CHAPTER 4
EVEN in the dimming light, as the sun set lower in the sky, George thought how it was strange how his and Fred's shop could look so formidable in this light. The warm and bright hues were fading, dulling to much darker colors. The redhaired man gazed up to the many brightly colored windows, the panes' brightness had been Fred's idea when designing their shop, spending hours together scheming over piles of parchment of potential blueprints.
His worn hand slipped out from underneath his coat to tug on the dark fabric of his dark navy blue sweater. Every time he stood in front of the shop or on the shop's front steps like George was right now, a certain uneasiness filled his chest.
At least, he had experienced this sensation ever since Fred's death. He rose a shaking hand to one of his tired eyes and rubbed slowly over the rough surface of his pale skin. A scattered sigh managed to escape his cracked lips. His hand moved over his neck, the hood of his coat rolling down over his broad shoulders. George lazily circled his head to glance down at the delicate flower, a single lily petal. He always brought a single flower to his brother's grave a few times a week.
The small thing lay calmly in his large hand. In the dark lighting, as the sun began to set, the plant's colors looked more luscious and bright than they had when he'd used his wand to conjure it. George remained deep in thought as his decision to hire Pansy Parkinson to take over for Verity gnawed at him, eating away at his insides like a Flesh-Eating Slug.
George's scowl that caused his brows to furrow and the edges of his mouth to pinch downward into a frown would have almost seemed to the casual passerby that he was now resenting his decision to take on Parkinson for more help. However, George's almost perpetual sour mood was far from the result of Weasley's Wizard Wheeze's newest hire. He was happy to have Pansy be given a second chance at life and even happier still that the witch accepted his offer. His mind, however, was now consumed with thoughts over what Ron would think, come Monday morning when his little brother arrived and found himself now working alongside the likes of Pansy Parkinson. The pair hadn't exactly been bosom friends during their years as students together. The thought of Parkinson flashed in George's vivid memory. The recollection of the brunette witch's shy but hopeful smile when she had officially accepted his offer to come and work for him danced in the back of his mind.
Her smile had laced over her face with such a surprising tenderness, he was sure that he had never seen her smile before. Though almost the moment the strange thought left his mind, a sudden and sharp pang thrashed through his heart.
He felt…wrong. Wrong, totally wrong, or more so, what he was feeling, these thoughts he was having for her were wrong. It just had to be. She was a former Slytherin, for Merlin's sake.
Even though not all Slytherins were deserving of the reputation that had been bestowed upon them since the beginning, there was no denying the fact that she'd chummed around with the likes of Malfoy, the ferrety git. Draco Malfoy was every bit a wanker and a bastard, though even now as he thought of the blonde son of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, it was Pansy Parkinson who permeated his thoughts. Pansy's surprisingly serene brown eyes drenched his memory.
George would have never imagined another witch beside Angelina Johnson could invoke these old forgotten feelings, yet, here he was, scarred, broken, and beaten, but still feeling. For her part, Johnson had taken off as soon as the fighting was over, claiming she needed time, though her heart had always belonged to Fred in school.
Freddie always DID get the women, George thought bitterly to himself. An abrupt bitterness seeped its way into the pit of his stomach, though almost as soon as he shook the incriminating thought of jealousy from his mind, a strange seeping pressure had started in the pit of his stomach and began to snake its way up towards his heart. It was easily one of the strangest feelings that he had ever encountered. He was skeptical of it at first, but George quickly came to understand that it was a good thing, what he felt when around Parkinson, something he wanted again. He did not know if that was why he had offered her the job. George would have once liked to say that he hated Pansy Parkinson, and once, he had, alongside Fred and the rest of his siblings and the friends that made up their social circle, and at first, that was what he believed.
While he disliked her cousin, Norah, the bitch of a Welcome Witch that Norah Brennan had proved to be, and he positively reviled her grandfather, whom George had met in passing briefly in Diagon Alley a couple of times, growing senile and in no way capable of taking on Pansy in his home following her parents' murders, there was something about Parkinson that George could not quite put his finger on what it was, some particular detail that had driven him to offer her a job in his shop and turned his eyes towards Pansy, even when he would have rather been looking at any other witch but at Pansy.
