30 July 1997

It had been nearly two days since the night they'd almost lost George. Two days of wedding preparations and hushed conversations and shining silverware that was already so pristine, it could likely be used to signal spacecrafts.

Two full days that she'd been staying at The Burrow, and Hermione hadn't heard so much as a peep from Molly Weasley outside of being told which linens to press or which bathroom fixtures to scrub next.

She was beginning to think it wouldn't ever come, the inevitable conversation and ensuing uncomfortable questions. But, as these things had a tendency to go, Molly managed to strike at precisely the time at which Hermione had started to think she never would.

"Hermione, could you come in here for a moment?"

She'd been curled in the den with a book when the summons rang out, enjoying a brief reprieve from their various household chores and clandestine planning.

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley," she called back.

Hermione placed her bookmark and got up, heading into the kitchen and mentally preparing to peel five-hundred potatoes, or de-gnome the garden for the umpteenth time. What she wasn't expecting was a plate of biscuits and tea. Tea set for just two.

"Would you have a seat, please?"

Molly said it with her usual kind, matronly disposition, but it certainly didn't feel like an invitation that could be declined.

"Of course," Hermione replied, pulling out a chair and doing precisely that.

Molly went about silently pouring their tea and offering the tray briming with jammy biscuits across the table.

Hermione delicately placed one on the edge of her plate and stirred milk into her cup without comment; if Molly was attempting subterfuge by way of waiting her out, they were going to be there for a while. She'd been all but raised over tense meals and uncomfortable silences.

"Hermione," Molly finally began after a pause that was far too long to be natural, "You know that, as a mother and a homemaker, I take a great deal of pride in this house and in my family."

"I do."

"Pride not just in keeping things running, but in understanding how and why they do so. Staying attuned to the people in our lives. It's not an easy thing to do when you have seven children, not by any means, but I thought that I was managing well enough. That is, until two nights ago."

Hermione didn't say anything, taking a measured sip of her tea and refusing to be the one to blink first.

"Precisely how long have you been in a relationship with my son?" Molly asked, voice polite but stern, and not overly saccharine. "I asked Arthur, given his noticeable lack of surprise at the development, but he experienced a rather inconvenient lapse in memory."

Hermione fought valiantly to keep a smirk from her lips. It seemed she owed Arthur a muggle kitchen appliance of some sort.

Regardless, in her mental preparation for this discussion she had drawn metaphorical lines around the things she would be willing to talk about and the things that she wouldn't. Innocuous questions about the length of their relationship fell into the former category.

"A little over a year and a half."

Molly visibly blanched and Hermione was struck with a pang of guilt that wasn't entirely hers to bear.

"I see," the older witch said unsteadily, her teacup clattering a little as she set it back on its saucer and interlocked her hands on top of the table. Her lips pressed into a thin line and Hermione noticed the edge of her thumb nail looked as though it had recently been bitten past the point of bleeding.

"Mrs. Weasley, I'm not sure –"

"Oh, I think we're well beyond formalities; you may call me Molly."

"Molly, then. I'm not sure that I'm the person that you should be having this discussion with."

"I am well aware of that. For whatever reason I just thought — I thought that it might be easier this way."

Hermione raised a brow at that.

"If you're under the impression that I'm the more malleable party, I regret to inform you that is not the case."

"Why didn't he tell me, then? Why has it come to this in the first place?"

And there they were, edging toward that line.

"That's a question for Fred, I won't speak for him."

Frustration was beginning to take the fore and another pang of sympathy struck.

"It seems you've already decided what you are and are not willing to say, so why don't we speed things along and you can just share your piece."

"What I'm willing to say is that I love your son, Mrs. W — Molly. With everything that I am, I love him. I would not ever do anything to hurt him, nor would I permit anyone else the opportunity to do so if it were in my power to prevent it."

"Are you implying that I've somehow harmed my child?" Molly's eyes flashed in a way that almost made Hermione reach for her wand.

"I'm not implying anything. I'm saying that Fred has his own reasons for not telling you about us. I don't know all of them, I won't pretend that I do, and even if I did it wouldn't be my place to parrot them now."

Molly held her gaze, unwavering as birds chirped in the garden and the tea on the table between them, all but forgotten, slowly went cold. Then she sighed, as if the fight had gone out of her in one massive blow as she sagged back into her chair, the aged wood creaking softly in protest.

"It really shouldn't be any surprise that the two of you gravitated toward one another, you're as bloody stubborn as he is."

Hermione's lips quirked up and she drew her wand, deftly refreshing their tea and adding a bit of lemon to her own.

"You're certainly not the first person to make that observation."

