May 2nd, 2005

"Aunt Rory, do you have to go?"

"Sorry, bud, but yeah, I've gotta go."

"But why?"

Monday morning following the Ball found Lorelai in George and Angelina's guest room, packing the few belongings she'd brought with her for the weekend. And although she'd certainly had about all she could take of being back in London for the time being, the goodbyes were never easy. Her nephew's ability to channel his namesake as he sat there pouting at her wasn't helping anything.

"If I don't go home, I won't have any cool stories or presents the next time I see you," she teased, pinching Freddie on the nose. The toddler giggled and batted her hand away, crawling closer to the bag she was currently packing.

"Next time you visit, can we go to the movies?"

"Sure thing," Lorelai promised, and immediately caught the mischievous gleam in his eyes.

"And can you stay for a whole week next time?" he asked eagerly, and Lorelai chuckled, shaking her head as she threw in her last t-shirt and zipped up the bag.

"We'll see," she said. "What do I always tell you?"

"We don't make promises we can't keep," Freddie recited back dutifully. Lorelai nodded and patted him on the head.

"Exactly. C'mon, I need to go say goodbye to your parents."

There was a moment of reluctance, but all it took was a challenge to see who could get there faster and Freddie went racing off. Lorelai smiled fondly after him, slinging her bag over her shoulder and heading towards the door herself. The kid was a ball of energy, and already clearly took after his father.

Downstairs Angelina was bouncing Roxanne on her hip as she made her morning tea, but George was nowhere to be seen. Lorelai wasn't surprised, and suspected he was in the workroom he'd set up off the back of the house, near their Floo connection. Freddie made a beeline for his mother, already jumping up and down asking for something Lorelai didn't take note of. Angelina tiredly cajoled him into the living room. Lorelai was fairly certain she heard something about after my tea and smiled. It was as Freddie settled down that Angelina caught her eye and shot her a sad smile.

"I take it you're about to head off?" she asked, and Lorelai nodded.

"Yeah, I've gotta get back," she said weakly. Of everyone, it was George and Angelina that best understood her inability to stay in one place long, especially England. Angelina nodded; she never pressed.

"George is out in the workroom."

"I figured. I'll drop in before I go." Angelina set her mug on the counter, pulling Lorelai into a tight hug with the one free arm she had.

"You be careful out there, alright? It was really good to see you."

Lorelai returned the embrace, making a funny face at Roxy as they broke apart and causing the baby to giggle.

"It was good to see you too. Thanks again for letting me stay. Hopefully I'll see you guys soon?" Angelina nodded, already reaching for her mug again.

"Yeah. We were talking about getting over to the States soon. Molly's been itching to get her hands on the kids."

Lorelai grinned and said her goodbyes to Freddie. It felt like a knife to the heart when he told her how much he'd miss her, but she hugged him tight and promised she'd send him a postcard from wherever she went next, and he at least let her go with a big smile after that.

It was dropping into the workroom that nearly broke her… though Lorelai was certain that something would by the end of the day. She knew she'd been teetering the entire weekend.

The workroom George had set up at home reminded her of the space the twins had set up back at Hogwarts more than anything. It was larger, of course, but still small, and the walls were plastered with notes and drawings. What always tore at her heartstrings was the fact that George still kept so many of Fred's notes, all the way back from when they'd been starting out, mixed in with his own current ones. He always said it was for inspiration.

Today, George was sitting at the workbench, and although there was a cauldron bubbling, George was staring blankly at the wall in front of him, his eyes out of focus. He startled at the sound of Lorelai coming in, but didn't bother to try and fake any pleasantries, and their eyes locked in understanding.

Wordlessly, Lorelai slipped onto the bench next to him and wrapped an arm around his waist, her head coming to rest against his shoulder. George, for his part, draped an arm around her shoulders and let his own head fall against hers, and Lorelai felt the beginnings of tears pricking at her eyes when she started looking over the stretch of wall in front of them. Just like the rest of the room, it was covered in parchment. There was a sketch of a prototype for a new firework, one that George and Ron had been talking to her about on Friday, and a page torn out of a potions book with George's scrawl all over it. Between the two, however, was an aged bit of parchment. It was unremarkable, except for the fact that Lorelai would have recognized Fred Weasley's handwriting anywhere, and she happened to remember him making the notes staring back at her on how he thought they might be able to adjust their Love Potions to "break" under certain circumstances. There was a photo just beneath it of Fred and George, standing outside the shop on the day of their grand opening.

"I hate that he's not here," George whispered. "I hate that you're both not here."

If Freddie had stuck the knife in her heart, his father had just twisted it.

"Me too," she admitted. She didn't trust herself to say anything more in that moment, though there was plenty that came to mind.

"He'd have been proud of you, you know. He'd have appreciated the way you thumb your nose at the system, working as an Auror but turning MACUSA upside down on a regular basis. He'd be happy you stuck to your own path, instead of giving in. He always loved that about you."

The sound Lorelai made was somewhere between a scoff and a sniffle.

"He'd be prouder of you," she countered. "Everything you've done with the shop… what you've got here with Ang. He'd be so happy for you George, and he'd want you to be happy."

George held her closer, and she felt a tear drop from his face.

"It would break him that you're not," he whispered, his voice cracking, and Lorelai, for once, didn't have a retort.

