bend, don't break
My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.
- Storm of Swords, George R. R. Martin
It's only after the funeral that George lets himself cry. The May sky is full of dripping clouds that block out the sun, but George knows they're only part of the reason why he's so cold.
He's so, so cold.
It's only after his brother's body is packed tight into the ground that George lets himself sink into Fred's bed, burying his face into the pillow and breathing in a scent that's indistinguishable to his own. Back before, the two of them had done everything together, shared everything. Only now George wishes there was something uniquely Fred's for him to hold on to, something that isn't so tangled up in himself and his grief and his uselessness.
It's only a month after that George finally lets himself look in the mirror -
- but when he does, he wishes he hadn't.
Sometimes he thinks of himself in terms of the Burrow's attic ghoul: no use to anybody, he's just an inconvenience, but one that the Weasleys can't bear to rid themselves of. At least, he thinks that until he remembers the pranks he and Fred used to pull with the ghoul.
He doesn't compare himself to it again, really.
The joke shop's windows mist over but there's no-one around to wipe them clean and let in the sun.
Ginny sits with him sometimes. She doesn't try and talk to him, just sits there and reads, maybe plays a quiet game of chess against herself. It's nice, George finds himself thinking, as he sits and stares at the wall and Ginny sits and stares at the newspaper. Maybe one of these days he'll pluck up the courage to verse her in that chess game, or ask her about that book she's reading.
(When did he become so quiet? He finds it hard to remember a time when he wasn't.)
Ginny sits with him sometimes, and he feels just that little bit warmer on the inside; that is, until she leaves for Hogwarts in September and he's left staring at the empty chessboard, at the empty chair.
Harry brings Teddy around one day, but George doesn't trust himself enough to hold him.
The strangest things set him off these days. He finds himself crying at the extra toothbrush in the stand and laughing at the squeaky stair six steps down he and Fred always knew to avoid. When he does drag himself to the shop, on a quiet day in the school term when no-one's around to watch him crack and break like porcelain, the feeling of Fred is so overwhelming he has to dash into the bathroom and almost doesn't make it in time.
A slimy film coats his throat and doesn't go away, and it's not until later does George realise that it's the cloying scent of death. (Otherwise known as memories.)
Angelina comes around for Christmas and takes Ginny's spot in the chair beside his. She's cut her hair, George notes absently. He's surprised at the heated glow that grows inside of him as he looks her up and down; that hair, he thinks to himself, that hair is radiant.
They end up playing chess. She lets him win, he knows she let him win, she knows he knows she let him win. But it's nice all the same, and just before she leaves, George asks her if she'll be coming around again.
It's the first time he's spoken more than three words together since it happened, but she doesn't show any surprise; the smile she gives him instead makes him ache to smile back, but the muscles in his face don't seem to be working and when she answers "of course" all he can do is nod.
The next day, he visits the joke shop again and scrubs the windows clean.
Angelina does come again, in the new year, and again, a week after that, and again, and again, so many times that George stops counting them and stops wondering if this visit will be her last. Soon it's so common for her to be around, an extra setting on the table for dinner becomes a permanent fixture in the Weasley household.
The first time she kisses him he doesn't kiss her back. Memories are flooding in from all sides, memories of Angelina and Fred dancing and Angelina and Fred kissing and AngelinaandFred. "I can't," he whispers against her lips, but then his fingers are in her hair and she's kissing him this time and he thinks that maybe this is okay.
May comes and goes. George visits the grave and lays flowers. The hole in the side of his head aches like something much bigger than an ear is missing.
After a while, he starts going to the shop and getting it ready for opening again. She comes along sometimes, and helps him to stack boxes and sort papers, but other times she knows it's something he has to do alone.
After a while, he starts making conversation during family dinners. The first time he makes a joke, the table is silent for so long he thinks maybe it wasn't so funny after all. (Only a moment later does his mother burst into tears and everyone else into laughter. Mrs Weasley waves away the help and simply says "shut it, George" in a tone so familiar he feels like crying himself -
- but he doesn't.)
