1. MISS HIM (PG) BY IAMSHADOW

Oct 18, 2007 22:50

Title: Miss Him
Author: iamshadow
Ship: Pre Ron/Harry
Word Count: 1,605 + 1 digital painting by kath_ballantyne
Rating: PG for mild violence and serious topics.
Warnings: ANGST! Minor violence and some swearing. Unwashed twin. No Harry. Did I mention angst? Major DH spoilers.
Summary: Ron decides it's time to talk to George.
A/N: Okay. What you haven't known up until this point is that I am EVIL. I am like the witch in the gingerbread cottage. I lured you in with the tea and apples, and now I am BITCHSLAPPING YOU with MAJOR ANGST.

(Please stick with it though. There is some comfort too. Promise.)

I'm sorry, but people asked for prequels and when I went fishing for plot bunnies this is what bit. It is set probably at the most a month after the events at the end of DH proper. *conveniently ignores epilogue*

This isn't in the wandering style of Tea and Apples. It's composed of two scenes; one short, one long. The second in particular is fairly dialogue heavy. The reason for the difference is that there was way too much detail to cover to make this just a little moment in another musing fic. I felt when I composed it that it was pretty vital to how Ron and George's relationship is developing now that they're adults to get the full picture of what went down.

There are also four sentences of JKR's dialogue reproduced verbatim, and now you all know about it, so consider this fic disclaimered.

Again, concrit is welcome and comments and recs are love.

The Teapot 'verse Series
Chapter List HERE

Future Fics HERE

Teapot Cookie Fics HERE



“I just don’t know what to do, Arthur.”

I’d been walking down to the kitchen for an after-lunch before-afternoon-tea snack, but the quaver in Mum’s voice stopped me in my tracks.

“Shhh,” came Dad’s voice, soothing. I could see in my mind’s eye him holding her, stroking her hair. “He’ll come around. Just give him time.”

Mum’s breaths were shuddering and gasping. Most days I saw her crying, or at least recognised the traces of it on her face. “He’s…he’s hurting so much…but he won’t…he won’t let me near. I can’t…” She dissolved into quiet, painful sobs that were somehow worse than if she had howled. Dad was murmuring gentle, indecipherable words; his voice slightly tight as if he were holding back tears himself.

My appetite was gone.

**********************************

I tapped on the door. There wasn’t any answer, but I didn’t really expect one, so I opened it anyway and stepped inside.

He was sitting and staring out of the window. He didn't even turn his head to see who’d entered. The clothes he was wearing were rumpled and creased, as if he’d slept in them, and there was a slightly sour smell in the room like unwashed linen. Not surprising, considering he’d only left it to use the toilet and pick disinterestedly at the odd meal over the past few weeks.

A growing pile of paperwork was heaped on the desk. Order forms. I’d taken some of them away to process about a fortnight ago when it became obvious he wasn’t keeping up with demand. Now it seemed, from the depth of the stack, he’d given up altogether. Most of the mail wasn’t even opened, and some had slid off to form a drift of parchment on the rug.



“George,” I began. He didn’t move, and I shifted uneasily. “George?”

“What do you want?” His voice was flat, almost bored. “Don’t you have someone else to annoy?”

“Ummm…well…Mum wanted to know if you were coming down for dinner.”

“Tell her I’m not hungry.”

I cleared my throat, as if that could erase some of the nervousness about what I planned to do. “You should come down for dinner.”

“Why? What’s the point?”

“To stop you starving to death.” I was only half joking. The jumper he was wearing in spite of the heat hung on his frame in loose folds.

“I don’t want dinner. I’m not hungry. Leave me alone.”

It was a very firm dismissal. I ignored it.

“Mum was crying again earlier.”

He shrugged. “Part of the grieving process.” The last two words were heavy with sarcasm.

“She wasn’t crying about Fred,” I stated bluntly. He flinched as if I’d stuck him with a pin. “She was crying about you.”

George turned at this and his eyes met mine for the first time. The bold letter F on the jumper he was wearing burned me like a brand.

I swallowed. “We’re all worried about you, mate.”

“I don’t need anyone worrying about me,” he retorted. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah. Except you look like shit and you haven’t said more than two words together to anyone in a week. Oh, and you stink,” I added, as if commenting on the weather.

He pointedly ignored my opinions on his personal hygiene and appearance. “I’m talking to you now, aren’t I?”

“Not really.”

He was starting to get frustrated with me. It was better than the apathy. “Look, what do you want from me?” George snapped. “Some kind of big display? Screaming and moaning and rending of garments?”

“Yes!” I shouted. “I want you to do something. I want you to do anything but stare out of that bloody window.”

“You don’t understand,” he said coolly, folding his arms across his chest.

Anger and grief were pumping in equal measure through me now and I had gone too far to stop, even if I’d wanted to. “Oh, yeah? Try me! You might just be surprised,” I spat. “He was my brother too, not just yours! I miss him as much as you do!”

