George
It's been a few days I haven't hear anything from Harry. I tried to contact him repeatedly by fire without success. The fireplace seems blocked. Mum is trying every day; she is going out of her mind with worry. Bill tried as well, even Percy at one point. Nothing...
My place is starting to turn into a "Concern for Harry" meeting point. Yesterday I had a visit from Luna, less dreamy and more down to earth than usual. She brought a cake with her; I don't know if I'll be bold enough to try it though. She accepted a cup of tea, and we chatted a bit, she stared at me a good deal in that way she has, making me a bit uneasy. One always has the feeling she is looking through you. A bit like with Ted but at least he is more discreet in his reading. She gave me to understand it's essential that somebody (that is me) must go to see how he is coping as soon as it may be. She tried but without success; nobody opened the door.
When she left (staring a good deal at my messy flat too) I was pondering on her words when a new knocking brought me to the door. Neville was there.
He bought me a bizarre looking plant. The leaves change colour continuously. They are aquamarine now. Unfortunately, it is not supplied with an instruction leaflet so I'm not sure what that supposed to mean. Anyway, I offered him tea asking if he shouldn't be at Hogwarts. It turned out he got a day off to pay a visit to Harry but, again, it has been an unsuccessful attempt. He seemed very worried and asked me to try too.
Not long after he left, nonetheless than McGonagall knocked at my door. She brought nothing, scolded me amply for the mess but also congratulated me for my success. Apparently, my products are doing great at Hogwarts, the caretaker hates me with a fierceness hardly describable. That's good news, I reckon. She accepted a tea and spilled the beans about the motive of her coming. It was because of Harry. It's days she is trying to get in touch but in vain, she has been to mum and then, in the hope of gathering some more information, popped by my place. I couldn't tell her anything new. She left chiding me some more but also asking me to try to get in touch with him. She was quite upset which is odd from her.
By then I was starting to feel a slight alarm, and I didn't want to lose another second but as I definitely was going to set off, the biting beast appeared on my threshold too, requiring loudly to be admitted inside. She had a dreadful cold, but she still managed to be extremely bossy and weepy at the same time. She came to me because she didn't know who to turn to. She begged me… no wait, "beg" is not the right word. She ordered me to force my way in Harry's place at all costs. All the while sneezing and weeping like an obsess.
She refused flatly to take a potion for her cold and as I was starting to be irked by her cluelessness, she finally calmed down enough to be intelligible accepting a cup of tea. My 274th of that day.
When she took out her jacket, I almost dribbled it all on my lap risking a serious third-degree burn. She has got a fucking killing body! What in the hell was Ginny thinking inviting over such a girl? And how in the hell could Harry have her in the house and stick to fidelity?! He must have shagged her! He must have!
Anyway, as soon as I managed to divert my attention from her breast, I collected that she basically spent a whole day on his threshold freezing almost to death. She knocked at the door tirelessly every hour without result.
I'm starting to grow deeply uneasy. We are all a bit afraid of how his mind is coping. I haven't got the chance to talk to him, not even once since he woke up (not that I would have known what to say, honestly), I just saw his reaction in apprehending the news and that was enough to make me grasp the seriousness of the situation.
He is avoiding everybody. I cannot blame him. I understand his wish to stay alone. I know how it is. You just want to stay far from everybody, in the conviction that nobody can understand you and if by any chance somebody does, it's even worse because it just makes you confront with what you don't want to acknowledge. You get a damned solitude. You wish for it but when you achieve it, it's unbearable. That is the moment when you have nobody else but yourself to listen to.
Ginny was everybody's darling. Together with Bill. He because the first and the better, she because the craved girl after many failed attempts to have one. I must be honest; I never resented it. But it was only because I had Fred. Charlie didn't resent it either because he was with Bill. Percy had indeed probably suffered from it. That's why he struggled so much for greatness. He was only trying unconsciously to be raised on the same level as Bill. Fat chance. It only made him conceited and pompous. He never had a chance; he was the first to be born under the disappointment of not being a girl.
But Ron… well Ron… It's the one who suffered the most. By the time mum and dad had him they were really fed up with boys and probably he never got all the attentions we received. Probably it was a bit mine and Fred's fault too. We were such troublemakers; we monopolised mum's attention completely.
He was alone. There was only Ginny. A Ginny who had been pampered and extra loved by everybody in stark comparison. I feel sorry for him. No wonder he never really grew up. At the same time, I despise him.