After a while, he scrubs the store windows clean once more, straightens the sign on the door and opens Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes for the first time in over two years. He makes so much money that he takes Angelina out for lunch the next day. She kisses him over their bowls of spaghetti Bolognese and squeezes his hand under the table.
Christmas rolls around sooner than he realises. Angelina catches him under the mistletoe, and Ginny catches them still there a while later. "I knew it!" she says triumphantly. "Ron owes me five Galleons now!" As she flounces from the room, George takes one look at Angelina (those lips, those eyes, that hair) and bursts out laughing.
He hasn't forgotten. He still stares into the mirror some days and sees someone else reflected there. His porcelain skin has hardened to ivory, but it's so brittle and some days he feels like he'll snap. Nothing anyone says can help him, then, not even Angelina, so he curls up against the wall and leans his head on the door and tries to think about something that doesn't make him want to scream.
It doesn't always work.
Teddy's too old to cradle now, but when his niece is born, she fits so easily into the curve of his arm he wonders why he was ever afraid.
When Ginny makes the reserve team for the Holyhead Harpies he is the second person to find out after Harry. She Floos into the kitchen while he's the only one there and she can't quite hide the smile on her face. He hugs her, then, hugs her and breathes in his sister's flowery scent and stares into her brown eyes and counts the freckles like constellations on her cheeks because he feels like he's forgotten all he knows about her and he urgently, desperately needs to relearn it all.
When Percy tells him he's met someone, George finds it very, very hard not to laugh. "When do we get to see her, then?" he asks instead, and thankfully his brother doesn't notice the shakiness to his voice that has nothing to do with nerves.
"I - I don't know." Percy shifts in his armchair uncomfortably. "Audrey's - well, she's, um - she's a Muggle."
This time, George can't hold it back. "How are you going to tell her?" he asks after his laughing fit has subsided.
"I don't know," is all Percy has to say, and his brother looks so stricken standing there in his button-down shirt and pleated trousers that George can't help but wince. He doesn't know how to help Percy, and he doesn't know how to try to help, but he does know when a secret needs to be kept and this is one of those times.
"I won't tell anybody until you've sorted it out," he vows, and the smile Percy gives him then almost makes up for the hug that follows where his brother's horn-rimmed glasses poke George in the eye.
Half a year later, when Percy stands up at dinner and announces he's bringing his Muggle girlfriend over for Christmas and asks for everyone not to overwhelm her because he's only just told her about everything, George is not the least bit surprised.
(He gives Percy a half-smile across the table, afterwards, and his brother smiles back. It's almost enough to pretend like the ghost of another brother doesn't rest in between them.)
Angelina invites him over her house one night and they peel off layers of clothing in the darkness and don't redress again until the sun has bled into the stars.
Things start to slide back into place -
- so, so slowly.
Percy and Audrey are married as summer begins to die. George is asked to be best man and finds he cannot refuse. He even makes a speech after the service, and he is uncomfortably aware of everyone's eyes on him because he feels naked, empty standing up here without Fred, without his other half -
But Angelina is sitting beside him, and offers a tremulous smile when he glances down, and somehow it's all a little better. (Not completely, not by a long shot, not ever, but a little can suffice.)
It's when they're laying side-by-side on a plaid picnic blanket in the back garden and the sunlight catches in her short hair and turns her skin golden that he says "I love you" without thinking twice.
In a moment the two of them are holding each other, crying and laughing at the same time because everything has fallen apart for them but they're sewing it back together, bit by bit, and even though the stitches are clumsy and sometimes they come undone, they're still better than nothing, and George kisses Angelina to tell her that.
(Her whispered "I love you" back makes him forget, just for a second, about the empty space between them. His throat still tastes like memories but this time they're good ones and it's candy floss instead of death.)
Steel's shiny enough, to be sure, and strong enough too, but even armour has its cracks and so does he.
(But Angelina's here now to patch them up, and he no longer shatters like porcelain or snaps like ivory, but bends like steel and he will bend and bend and bend and try not to break, ever, never again.)
Author's Note: So, a George-angst one-shot was requested by Cricket the Clarinetist and I know I didn't really do what she wanted, but when my fingers start typing they get a life of their own. I hope you like it, dear. Please review. xx