Molly hesitated for a moment before picking her cup up and taking a sip.

"I can't lose another one of my children, Hermione. If I came on – if I gave you the impression that I am unhappy about my son's choice in partner, I apologise. That's not the case. I'm just —"

"— troubled by the circumstances?" Hermione finished with a huffed laugh and Molly nodded. "I can empathise with that. I find myself troubled by a great many circumstances these days, almost none of which I have any control over whatsoever."

"Is there anything you might be willing to tell me to better understand things before I do talk to Fred? You've said you won't speak for him, and I respect that, but surely you have your own take on how things have played out."

Hermione nodded slowly and leaned forward a bit.

"Fred and I began our relationship — formally, that is — not long before he left Hogwarts. For that reason, and several others, we agreed to explore things without outside influence."

"Outside influence being me?"

"Outside influence being a lot of things, Molly." Hermione sighed, resisting the urge to rub her temples as faces and memories flickered through her mind like a kaleidoscope. Ron. Umbridge. Sirius. A hall of prophecies. A hospital bed. A key on a garden bench. "But yes, also you. I can admit that things got away from us a bit; it was never supposed to stay a secret as long as it did."

"So it wasn't because you were… ashamed? To be with him?"

Hermione, caught off-guard by the remark, dropped her near-empty cup on its saucer with a rattle that made them both jump.

"Absolutely not," she said sharply. "I couldn't be prouder of him if I tried. Fred is… he's brilliant. Completely, utterly, mind-bogglingly brilliant. Far more than he's ever received or sought credit for. Hell, more than I think he even knows."

For the first time in the course of their conversation, Molly nodded with what looked like approval.

"Good. That's good. My son is a very talented young man, he should be with someone that appreciates that."

At this, Hermione couldn't help herself. "Have you ever said that to him?"

Molly's brows drew tight together. "What do you mean?"

"To Fred – and George as well, I suppose. Did you ever tell them that you thought they were talented? That their ideas were brilliant? Before the shop, I mean."

"I – I'm certain that I did."

Hermione remained silent, knowing that she'd crossed the metaphorical line but still hoping it had been the right thing to do.

The fact of the matter was that this wasn't a topic she had reason to be personally angry about. If she'd ever felt any animosity toward Molly, at least with regards to Fred, it came purely from a place of wanting to spare him any and all possible pain. But relationships, all relationships, bore some amount of hurt. It was the price they all paid for loving, and the deeper that well ran, so too did the potential for loss.

The look in Molly's eyes said she knew this as well.

"Is that – is that why? He thinks I'm not proud of him? That I don't —?"

"It's not my place to say what Fred thinks," Hermione said again, much more gently this time. "But I have reason to believe that's part of it, yes. You always seemed so intent on traditional measures of success – OWLs and NEWTs and Prefect badges. And, despite their cleverness and everything that they've done with it, the twins never fit into those boxes. It took a while for me to appreciate, I can admit that, but I get it now."

Looking thoroughly shaken, Molly refreshed their cups and they finished their tea in a contemplative silence. Hermione's mostly that of relief, if not a lingering measure of guilt, and Molly's… something she knew was likely unfathomable to her. She wasn't a mother, and her own perception of the role was admittedly distorted.

"Hermione?" Molly said, finally breaking the stupor when she'd made to get up and return to the den.

"Yes?"

"Would you – would you take the rest of these biscuits over to the twins' flat?"

Molly gestured to the still-full tray in between them, and Hermione drew back in surprise before nodding. "Erm, of course. You don't want to —?"

"No. No, not just yet I don't think."

"All right," Hermione agreed, stifling her curiosity and swallowing the questions that danced on the tip of her tongue. This was between Fred and his mother; she would mediate if necessary, and listen always, but it wasn't her place to intercede. Not without reason or invitation.

Molly wrapped the tray and Hermione took it, heading toward the back door that led into the garden and toward the apparition point at the edge of the wards. She summoned her beaded bag from her room upstairs as she went, not keen to go anywhere without it as of late.

"I won't expect it back tonight," Molly said suddenly as Hermione made to step out. "The tray, I mean."

"Oh," Hermione said, taken aback and wondering if Molly was implying what she thought she was implying. "Right, okay. I'll… bring it back tomorrow morning?"

"Tomorrow morning would be fine. I'll need its help getting ready for Harry's birthday party."

Hermione couldn't help but smile at that, and her nerves were eased when Molly smiled back, even if her eyes were still set somewhere far away.

"Thank you, Molly."

"You're welcome. Give my regards to the boys."

Feeling as though she'd stumbled into a parallel universe, Hermione made her way down the path and past the boundaries of The Burrow, pausing to collect herself before turning on the spot and popping into the alley behind the shop.

