::A/N:: Disclaimer -- The tale of Potter mine it is not. Yes. I did just do a fail immitation of Yoda. Shuddup, I was watchin' Star Wars.
Thought of the Day: From now on...I'm going to include a "thought of the day" section in my author's notes. Always.
Also, you just lost The Game.
Ficcers Summery? Short-sightedness is not a good thing to have in the real world, Georgie, and sadly, knows this now, he does...
Children's laughter filled his dreams, in his mind where the grass never browned and the sky was never cloudy. Where his home was as undimmed by war as the sun by rain, where his siblings were weary of his pranks, not attacks by the Death Eaters.
In his mind where summer and childhood never ended, where war and pain were the farthest thing from thought; in his mind, not only in his dreams, but always in his memories.
Memories of recklessness and no consequence, when he and his twin believed they were invincible, inseparable, indestructible. Never in their wildest dreams and flights of fancy when they invented their pranks or actually pulled them did the word 'consequence' come to either of their minds.
It was commonly known that George was more temperate than Fred, but that doesn't mean to say that he was entirely full of common sense. He was less than a step behind his brother if ever he was calmer or slower to react; quite normally he was just as reckless as his twin, right there beside him in every mess the two got themselves into.
That about them never seemed to change. Even at Hogwarts when punishments ran more severe in some ways than the ones their mother could ever imagine for them did they pause to think about the consequence of their actions. Even when Lee joined their duo and they became a trio any thoughts given the repercussions that would take place afterward were but a few stars in a sky of thousands.
But that was all before that holey night; the night that changed George.
When he had been offered the chance to be a spare Potter for the mission, he had jumped at it without hesitation, not pausing to think that it could mean the death of not only himself, but his twin, and everyone else involved in the mission – even Harry.
He wasn't scared or anxious as the decoys began to take off, himself included, because he chose to childishly disbelieve that anything could actually happen to any of them; he did not take pains to call to mind every possibility involving death or injuries of the ones around him, so he was perfectly calm, almost daring to laugh while he hexed Death Eaters.
But when he woke up later that night, lying in the sofa, he could barely think of a joke to ease the worried look on his twin's face, a look that he did not like at all. It was not because of the pain in the side of his head that he could hardly pull his thoughts together, but the pain pushed upon him the reality of what the wound meant, of what the night meant.
While the rest of the house was quiet once everyone had gone to sleep, George was still awake. Thinking over his actions, looking at the consequences, and he became concerned. Reality pressed heavily against him, reminding him of what war really was, of what could happen if one was reckless and bold, or even if one was cautious and careful.
After that night George was more careful, thinking before taking a step, even if it meant that Fred was steps ahead of him. As the war drew on and his responsibilities as an Order member laid more heavily in his mind, George became more worried, trying to forget how to think of the consequences, but always remembering. He realized why he had never given thought to his actions, and knew it was because when he did, and he realized the end results, he became unsure if he would be able to handle them when they came crashing down around him.
As he thought and as he realized more, and more, he came to understand why the older members of the Order were fearful even when things seemed to be going the right way, and he didn't want to understand. George wanted it to be simple again, he wanted to be unconcerned with the future, but he could never forget; the hole in his head would always remind him.