There were many things to be annoyed with when it came to Pansy Parkinson, George thought with a slight frown. Her mouth's inability to have a filter, more times often than naught got the former Slytherin witch into trouble. Then George thought maybe it was the witch's manners, so cold and icy and aloof, she seemed to not want to let anybody in.
For the most part, Pansy had always been cordial enough to him and Fred during their classes, she'd had no quarrel with them, and George, following his and Fred's spectacular exit from Hogwarts, had since learned to move past the primitive constructs of stupid ideologies like popularity.
There were times, however, he remembered a few moments during one of their classes together, when Parkinson would say something wildly inappropriate, that would catch them all off guard. Then George thought it was the sadness in Pansy Parkinson's rich brown eyes that troubled him most. A sadness that never went away.
He could not understand why she always looked so miserable. What right did Pansy have to be sad? She came from a family of considerable wealth, more money than he and his siblings had been born into–what on earth could someone with the world at their fingertips and all the Galleons they could ever want–know of suffering and hardships at all?
Pansy Parkinson was a beautiful witch and had been beloved by her fellow posse of Slytherins, the world lay at her feet for the taking, but Parkinson did not seem to see it. And then, for a while, George thought maybe it was the way she would look at him when she thought he wasn't looking. Boldly, her dark eyes curious and probing him.
Parkinson's was a gaze that George could not turn from, no matter how hard he tried. Hers was a gaze that made George long to shrink away from it, and yet, a part of him did not want it to stop, not ever, no matter what it was that Pansy Parkinson saw in a blood traitor like him.
He balked and shied away from the ridiculous idea at once. How could he ever dare to hope to befriend a witch-like Pansy Parkinson, with so much bad blood between them? She was everything that a witch of Slytherin House should have been, beautiful, pure-blooded, and a little bit of a bitch, if George was honest with himself. Everything that he should have despised, so why, then, why had he offered Parkinson the job? The thought of her working for him was almost laughable.
He frowned. These feelings that were waging war within his mind were new, but they still held a familiar sense to them, like a distant fond memory. However, something inside of George still desperately fought against it. These feelings were light and breathless, yes, that much was true, but underneath it all, something dark stirred within him. That damned bloody 'wrong' feeling, that he was a right bloody idiot for hiring a witch-like Pansy Parkinson, knowing the strife that it was sure to cause between her and Ron once Verity left and it was just the three of them. Not only did George feel 'wrong' for harboring even an inkling of hope that he and Parkinson could set aside their past bad blood between them, but perhaps even throughout a summer, develop something akin to friendship, but a snake-like voice sat in the back of his mind.
A voice that sounded entirely too much like Fred for comfort. His brother's voice taunted George, chiming a warning bell in his mind. Do you honestly think Parkinson would be friends with YOU? But you're a blood-traitor, Weasley, everything Parkinson ever despised and hated with every fiber of her being. You've not learned your lesson at all, Georgie, have you?
These intrusive thoughts left George speechless and pondering. The flower in the wizard's hand was almost forgotten as his hold on the delicate little plant loosened. His round brown eyes were left wide and unblinking, his breath hitching in his throat. Oh! And what would Angelina say if she were to come and see Parkinson working in the shop? A heavy hand found its way back to his face. George snapped his tired eyes shut in an attempt to block out the voice. The mocking tone of his brother was laced with amusement and judgment. Unfortunately, he was by this point, awfully familiar with Fred's harsh tone. From what it looks like, Georgie, you've REALLY lowered your standards, going from Angelina to Parkinson, mate?
"No!" George's cracking voice erupted from him as though he thought it would be the silencer to the sound of his brother's bitter and mocking voice inside his head.
His shallow breathing only worsened as time passed. "Y-you're wrong, Freddie, she….she's different. You–you weren't there, you didn't see the way she looked at me, the night that I pulled her from the-the rubble, Fred."