Upon letting herself in, the warmth of the new wards recognising her, she saw Fred finishing with a customer while Lee roamed the floor.

"Glad to see the place hasn't fallen to pieces without me," Hermione said with a smirk, striding up behind Fred and setting down the tray of biscuits and her bag on the counter.

He spun, apparently not having heard the door, and looked at her with complete, yet delighted, surprise.

"What on earth are you doing here?" He asked, not wasting any time in closing the gap and planting a kiss soundly on her lips.

Hermione smiled, gripping his shoulders so she didn't fall. It had been two days too many since she'd seen him, and she tried hard not to think about how many days apart lie ahead of them.

"I think I'm a – peace offering?"

His brows nearly disappeared into his hairline and she cringed a little at her own choice of wording.

"Would you two get a bloody room? You're nauseating the clientele," Lee chided like an old hen as he arrived back at the counter. He made a shooing motion and took up Fred's place behind the till.

Rolling his eyes, Fred took her hand and dragged her back into the workroom.

"Did you do what I asked?" Hermione inquired, distracted and going immediately to the single cauldron that she'd left in the far-most corner.

"Two petals from the orchid that you left here at the stroke of midnight yesterday," Fred affirmed, leaning against the counter beside her as they peered in at the potion, now in stasis. It was a deep emerald color that had an almost iridescent sheen when the light caught it.

"Then I suppose it's done. At least, as done as it will be. It's not as though we can compare or test it."

"Let's hope you don't have the opportunity to," Fred said. He lightly gripped her chin between his thumb and knuckle, physically pulling her attention from the cauldron and back to him. "Now what on earth did you mean when you said that you'd been sent to me as a peace offering?"

"Your mum gave me her blessing to stay here tonight," Hermione clarified. "Or, at least, I think she did? There was a lot of double-speak happening."

"Did she confront you about the other night? I meant what I said Hermione, if she —"

"She was perfectly congenial," Hermione placated, tracing her fingertips over the back of his hand. "Honestly, I probably deserved a bit more venom than I got."

"I'm glad," Fred admitted. "Not that you thought you deserved to be treated poorly, but if she has an issue with our relationship, she can take it up with me and leave you out of it."

"It's not our relationship that she has issue with, Fred. At least, she says it isn't and I believe her. It's the fact that she didn't know about it. Or, rather, that you didn't tell her about it. Although I suppose that part is my fault…"

"Don't do that. You gave me carte blanche to tell her before you left last fall, it was my decision not to."

"Well, then I suppose you already know that's the discussion at hand. I didn't say anything, just answered a few basic questions, drank some tea, and told her to take the rest up with you."

Fred nodded, a muscle in his jaw ticking. Hermione eyed her potion again for a long second before looking back to him.

"Can I say something that I don't know if you'll want to hear?"

"Yeah."

"Hear her out. As someone with a sudden and distinct lack of parents, I've found it's a lot easier to dwell on the things that I didn't say as opposed to the ones that I did. Even the unpleasant things. A wound that's been left to fester sometimes needs to be opened again before it can heal."

"Hermione —"

"Just hear her out. I know there's probably a lot of historical context that I'm not privy to, I understand that, and I won't ask for a detailed presentation explaining it all. Just listen to what she has to say. Okay?"

"Okay," Fred sighed, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. She examined him more closely then, noting the dark circles beneath his eyes.

"What else is bothering you?"

"Nothing," he said evasively, straightening a bit. "Just a long day."

Hermione peered up at him dubiously and then, lightning quick, she reached up and flicked him directly between his eyebrows, over a crease he didn't seem to know was giving him away.

"Oi!" Fred said, drawing back with his mouth agape, rubbing at the spot on his forehead. "What was that for?"

"You're lying to me! Why are you lying to me?

"I'm not lying to you!"

"Fine then, evading."

"Evading sounds nefarious."

"Evading is nefarious."

"Hermione —"

"Fred."

He groaned and sighed again, far more long-sufferingly than the first time.

"It's George." He leaned against the table and drew her forward to stand between his feet, rubbing surreptitiously between his brows once more before resting his hands on her waist. "Ever since the other night, with his ear and all, he's been… sulking. Angie and I have been trying to get him to perk up, or talk about it at least, but he either cracks a joke or just shrugs and mumbles some bollocks about not questioning a holy figure."

Hermione's gut twisted in worry. She glanced toward the door that led back into the shop and in the direction of their flat. "Is he upstairs now?"

