A/N: Another chapter. Doesn't exactly strike the same chord as the previous two, but that makes sense, right? George will be changing as we go along. And no, this isn't slash, though interpretation is always up to the reader.

They wanted to send him away.

It was a thought that circled his mind endlessly, during those vague drifting hours when the hungry, roaring darkness that made him remember and hurt seemed to rest. Those people - his family - wanted to send him away. They couldn't bear to deal with him anymore.

"You aren't getting better," his mother had said, with tears in her eyes and voice as she regarded him with heartbreak. "We just don't know what else to do, George."

He supposed it wasn't fair blame them; it wasn't their fault. He was tainted, and broken. Just being in the same room with him must have been hard. Plus, he reasoned to himself in that gray neutrality he much preferred to the restless, gnawing desperation, it wouldn't be so bad, wherever they sent him. He would miss his flat, but the walls and rooms held so much of his brother within them, it was almost painful to be there.

But, he knew, it would be as painful to leave.

Painful either way, he mused in those moments of sanity and indifference. My family shouldn't have to suffer, when I'll suffer regardless.

So he didn't raise his voice, even then, and let their eyes brighten in misery and despair - knowing that soon, he'd be far enough away that they'd forget him and, with the exception of a few guilty visits now and then, live their lives wholesomely without his shadow on their hearts.

They sat down around him, explained in hushed voices things he didn't care about. Their words wahed over him as he stared over his younger brother's shoulder at the clock ticking above the door. Something must have changed in his face, because his father's voice tapered into silence and no other voice came forward. Steps in the hall outside and a key in the door; George had given him a spare.

When Harry stepped in, George felt the rest of that clinging nothing fall away into something light and warm, and stood to meet him. He didn't speak, but held a hand out, shifting forward in anticipation. And Harry, who looked at the others in the room with curiousity, strode forward to grasp it, and regarded George- finally- with eyes full of affection. "Hullo, George," he said cheerfully, and led him back to the sofa. "Sorry I'm late."

Happiness filled his chest and he only nodded, a smile curled across his face. He was too aware of the others, too conscious of their presence with them in the room to speak, but he trusted Harry to understand. And as Harry sat next to him, leaned against him slightly, George could tell he did.

Harry began to talk, brightly asking the Weasleys about their visit, and George was content to watch his face. Until that smile faded and those expressive eyes darkened close to black.

"What?"

Harry's voice was so quiet, and the magic he always kept in check pushed at his shields, sparking and restless and so very dangerous. It rustled his robes, made his hair pick up slightly as if in a breeze. George watched him in fascination.

"Harry." His mother reached out with her hands, as if to assuage him. How she thought that might help was beyond George, as Harry's bright, livid eyes snapped to her. "Harry, we don't want this either, believe me, but - "

"How could you even consider it?" What made the danger real was the lack of inflection in a voice that was usually so straightforward. "Sending him away?"

"Harry, mate - " George recalled that his younger brother was quite close to Harry " - he isn't getting better. He still misses Fred - "

Harry hissed and his arms came around George's shoulders before the pain had a chance to cut him.

"Like that!" His younger brother's eyes were wet, as he stood and gestured violently at George and all his awful misery. "See? That isn't recuperating, that isn't getting on - "

"How is he supposed to do that?" Harry yelled, standing - and George might have protested the absence of Harry's arms, but Harry's magic had flooded the room now, touching each of them with presence and weight. "How do you expect him to magically get better?" The irony of the statement might have been amusing, if George wasn't broken, and if it hadn't sent his mind reeling back to that moment so many years ago, watching little Harry clamber desperately out of a broken window into the back of their shabby blue Ford. He had been raised by such a terrible family.

It must have cost him dearly, to stand so completely against the one that had taken him in.

"This isn't normal, Harry - "

"They were different! Closer to each other than you were to them, you know that!" Harry seemed to visibly restrain himself, and said in a much quieter voice, "George is special. An exception. You don't change him to fit the standard - that isn't how it works. He'll get through this eventually - but it'll take a long time, and he won't come out the same in the end as he was before. You can't expect this not to have changed him. But he'll still be George."

Harry glanced at him with something fierce in his eyes. George stared back.

There was a few moments' silence, and then George's older brother spoke up, the one with scars across his face. "We appreciate your concern Harry," and though the sentiment was a tired one, sincerity flavored the man's voice and his expression was soft. "But we can't let things reach a standstill, for any period of time. If healing isn't steady and continuous, it - well, it falters."

"George should be allowed his own pace," Harry said stubbornly.

The scarred man hesitated, and then fell silent, as though unwilling to argue. George regarded him with approval, but looked away quickly when the man's eyes widened at him.

"When all's said and done, Harry, his family gets the last word." This was his sister. She had an air about her that was almost suffocating in its self-assurance. She leaned toward Harry as if gravity itself might draw him in to her, as if her presence alone was enough to make him see sense. George remembered, suddenly, that they once dated. From the look on Harry's face, those days were long gone. "And I'm sure we know what's best for him."

Harry's stance shifted, his hands sliding into his pockets. George was almost certain his fingers curled around his wand. "Do you?" His voice was utterly soft. His family saw the threat for what it was and responded with stunned silence.

His younger brother's wife, a bushy-haired young women, looked apalled. "Harry."

"I wonder what the press will say about this," Harry mused, as if to himself. "A hero of the war, suffering the loss of someone dear - his family, pushing to see him silenced in a ward for the helplessly insane at St. Mungo's - "

His mother looked horrified. "Oh, Harry, you wouldn't."

"I hate that I'm famous," the scarred boy said quietly. "It's only ever caused me trouble. But I swear to God, I will use every ounce of my influence to make sure George gets his say."

"What say!" Another of his brothers nearly exploded, glasses all but danging off his nose. "He doesn't talk!"

"You don't give him a chance to!" Harry shot back hotly. And George felt gratitude so overwhelming it rendered him breathless. Harry wouldn't call on him to speak in front of the others, even when it would give him the upper hand. "You just assume his weakness, his inability to move on! You never assume his strength! George is one of the most brilliant people I've ever known! The things he can create - his inventions, spells he's designed - they're amazing." Harry would never understand the power his presence had on people. His words, combined with his magic - people would follow him to the ends of the earth for a glance, for a smile, for a moment in that sunlight.

"He's amazing," Harry said with conviction, "and I believe in him."

And the truly amazing thing was that he had George believing too. He felt his heart twist, his eyes burn. He stood, feeling the eyes of everyone on him and remarkably not caring, as he pulled Harry into his arms, loving the way the smaller wizard fit perfectly against him.

"Thank you." It was all he could get out, tears blurring his vision, sobs shaking his voice. "Thank you. Thank you."

Someone in the room started crying, but the only thing that mattered was Harry's arms coming around him in return.