He buried his head in his hands, pieces of his ginger locks sticky every which way as they entangled in his fingers. The flower he had been planning to leave at Fred's grave fell to the cobblestoned pavement as the soft May breeze carried the feeble little thing to the ground. The petals bent, connecting with the cool cobblestones beneath his shoes.
The poor man was nearly hysterical at this point. George's lungs burned hotter than Fiendfyre as the biting air thrashed in and out of them at a speed the distraught wizard could not slow down for the life of him. The thundering of his pounding heart numbed his broad chest. He was sure that slick tears would slip from the edges of his eyes at any given moment.
He tried in vain to fight down the salty liquid. After a moment of truly deafening silence, his brother's voice in his mind stopped teasing him. The only thing his ears now picked up on was the sound of the light spring breeze flowing around his trembling body. All the while his head remained pressed into his hands.
His lungs had calmed slightly, the burning feeling slowly but surely subsiding, for which he was grateful.
"I-I–I….want to help her. I'm so…tired, Freddie. Of all of it, the war's over." His tenor-like voice dropped lower than George was used to. This was bloody wrong. It had to be wrong, didn't it? How could he want to help Parkinson out, when there was nothing in it for him, he would gain no benefit from helping a witch who was never kind to him?
What would Angelina say, if she were to ever pop in the shop one day and found Pansy behind the front counter?
This time, the internal voice was his own. The bitter question swirled around his throbbing head. As the silence around him thickened, an abrupt bitterness seeped into his stomach as he thought of the ferrety git she had fallen head over heels for back when he and Fred were still in school, Malfoy. He wondered if he'd be seeing him around.
He hoped not. He still owed him a solid deck to the upper jaw for his taunts about his family that day on the Quidditch field. He wondered what Parkinson saw in him.
Malfoy was surely one of the reasons why the witch had turned out so foul, he was almost sure of it, a bad influence. "If she'd been Sorted into Gryffindor, she might not have been so bad…" A lump formed in George's throat as his breath stuttered. "No…" George growled through gritted teeth as he shook his head to himself.
He would not, could not, blame someone for something they were not responsible for.
Pansy Parkinson was cunning and intelligent, though she was no coward. She had, after all, stayed to fight that night. She, alongside several others, had watched Fred die. George mumbled a quick prayer to Merlin and even the Muggles' deity, their God, as he brought his shaking hands down in front of him. His glazed eyes looked to the delicate little flower.
With a frustrated and tired sigh, he knelt to the small thing and gingerly picked it up, resting the single white lily in his palm. He stared at the flower with thoughtful eyes. His thoughts wandered to Pansy for a moment upon looking at the flower, surprisingly enough. George closed his strained eyes, pressing the flower to his chest. The memories of last night swirled in his tired mind. He was still having trouble coming to terms with the fact the witch had accepted his offer.
He was confused and utterly lost, but something good had come out of his visit. He and Ron would now have an extra wand and pair of hands to help out around the shop once Verity left in two weeks, and perhaps maybe Parkinson over time might become likable. He wondered what other experiences had shaped her. He had questions about the former Slytherin, far more than perhaps George had any right to have. Somewhere, deep down, he hoped to see her before her first shift on Monday so he could get answers to at least one or two of them, and his curiosity would be satiated.
'Pop!' A sudden crack, the all-too-familiar sound of someone Apparating from somewhere behind him and to his left startled George greatly. The waves of sharp alarm hit him fast and hard. The abrupt but loud sound had caused him to withdraw his shaken hand to the handle of his wand once more. Well, that was one way to be brought back down to earth, he thought.
His hand, at the moment into a fist, unfurled and lowered to his side as he whirled on the heels of his dragonhide boots and exhaled a shaking sigh of relief as he saw it was only Pansy Parkinson, speak of the she-devil herself. He saw the blood drain from the pretty brunette's face, making her complexion even paler.
It took him a moment to recover from the surprise of her unexpected arrival.
