A/N: Thank you for your reviews! Glad you are enjoying this story. This chapter is a little on the shorter side, and so I will be posting another tomorrow to make up for it. Hope you like it!
October 28th, 1999 - Thursday
George Weasley wakes up with a tremendous headache. It's wholly expected and fully deserved since he had drank what felt like an entire barrel of mead the night before. He's getting used to the feeling; it's the exact same way he has awoken for the past week.
This time, however, it isn't his bladder that wakes him, but a pounding on the door.
George drags himself from his bed, passing the closed door in his hallway that never opens anymore, through the kitchen to the front door where the pounding continues. George yanks the door open, ready to shout at Ron until he bloody leaves him alone, only to stop short when he sees it isn't Ron at all.
In front of him is a woman.
Her hair is long and black, loose in soft waves to her hips. In contrast, she wears a long tight pink dress with black boots, and George squints in the face of the neon colour.
"George," she says, "good to finally see you. Let me come in, please. I'll fix you a tea."
Baffled, George holds the door open and gestures towards the kitchen, as though she'd somehow get lost in his 600 square foot apartment.
Unerringly she makes her way to the kettle, digging in the tea cupboard before grabbing a tea bag. She pulls out a purple mug he never uses and his favourite chipped green one, and George lets himself plop onto the stool by the counter, watching her without feeling.
Not once has she faltered — she prepares a cup of tea: earl grey, a splash of milk, one sugar, spoon left in. Exactly, exactly, the way he likes it. She slides the chipped green mug towards him, her expression inscrutable.
He sips his tea mildly and watches her as she watches him. Her eyes are dark, almost as black on the iris as the pupil, and tilted up in an almond shape. She's quite lovely, and George is not ignorant of the fact that he has answered the door in ratty pyjamas and an old robe. He recognizes her, in a vague-way; as though from another time, in a familiar gold and red room. In a hall filled with battle, curses and spells flying, smoke and death hanging in the air.
After a moment she sighs and reaches into her small purse, bringing out a small vial and sliding it across the countertop to rest beside the tea she made him.
"Hangover potion," she says, the ghost of a smile around her lips.
George reaches for it, un-stoppering and drinking without checking the label or colour. Her eyes narrow a fraction at his carelessness.
"I see," she murmurs, and for a frightening moment George wonders if she does.
Before he can discern the answer she is moving past him, walking briskly towards his bedroom. George nearly falls over trying to get off the stool and follow her, unsure if he wants to stop her or see what she does.
She pauses at the door that never opens and reaches a hand out, as if to press her fingertips gently into the wood. Ghosts seem to dance around them both, and she moves impossibly slowly.
"Don't," George snaps as she makes contact. After a moment, she moves on, ignoring his curt command.
She reaches his room, finding clothes on the floor and an unmade bed. Her wand appears and before George can say anything his room is tidying itself, and his floor is once more visible. His clothes fold themselves and return themselves to their drawers — she doesn't make a single mistake in their placement.
"I realize I am an inconvenience to your grief," she says, "but you'll thank me."
It finally occurs to George exactly what he's looking at; her red lips turn up, accompanied by a single dimple on her cheek, her skin dark and luminous.
"You're my wife," George announces.
She smiles, full teeth now. "Not yet, George Weasley."
"Parvati Patil," he shakes his head, "you shouldn't have come."
She tilts her head, and for a moment George watches her eyes go vacant as if she's staring straight through him. Parvati's hand comes up, flutters by her throat for a moment as though she might gasp, but no sound emerges.
"I had to," she tells him, "else you'd be dead by tonight."
He scowls, "well, then all your problems would be solved, eh?"
Instead of fighting back, she laughs. It's the first cheerful sound he's heard in his apartment in almost two years, and the sound of it almost brings tears to his eyes. God, how he wishes he knew how to laugh — he seems to have lost the knack for it.
Parvati sobers, but her smile remains. "Hardly all of my problems, George. Hermione would murder me, for one. Plus, you've that meeting with the Chudley Cannons at the end of the month; Ron can't do that alone."