"Yeah, Angie just left a little bit ago. But I don't think —"

"Do you trust me?" Hermione asked, looking up into his face. The unconcealed worry in his blue eyes reflected back, but he still managed to roll them at what was, at this point, a rhetorical question.

"Yeah, of course."

"Good. I'll be back down in a bit."

She kissed him on the cheek then made for the door, fliting past Lee to grab the tray of biscuits off the counter and then heading for the stairs. The entire time she began mentally fortifying, preparing for the conversation she thought she might be about to have. Coming off two days of relative quiet, there seemed to be quite a lot of heavy conversations happening at the same time.

Upon reaching the top landing, Hermione entered the flat and proceeded into the kitchen. She set the plate on the counter beside the sink and then turned back down the hall and stopped in front of George's door.

She raised a tentative hand and knocked, opening it when a voice responded with a flat, "Come in."

Hermione turned the knob and stepped past the threshold of George's room to find him sitting on the edge of a half-heartedly made bed, staring at the wall beside the window. Not out the window, at the wall. Not a great start.

"Hey, your mum sent me over with some biscuits. I left them on the kitchen counter if you want one."

"Yeah, alright. Thanks."

His tone was dismissive, but she lingered, lightly tapping her nails on the door frame.

"Is everything… okay?"

And there it was: the dreaded shrug.

She knew the shrug.

She'd lived the shrug.

"M'fine."

Hermione dithered and then crossed the room to stand near the desk in the corner.

"Is this about your ear?" she asked candidly.

"What?" George looked up in surprise.

"This — the moping, is it about your ear? Fred is worried and, from what he said, Angie is too."

George looked frustrated at this news, shaking his head.

"Well, I'm tickled to be the topic of so many conversations, but I'm fine."

"Bollocks."

"C'mon Hermione, give me a little credit. I'm not that vain."

"I never said that you were vain."

"Then what exactly are you trying to say?"

"That something's obviously wrong and you aren't talking about it. With anyone."

"Nothing is wro —"

"Bollocks. You were hurt, you almost died. Angie had to hold your head together while she flew across Surrey, for fuck's sake. And there are a lot of people that are trying to pretend that everything is normal because of the wedding and because they don't want to make Harry feel bad. But if you say you're fine to me one more time, I'm going to hex you into a pile of red hair and goo and it won't matter one bit what your ears look like."

"Well, what exactly do you propose I say!?" George snapped, now looking openly irritated at her. Irritation was better than nothing, though; it was the distant relative of anger, and she could deal with anger. His eyes narrowed. "Should I go and berate Harry? Sulk about how I'm damaged goods? How I'm not identical anymore? How in every fucking photo I see of myself from now on will just be seeing – seeing what they did? It'll go away. It'll fade. I'm fine."

She looked at the slope of his shoulders, the defiant defensiveness in his face, and then nodded.

Hermione's hands went to the top button of her blouse, unfastening it before making quick work of the rest. George, who'd been looking away from her again, didn't notice until she got to the bottom and shrugged out of her top, leaving her in just a thin undershirt and denim shorts. His eyes went wide.

"Whoa, what the hell are you—?"

"Shut up." She braced herself and gripped the hem of her vest before she lost her nerve, tugging it over her head in one jerking motion and thanking the gods she'd worn a rather modest grey bra that day.

"Seriously Hermione, I don't think —"

George cut off again when she turned to face him, shoulders squared and chin high as he saw in its near entirety what only one other person besides herself and a small army of healers had seen.

Hermione didn't need to look down; she'd spent more than enough time staring at it.

"This?" she said fiercely, gesturing to the thick, raised scar spanning her torso, "This does not make me damaged goods. It doesn't make me weak or broken, and it does not mean that I failed. Katie, Ron, Harry, Bill, Alastor… none of their scars mean anything beyond the fact that, against odds, they survived. And neither does that."

She pointed to the twisted, puckered skin where his ear used to be. It was her first time seeing it unwrapped and, despite still being an angry pink color, it didn't look all that odd at all. But the things people noticed about themselves, the things they agonised over, often don't seem that out of the ordinary to the people around them. Especially not to the people that care about them.

George remained silent but his lips, which had initially parted in shock at her rather dramatic display, pressed tight together and she saw his throat bob as he swallowed. She didn't say anything for a long moment, just let him look in the mid-afternoon light and resisted the urge to cover herself. It wasn't a lewd sort of stare in the slightest, just observant. Almost clinical.

"Angie doesn't understand," George finally said, a ragged edge on his voice. He looked away, toward the wall beside the bed, but she didn't miss the pained expression on his face.