"Well, well, well, this is a surprise, Pansy," he heard himself say in a slightly teasing lilt that did not sound like him at all, surprising even himself. "H-how kind of you to visit, Pan, you must be eager to start working for me, then, if you couldn't wait until Monday morning," he joked, hoping his quip would lighten the undeniable tension that existed between them.
Pansy quirked a thin brow at him, pursing her lips and making a quick scan of George, silently judging George. For a moment, George felt inexplicably self-conscious and decided to convince himself that he neither looked nor smelled funny in the presence of his shop's newest employee. He was startled, trying to not show it, that he was now Pansy's boss.
True to form, Pansy scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Tch. Don't flatter yourself, Weasley. I'm not gonna take up too much of your time tonight, I–I know it's late.," she stammered, suddenly looking uncomfortable as she bit her lip and wrang her hands together in an anxious fit. "I just, uh, wanted to ask if the flat above your shop was still available for rent. For…convenience, and what the going rate is, Weasley, I–I mean…boss," she finished lamely after a long, awkward pause.
George's brows furrowed as he realized how her voice was almost a whisper and suddenly much softer and more subdued. She looked as though life had found a new and creative way to piss all over her spirits and was down on her luck.
Alarmed, he marveled at Pansy Parkinson's suddenly shy demeanor around him, wondering what was wrong with her.
George's skin flushed red in annoyance. Anger flared to life within his stomach as his frustration bubbled to the surface, though he forced himself to shove it back down again.
"Don't call me Weasley, Pansy," he snapped. "Not anymore, not here, now. My name is George, do you understand? Just I'll call you Pansy, if that's alright with you," George growled.
Pansy looked alarmed, but only for a moment, as she cocked a brow in question and took a half-step forward. "Oh, does this mean that I finally have to be nice to you?" she asked, her soft tone positively dripping with sarcasm.
George's frown deepened. Well, at least she's beginning to sound like her old self again, he thought, sighing deeply.
"If you don't, I'm reneging my offer of letting you have the spare loft upstairs," he threatened, only half-joking with her.
Not quite meeting his eyes, Pansy shrugged her shoulders.
"If you insist," was all she said to George in a distant voice.
George nodded, waiting for her to speak, to tell him why she wanted the room, and when the witch didn't, he took that as his cue to pry, just a little, in the hopes of coaxing Pansy into revealing just why she wanted the loft so badly.
Lowering his head, he gave her a sympathetic look.
"Pansy," he asked, letting the witch's name roll off his tongue slowly, surprising himself as he thought how nice it sounded. He hesitated for a moment, wanting to choose his words carefully. "Is everything….er….alright? Your–your flatmate…?"
He grimaced as the question sounded awkward coming from him, as though asking after someone's wellbeing was miles out of George's comfort zone. It wasn't, not really, though he admittedly thought he would never ask such a question to Pansy Parkinson, of all the witches in the world.
Pansy turned away and did not answer George, unable to look the wizard in the eye. She shrugged her shoulders and heaved a haggard-sounding sigh. With some effort, she turned to eye him from the corner of her lowered gaze.
When she furiously blinked her lids, Pansy could feel her mascara starting to get wet and stick to her skin. She was sure she looked like a sorry sack of dragon shit, with her red face and running eye makeup, by the feel of things. Pansy ran her thumb quickly under her eyes, trying viciously to scrub away the black smear now with the heel of her hand.
Every fiber in George's body grew tense and was on high alert. His worry returned tenfold. "What's going on, Pansy?" he demanded, almost sounding angry with his newest employee as he fixed the former Slytherin witch with a hard stare.
"Fuck," she whisper hissed the curse through clenched teeth as she angrily clenched her fists at her side. "I…I shouldn't be here. I think I chose a bad time to come and see you, George. I–I just…I'll go," she blurted out, her tone utterly defeated.
But before Pansy could turn away and walk away from him down the cobblestoned street of Diagon Alley, George ran forward and threw himself in front of Pansy, blocking her path and huffing at her as he folded his arms across her chest.
