Please note: This chapter takes place at the same time as the end of the previous chapter when Nessa is speaking with Harry on the Astronomy Tower. We've got a lot coming up so the timeline for these two are going to overlap a little.
Also, I read somewhere that JKR killed Fred instead of George because she didn't think that Fred could have lived without George if it had been the reverse. I don't know if that's actually true, but that's the method behind my madness in the second half of this chapter.
This is a very long one, so enjoy!
RIP Maggie Smith — Wands up!
Bookcozy: I agree that Nessa has a lot of opening up to do — to George and to Harry. She's very good at pushing things to the back of her mind and focusing on something else (but, hey, same). It will all come full circle in the end. I was reading the portion of the book with Mrytle and Harry when I was writing it and I LOL'd. Why is she the weirdest ghost?
Chapter Thirty Four
George stared into the fire of the common room, trying to think through his muddled thoughts. It had been a long few weeks — he hadn't been on great terms with Tori or Fred since he'd found out they were dating.
Maybe he was being dramatic about the whole thing. People told him he was the "softer" twin, or at the very least they thought it. Perhaps that really just meant unnecessarily emotional. He'd always taken it as he was better at the softer skills than Fred was — he related to people more easily, he empathized, he knew (most times) when a line was close to being crossed. At the moment, though, he felt like he was being overly emotional. Or maybe overly critical.
It wasn't really his business if Fred and Tori were snogging…or whatever else they were doing. He really didn't need to know. It was the lying though that made him want to rip his hair out. He hated being lied to — to his face, by omission, it didn't really matter. Of course, being lied to his face was worse. Particularly from Fred.
Tori lied about a great deal of things, especially when she was protecting herself from difficult emotions — it didn't bother him so much when she did it. He didn't like it, but lying about being okay and lying about his twin were two entirely different things. Everyone said they were fine when they really weren't, but lying about their relationship? What was the reasoning behind that?
He had considered it from every angle, and he'd listen to Nessa talk him through the entire thing one hundred times too. He understood the complexity of it all, but asking his own twin to lie to him? It was a low blow.
But he was miserable at this point — there was a lot of work to ignore someone but not really ignoring them. Working with Fred when the sight of him felt like a gut punch was particularly difficult, and it wasn't Nessa or Lee's fault that they weren't on the best of terms, so ignoring them completely would just be awkward for everyone. Not to mention he was too much of a pansy — he could comfort himself at least by being in their proximity even if he wanted to throttle them both.
It had been weeks at this point of dancing around each other, of trying to get his thoughts to coalesce enough to have a conversation with one of them. They weren't really at this point, but he was too tired to hold a grudge anymore. And he needed to understand the entire thing — Nessa could only tell him so much, and though she was good at understanding the motivations of others, it would help to hear it from them.
Tori was the easier choice. He couldn't stand to look at Fred at the moment, and he already knew what would happen with him. He'd end up caving because he always did where Fred was concerned. And he knew his twin well enough to know that he was sorry. He didn't have to say it — it was the betrayal and anger that he was attempting to work through before he had to look at him.
So, Tori it was. She would give him an explanation that made sense, and seeing as she was the one who had asked Fred to lie in the first place, she could be the one to explain the entire thing to him. Seeing as Nessa, the person he spent the majority of his time with now that he wasn't with Fred as often, was speaking with Harry about the next task, and he had no desire to put himself in between her and whatever anxieties she was surely having with her brother, now seemed like a good time to find Tori and figure it all out. He couldn't keep avoiding the thing forever and it was becoming too hard to ignore it all anymore.
He had a hard time sleeping without thinking through every scenario for the conversation, and he was tired.
He knew Tori had disappeared after dinner that evening. He'd thought he'd seen her heading toward the grounds, nevermind the fact that it was the end of January and it got dark outside at near six o'clock and was incredibly cold. Course, this was Tori, not Nessa, and she didn't mind the cold so much. George had simply gotten so used to Nessa's whining every time she went outside in winter that he just made the assumption that everyone would care, though he found the entire thing very amusing.
It didn't take him long to find Tori. She had very limited hobbies that allowed her an outlet for her frustration. She tended to feel things very intensely and she had a hard time finding a way to balance it out. Quidditch was the only thing he knew that she could use on the grounds that would help with that —- assuming she wasn't battling one of Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts in an attempt to punch something. It would be stupid to do; he wasn't sure that those things had any capacity to be overtaken at all. Not based on the way he'd watched the fourth-years screaming about them when he'd been demonstrating products on the ground a few weeks back.
He found Tori exactly where he expected to find her — on the Quidditch pitch. He was surprised to find her swinging a Beater's bat at a solitary bludger that kept rushing back toward her after she swung. He supposed there wasn't much she could do as a Chaser without other players to bump into, and the Bludger would have been more physical, but she looked ridiculous. She was holding the bat far too high, and it was going to end up killing her arm the next day, and he was surprised she'd managed to stay out here for so long without her arm killing her with every swing.
"Your arm is going to hurt like a bitch tomorrow, holding the bat like that."
He shouldn't have said anything. That became immediately clear when she screamed in surprise and turned to face him. It was stupid of him to have distracted her, but it was equally as stupid for her to have turned around, knowing that she was playing with a Bludger on a Quidditch pitch. He had barely enough time to warn her before it came barreling back toward her.
"Tori!"
He hadn't needed to yell because she'd already been turning around to face the ball again, but it was already too late. Whatever shock she'd been feeling at seeing him — and not Fred — had given the Bludger the upper hand, and there was nothing he could really do.
She whirled around just in time for it to smash her directly in the nose.
"Son of a fucking bibch," Tori yelled, the force of it sending her flying backwards.
George did what he could beyond that at least, taking a dive for the thing as it went flying back upward to gain the momentum to come back for another go at her face. It hit him directly in the stomach, knocking the breath right out of his lungs. He didn't particularly care, not when he could see Tori out of the corner of his eye, holding her hand to her nose.
It took him no time to put the Bludger back inside the case Madame Hooch kept them in, and strap it into place. He was in front of Tori in the next second.
"Goddammit, Tori, why would you take your eyes off the Bludger?" George said, irritated. He shouldn't have been — it was partially his fault — but it was as much concern as it was irritation that colored his voice. And his irritation was mostly with himself — what kind of idiot talked to someone who was hitting a Bludger?
He tried to get her to pull her hands away from her face, watching the blood seep through her fingers.
"You didraded be," she said angrily, glaring at him as he forced her hands away.
