After Ron and Harry had gone into Fred's bedroom to talk to Thea, George sat in awkward silence with Ginny and Jax. Although he knew Jax distantly-he was one of his suppliers after all-he didn't know him especially well. And even though he knew Ginny well, he didn't so much want to talk to her right now. More than that, George was wondering about what it was that Liam had done this time that had Thea so rattled, if it was just the reminder of what Liam had done before, or if George would ever find out at all.
When they finally came out of the room, both Harry and Hermione avoided George's gaze, and Ron looked miserable. George glanced over at Thea. She was harder to read than the other three, but her expression looked sad. Was that a slight frown?
"Can I talk to you?" she asked, her gaze falling on him.
George nodded and stood, walking back to Fred's bedroom with her. It felt strange to be in here with her-as if in a way he was sharing Fred's memory with her, which was silly, because she didn't really even know Fred. Sure, they had all had a couple of classes together at Hogwarts, but they had run with different crowds-Ravenclaws didn't usually hang out with Gryffindors outside of class.
"So, what did you want to talk to me about?" George asked when she didn't say anything right away. He supposed that he wanted to get this over with—it wasn't that he didn't want to be alone with her, it was more that he didn't want to be alone with her with all these memories. "Are you okay?" he asked finally.
"That depends on your definition of okay." Thea turned to meet his gaze. "I need your help, and it's a big ask."
They were standing in his dead brother's old room so anything felt like a big ask at this point. George took a breath. "What do you need?"
At first, Thea didn't answer, but the tense set to her shoulders and the grimace on her expression were dead giveaways to her discomfort. He had been right: this was hard for her, too. "My boss is doing experiments on house-elves, and he killed one of them today. I think he's trying to figure out how to reverse death."
Which explained why she had wanted to talk to Hermione, but not what she needed from him.
"They're having an expo," Thea continued. "They want to raise money for their experiments, and in order for me to get in-and for Ron and Harry to stop him, I need to get in-I need to bring him a potential investor."
"You want me to go with you," George said softly.
Thea nodded, biting her lip.
"That's not that big of an ask..." George paused, taking in her expression. "Unless there's something more?"
Thea turned away from him to stare at the wall. "He's trying to reverse death. He'll believe you want to invest, because of your brother, because of Fred."
He thought he heard her voice break a little at having to bring that up, but he was so focused on the fist tightening around his heart that he couldn't be sure. "You want to use Fred?" he managed.
When she turned to face him, tears glistened in her eyes. "If we use his death...let Liam think that you want to bring him back...he'd tell us anything we want to know. I did say it was a big ask, and I'm sorry. I wish there was another way. I mean, if you can't do it, if it's too much...we'll have to find another way, do the best we can to get the information, but I know that this is the best option, so I had to ask."
For what felt like several moments, George just stood there, unable to respond, before finally, he made his legs move across the room to her. Moving slowly, he reached up a hand to gently brush away her tears. "It is a big ask," he said softly. "But I think that Fred would have liked knowing that his memory was being used for something good, and I think helping you put that prat Liam in his place qualifies."
Thea nodded. "Thank you."
George stepped back. "You know, this was his room. I remember when we first moved in here-he wanted loud, bright colours-we always did loud, bright colours...It was the first time I had had a room of my own-I had had to decide if I wanted to continue the tradition or to go my own way." In the end, he had chosen a bit more muted of a colour scheme, but with a few hints of that explosion. "If I close my eyes sometimes it's easy to imagine that he'll be coming through that door in just a few minutes."
"Sometimes I feel the same way about my parents." Thea's voice was soft, and she didn't meet his gaze. She was staring off to another place-or rather, more likely, another time. "They died about a year before the war officially started, but you never really get over it." She shook her head, finally meeting his eyes. "I am sorry that your brother died."
"I'm sorry about your parents." Then they just stood there, in Fred's room in comfortable silence.