"Don't walk away! Don't do this, not when we've not even started working together yet, Pansy," he growled, glaring at her. "I'm your boss now, Pansy. Believe it or not, I want to help you, so let me, please," he was almost begging her as his voice cracked slightly as he tried a somewhat softer approach. "So why don't you tell me what's going on? What's happened?"
Pansy blinked owlishly up at George as she slowly lifted her gaze to his. Was that anger in Weasley's tone? Confusion, maybe? Frustration? Whatever it was, it had her furiously blinking her lids in the hopes of stemming the tears that were now escaping past her lids, despite her best efforts not to let them fall, not to let George Weasley see her cry.
Pansy swallowed down past the lump in her throat and wished it was as easy as that to swallow the anger with herself and her wounded pride, that she had to accept George Weasley's help for a second time, and she had not even started her first day on the job with the man as her boss. She closed her eyes for a moment to collect her thoughts.
Against her wishes, her mind traveled to a place that the witch did not want to go, and fought against it. She wondered at what might have been. If Draco stayed… If Draco had stayed with her, would he have left her to wither in some tumbledown decrepit old townhouse in downtown London that she couldn't afford? Would they have married eventually?
It was useless to contemplate things that would now never happen for her. Draco had made his choice the night that he had fled the castle with his family, and the wizard had not chosen her. She could not let the man's memory haunt her anymore. Her anger at his abandonment cooled, but longing and wishing things in her life had turned out differently still gripped at her heart like a vice, but this time, it wasn't for Draco, of all people. She wondered why George was being so nice to her. If there was a chance that he was perhaps pursuing her like Norah had poked fun of her for earlier tonight.
Whatever his reasons, she could not stem the tears that flowed.
"I…I'm sorry, W–George, I just…" But her words escaped her and she sniffed, shaking her head to try to rattle her thoughts into proper order and something that resemble coherence, though it was admittedly difficult to do when she felt George's dark eyes burning a hole through her. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "I…it's been…one hell of a day. My-my flatmate, Cate, moved out. The money in my parents' vault at Gringotts is almost gone. Most of it went to pay for their funeral expenses or settle their debts." A twist in her gut had her pausing as her breaths hitched in her throat, but Pansy forced herself to carry on, sensing George's impatience, and she did not want to drag this out any more than she had to.
This was awkward enough for her already without her making things worse.
Her expression suddenly hardened as she opened her eyes.
"My parents paid for the tuition and board fees every start of term. Shortly before my-my parents were killed, they tried to talk me into taking a career at the Ministry instead of pursuing art. There was a big fight, it was a bloody mess. I…I haven't spoken to my parents since then and now it's too fucking late. I won't get to tell them how sorry I was, for all the…horrible things I screamed at them," she wept, fat, uncontrollable tears streaming down her face as her breaths hitched in her throat. Swallowing the lump in her throat had her feeling like she was swallowing knives. "I moved in with Cate, a girl I met in an ad at the back of the Daily Prophet. She–she wanted a flatmate. Didn't seem like a terrible idea. She was quiet, kept to herself, and I get out of St. Mungo's tonight and she's just….gone. No warning or anything. She just took her shit and left the place. She's gone. Like a Merlin-damned ghost. I...it's stupid, I...I think that I might...need your help."
Her voice trailed off as she took in a breath. She hesitantly glanced up at George's face, wondering if she would find even a shred of sympathy in the red-haired wizard's brown eyes. There was no doubt he was listening intently, given the way his eyes were currently burning into her and making her feel the size of an ant, but the man's expression was unreadable, and she felt herself beginning to grow perturbed, perhaps even a little bit worried.
