To everyone who read the first chapter and was waiting on me to update, I'm sorry. I procrastinate...a lot. Thanks to CrowningAster again, because they're just really awesome. Go check out some of CrowningAster's stuff.
1999
January, 1999. It has been eight months and two days without Fred. George picks up The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and reads it in four days.
"The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence."
He knows Sylvia Plath ended up sticking her head in an oven, but it doesn't stop him from feeling the pull of her words. He doesn't try to resist it. He is on the edge.
A suicide note. That's all the book is. He leaves it on a bench near his flat when he's done. He doesn't want it around him.
He leaves the flat and has lunch with Verity that day, because he hasn't seen anyone apart from his family in weeks. He orders stew and firewhiskey and they eat. Verity tells him about her adventures at the Muggle pub in the heart of London.
"And on New Year's," she says hotly, "they trashed the place. We had to call cabs for eighteen people! Found drugs in the bathroom, too." She sighs. "So how've your holidays been?"
"Good enough," he says briefly.
Verity sports a ring through her septum and electric blue hair this time. People look over at her and wonder. She attracts more attention than George would like.
"Why do you work with Muggles? How does the money transfer?"
"I'm working there so I can pay for my Witch Exchange Program next year," she explains. "I'm going to Argentina next year to help with my Ministry training, and the pub pays me, and then Gringotts exchanges it all."
"Nice."
"Yeah. So how've your holidays been?"
He thinks of the Christmas he spent at the Burrow and takes his time drinking before answering. "Fine." His tone warns her not to push the question.
She doesn't miss a beat. "Fine as in, 'The day is so pleasant I could die?'" She raises her eyebrows ever so slightly, and George feels a dead weight drop in his stomach.
"Who told you?" He tries to stop his hands from trembling but can't. But then he realizes: the only person who knows about that night is Ron.
"Ron told Lee and I," she says.
"Why," he says, "Why the fuck would he do that?"
"We're worried about you," she says simply. "Ron and Lee and I, and Oliver, too."
"Jesus," George says. "Does he know too?"
"No."
"I don't need you worrying about me," he says stubbornly. He sets several Sickles on the table and leaves.
February, 1999. Nine months have passed to the date. Ron, Harry, and Neville finish their training and move up as Aurors. He stands in a stiff uniform beside Harry and tries to contain his smile as the Daily Prophet takes photographs until Minister Shacklebolt calls, "At ease." He allows his pride to expand and fill his chest and turns sideways to grin crookedly at Harry and Neville. They reflect his own feelings. The cameras click for several more seconds before stepping away, and then Ron sees Hermione. She wears a woolen blue dress and black cloak. She smiles at him.
"Just a second," he promises Neville and Harry before weaving through the crowd to her. He slips his hand into hers.
"Congratulations," she says. He gives her a kiss on her cheek. "Your family's back there," she adds, pointing behind her, up several rows. He sees them: Ginny beside Mum, Dad and Percy here cheering, Bill and Fleur, even Charlie had came. He searches the crowd for the Twins before coming up short.
Not the Twins. George. George who is not here.
"Where's George?" Ron murmurs to Hermione.
"He couldn't come," she answers, and for the first time she doesn't meet his eyes. "He said he couldn't come."
The euphoria he'd been gliding on all day suddenly shatters underneath him.
"I stopped by his flat yesterday," Hermione explains, "to invite him. He's doing okay."
"Why couldn't he come?"
"He didn't say." Hermione's eyes flick over Ron's family behind them and back to him. "Look Ron, it's your day today. Don't worry about any of them, it's your day, and Harry's, and Neville's."
Ron smiles at her, but it's a bit forced. There's something melancholy in her eyes, and she stands on her tiptoes and kisses him. He smiles against her lips, and this time it comes naturally.
March, 1999. Fred left the world a little over ten months ago. It's almost been a year. George doesn't understand it. He stays inside and keeps the lights off, his headaches like an axe swinging into his skull. Oliver comes by alone one day to check up on him. "Guess what, George?" Oliver says cheerfully. It must be hard for him to sound so optimistic at the moment, George thinks.