"No. No, I imagine she probably doesn't," Hermione sighed as she pulled her vest back on. She kept her blouse clutched in her hand and went to sit beside him on the edge of the bed. "It doesn't mean that she can't still be there for you, though. Believe me when I tell you that she lived her own hell that night."

"It just… it feels so fucking self-indulgent and trivial, sitting around and pouting about a scar. It's a scar. I mean, we all knew the risks. We knew what might happen when we set out that night; hell, a few inches lower and it would have been my throat."

"If this stupid war has taught me anything it's that knowing something and experiencing it firsthand are two very different things. All considered, I think that this is a really well-adjusted response."

George bobbed his head and fiddled with his hands. Not wringing them, just sort of slowly, compulsively sliding them against one another.

"How did you get over it?" He asked abruptly.

"I can't say that I am over it," she admitted with a shrug. "I've just made my peace."

"Still, there had to be something that made it better, some kind of epiphany or nugget of wisdom that you can share."

"Fred didn't tell you?"

He shook his head. "No, not really."

Hermione smiled softly and tipped her head, thoughtful. "It was partly his doing, I suppose. I can't give him all the credit, though. I kept waiting to get better, to feel like myself again, but I needed to acknowledge what happened first. Recognise that it affected me and that, for as much as I wanted to be, I wasn't the same after. That I wasn't ever going to be the same again. Until that happened it didn't matter what anyone else said or did. It didn't even really matter what I did. I just had to let myself feel it."

"You're lucky you can hide yours," George remarked, a rueful smirk twisting his lip as he glanced sideways at her.

"Lucky was definitely not what I was thinking when it happened." She snorted acerbically, remembering the devastating self-doubt that she'd felt at the time as she idly traced a finger over the topmost edge of the mark, still partly visible. "But now it's just… a scar. A physical representation of a time when I could have died but, rather obstinately, didn't. It might sound a little barmy, but I'm almost glad of it, you know? I didn't go through what I did, survive what I did, just to have it all neatly disappear like it never happened. It bloody well happened, alright. And the healing was messy, and it was painful in more ways than one. That should show."

George was quiet for a long moment, examining the wall again.

"Wow, you're right," he finally said. "That's pretty barmy."

She grinned and threw her shoulder into his, jostling the bed, and he laughed for the first time since she'd entered the room. It wasn't much, still strained and tight, but much like his earlier irritation, it was something. And in times like these, sometimes something was everything.

"Talk to Angie," Hermione commanded in a tone that didn't leave any room for argument as she got to her feet. "Fred too. They love you, and they want to help. So, suck it up and let them. Or I'll come back in here and strip again, and you can explain to our significant others why I'm half-naked in your bedroom. I imagine that will go over famously."

"Yeah, alright." George quickly swiped the back of his hand beneath his eyes while she pretended not to notice, busied with shrugging her blouse back on and rebuttoning it.

Hermione turned toward the door then, intent on heading back downstairs and feeling a bit satisfied with herself, when a hand caught her shoulder and spun her around. George had gotten off the bed and, before she knew it, he had her wrapped in a tight hug.

She'd hugged him before in greeting and good-bye, but not quite like this. Her first thought was that it was utterly bizarre how similar he was to Fred physically, but how completely different he felt. Not bad or uncomfortable, just different. It reminded her of hugging Harry.

"Thank you," he said quietly into the empty space over her head.

"Any time," she replied easily.

He let her go and stepped back. She was about to leave again but stopped when George looked like he had something to add. He froze, opening and shutting his mouth a couple times like a fish before saying uncertainly: "I'm glad that it was you."

It was silent for a second and Hermione's brows pulled together as she tried to understand what he meant by that. That he was glad she'd come to talk with him? Giving up and shaking her head, she asked, "Glad that what was me?"

George shifted his weight, still unmistakably hesitant. "For Fred. If you'd asked me who I thought he might end up with, before the two of you got together, I mean, I never in a million years would have guessed that it would be you. You're not – you're not who I would have picked to be my family, Hermione. But that just goes to show how bloody stupid I can be, because I'm really, really glad that it was you."

The words and everything they carried with them sank in, and Hermione's throat constricted, the weight of both their conversation and the past several weeks hitting her at once. She tried and failed to clear the lump choking her, the corners of her eyes stinging. Then she simply nodded and stepped forward to hug him again, a little more fiercely this time.

"Promise me that you'll be careful, okay?" She said hoarsely against George's shoulder, just below his good ear.

"I will," he vowed, familiarly unfamiliar arms banded tight across her back. "You too, yeah? If you go off and get yourself killed saving the world, there'll be no living with him. It'll be terribly inconvenient for me."

Hermione laughed wetly and pulled away, sniffling and nodding. "I promise."