Pansy forced herself to swallow her pride and say what she'd come here to ask him. She couldn't bring herself to look the wizard in the eyes as she fumbled through her truly desperate request. "Merlin. Okay, Pan, just...get it over with," she breathed, seeming to be struggling to talk herself into voicing what she had come here for. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," she muttered to herself darkly as she flicked her gaze up to meet George's curious stare. "I…I was hoping the space above your shop was still available to rent, that you hadn't found a new tenant yet," Pansy went on, quickening her pace, forcing the unpleasant request from her lips before her resolve could falter again. "I-I'm willing to work doubles for the next few weeks if that's what it takes. I really don't mind. More money, right? I–I don't want to be a charity case for you, Weasley. I'll earn my keep." She huffed and lifted her chin, jutting it out defiantly, silently daring George to contest her desire, and when he didn't, she took that as something of a good sign and forced herself to continue, a hardened edge to her voice. "And if you say no and our stupid dumb shit Squib of a landlord kicks me out later this month when I can pay his ridiculously inflated rent, then, I'd rather, I-I don't know, rob Gringotts or something, maybe. If I had to, I could go work down at Club Trinity," Pansy flinched.
The grimace he let out was genuine, she noticed in alarm, out of the corner of her lowered gaze. The laugh George Weasley let out unexpectedly was rough and coarse and had Pansy looking up from the rings on her fingers that she was fidgeting incessantly with for something to do to hide just how badly her hands shook.
"You don't have bank robbing in you, Parkinson," George remarked matter-of-factly, though he was wearing a rather odd expression on his face, one she didn't understand. She thought she saw a flicker of…something, dart through those brown irises of his, but whatever the foreign emotion was, it was gone the moment she noticed it. "And you're too proud to go dance for that vicious wanker, Chasz," he remarked dryly. George pulled a face of disgust at the mention of the goblin who ran the nightclub, employing beautiful young witches to scantily dance for his patrons and wait the club's tables.
Pansy frowned, surprised to hear talk like this coming out of his mouth. "There's nothing wrong with that kind of work."
George shrugged. "I never said there was, Pansy. I only said that you're too proud to do it. You would never," he said.
Not quite able to look George in the eyes, Pansy sighed. "I'm…I'm not so sure about that anymore, George. If it means not being homeless and alone, I think I could sacrifice my pride for a few hundred Galleons a night," she grumbled.
George snorted, the words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself from saying them.
"You're worth at least a thousand Galleons, Parkinson," he commented lightly.
Despite her surprise, Pansy felt the hot sensation of a light pink blush coloring her cheeks. "What? You think so?"
Looking the witch over, George made a noise of dissent in the back of his throat. Those brown eyes were burning again, and this time, Pansy could have sworn it was intrigue, curiosity, that lit the passionate fire behind the man's orbs. His lips twitched as though her new boss thought to say something, but he shook his head and refrained from speaking more on it.
After a long pause, he eventually spoke. "It doesn't matter what I think, Pansy. I'm your boss now. I told you, I want to help. So, please, for once in your life, let me help you with this. Of course, you can move into the flat. Move-in tonight if you want, I'm even available to help with moving your stuff." He frowned when Pansy immediately shook her head.
"Th-that's…nice of you to offer, George, but I…I can handle it myself. I–I don't have that much anyway, it won't take me but an hour maybe to move all my things, but...I appreciate you letting me stay," she admitted, suddenly shy, a pained look flitting across her features as she reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind her right ear, back where it belonged.
Eventually, George let out a long breath and looked her over with a scrutinizing look Pansy wasn't sure she liked.
"What would you do if you could…do anything?" he asked, a strangely thoughtful look plastered over his pale features.
"Paint," Pansy answered automatically, the answer ripped from her lips without her even having to think it over at all.
"No working for me for the rest of your life? I'm hurt," he teased, feigning hurt feelings as he stuck his bottom lip out in a slight pout, almost seeming amused by the turn their conversation had taken as he kept his arms folded across his chest.
A light blush speckled its way along her cheeks. The words that came out of her mouth next surprised even her.
"I…your business is important, George. You've built this place from the ground up with nothing. It's…impressive. I'm…sorry that I underestimated you and your brother," Pansy quietly apologized, and she genuinely looked it too, the remorse that now glittered in her dark brown eyes, which surprised George and caught him unawares.