"What?" He asks dully from where he lies on the couch, a pack of ice against his forehead and some medicinal herbs Neville had prescribed him in his fist.
"Henry's going to have another sibling."
George grins, but it hurts him. "Congratulations," he says weakly. Oliver, with two kids. "You'll raise two Quidditch captains."
Oliver laughs. "Yeah."
George swallows the leaves Neville had told him would relieve his migraines, and suddenly the silence becomes uncomfortable and sticky. Oliver clears his throat. "My sister's a Healer, you know, George, and Angelina's in training."
"No," he protests feebly.
"It'll help you, I'm sure," Oliver says earnestly.
"Please leave."
"You're going to be okay, George, but only if you let us help you," Oliver tells him before leaving. "I'll bring Henry with me next time?"
"That sounds good," George says, and Oliver softly closes the door behind him. George waits for his headaches to send him to sleep.
April, 1999. Eleven and a half months. It's crazy how much has changed since then. Ron sometimes goes an entire day without reflecting on the tragedy, but then he will guiltily realize what he's done. He dreads the day when he no longer remembers what Fred sounded like, or what he looked like.
The Auror Department is always crowded. New cases to take to Azkaban, former Death Eaters being wrangled in by the Ministry. Ron, Harry, and Neville are assigned older Aurors as their partners, being rookies. Ron is paired with a woman named Jane Farrow, who is around fifty. Farrow used to be as good as Mad-Eye and Shacklebolt, until she was hit by Sectumsempra, causing her to go deaf in one ear.
On Ron's first day in the field, he and Farrow must respond to a building collapse in Hogsmeade. A wizard is stuck underneath, trapped.
"Hold on, just a few more minutes," Ron pleas.
"I-I-I have to get out of here!"
"Hold on, don't move! Do you have your wand?"
"No!" He sounds panicky.
"Don't move! We'll have you out in a minute!"
Farrow is about to try the charm when a loud scraping noise sounds.
"Don't move!"
"I can't breathe!"
Farrow waves her wand just as a cloud of dust rises. They spring back to avoid it. The mound of rubble has changed.
"Are you there?" Farrow asks desperately.
There's no answer. Ron wonders if that was how it was for Fred. He cries as soon as he gets away from Farrow, in a bathroom at the Three Broomsticks. He pulls his pocket watch out of his pocket, staring at the gold chain before opening it. In the metal covering is a picture of his dead brother. He takes a deep breath and goes back outside to Farrow, hoping she can't see he'd been crying.
May, 1999. It's been three hundred sixty-seven days. The realization sinks in and George feels nothing but guilt that he's not yet been to the grave. But he doesn't want to see it, not really.
George sends out owls to Lee, Oliver, and Verity, to see if they would be interested in helping with reopening Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. The four of them meet the next morning in the shop.
"The date for the wedding's set," Lee says. "On the ninth of July, Alicia and I will be married."
"Congratulations."
"Where at?" Verity asks curiously.
"Pardon?"
"Where are you getting married?"
"There's a church Alicia's mum goes to," Lee explains. "In Surrey."
"Are you going to invite us?"
"Of course," Lee says, startled.
"Can we start now?" Oliver asks impatiently. "I need to be getting home."
George marvels at how much Oliver has changed since Henry was born, but he doesn't remark on the matter. He tells them his plan of opening permanently, and they all heartily agree, Verity in particular.
"I'll need help cleaning up, getting products in, that sort of thing," George continues.
Lee pauses. "Permanently, for certain?
"For an indefinite amount of time."
Lee merely nods, his face screwed tight in concentration. "I'll be here tomorrow to help."
"Me too," Verity puts in. Oliver explains that he would, except for Poppy has an appointment and then he has Quidditch practice.
They stay true to their word and arrive the next morning at the shop. They work until the evening is setting into dusk, until the sun has bled out into the streets of London and Diagon Alley. They repeat the cycle every day for a week, before determining that they would open in one week, so they could advertise more.