He had the luck to find a friend in Harry who's always putting others first, exceptionally loyal. A friend like scarcely you will ever have, and Ron never noticed anything of it, instead he always felt envy for absurd reasons because, honestly, besides women that he attracts as a magnet (and I envied him for that too) he had a pretty shitty life. I'd never exchange mine with his.
If Ron had been slightly overlooked whilst a child, Harry had been trampled on without pity. I met his relatives. I've seen how they treated him. And even in school he never had a chance for peace of mind. He fought all his life. Against You-know-who first, against recollection of it later and all of it topped by lovely people who made his life a living hell with persecution and nosiness.
And I despise Ron now for hating Harry as he does, for accusing him of Fred and Ginny's death. Despicable. As if the poor guy hasn't already his problems that having to feel those burdens too. Thank god Harry hadn't been present when he made those accuses. I cannot even imagine the disastrous consequences it could have had on his mind. I was so upset it took me almost an hour to calm down. How did he dare to bring Fred's death up in that way? He died for a good cause, knowing what he was risking, not because of Harry. It has been like debasing his act, rendering meaningless his death… Nothing can excuse such behaviour. And the hypocrisy of such an accuse when he killed Lily. Accident or not accident I would have cut him off completely. If we are still in speaking term, it's only because Ginny asked me to, and I couldn't refuse her anything in such a moment.
Anyway, at the hospital Mum entreated non-stop for an hour to go and make up. I have no intention whatsoever to comply. I'm sorry to say it but if I must choose between the two, I choose Harry.
Well, when the biting beast left, it was definitely too late for a visit so I'm setting off this morning. Hopefully he will open the door to me. I want to make sure everything is… Well, I dare not hope for "fine" but at least "under control". Because I got a sudden alarming hunch. Perhaps there may be a worse reason for his not answering at the door than wanting to stay by himself that didn't cross my mind before. A reason I'm not sure I want to voice to anybody, not even to myself.
I told Lee I'm going, and he seemed quite concerned too. I cannot say they are close, they met time to time but not enough to form a friendship but right now I'd say everybody is concerned. Except Ron. The moron.
I knock at the door, but nobody answers, I try a couple of times more unrelenting. I won't be put off so easily. If in two hours he doesn't come to the door, I'll bring it down. I fiddled long enough with classified object to know how to do it quite easily and I've got all the necessary equipment with me.
Surprisingly it reveals not to be necessary. He opens the door. Quite alive thank god though battered. He greets me without enthusiasm rubbing his face, he was surely sleeping.
I ask if I can get in and he let me pass.
'You look like shit, mate' I say with a grin.
'I feel like shit. I am still pissed from last night' he says supporting himself against the wall while walking toward the kitchen.
'Drank too much?'
'I don't even remember, so yes, probably yes…'
While going to the kitchen I glance briefly in the living room, and I startle. The mess is unbelievable. Worse than my place (and that means something) but it is not that that make me startle.
'Harry! There is a woman here!' I exclaim baffled.
On the sofa, a woman is sleeping, barely covered by a blanket. Her dishevelled hair is partially shading her face and a long slim arm is dangling from the cushion.
Harry, who has already passed the living room door, turns toward me 'What? What woman? What are you talking about?' he walks a few steps back and enters the living room. I see his brows knitting in an effort to remember something.
He clears her face from her hair at which she frowns and turns on the other side in her sleep.
I see him in deep reflection, he looks at the coffee table and take a box lying there. From it some square shiny envelops are popping out. He studies them and then says under his voice 'Muggle'.
And now I remember what those things are. I hooked up some muggle women a few times. I have been forced to wear those rubbery things. A very unpleasant business, uncomfortable and slightly numbing. I didn't like it all. It spoiled a bit the fun. It's a wonder that with millions of years evolution they didn't come out with something better for the purpose.
Harry looks again at the girl and shrugs his shoulders 'I think she is called something with "S" and that's all I can recollect. Let's let her sleep' he says unconcernedly dragging himself out of the living room 'She is probably as pissed as me'
He enters the kitchen under my bewildered eyes.
Now, I pride myself to be a very understanding person. Not judgemental and very open minded about sex relationships. I've always thought that monogamy is the recipe for unhappiness but bloody hell! She was my sister! She just died for fuck's sake!
I follow him in the kitchen consternated. He is sitting on a chair pouring himself a glass of something that seems water but I'm pretty sure it's not water. It's ten o'clock in the morning.