He stopped inspecting her face at the sound of her voice, which had turned high and nasally from the compression of her nose. He grinned widely, raising both eyebrows in amusement.
"Sorry, what was that?" he said facetiously, unable to quite help himself.
She made a movement with her face that looked like she might have been trying to growl at him, but then winced as if the pain had become too much to go through with it.
"Don'd dard, George," she whined instead. "Jud fix by dose!"
George pursed his lips to keep from laughing despite the seriousness of the situation.
"Sorry, you need me to fix something?" he said in mock confusion. "Is it how to hold a beater's bat because —"
"You dink dis is fuddy, George?" she said, losing patience entirely.
"Yes, I do dink dis is fuddy," he said mockingly, dodging the kick she aimed for his shin. "Alright, alright, sit still!" he laughed. "One slip of the hand and you might end up talking like that forever."
She looked like she might punch him, or injure him, but he was sure that if she could have set him ablaze with a look alone that she might have. She went immediately still, however when he pointed his wand at her nose, and he tried to hide his amusement.
She might be a pain in the ass, but she'd never take the risk of messing up her face.
"Episkey!"
"Merlin's fucking nuts," she swore as her nose jerked back into place painfully. George snorted when she started running her fingers over it to make sure it had been fixed properly. She sighed in relief. "Thank you."
He waved his wand without a word and the blood removed itself from her hands and face, the half-sticky, half-crusty feeling disappearing completely.
"Well, you've got your t's and n's back at least," he said with a smirk before squinting at her face, and trying to force his face into mild concern. "Except I think that bump is going to stay there —"
"What bump?" she said, alarmed. Her hands shot up again to feel her nose in a panic.
George burst out laughing at her, and she dropped her hands to glare at him again, putting her hands on her hips.
"Very funny, prat," she said, trying not to smile at him when he bent over double. "Would you quit laughing at me? It's your fault it hit me anyway."
He stopped laughing to give her an incredulous look.
"It was not!" he said indignantly. "You're the one who stopped watching what you were doing —"
"Because you scared me! Why would you sneak up on me when you saw I was busy?"
"I'd hardly call this busy," he snorted. "And I would have waited except I've been sitting here for twenty minutes and you didn't notice, and I'd rather not freeze off my bollocks."
His own fault, really. He'd thought it amusing to sit and watch her swing the bat at the Bludger ridiculously, but he'd paid the price for that.
"Why'd you wait twenty minutes to say something?" she said pointedly.
He looked at her for a long moment, considering her briefly and there was a nervousness setting in now. He had no doubt that she knew exactly what he was there for, and he could not say with absolute certainty that part of the reason he'd waited so long to say anything was the dread of having this conversation to begin with. But he couldn't keep the conversation light forever, could he?
He cleared his throat, bending down to latch the box of Quidditch balls before picking it up and walking back toward the locker rooms.
"You think I'd have liked to interrupt you and end up with a broken nose too?" he quipped nonchalantly, playing off the sudden tension some. "C'mon, walk with me."
She grabbed her Comet 290 (the first purchase she'd ever made with the money her mother had left her), and reluctantly followed after George to drop off the stolen Quidditch balls. Neither one of them spoke as they dropped them off again and he locked her office again. She still didn't speak when he grabbed her broom from her and vanished it back to her dorm.
He didn't think he'd ever been this uncomfortable before, but maybe the moment itself was distracting him so much that he'd simply forgotten.
But he knew for a fact that things had never been so awkward between him and Tori. She'd always just simply been the addition to him and Fred that made the most sense. She fit. She understood their connection, she didn't attempt to convince them to be someone they weren't, she was — for the most part — fun-loving and apathetic about all of the things they tended to be. She was a bit more serious than them, a bit more uptight, a bit more impatient, but she didn't get jealous by his and Fred's closeness and she didn't attempt to battle between them.
She fit, and he found that so few people really tried to understand him and Fred's relationship. Their mother had once believed that they were too dependent on each other, that she needed to separate them to give them some independence. His siblings had simply thought them best friends because they had similar interests.
And of course they were and they did, but it was more than that. He could survive without Fred — it was only that the idea made him want to collapse on himself. They balanced each other out in a way that most people wouldn't really understand, and Fred made him a better, smarter person. Magical twins were always far stronger together than they were apart, and he could remember a handful of times that they'd separated and one of them had been hurt.
It was a bond he shared with no one else, and Tori seemed to understand that more than others. Even when they'd been younger and Fred had been particularly off-putting towards her, she'd never once tried to befriend only the one of them — she'd accepted them as a set, and she'd been determined to befriend them both.
This knowledge made the fact that she'd asked Fred to lie all the more painful.
"So — er — you and Fred then?" he said, still not looking at her.
For the first time in her entire life, she blushed. She had never been easily embarrassed — she thrived in chaos, she liked being the center of attention, and she didn't mind being the butt of a joke — but at the moment, hearing him put her and Fred's name together felt intimate and awkward and, truthfully, it felt the same for him.
Merlin, why was this so incredibly awkward?
"Well, it — I mean, I don't —" she huffed, raising one of her hands to massage her right temple. "Yeah. Me and Fred."
He didn't say anything still, didn't give her any indication of what he was thinking or how he felt about that development. He just kept walking, the silence dragging before he sighed.
"Since when?"
She flinched as if she'd hoped he wouldn't ask that question.
"I don't know when it started for him," she said, biting her lip. "You'd have to ask him, but I — my side of it's sort of complicated."
George stopped and she was forced to stop with him unless she wanted to stall the conversation for longer.
But the words annoyed him. He'd waited far long enough to know what was going on between them, and he'd had to work through his own emotions as far as knowing the two people he trusted most had lied to him deliberately. It felt like she was simply finding an excuse not to explain things to him.
"Is this another attempt to keep from answering me because —"
"What? No, of course not!" she said in annoyance. "It's just a bit difficult to put into words, George. I didn't exactly see it all turning out like this."
He stared at her for a long moment, still careful to keep his thoughts from showing on his face. His eyes were hard though, and he crossed his arms, intent on getting answers from her.
"Uncomplicate it then, Tori."
She was silent for a very long moment, looking out across the lake and trying to figure out what words she wanted to use. He could tell she was putting a great deal of thought into what she wanted to say and he couldn't tell if that was good or bad.