Though before he could ponder it further, Pansy continued, leaving him no time to dwell on the look. "I think that everyone at some point should have to work in some sort of customer service position." She let out a snort and rolled her eyes. "It's the key to world peace, don't you think? Learn to respect other people and fake it till we all make it. I think–I hope–everyone would be nicer to each other. But…if I'm being honest, I probably won't want to stay forever, no, sorry, George."
George ran a hand over his face and regarded her strangely before giving her a rather deadpanned look.
"If you could have anything in the world, what would you want?" he asked her thoughtfully, leaving Pansy to wonder just where George thought he was steering the conversation. She was beginning to feel deeply unsettled, as though this were more of an interrogation than a conversation.
She could feel herself growing defensive and responded instantly. "Enough money to pay my bills and be comfortable. A nice apartment downtown, stocked cupboards. Enough space in the loft to paint at my leisure."
"No lavish mansion or the most expensive broomstick Galleons can buy, huh?" George almost sounded like he was teasing her, but Pansy couldn't be sure. This was admittedly the longest conversation the two of them had ever had. "The whole world offered and you just want an apartment?"
Shrugging, Pansy flicked her gaze down to the ground and began to fiddle with the zippers on her purse. "I'm a witch of simple tastes, George. There's a lot you don't know about me," she huffed, and now she could hear the edge in her tone.
"I look forward to learning your secrets," he murmured, though he was grinning ear to ear now, his voice loud enough to make the ancient old wizard sitting outside the newly refurbished sitting area of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor look up from the newspaper he was reading. George threw out his arms in exasperation, as though he still could not believe her reply. "I tell you you could have anything in the world, and you stand there and tell me you'd be fine with things just as they are as long as you didn't have to worry about where your next meal was coming from?" he asked incredulously. He was looking at her as though Pansy had lost her mind, and for all she knew, perhaps she had, but all she could do was shrug and offer a twisted little smirk at the look of shock plastered all over his face like a Permanent Sticking Charm.
"Well…yeah. When you spend all of your nights crying yourself to sleep because you can't afford food, which means you definitely can't afford rent, it sorts out your priorities. And speaking of priorities, Tonks's partner, Ollie came to see me today. Ollie's married to my cousin if you didn't know. I-I just thought you and your family should know, Lestrange is out. I know your mum was the one who killed his wife, so...I don't know, just...tell her and I hope that your family stays safe, Geroge. Lestrange is bloody insane, there's no telling what he'll do," she huffed. Looking up at her new boss, she shrugged and tried to read his expression. Pansy had the satisfaction of seeing George Weasley shocked, just for a moment, and then his expression shifted. It was a subtle shift, seen only in the falling of his smile, the sudden coolness of his dark eyes.
Disappointment did not look well on George Weasley.
George's eyes were now burning, but it was not because he thought his newest employee was funny at all.
She watched the indent of the wizard's cheek as he chewed on the wall of his mouth while thinking, a habit of his, she noticed. That impish white smile of his disappeared and his brown eyes swept across her face, searching for something.
"I…I underestimated you, Parkinson," he murmured eventually, his voice serious and his facial expression as grim as the graveyard in Little Hangleton. "I'm sorry I did. It won't happen again," he breathed out, with a run of his hand through his wild tuft of ginger hair that needed a comb and a trim to lessen his ragged look, she thought.
Cocking her head, she tried and failed a few times to ask Weasley what he thought he meant by his words. Should she be offended that the wizard had underestimated her, then? It sounded almost like an insult, but Pansy couldn't decide which of them it was aimed at. His eyes flicked to the ground and he began digging around in his pocket.
"Not going to do it again. Not again," he growled through gritted teeth and held out a tiny set of keys to Pansy, and now, the young witch was sure he was talking to himself.
Numb, guilt made her bones stiff as Pansy reached out and plucked the keys to her new flat from him with trembling fingers. Before she could force out her thanks, George spoke.