'Harry, for god's sake! Who is she?' I hiss between my teeth. Have I not the right to be upset?
He looks at me scowling, irritated 'I told you, I've no clue'
'You shagged her for Christ's sake! It's barely two weeks…' that she died. But I don't say the last bit. I let my sentence suspended.
The reaction is quite scary. I see in him quite a change. A subtle creepy change: his eyes harden, his expression set, hides something I've never seen there before. There is a person behind I never knew.
I falter under that gaze. Off-balance.
'I want you out' he says harshly. He hasn't risen his voice. Quite the opposite. It's a low gravelly growl.
'Harry…' I just manage to say.
'Out' he repeats nodding toward the door.
'Harry, I just want to…'
He stands up suddenly minacious.
'I said out! I don't want to see any of you Weasley anymore! Stay away from me, all of you! Leave me alone!' he barks.
I'm so taken aback I comply.
I linger outside for a moment looking at the closed door, preoccupation gripping on me.
Something ugly is happening in him.
However, it doesn't come as a big surprise; I can almost say I was expecting it.
We both lost somebody really important in our life. Let's face it, he lost many important people in his life, me just one, but such a one.
Me and Fred were like one. I cannot remember a moment in my life that wasn't spent with him. We did everything together in an almost scary symbiosis.
I don't remember having ever argued with him. We shared everything. Even girls at one point. They could never tell us apart and that made the thing extremely easy.
We were so united sometimes, I think, we forgot to be two separate beings.
When he died, it was like… It's difficult to explain. I felt the world crumbling under my feet. Like if something had been teared off violently from me. I couldn't even conceive my life without Fred. For the first time in my life, I have been left alone. And it had been terrorizing. God knows if it had been terrorizing. I wasn't used to it. I didn't want to get used to it. I felt lost in a world of solitude. How many times I spoke to him out of habit realising mid-sentence he wasn't there. It was a shock every time. I spurned company because it wasn't Fred's company and I hated solitude because it was lack of Fred's company.
Me too I was drinking at ten in the morning while still pissed from the night before. Me too I was angry and bitter towards everybody. Me too I was shunning people.
And I think it happened there that I decided unconsciously that I'd never have shared my life with anybody else again. I chose not to love anymore. I was sabotaging every possible relation that could evolve in something more. It wasn't exactly a conscious choice as I said.
The moment of awareness came only recently. And it was Harry, unwarily, who made me realise. It was right after the accident with my hands, he made a remark or two about Jude's behaviour toward me and mine toward her. He didn't say anything specific, but I understood his meaning and I mulled it over.
Suddenly I realised how much of her was in my flat. Belongings surely (too many of them actually) but there was also her presence in a way; her smell, things had been changed of place here and there for her convenience, my place was tidier, cleaner, when she hang around.
Although what really struck me was that there was a cosiness, an intimacy between us I scarcely ever had with any other woman. I found out that I rejoiced when her husband was away for business.
In short, if I wasn't in love already, I was on the way of being so very soon.
Without knowing why, without even reflecting on it, I moved her to the Hogsmeade's shop, and I told her I didn't want to see her anymore.
It was pathetic; I never imagined she could shed so many tears all in one go. I felt the worst in years. She asked me the reasons of it many times that day and I didn't answer. Not because I didn't want to, I just didn't know.
When my place was empty of her presence and a replacement from Hogsmeade had arrived, I understood the reason.
I was protecting myself. I simply didn't want to run the risk to suffer anymore as I suffered when Fred died. It had been too much, and it had been so difficult to get over it. I just couldn't run the risk to let it happen anymore.
I didn't call her back. I just accepted it. It was easier. Better a momentary dreadfulness than the risk of much worse pain.
Often though, when I looked at Harry happy in his family, his love for Ginny and Ginny's love for him, I thought that maybe I was wrong, and he was the one who had taken the right choice. He, despite everything, was the happiest of the two.
There was always a very good atmosphere at their place, a warmth, a cosiness, a noisy cheerfulness that was definitely missing in mine. I always felt a bit forlorn after having paid a visit.
Perhaps he had been right to take that chance. To fall in love. Perhaps he was right, and I was wrong.
But now, when I look at his life, when I think about this morning, when I see what he is becoming, I'm hesitant again. Perhaps the wise one has been me after all.
Now that pain and desperation brought by loss it's in front of my eyes again, now that I have seen all of that in Harry, I ask myself:
Is it really worth?