"We were arguing about Oliver," she said. "Last year after the Quidditch final. I suppose he was jealous about me snogging him, I don't know. We didn't exactly talk about it, but — we were arguing like we normally do and he kissed me — without warning, mind you, and I didn't even know that he — I mean, he hadn't said anything about it before that. It took me a bit by surprise, and I sort of — I don't know, I was operating on instinct maybe? Sheer stupidity? Or maybe I was just pissed off and tired of arguing, I really couldn't tell you for sure, but it…well, it felt right. I don't think we need to get into the details —"
"Agreed," George snorted, trying to ignore his irritation that they'd been keeping things a secret for so long. "I saw enough already, don't need you scarring me more."
"Don't be such a prude, George," she said with an eye roll and a snort. "The point is that I don't think either of us was really thinking much. We're there and we're kissing and it's great, you know, except then I remember that it's Fred, and we aren't supposed to be…that. So I panicked, asked him what the hell he was doing, and he told me that he was looking at me differently —"
"Since when?"
"I don't know that," she said, shaking her head. "I told you, you have to ask him that. When I asked he told me that he wasn't sure when it had changed for him. Anyway I — well I didn't take it well. I ran off and left him there and we didn't talk about it after that. We just…went back home and tried to pretend that nothing was different between us."
She looked at him nervously, expecting him to give her some sort of indication as to how he felt about the entire thing, but he wasn't prepared for that quite yet.
He needed more information first.
"I assume at some point you talked about it then because you're dating now, aren't you?" he pressed when she didn't continue.
She shook her head.
"Yes, we are, but — it was complicated at first. We tried keeping our distance, and we tried to act normal, but it's — I mean, how do you come back from something like that?" she laughed, though the sound held no humor. "This bloke I've grown up with my entire life, who could barely even tolerate me the first year we knew each other, tells me he fancies me? I don't know what I was thinking, assuming it could just go back to normal. It didn't. And I really tried, George, but he's everywhere all the time. We spend all of our time together and I can see the way he looks at me, and he's — he's just different, okay? I don't know how else to explain it. He doesn't treat me like I'm made of glass or pull punches when he talks to me like he thinks I'm going to break down crying or something, and he doesn't smother me with expectations and — well, I mean, he's very annoying, you know —"
George rolled his eyes.
"Yes, I'm aware," he said dryly. "You try spending every waking minute with him since you were born, and tell me he isn't annoying."
"Don't pretend like you aren't just as bad," she snorted pointedly. "All I'm saying is that he doesn't make me feel like I need to be…less — Less outspoken, less obnoxious, less confident, less independent, less assertive. Everyone else acts like I'm…too much of all of those things. I don't date because it's easier that way — I don't have to commit to anything, but I don't have to pretend to be something I'm not either. But he doesn't make me feel like that at all. It's…different. At first I thought that that was bad. It was terrifying honestly, but we just kept — kept being stupid. He kissed me again at the World Cup when you went to talk to Nessa. And I told him we couldn't keep doing that —"
"Why?"
Her gaze jerked back to him at the question, though it sounded more like a statement.
"Because it was complicated. Because I was scared — of feeling that way, of knowing he felt the same way, of telling your family, of being vulnerable. It's all sort of jumbled in my head now, but your mum has always expected us to be this — this perfect family. She always told me that I was family. I know they didn't actually adopt me, but she acts like they did. She acts like I'm an extension of the rest of you. She wants us to treat each other like siblings. I'm just supposed to — supposed to ruin that? Just because I can't control myself?" She shook her head and tried not to cry, looking away from him again. "I didn't want to be that person. Your family has given me more than I deserve from the moment I met you, and losing that..." She cleared her throat to keep the thickness in her throat from forcing its way into her voice. "But we just…it was always the same. I'd tell myself it was wrong, that we couldn't, but then I'd falter. Over and over again. Then I told myself that I was just — just getting it out of my system and then it would go back to the way it was. It would become easier to keep my distance once I got bored or — I don't know, normal. But it didn't get any easier at all. If anything, it got so much harder, and that scared me too. I told him I didn't want anyone to know, not even you. So he — he lied when you asked him about us, and I — I don't know, I think knowing he'd lied to you — just because I was being a coward and couldn't decide what I wanted…it woke me up. And Nessa figured out that we'd been sneaking around and she told me that I couldn't have it both ways. And I knew that too. So I told him we should just be friends."
He didn't exactly know what he should say to that, the words swirling around his head like he wasn't sure how to process them. Tori had always been commitment-phobic, but it was the nature in which she'd built the narrative to avoid that commitment that was nearly unbelievable.
And of course his mother did consider her family, but his mother had plenty of views that he found old and outdated. He'd known Tori far before she'd come to live with them, and he'd probably have found it weird to think of her and Fred as a couple — he did a little bit — but he'd not have made such a huge deal about the entire thing. He didn't exactly know how to convey that in words, however.
She kept talking, still refusing to look at him even though he'd cleared his throat, trying to find a way to say that anyway.
"But he's such an arse sometimes," she laughed, the sound coming out watery. "He just has to get the last word. He just has to prove a point, so he asked Angelina to the ball, knowing it would upset me. So of course we start arguing that night too, and of course it devolves because he's not stupid and he knows that I'm upset. He told me I couldn't have it both ways too, and — he was tired of sneaking around. It was too hard. It was too hard pretending and it was too hard keeping it from you and it was too hard trying to figure out what I wanted. And I didn't know what to say, you know. Because I'm still so fucking terrified and he's so fucking terrifying, but then he said he loved me —"
"What?" George said weakly.
He — he loved her? Maybe she meant as — as a friend. Because surely Fred would have told him if he was in love with her.
She laughed in watery disbelief herself.
"Yeah, exactly," she said, taking in a shaky breath. "And I was just so tired, George. I'm so tired of pretending that I don't want him. I'm so tired of being afraid of telling all of you. I'm so tired of lying to myself. It's exhausting, keeping this huge secret from everyone. And Nessa kept saying it was fine — and when Ginny found out because Nessa couldn't keep her mouth shut, she said it was fine. And Hermione said it was fine. And Harry asked Nessa two years ago if something was going on between the two of us — and there wasn't then, I swear to you — but even he didn't seem that bothered by it, and — it was just too exhausting and painful to pretend anymore, George."
It was clear in the way she stopped talking that that was the end of the story, at least from her end.
But the entire thing made him want to ram his head into a wall. His twin was in love with her, and had said nothing. She had been sneaking around and had said nothing.
Perhaps he could understand her nervousness in telling his parents, but in telling him? What had she expected he'd do if he'd known? She acted as though the very thought of telling him was alarming.