"I know you're not a charity case, Parkinson. I just…want to help you. Make sure too you buy yourself something to eat." His eyes traveled from the once well-fitting black pants she wore that now sagged on her hips, to the skin of her chest that stretched too tightly across her prominent collarbones. "Starvation's starting to catch up to you," George stated bluntly.
Alarmed, Pansy made to clench her fists protectively over her new keys in her hand, and she'd not even realized he had somehow managed to slip ten Galleons into her palm. Her eyes now glistening with stifled and furious tears, Pansy lifted her face to George's to find the same sorrow at her plight there. A part of her was so overwhelmed at Weasley's empathy for her that all she wanted to do was lose herself in the deep brown pools that were the wizard's eyes.
The part of her that won, however, was that which wanted to crawl away and hide. Pansy quickly snapped herself back to her usual stoicism and hid her emotions from George as quickly as she had allowed them to surface.
Breathing out a deep breath and trying to ignore the furious blush now burning her cheeks, hotter than dragon fire, she delicately cupped the set of keys in her palm before plunking them securely in her purse.
"Well, I…." Pansy announced uncomfortably, backing away from George as though the wizard were on fire. "If I'm going to move in upstairs, I'd better get an early start." She made to turn away. But remembering her courtesies, she added, "Thank you….for this, George." Pansy bashfully turned her head to eye him from the corner of her lowered gaze. "...and…for listening to me. You're one of the first to have. I...I'll see you Monday," Pansy added, truly grateful but overcome with awkwardness, though not even she could disguise the faint note of hope that was now seeping its way unbidden to the surface of her suddenly timid voice.
Before George could answer her, she turned on the heels of her boots and Disapparated, the familiar loud cracking! noise now throbbing in his ears. Though before she Disapparated completely from his presence, George could have sworn Pansy Parkinson peered back over her shoulder and looked at him. And she smiled at him.
He mumbled an inaudible prayer under his breath, praying that Parkinson would be easy to work alongside throughout the summer, or longer, however long she decided to stay to get her bearings and on her own two feet. And that Ron would be accepting of her presence alongside him in the shop, as would Verity, what time she had left.
His glazed eyes looked down to the flower. He stared at teh lily with thoughtful eyes. His thoughts wandered to Pansy for a moment, and George considered what he had learned of the former Slytherin during their brief conversation.
He was grateful that she had chosen to open up to him and be honest with him, for a change.
What she was going through was painful, but at least it was a connection. Perhaps something to build upon and grow the foundations of a friendship, now the war was over. He closed his strained eyes, pressing the flower to his chest. George could not recall a time in his life when he had felt more confused or utterly lost, but something good had come out of it.
Before he realized it, he had Disapparated and stood in front of the Burrow, not sure why his instincts had told him to come to Mum and Dad's, what had brought him here. He glanced over the front door of his parent's home as he made a beeline for the entrance, the mouthwatering smells of a roast cooking in the oven and mashed potatoes on the cooker wafting through the air, courtesy of the open window and through his nose, eliciting a low rumbling growl from his stomach.
George let his face relax for a moment as he thought of Parkinson. His brown eyes almost seemed to dance in relief that she had accepted his offer to take the spare flat above the shop. He was sure his presence would be uncomfortable for Pansy, at first, but at least he could watch the witch, study her movements, make sure she was taking care of herself, perhaps come up with a better plan to get her to open up and to build her trust in someone else.
Despite their ill history together when they were both still in school, now that he knew what she was going through, he would not–could not–let one of his employees starve. He silently vowed to help her in whatever way she'd let him.
At the very least, he might in some way begin to prove he wanted to help. For the first time since Parkinson had regained consciousness and Fred had died, George felt that he might have a future and could keep moving forward.
Allowing this thought to fill him, was enough to cause a tiny ghost of a smile to flit across his face as he went inside. George paused, before tugging on the sturdy handle of the front door and disappearing into the dark. The shadows from the fully set sun followed him and engulfed the young wizard in darkness as he closed the door behind him.
But George was smart enough not to look back.