Lorelai wasn't sure how long they sat there together, just silently letting the weight of the day hit them. By the time she slipped out the backdoor, promises of another visit soon ringing in her ears, the world felt like it was spinning around her, the nonexistent walls closing in, and she was glad for the air. A few shuddering breaths later, she found a quiet spot, away from prying eyes, gripped her wand tightly, and turned, picturing the grassy knoll near the small cemetery where they'd buried Fred and some of the others that had fallen during the final battle.

It was empty as always – Lorelai appreciated the remote location – and her dark hair fluttered slightly in the breeze as she looked out from the top of the hill, her eyes squinted against the sun. Fred's grave was easy to spot; they'd picked a plot by one of the only trees in the area. Molly had thought it was pretty. Lorelai appreciated the added privacy, though she hadn't realized she would when they'd been making funeral arrangements. She and George had barely been coherent in those days.

The walk down was over all too quickly, and Lorelai found herself standing awkwardly a few feet away from the headstone. Birds chirped above, but the world went fuzzy around her. George's words still swirled in her head. The unmitigated disaster that had been Saturday night did as well, and the days before she'd left the States. Soon even all of that started to go fuzzy too, though, and all she saw were the words engraved in marble, staring back at her.

Frederick Gideon Weasley

Apr. 1, 1979 – May 2, 1998

Beloved husband, brother, and son

Mischief

"This is stupid," she found herself muttering when her eyes began watering again, "talking to a fucking headstone. I come here every year, but I don't usually talk – I mean, it's not like you can hear me, right? And if you can, it wouldn't be because I'm at your grave."

The breeze picked up around her, tangling some of her hair in the necklace that hung around her neck, and Lorelai huffed, not sure if she was more frustrated or grateful for the reminder, the gentle push, from mother nature.

"But you're the only person I've ever been able to be completely honest with," she admitted in a small voice. "More honest than I am with myself, because you could always see through my bullshit… and I just… I need you right now. But you're not here, so this is the best I've got."

Lorelai felt a flash of her anger when her voice cracked and she felt the tears finally spill over. Sniffling, she folded her arms over her chest tightly, and looked at the ground, trying to blink back the emotion to no avail.

"I like my life, you know… most of the time, anyway. Katie and Julia are great… between the two of them it's like I don't have to miss out on having kids of my own, you know? And I've got family, even if they're a little dysfunctional, and good friends… really good friends. I like my job. It makes me feel like I'm righting some wrongs, and I'm good at it. And it's let me make my own name for myself, you know, instead of being Howard Baudelaire's heir, or Harry Potter's cousin, or even Fred Weasley's widow."

The last one was her least favorite of her monikers. She was too young to be a widow. She'd been too young to be a wife… but war paved way for the unusual.

"But your stupid, wonderful, pain-in-my-ass twin's right," she went on, another tear or two spilling over, her vision blurring and voice cracking. Her grip tightened. "I'm not happy… I don't think I've really, truly been happy since you died. You know, I still don't know what exactly I believe in, but whatever higher power there is, whatever grand force is at work? It was cruel to put you in my way so early, to give me the ability to fully sense a real soul mate, only to be separated so quickly. But it kills me… it kills me, because I know if the roles were reversed, I'd want you to be happy, and I feel like I'm letting you down, not finding a better way to get on with it. And, you know, it's not like I don't want to be happy… it's like I just don't know how to do that anymore. Things are fine. Fine is good. Fine is safe. Fine doesn't turn into pain so bad I'd rather join you."

Lorelai wiped at the tears covering her face and sniffed, tucking some hair behind her ears before she tried to get a hold of herself again – physically and metaphorically. Ever paranoid, she glanced around, double checking she was truly alone, before her eyes fell back to the tombstone, mocking her with its silence, and she let out a humorless laugh.

"I miss you," she went on. "I miss you so damn much, it's not fair. But… and this pains me to admit, because… I fancy myself Wonder Woman… you know, without the stupid costume… and I don't need anyone else… I can take care of myself and Katie, I've got us covered… but sometimes I find myself wishing I had a partner in it all. Someone to share it all with, the good and the bad… not that I'd even know how to do that anymore. There's this… hole… this hole that just never goes away. And I'm just so tired. It wasn't supposed to be like this. We weren't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to be here. You were my reason for fighting, my other half… and I don't know how to fix that."

In the distance a branch snapped, and Lorelai's head jolted up in time to see a bunch of birds swarm off a bit a ways away. Her hand had already flown to her wand handle, but it eased when she realized she was still alone, her heart only racing slightly. The shot of adrenaline, however, had broken the spell, and she looked back at the headstone with her tearstained face only feeling miserable and defeated.

It had been silly to think she would find some absolution in talking to a hunk of stone. There was a reason her visits were normally silent. It was easier to keep the grief down, where it couldn't threaten to drown her.

Lorelai wordlessly drew her wand and waved it in a circle, conjuring a wreath filled with baby's breath, roses in varying shades of red, marigolds, yarrow, and carnations. She'd only just finished settling it by the marble when she felt her phone begin to vibrate in her pocket. Glancing at her watch, she realized it was 8am back in New York and that her vacation was officially over.

She allowed herself one more moment to collect herself, kissing her fingers and touching them to the marble as a goodbye. When she turned around, however, and pulled out her phone, all she felt was relief to be heading back to reality, where she could get away with pretending, at least some of the time, that the life she was supposed to be living hadn't been stripped away from her.

"Hey Conks," she greeted cheerfully, swallowing down the last of her tears and putting on a believable voice as she began to trudge back up to the top of the hill. "What'cha got for me?"

Short chapter, but next up things start to move a bit