And it was worse because Ginny knew and Nessa knew and Hermione knew and Harry knew. It was like she and Fred had told everyone else because they trusted them more than him, and it was difficult for him to understand that thought process, particularly because he'd been consistent every time the two of them had done something stupid before.
Which, truly, was a lot of times.
"Why didn't you tell me, Tori?" he said, sounding frustrated again. "Fred tells you he loves you, and neither one of you — you still didn't think it was worth telling me? You told everyone but me —"
"That's not true!" she exclaimed. "I didn't — I didn't mean for so many people to know before you! I'd have told you before all of them —"
George scoffed.
"But you didn't," he said pointedly. "You told him to lie instead. You told him to keep it from me —"
"It wasn't because I don't trust you, George!" she said desperately. "It was — what was I supposed to have said when I didn't even know what I wanted?"
"That didn't stop you from telling the rest of them, did it?" he said, throwing his hands in the air. "It didn't stop you from talking to Nessa or Ginny. What's different about me?"
He could tell the words frustrated her, but he couldn't help but ask them. He needed to know what the hell the thought process had been in the entire thing. It was becoming too complicated and convoluted and he couldn't tell if it was him that had made it that way or if it was them.
"You don't understand, George," she said in frustration.
"So explain it to me!" he exclaimed. "Explain to me why it's different with me —"
"Because it's you, George!" she shouted angrily, losing the battle against her frustrated tears. "Of course you're different! It — you — you think I want to tell you something like this — something this massive — and have you tell me that you don't agree with it? You think I want to have you look at us and decide that we shouldn't be together —?"
George's brow furrowed in confusion.
"It doesn't matter what I think," he said. "It matters what the two of you think."
"It will always matter what you think," she said brokenly. "I can deal with the rest of them. I can deal with upsetting Molly and Arthur, I can deal with Percy sticking his nose up at us, I can deal with Ron being a git. I can't deal with losing you, George."
He gaped at her, looking at her like she'd said something that had knocked the air out from his lungs. Like she'd slapped him.
"What the hell are you talking about?" he said, bewildered. "I'm not going anywhere —!"
"You find out and you've barely spoken to me in weeks," she scoffed.
"Because you lied to me, Tori!" he said angrily. "Not because you're snogging Fred, for fuck's sake! You asked him to lie to me!"
The words seemed to hit her like a truck would have if she'd been standing in oncoming traffic. He watched her face crumple, watched the way she took a step back as if something actually had hit her, watched the tears pool in her eyes.
It was then, in that moment — watching a woman who almost never cried look as if he'd said something that had broken a part of her soul — that he knew he'd forgive her. She was such a pain in his ass — she made everything so wildly difficult in an attempt to protect herself from harm, and it almost always blew up in her face.
It was so stupid, the entire thing. Just the idea that she thought he could just cut her out of his life as if he hadn't spent nearly all of his own with her in it…
It was absurd. It was wildly preposterous and ludicrous and inane. It was unthinkable.
Sometimes, for a person so outgoing, she really didn't read people or situations well, and it astounded him.
He sighed dejectedly, taking a step toward her when the sobs erupted. It wasn't in his nature to ignore someone's devastation, and he didn't like holding a grudge. He didn't like the way it felt to be so pissed off all the time, and he prided himself on being forgiving. And he wasn't stupid. He knew her more than most people, and he could accept that it was a stupid decision she'd made for an entirely idiotic reason. They all did it. If he had to list out every stupid thing he'd done in his life, they'd be sitting there for several hours.
It was stupid to hold it against her or his twin, particularly because both of them appeared as miserable as he was. Perhaps he was just an idiot. Perhaps he just wanted to believe the best in the two of them, but if they weren't going to make the thing so complicated again, he could live with the stupidity of it all in the moment.
She seemed to sense him coming toward her though, and took a step back away from him in a panic. He grabbed her wrist before she could back further away from him, tried to tug her back toward him, feeling a little horrible for his own behavior. True, he'd been lied to, and true, that was unacceptable, but he'd ignored them both (mostly) for weeks, and that probably hadn't helped whatever ridiculous anxiety she had about him leaving her. She tugged back against his hold, trying to free herself from his grasp, but he was a lot stronger than she was, and her entire body was too busy heaving sobs to put any amount of strength behind her arm. Not to mention the fact that she'd used the majority of her strength when she'd spent the last three hours on the pitch. He didn't imagine she had much left to fight him with.
"Tori, stop," he said firmly, tugging hard so that she went careening into his chest. She tried pushing away from him, but he had no interest in it, wrapping her up so tightly that she was forced to gasp air through her lungs. Instead, she just sobbed harder, working harder to get away from him because she accepted comfort in no way at all since he'd known her, but he still didn't let her go. "Stop," he said, his voice firm but soothing. "Stop, okay? We're — I'm not going anywhere, alright?"
"I'm sorry," she sobbed brokenly. "I'm so sorry, George. I'm sorry —"
"I know you are, Victoria," he said, sighing heavily, squeezing tighter. "I just — how could you possibly think that I'd leave over this? We've been friends for twelve years."
"People always leave," she whispered, trying to breathe through the crying. "My mother left me. Sirius left me. Why would you be any different?"
He let go of her, holding her out at arms length and giving her a firm look.
"Your mother did not leave you, Tori," he said, his tone hard. "She was murdered. That's not the same thing."
There was something about the look on her face that he didn't like, as if she didn't entirely believe him and he prepared to argue with her about it because the idea was preposterous. He didn't totally understand the implications of losing a parent so young, or the complicated feelings that came with that, but her mother had not left her.
"It doesn't matter," she said, pulling away from him and wiping at her eyes. Before George could argue, she said, "I just — please don't be mad at Fred. He didn't want — he would have told you, but I was…being a coward."
It successfully distracted him, which was what he assumed she'd intended.
George looked at her, studying her carefully, trying to determine how he felt about the statement. He knew the situation had been as complicated for his twin as it had been for her, but it didn't make the potion any easier to swallow.
"Fred is perfectly capable of making his own decisions, Tori," he said eventually.
She gave him a pleading look.
"Yes, but he — I mean, you know he —"
"— has a soft spot for you, yes," he said, crossing his arms across his chest. "Everyone knows that."
She didn't say anything at first. Everyone did know that, and so had she. It had been the reason she'd known that Fred would do it for her if she asked, and he was not stupid enough to think that she hadn't known that herself.
"If Nessa asked you to lie to Fred, would you?" she said, attempting to draw on something that would be at all equivalent to this situation for him.