Lee gives him a hug before he goes, and Verity stands on her tiptoes to give him a kiss. Then they're both gone, and George goes up to his flat and opens a whiskey.
June, 1999. Fred died a little over a year ago. It's the first time he's actually used the word "dead," even in his mind. One day Farrow sees the picture of Fred in his pocket watch, and bluntly she asks him if he's gay.
"He's my brother," Ron says, unabashed. "He's dead," he adds, and those two words barely escape his body. Farrow nods in understanding and doesn't say anything for a good ten minutes. Then, she says, "I just wondered if you were, you know, gay."
"I think I'm going to ask my girlfriend to marry me, actually," he says. "I'm planning on it for tomorrow."
"Good luck," she says. "My husband-he asked me twice before I said yes. Third time's a charm."
"I'd rather get her this first time," he replies truthfully.
"Let me see the ring."
He hands it over. She appraises it and nods. "She'd be a fool to say no."
The next day Ron is off work, and he takes Hermione to southwest London, to the botanical gardens. He feels the ring in his pocket and a fist of nervousness in his stomach. Hermione points out the different plants and the way the air is humid and the way Muggles are so smart for devising something like it (Ron barely knew how Muggles did anything; he had, in fact, not used a telephone in many years, so he just nodded when Hermione said that).
They're on a catwalk sort of thing overlooking the gardens, away from everyone else, when he realizes he hadn't thought the actual physics of the proposal out. His palms sweat. Finally Ron determines he'll probably vomit if he waits any longer. He gets down on bended knee, the way they do in the fairytales and Muggle movies.
"What are you doing, Ron? You'll get your pants dirty sitting on the ground like that-"
"Will you marry me?"
Ron sees tears in her eyes.
She laughs, but it sounds shaky. "Of course, Ron."
Ron smiles against her lips as he realizes he'll be spending the rest of his life with her.
July, 1999. One year and two and a half months since May last year. The shop has been bustling and busy since its opening last month. Lee reminds them of his ever-approaching wedding.
"Who are you going to the wedding with?" Oliver asks one day, when business is slow.
"Was I supposed to?" George asks blankly. "Who are you going with?"
"Um," Oliver says. "My wife."
"I don't remember your wedding," George says, frowning.
"We married during the war. Anyway, you can't show up at a wedding dateless."
In all of George's life, he'd never been told information like that, but he doesn't say so. He shrugs. "Whatever." But when the shop is closing, and Oliver and Lee have left, he awkwardly approaches Verity.
"Are you going to the wedding?" he asks. When she nods, he awkwardly asks, "Do you want to come with me?" He instantly regrets the words, wants to rip them back from the air.
She blinks, and then smiles. "Yeah," she says. "I'd like that."
July, 1999. The invitation owl comes to Ron first, and Hermione second. In stylish script, it reads:
You are hereby invited to celebrate the wedding of Alicia Spinnet and Lee Jordan on July the Ninth, at three o'clock. On the back of the invitation is the address of the church they're getting married in.
They go to the wedding. It's beautiful. The church is small and reminds Ron of some of the buildings in Ottery St. Catchpole. He's surprised to see George there, but then he wonders why he should be. George and Lee are close. They listen to Alicia and Lee exchange vows, and then they smile and clap their congratulations. At the reception, when they all shake hands with the bridal party, George grips Ron's wrist.
"Why'd you tell them?" he murmurs, barely loud enough to hear.
"I-" Ron knows what he means, even without saying it. Telling Lee and Verity about Christmas. He can see the betrayal in George's eyes.
"You're a bastard," George says, and his voice is louder. Lee glances over uncertainly, as do several others standing nearby. Lee puts an arm around George and the other around Alicia. "Come on," he says. "Let's take a picture." He gives Ron a hard look, but something inside Ron can't be quelled.
George shakes off Lee's arm and stands nose-to-nose to his brother. "Keep the hell away from me."