He crosses his arms, flabbergasted at her words. He wonders if he should call her by her first name since she seems to insist on using his, and the rest of his family's. He wonders how the hell she knows his schedule. The dark mood emanating from him doesn't deter her, and Parvati steps away, turning back towards the kitchen. He watches her step over the floorboard that always creaks unerringly and disappear around the corner.
George follows her much more sedately, turning over the interaction in his brain, again and again, trying to make sense of something nonsensical.
When he reaches the kitchen Parvati is pulling out some sandwich supplies.
"I know what you are," George says into the silence.
Parvati's eyes lift to his, dimple showing. "Yes. I knew you would figure it out. I always knew you were smart, even before I saw you, but you're fast."
"You're a seer." He says it out loud, mostly to make sure he's not imagining things. He's never met a seer before — there are few witches or wizards who can say they have. They're incredibly rare, one in every few generations. George has always questioned if they're even real, but there's no doubting the woman in front of him.
"Yes." She agrees, dark eyes still laughing.
"The floorboard," he tells her, "it—"
She laughs, "I've seen you dodge it enough."
"You've seen me?" George can feel a question trembling in his throat, a name that no one in his family seems to want to speak any longer, but he can't — he can't get it —
"I didn't start seeing you until the WPG announcement." Parvati murmurs, "And leading up to the Battle I saw… I saw a lot of things. Fred wasn't one of them. I'm sorry."
George feels himself sag, whether with relief that she hadn't stood by and known, or fury that she's the first person to say Fred's name in months.
"Parvati, I'm not exactly top husband material. Bit of a mess, really."
Parvati's lips curl into a smirk, an inside joke with herself. She doesn't correct him, instead, she puts the finishing touches on a sandwich and hands it to him, an olive branch extended from her long fingers.
George takes it hesitantly.
"We're all a bit messy," she tells him. "But unfortunately, we haven't got much choice."
"Isn't there a way to take down the WPG?" George asks her.
Parvati steeples her fingers under her chin, and George takes the moment to take a bite of the sandwich. It settles his stomach a bit, and his headache had receded with the hangover potion.
"Being a seer… it's not what you'd imagine. I don't see everything. I see flashes — and only if they're connected to me or those I love. I've never seen you in any vision until the WPG letter fell into my hands. I took one look at the black parchment, and suddenly… there you were."
George frowns as he chews. "So who do you see, mostly?"
"My family," she answers, "and big events. Really, really important stuff, sometimes. It takes decades to master the talent, and I don't know if there are any others alive to teach me. I didn't even see the stupid WPG coming."
George lifts an eyebrow, "what would you have done if you'd seen it?"
"Tell my family to pull our galleons and run. Hide."
"Ouch," George says, only half-serious, "am I so terrible?"
He's expecting Parvati to laugh, but her face is expressionless. She's gone a little grey, as though she might faint. Finally, she looks at him, and her eyes are wet with tears.
"You don't know," she answers softly. "There is worse yet, for us, out there. I'm so tired, George."
George sets his sandwich down and approaches her, attempting to project comfort and safety with every fibre of his being. He's not sure he succeeds; not with his gaunt face and tattered robe. Not with the stink of alcohol on his breath and the grief of war etched into his skin. Not with a shadow of twin hanging over his every movement; a dance he cannot complete.
"Parvati," he murmurs, "tell me, what have you seen?"
She shakes her head, "It's not so simple. I can't just… explain for you. There are so many… there are so many roads and twists. I don't know!"
George shushes her, "It's okay, it's okay. We can figure it out."
Parvati slams her eyes shut as if to block out the images, but she reaches one trembling hand out and fists it in his robe. Her knuckles go white.
"Whatever you do, George Weasley, do not wear blue."
George stares down at her tight grip on his robe, and the ridiculous words echoing in his ears.
"Alright," he agrees slowly, "no blue. Easy."
Parvati opens wide eyes. "Not so simple, then. You won't die on this day, not any longer. I fixed it. For now."
"How was I going to die?"
"Alone," Parvati answers, voice strong and sure. She pulls no punches and straightens her spine to brush imaginary lint off her dress.
George wishes he could find his voice. Wishes he could shout or cry or scream, but there is nothing left inside of him. Alone. Of course, he would die alone; he's living alone. One half of a permanently destroyed whole.
Fury — fury that he had been so fucking close. So close to Fred.
Damn her.