The words made anger spark in his eyes before he said, "Nessa would never have asked me to lie to him."
She flinched. The words were hard and pointed, but laced with such surety that she couldn't argue. And it was comforting, at least, to know that he had someone in his life who wasn't as incredibly stupid as his best friend and twin.
"I'm sorry," she whispered again because she had nothing better to say. She had to blink back the tears that threatened to fall again, and blew out a long breath in an attempt to steady herself.
George shut his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to remind himself that he wasn't here to continue the argument.
"I know, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have —" he paused, opening his eyes again to look at her, and some of that anger had cooled again. "Is this going to be a regular thing? You asking him to lie to me?"
Her gaze jerked to his face, her features coloring with alarm.
"What? No, of course not!" she said immediately. "I don't want —"
"I'm only asking because this isn't going to get easier for you two, you know," he said with a hard look. "You still have to tell Mum and Dad. And Ron. And I'll keep the secret if you want me to, but if you're planning on lying to me every time you two have a spat or if it doesn't —"
"George, I swear we won't — I don't want to lie to you," she said seriously. "I promise. It was just a stupid, desperate decision I made in a panic. There's no more lying…I swear to you."
He looked at her for a long moment and he considered her deeply before he spoke again.
He was not stupid enough to think that this would be the worst of it. His mother was going to lose her head. Fred was blase about nearly everything, and often put his foot in his mouth. Tori was commitment-phobic. If they weren't taking this entire thing seriously, he'd be caught in the middle. There was nothing at all that sounded worse than that.
And if they lied every time something got hard, he might as well just forget the forgiveness route until they decided they had more than the two singular brain cells that they rubbed together.
But he could see in her eyes that she meant it. She wasn't often easy to read, but she was being open with him now.
"Do you love him?"
She gaped at the question, and he didn't blame her. He'd changed the subject very abruptly, but it had been the question he'd wanted to ask earlier and he wanted all the information before he agreed to forgive her.
"I — I don't know," she said honestly.
He gave her an incredulous look.
"You don't know?" he said disbelievingly. "What does that mean?"
"Well, I don't know!" she said with a snort. "I didn't expect to be here to begin with and I don't exactly have a frame of reference, do I? I don't — I don't want to mess the entire thing up and this isn't exactly…I mean, it's Fred. It's different with him — I don't want to say that I love him without being sure, and I just…there's already enough going through my head at the moment."
"Right," he said, relaxing a little. He could accept that response, even if he didn't necessarily like it. It at least gave him some peace of mind that she was at least considering his twin's feelings before she did something stupid again. "And this isn't just some — some other stupid fling? I'm not going to have to end up in the middle of some feud between the two of you, am I? Because that sounds —"
She snorted before he could finish. It sounded horrible, and it would not have been the first time he'd had to mediate some ridiculous dispute between them.
"It's not a fling," she said, clearly trying to remain calm. "We'll work on the communicating. You won't be in the middle, I promise. Just give me a little grace, yeah? He's just — he's a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes."
George smirked at her, but nodded, deciding that he could let the entire thing go then. He still had to talk to Fred, but one of two would work for him for the time being.
"And just to be safe," he said, raising an amused eyebrow. "You're not going to snog me, are you?"
She burst out laughing at the absurdity of the question, but something in her eased when he grinned back at her.
"Don't be disgusting, George —"
"OI!" he said, looking affronted.
She grinned at him.
"Relax, that's not what I meant," she said with a laugh. She paused and looked over him as if she were seeing him for the first time. "At least, I don't think that's what I meant."
He snorted, rolling his eyes to the sky, and grabbing her hand to tug her back toward him. She laughed loudly when he put her in a gentle headlock and messed up her hair intentionally. She laughed again when she poked him once under the arm and he squealed girlishly, pulling away from her.
"Don't do that," he said, pointing at her in warning.
"Does Nessa know you're ticklish yet?" she asked in amusement.
"No, and we're going to keep it that way," he said, pulling her in for a hug. "She'd enjoy that far too much."
He wasn't likely to keep it a secret forever, and he was sure that Tori knew that, but she didn't say so. Instead, she just wrapped her arms around him and sighed into his shoulder.
"You're sure you're okay with this?" she asked quietly.
He considered the words carefully.
"Are you happy?" he said after a long pause.
"Yes," she said, sounding like he was worried she might push for more detail. He tried to hide his grin from her view.
"Okay then," he said simply. "It'll take some getting used to, but if you're happy then I guess I'm alright with it."
It was odd to think of them as a couple, but he could live with it. It wasn't as if their relationship had been normal to begin with anyway. And being upset about it was harder than just accepting it for what it was.
"I love you, George," she said.
"I love you too," he said, wrapping his pinky around hers. If Fred had been there, he'd have wrapped his thumb around her own. A sign of solidarity among the three of them. He tried not to think about the fact that Fred wasn't there though. "I'll kill him if he hurts you, you know?"
She rolled her eyes and pulled back to look at him.
"Are you going to say that you'll kill me if I hurt him too?" she said, raising a knowing eyebrow. He scowled at her.
"I was, but I don't think I will now that you've guessed it," he said petulantly, crossing his arms across his chest. She laughed, rolling her eyes and wrapping her arm around his waist. Despite his exasperation, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and lead the way back to the castle. "Are you going to keep it from Mum and Dad?"
She chewed her lip as they reached the willow tree next to the lake. It was very dark out now, the lanterns of the castle flickering through its many windows.
"No, I don't think so," she said eventually. "We haven't talked about it, but…it's just too hard to keep it a secret. And I don't want to ask you to do that for us. We already made a mess of everything."
He squeezed her shoulder in support, hearing the anxiety within the words.
"It's the least of the things I've kept from them," he reminded her. "If that's what you want, then I won't force it. Though it would probably be easier to tell them," When she didn't respond, he squeezed her again. "No one's leaving you, Tori, I promise. Mum won't like it, but Dad will get through to her. She's always been a bit tightly wound. She loves you and she loves Fred. That's not going to change. Though I suspect that she's going to follow you around all summer to make sure you're not shagging."
Tori groaned.
"This isn't helping my nerves, George," she said, running a hand down her face. She shivered when they finally entered the castle, the warmth of it in such contrast to the bitter cold outside.
George laughed.
"Relax," he said. "She's already been following us around since she found out about WWW over the summer. The two of you snogging might actually help take the heat off the shop, tell you the truth…"
She rolled her eyes at the thoughtful pleasure in his voice.