"You've got problems," he says, and it comes out scathing. He wishes there was a way to verbally express his anger and sadness and frustration all at once, but there's not one. He wishes he could forget Fred, but the other half of him is holding on.
"Ron-" Hermione begins, but Fred is faster. Ron sees his fist before it hits him, right in the eye, and then he is sprawled on the floor, and Hermione emits some sort of shriek, and Alicia looks horrified, and Ron can't help but think of how awful of a wedding this is.
Lee helps him off the ground and murmurs in his ear, "Please leave."
So they do.
September, 1999, and Fred and George's business is booming, despite the hiatus. George hasn't talked to Ron ever since the wedding, but Hermione did stop by to apologize for his behavior, and George expressed his own halfhearted regret for giving Ron a nasty shiner. He apologizes to Alicia and Lee as well, but he doesn't know if they forgive him. Nevertheless, Lee stays with him at the shop.
"Alicia's mum has cancer," Lee says, on a slow day.
"What?"
"At least, they think so. Cervical cancer. She's a Muggle. She's got good chances, they think."
"That's good."
"Yeah." But he can tell Lee has things on his mind, and suddenly George feels bad for he and Alicia.
Verity and Oliver stay to close the store up for him, before she turns to them and asks if they'd like to go into Muggle London to watch a new film with her. Honestly, Verity dabbles too much with Muggles. But Oliver says he needs to go home with Poppy and Henry, especially since his new daughter will be here in around two months. So George goes with Verity to see some Muggle film about organized crime, which they thoroughly enjoy. He walks her home, to her flat. He stands in the hallway of her building as she turns around and says, "I had fun."
"Me too," he says.
"We'll have to do it again sometime."
He kisses her. Her mouth tastes like vanilla and popcorn. It's the first time in nearly a year he's kissed someone. She kisses him back. He seems to float all the way home.
October, 1999. One year and five months Fred has been dead. Ron and Hermione send out wedding invitations. The date is set for 12 December, 1999. Ron only hopes it fairs better than the last wedding he went to.
He walks in a park on his lunch break. Muggles are here and there, but they pay no mind to him, and he's thankful. Ron stares at the bony branches of the trees, their reflections on the River Thames. It's very lucky Fred didn't suffer too long. It's good Fred died quick. Ron's seen enough in his short stint as an Auror to know long deaths are worse.
Ron finishes his lunch and heads back to work.
November, 1999. A year and a half. The shop is making more money than ever, and George hires several more workers, but Lee, Verity, and Oliver remain his most trusted employees. He and Verity have continued dating. They snog in the back of the cinema where they first went together and shag in the storeroom. They go watch Oliver play Quidditch and go to see more Muggle film noir. And for the first time in eighteen months, George is genuinely happy.
On Sundays, when the shop is closed and he's in his flat, he brews different potions for something of experiments on himself, to attempt to wipe away the excess pain he feels. He takes Draught of Peace and chews hellebore leaves. The effect is almost instantaneous, taking him on top of the world for a good time before he falls back into a pit deeper than hell, his energy and life gone. It leaves vile tastes in his mouth and he normally gags. He ends up losing some ten pounds from it in a week. He goes into Muggle London to see if he can get anything for depression, and he ends up walking home with a small plastic jar of Zoloft. Once a day, either in the morning or evening, the label reads, 25 milligrams. So he takes a pill and lies back down, and goes to sleep. The next morning he hides it from Verity.
December, 1999. Ron and Hermione marry in a ceremony at the Burrow, not unlike Bill and Fleur. Ron's never been more nervous for anything in his entire life, which seems ridiculous. Hadn't he fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, watched his friends die, and live in a tent for nearly a year? Hadn't he broken into Gringotts? He tries to tell himself that a wedding is easy in comparison, but it doesn't ease the knot in his stomach.
He suddenly wonders how different things would be if Fred were still around, and if Fred had attended the wedding, and if he would be marrying Hermione if he were alive. But these thoughts fly out the window as Hermione walks up the aisle.
They exchange their vows and then kiss, and Ron and Hermione are too elated to notice George is absent.