It was the tipping point. I saw it, as if in slow motion, in the flash of fury in his eyes. Even so, it was a shock how quickly he was on his feet and in front of me. The doorframe hit my back and my ears began to ring. When pain blossomed across my jaw a moment later I realised he’d hit me. I hadn’t even seen him raise his fist.

“Miss him? Miss him?!” he was yelling in my face. “You don’t have a fucking clue what that means! He was me and I was him and we were us.” Tears of rage and agony were flowing down his cheeks unchecked now. “Now I’m me. Do you have any idea what that’s like? I don’t know who I am!”

George slumped heavily on the edge of the bed as if his legs could no longer support him.

“What’s going on?” Ginny whispered worriedly from somewhere behind me.

“Nothing,” I said in an undertone. “Just go and help Mum or something.”

“But what-”

“It’s okay,” I said, glancing at her. She seemed a little alarmed as she scanned my face. One of her hands unconsciously brushed her own jaw line. “I’m fine,” I tried to reassure her. “We just need a bit more time.” Ginny looked sceptical, but she nodded and vanished.

I sat down next to George, a bit lost for words. I hadn’t really planned past the point of getting him angry enough to shout and my head was a bit fuzzy now. I gingerly felt my each of my teeth with my tongue. They seemed intact, even if I could taste my own blood.

“I wasn’t there,” he murmured suddenly. “You were there. You and Harry and Hermione and bloody Percy. He died and I didn’t know. I didn’t feel anything. I should have felt something.” George took a deep, strangled breath and continued. “He died. He was the other half of me and he died, and your other half lived.”

He flapped his hand aimlessly. “The way you look at each other at the dinner table. The little smiles and jokes that only you two understand. I can’t bear it.” He clumsily rubbed at his wet face, smearing his tears like a child. “I’m sorry. I know it isn’t your fault.”

“But Hermione’s been in Australia for over a week now,” I said gently. “Come on. At least stick your head in to let Mum know I haven’t chucked you out the window.”

George gave a little chuckle, but his eyes were still sad. “Hermione? Give us some credit. We worked it out years ago. Well, Fred did, actually. But it made a lot of sense, all things considered.”

“Wh…what? What things considered?” George had just said Fred’s name for the first time in weeks but it didn’t really register because I was officially completely lost. “What the bloody hell are you on about?”

“Well…you and Harry,” George said slowly, as if I couldn’t speak English.

“Me and Har…? Wha…?” I felt all the blood drain from my face.

“It was pretty obvious actually,” George continued with a horrible, oblivious momentum. “Especially after the Triwizard Tournament.”

The ringing in my ears was back louder than ever. “The…the what?” I heard myself ask.

“The Second Task. ‘The Thing You’ll Miss The Most’ and all that.” George sounded smug. “Well, it wasn’t Ginny Harry had to fish out of the Lake now, was it?”

I was suddenly babbling something about being friends. Then I babbled much more about girls. About liking girls. I was talking at a very rapid pace and gesticulating a little wildly. My brain had broken and all sorts of things were pouring out of it unchecked.

“…Victor Krum doesn’t count. He plays Quidditch. Everyone likes Quidditch players. I kissed Hermione. Did you know that? And Lavender. I kissed Lavender a lot. More than a lot. Very much…”

I didn’t stop until he took me by the shoulders and shook me firmly. “Hey! Snap out of it. It doesn’t matter. Honestly.”

I was looking anywhere but at George. Now it was him making an effort to get my attention as I tried desperately to escape reality.

“Ron. Ron!” George’s hand on the uninjured side of my face forced my gaze back to his. He stared directly into my eyes for what seemed like the longest time, blinked, then paled.

“Oh,” he said softly. “Oh, shit. You didn’t know. You hadn’t realised.”

I think I moaned softly in despair. I shut my eyes.

“Presumption! Who would look at you?" the ghost of the Horcrux whispered in my head. “Who could look at you, beside Harry Potter?”

Beside Harry Potter.

“Who wouldn’t prefer him, what woman would take you?” it had mocked.

Prefer him.

“You are nothing, nothing, nothing to him.”

Nothing to him. Nothing.

George’s arm was around me and my head was resting on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding genuinely regretful. “I really am. We thought…I thought you knew. I thought you’d known for ages. I just figured you weren’t ready to tell us yet.”

“I…I don’t want to talk about it,” I said thickly.

“You can hit me, if you like,” he offered. I straightened up. There was a crooked smile on his face. “Really. I deserve it.”

I shook my head. “Come to dinner. Please.”

George seemed to war against the urge to say no. In the end, he nodded. “Let me fix that bruise first,” he compromised, picking up his wand. “If I don’t, I’ll never get out of Mum’s bad books.”

c@r 2. Heat ->

angst, pg, ron/harry

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