"Glad to be of service," she said sarcastically. "I'll worry about that when the summer comes. Just — promise me you'll talk to Fred. It's killing him, not talking to you. And I hate when you two are fighting."
George flinched at the words.
"I know," he said with a frown. "I'll talk to him. Just not tonight, okay? I've had enough emotional conversations for the evening."
She sighed, but didn't push, which he was grateful for. Talking to Fred would be easier and harder than talking to her.
"Okay," she said with a sigh. "Just don't kill each other. He was planning on putting a firework under your pillow to see if that would get you to talk to him, and I really don't want to explain to your mother why you've had your ear blown off."
George immediately went upstairs to the dormitory when he and Tori got back to the common room.
His body ached, the stress of the conversation having left him all at once relaxed and tense. It was only half of the conversation that he had to have and the thought of having another exhausted him.
It would be somewhat easier with Fred. He could sense most of the things he was thinking or wanted to say without him actually needing to say it, but it would also be harder. His brother was often irrational. He was not good at having the hard, difficult conversations. He was not good at being outwardly emotional or accepting when he hurt someone else.
But he had a particularly difficult time coping with hurting George. He'd learned that very early on, and it was a two-sided problem because George had a hard time with it when it was the reverse.
Ignoring the conversation had been easier because it gave him the time to prepare for watching Fred crack a little. But Fred really didn't take being ignored very well. It actually made him far more annoying.
There was something to be said about their knowledge of each other because he knew every one of his pet peeves and had capitalized on them in the last few weeks. George knew it was an attempt to get him to talk to him, but it made him want to throttle him instead.
He hated loud chewing. Fred had been particularly annoying about sitting next to him at dinner and making as much noise as possible while he ate. Hadn't worked — he'd wanted to shove a loaf of bread down his throat, but he'd managed to avoid griping at him.
He hated when people asked questions that he'd already answered. Fred had asked hundreds of ridiculous questions when they'd been developing products and he'd nearly gotten him that time — he'd considered killing him — but he'd merely stopped answering him entirely.
So then he'd started following him everywhere talking incessantly about nothing. Lee had found this particularly funny, though George had felt close to insanity. He'd tried the pranking — despite their truce — but he hadn't cared about that either. Blue hair? Child's play — he'd merely waved his wand and been done with it. Dungbomb thrown while he was trapped in the bathroom? There'd been a chorus of swearing with that one, but he'd merely snuck into the prefects' bath instead. Untested self-propelling custard pies? Nose-biting teacup? All met with a heavy sigh and a prayer for patience.
George looked over at his twin's bed, the ridiculous pranks coming back to him now. He knew Fred was there, though he wasn't saying anything. He kept flipping from side to side restlessly and sighing loudly. The fact that he hadn't woken anyone was probably a blessing.
George tried to ignore his desire to smooth things over with his twin — he really was so exhausted — and focused on changing into his pajamas and climbing into his bed. He laid there for a while, listening to his twin's incessant moving and sighing before he broke.
"Will you quit moving around?" George sighed. "It's doing my head in."
He stopped moving, but George knew it was more surprise that he'd said anything to him, and not because he'd asked him to.
"If I'd known that would get you to talk to me, I'd have been tossing a week ago."
George sighed heavily.
"Don't be like that, Fred," he said.
It was hard enough dealing with the entire thing without Fred making him feel worse about it. He knew it was just as difficult for Fred as it was for him, but they'd never been in this situation before. Most of the times that they'd gotten angry with each other before had passed as though they'd never happened.
They'd never devolved into having a hard time talking to each other.
George didn't know what he'd expected — for Fred to be rational and go to bed and agree to talk to him in the morning maybe. He'd either lost his touch or he was too tired to have really thought that through.
Because instead of doing that, Fred grabbed his pillow off his bed and stomped over to his twin's bed in irritation, closing the curtains around the bed and standing over him impatiently.
George blinked at him.
"What are you doing?"
"What's it look like I'm doing?" he said with an eye roll. "Move over."
"Fred —"
He didn't bother listening to whatever excuse George was going to make to keep him out of his bed. Instead, he put the pillow over his face and forced himself into the bed, despite the fact that it meant he was laying atop his brother.
George attempted to dig his knees and elbows into his brother's back, but he seemed perfectly content using him as a bed.
"See, was that so hard?"
He responded by calling him a series of words that were not at all polite, but seeing as he was being smothered with his brother's pillow and squished by his body weight, it came out muffled and unintelligible.
"Sorry, I didn't catch that?"
George huffed and managed to free his arms from under him and shove him away from him. He chucked the pillow after him, but moved aside and turned on his side to face him to give him more room to lie down. He was incredibly annoying, as he and Tori had agreed earlier, but he wasn't going to go away, and having him this close made him relax. Which was stupid, considering.
Fred didn't even try to wipe the grin off his face when he laid back down next to him, and George glared at him.
"If you were trying to smother me, you could have just held the pillow over my head," he said. "I don't need my organs rearranged."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Fred said, indignantly.
"Means you're putting on a bit of weight," George said seriously. "You've really let yourself go without Quidditch, haven't you?"
Fred gave him a deadpan expression.
"You think you're funny?"
"Most of the time."
"You're not funny."
"You're just sore that I pointed it out —"
"Do you want me to sit on you again? Because I will, George."
George snorted and closed his eyes, a large smirk overtaking his face.
"If you're going to start threatening me then I'm going to go to bed —"
"Where have you been?" Fred interrupted disapprovingly.
This amused him a great deal, and he opened his eyes to stare at him with a smirk. He sounded distinctly like their mother.
"Sorry, did I miss curfew?" he said cheekily. "Am I grounded now, mum?"
Fred rolled his eyes and gave him a very pointed look, but before he could say anything, the curtains were ripped open by someone else. George didn't need to move to see a very annoyed, very disapproving Lee Jordan, who had clearly been woken up from sleep by their talking and roughhousing.
Fred had to twist to see him, and he grinned cheerily at him.
"Hello, Lee," he said happily. George shook with laughter beside him, trying to keep himself from laughing too loudly. "If you're looking to join, you're out of luck. There's no more room —"
"There wasn't when you got in either, idiot," George snorted.
True, because they were far bigger now than they had been as children and twin sized beds were, in fact, not meant to hold twins.
Stupid name then.
"Look, if you say this isn't icestuous, then I'll believe you," Lee said in irritation. "But the rest of these idiots won't, so either put up a silencing charm or shut the hell up. This isn't a slumber party and I'm trying to sleep."
