjoyed each other's company so much that time crept up on them, finally telling them to shut it and go to sleep.