Before either one of them could retort, he'd yanked the curtains back closed and stomped back to his bed. Just because he knew it would irritate him, Fred whistled in surprise and said, "Blimey! Wonder what got into him!"
"I don't know which one of you said that, but I swear to Merlin, I will kill you both."
George sniggered, but reached behind him for his wand and put up a silencing charm before Fred could further agitate him.
They had enough problems at the moment.
"So, where have you been then?" Fred said, turning back to face his brother, and making it quite clear that he wasn't about to let the conversation go.
George sighed, rubbing at his eyes and nearly elbowing him in the face.
"Can we do this tomorrow, Fred?" he said tiredly. "I'm exhausted already, and —"
"No," he said bluntly, "And make this bed bigger before you take my head off."
George didn't even have to look at him to know any arguing on his part would be futile. He didn't even know why he'd bothered asking — he'd known he wouldn't go for it.
"I was talking to Tori," George said heavily, waving his wand again and expanding the bed so that he could shuffle backward.
The words made Fred still with surprise, barely even having moved backward at all.
"You talked to her before me?" he said, sounding hurt.
He knew he wasn't really judging him, but it annoyed him. Seeing as he was the one that had to take the high road here — because Fred and Tori certainly had not — he felt he was well within his right to talk to whoever he wanted certainly hadn't been as a slight toward his twin.
Instead of saying so, George raised an eyebrow at him.
"That's rich, considering you talked to Nessa before me."
The words immediately caused Fred's eyes to spark with anger.
"So, what," he said angrily, "You talked to her first to get back at me?"
George sighed heavily, his gaze not wavering from his brother's.
It was like looking into a mirror. Every feature exactly the same, every facial expression indistinguishable from his own, every emotion so clear in his body language and expression because they were exactly the same. There was a bond there — some sort of magic that had developed in the womb that neither one of them really understood.
He could feel when Fred was upset or when he was hurt, even if they were nowhere near each other. He could tell what Fred was thinking or what he was going to say without really needing to ask most of the time. They had similar interests, and temperaments, and his mind operated almost exactly the same as his.
They were, of course, separate people. They were, of course, different in very small ways — George was quieter; George was a better Quidditch player; George was more patient, slightly more rational, more perceptive. Fred was easier to irritate, he preferred to be the center of attention a little bit more, he was often irrational and crueler than his brother.
But despite those smaller differences, George could read his brother because his every movement, his every expression, his every breath mirrored his so completely that it was like reading himself.
Fred had never had to ask him why he'd done something before because, most times, he just knew. In whatever way they had about them. Just the same as George could tell, looking at his twin now, that the fact that he was so unable to guess at George's motives now was as debilitating as if someone had severed one of his limbs or taken one of his lungs.
And Fred did not do well with that feeling, he'd long learned, so he tried to keep him talking instead.
"No, Fred," he said quietly. "I didn't do it to get back at you."
It hadn't mattered though. The reason that George had put off the conversation so long was occurring right in front of him, and he couldn't stop it.
Fred was not prone to many panic attacks, but he had been when they'd been children. He'd always had a particularly difficult time being away from George. Their mother had said that it had always been like that, since the day they'd been born. And George understood it. He didn't like the idea of being without Fred any more than he did, but he'd managed to work through it most times. Remain rational.
Fred had a particularly difficult time with anything that made him feel like he was losing George somehow, even if he clearly wasn't.
That was clear now, as he raised a hand to rub at his chest as if there was something painful there.
He hadn't had a panic attack in a long time. Not since they'd been kids and George had fallen off the roof. He'd thought he'd died — he'd thought he'd have to live the rest of his life without his other half, and it had felt like he'd been dying too. But he'd just broken his leg, and their mum had fixed it in a matter of seconds, and George had been calm through the entire thing because he could tell that Fred was one step away from a full on spiral.
And he'd been right. George was typically the worrywart between them, but Fred had always been more intense. He didn't do things by halves, did he? He took worrying to an entirely different level.
George had always been good with Nessa's panic because he'd seen it before. In his twin.
"So why?" Fred said, trying to force himself to match his twin's breaths, to manifest that calm facade he had when he looked at him, even though there was a concern sparking in the backs of his eyes. "Because you're still angry with me?"
George didn't say anything for a moment, debating whether being honest when Fred looked so close to the edge would be his best option.
But they didn't lie to each other, did they? That was the whole point of this entire thing. He couldn't change that just because Fred had difficulty parsing his emotions, or he'd be just as bad.
"I'm not angry, Fred," he said eventually. "I'm disappointed."
Fred flinched as if he'd been struck because that was somehow worse. And George understood it. Fred had never disappointed him before and he'd never uttered those words to him in their entire lives, but the thought of it hurt. They often dealt with anger — it was the risk they took in their line of business.
But disappointed? That was worse. It felt like failure.
And he could tell Fred was thinking the same thing because his breathing increased minutely, but George spoke before he could think too hard again.
"Breathe, Fred."
The words were calm — not an ounce of panic or fear laced within them. They were firm though, an order, and his body responded as if he had no other choice.
"I'm sorry," Fred said, trying to say something at all that would make him feel better about the fact that he'd broken the only rule they had between them. "I'm sorry, George. I didn't mean to — I didn't want to lie. I shouldn't have. I don't know why —"
The words came out too fast and George sighed heavily, but he raised a hand to rest on his shoulder and shook him hard.
"Breathe, Fred."
"I'm breathing," he said, though he wasn't sure which of them he was trying to convince. "I just didn't mean to —"
"I know," George said before he could work himself up again. "That's not the — we don't lie to each other, Fred. We promised."
They had, and that was worse too because he'd never broken a promise to George either. He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded, trying to keep his breathing even.
"I know," he said. "I'm sorry, I wasn't — she was panicking and I was panicking, and it's hard to think with — you're better at this than me, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Just — just tell me what to do."
"Tell me the truth, Fred."
Fred nodded, accepting the request easily, and appearing to calm some at the prospect of having something that could end whatever limbo they were currently operating under.
"I — where do you want me to start?"
"When did you know?"
"Don't know," he said, shaking his head. "Don't know. It's always been different with her. Maybe always, I can't tell? When we were — when we were kids, and I didn't like her…it wasn't because you liked her so much. I mean, it was a little, but — I liked her too, and we weren't supposed to — it was only ever supposed to be us. I didn't want there to be a third person then —"
"I know," George said, and of course he did. When hadn't he known what Fred was thinking?
"But she's very annoying, you know," he said, and George's laugh caused his brother's breathing to slow some more. "She never just leaves well enough alone, does she? And then her mum died and I might be a prat, but I'm not that much of a prat. She's still incredibly annoying, but I can't go on acting like we aren't friends because she's opening my Christmas presents now, and when she cries it feels like I'm dying, and I don't know, George, it all just…got confusing."
"Until last year."
Fred nodded, his eyes still closed.
"Right," he said, opening his eyes to look at his twin. "It's just…I'm watching her steal my beater's bat and hit a Bludger toward Pucey because he tried to knock her off her broom and — I don't know, it hits me all of a sudden that she's the most beautiful person I've ever looked at before —"
George snorted.
"Yes, I've always found homicidal rage attractive in a woman," he said sarcastically.
"You ought to, Nessa's one step away from Azkaban," he said, grinning weakly when George made a noise of mild consideration. "Anyway, I thought I was losing it. I panicked, told myself I was just bored or going through a dry spell or something — don't laugh, idiot — but then I keep thinking about it and she is different. And Nessa figured it out — she pays too much attention to people, it's very annoying. She told me it wasn't a big deal. So I tried to act like it wasn't — it got easier, except then she's snogging Wood, and it pissed me off. With everyone else, she had no interest but she'd been talking about Wood for years, and that freaked me out."
"So you got in a fight and kissed her?"
The words were said as if he didn't quite understand how that could have happened — and he really didn't — and Fred rolled his eyes.
"Well, I tried talking to her," he said impatiently. "She doesn't ever shut up, does she? She's screaming at me about how I can't tell her what to do, and she can take care of herself, and it's none of my business who she's snogging, and it pissed me off. I was proving a point or something. But she ran off and we decided — well, she decided that we should just be friends. So I tried that, but it's hard to get over someone that you're around every single day. Didn't work, obviously, but she still refuses to admit that it's anything more than a fling. Then you caught on and she — she panicked, I think. Called the whole thing off, but then got upset about me going to the ball with Angelina. It was all so fucking confusing, George. I mean, I couldn't figure out what the hell she wanted from me, and I'm so exhausted of sneaking around and pretending we're just friends and lying to everyone, and I — I told her she had to choose what she wanted because I couldn't keep going in circles with her."
"Is that all?"
Because it wasn't. He'd left out a very important part as far as George was concerned.
Fred ran a hand down his face, and shook his head.
"No, I — I told her I loved her," he said, eying his twin cautiously as if expecting him to get pissed off again. "She was talking about how I'd just get tired of her for being independent or our bickering or — I don't know, something else ridiculous. I was too pissed off to hear it all. It was just supposed to be so she knew that I wasn't just — just messing about or something. I'm not allowed to say it again though or she'll probably freak out, and she's trying to get used to the idea of us dating altogether."
It was odd, needing to have him explain how he felt to him. They'd never really needed it before and if he'd known everything that had been going on before now he wouldn't have had to.
But he kept that to himself, instead remaining relaxed and waiting to see if Fred would continue. He didn't and George frowned. He'd left out the part he'd told Nessa, so he brought it up himself.
"I don't think you're disgusting," he said instead, taking Fred so completely by surprise that he gaped.
"I — what?"
"Nessa said you told her that you were afraid to tell me because you thought I might think you were disgusting for not seeing Tori the way I do," George explained. "I mean, I don't want to snog her, but it doesn't change anything about our relationship — you're still my other half, Fred. No one is going to change that. I just wish you would have told me."
Fred cleared his throat, refusing absolutely to be a ninny and start crying because he'd already nearly had a panic attack, and his relationship with George had always been a constant. Blubbering about it was just embarrassing.
"I know," he said instead. "I wish I'd told you too. I should have. I didn't want to — well, I didn't want to be here doing this, to tell you the truth. I shouldn't have lied about it. I should have known that you'd — I mean it's you."
George looked at him for a moment, weighing if there was anything else that needed to be said, but he didn't feel like there was. What else could they say that they hadn't already?
"Okay," George said, shuffling to lie on his back and closing his eyes.
Fred blinked at him.
"So we're —"
"You're not going to lie to me anymore, are you?"
"No."
"Then we're fine," he said with a sigh. "I'm tired, Fred."
And he didn't mean tired as in sleep. He was tired of arguing, and secrets, and tired of not talking. He was tired of thinking about everything a hundred times over.
So was Fred, and he was grateful that Fred appeared to accept this response. He just sighed, moved to lie on his back, and closed his eyes. Even with the bed much bigger than it had been before, he refused to move over enough that his shoulder wasn't touching George's. It relaxed him to be this close to him — their mother had always said they'd been like that since they'd been children. She'd tried to put them in separate cribs, but they simply didn't allow it. As babies, they'd just scream until she laid them together; as toddlers, they'd just climb over the railing and into the other's crib instead.
They'd eventually slept in their own beds without too much fussing, but they'd always ended up sharing a bed any time they were upset — nevermind the fact that they shared the same room already as it was.
So long as Fred was next to him, the rest of it felt manageable.
"George," Fred said after a few moments of silence.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think that McGonagall and Flitwick have ever had an affair?"
George's eyes shot open, his face crinkling in disgust.
"What?"
"McGonagall and Flitwick," Fred said again, grinning when George turned to stare at him. It was rare to take him completely by surprise, but he enjoyed it when he did. "They never make eye contact —"
"He's two feet tall," George said. "I don't think it has anything to do with an affair. Maybe she doesn't want a crick in her neck."
"Maybe," he agreed. There was another bout of silence, and he waited until George was nearly asleep before he said, "George?"
He prayed for patience in the way he exhaled, and Fred grinned again.
"Yes, Fred?"
"Do you think Ron's ever snogged anyone?"
"That's a stupid question, you know he hasn't."
"He might have snogged Harry."
"If he did, it was in his dreams. Or your nightmares. Now shut the hell up and go to sleep."
He grinned and closed his eyes, looking relaxed for the first time in weeks. George understood — he felt light again, like his life was no longer chaotic. He'd nearly managed to fall asleep when Fred spoke again.
"George?" he said, sleepily.
"Fred, if this is some ridiculous question, I'm going to smother you."
"I love you."
There was a long moment of silence between them. They didn't say it often — it tended to go without saying, but he still felt guilty for having lied to him, and he wanted to say it now before they went back to normal in the morning. In case it had been unclear.
"I love you too."
And this here is why I hate the thought of George living without Fred. This is why I live under the delusion that Fred is still alive.
