Springfic: "Scattered Dust of Memories" for nundu_art
Title: Scattered Dust of Memories
Author: tocourtdisaster
Recipient: nundu_art
Character(s): George Weasley, Angelina Johnson, mentions of various Weasleys
Rating: PG-13
Warnings (highlight to view): Angsty, like whoa. Possibly AU (see below). Um, present tense? (I know that turns some people off.)
Wordcount: ~1,375 words
Summary: The Healers and Mrs. Weasley had made her swear not to agitate George before they gave their permission for her to visit him. No one wants a repeat of last time. Post-DH, pre-epilogue.
Author's Notes: (a) I received both the best and hardest prompt ever of “Surprise me!” in conjunction with “any Weasley.” I hope this fits the bill. (b) Depending on whether you view JKR’s post-DH interviews as canon or not, this could be seen as AU. I do not personally think of them that way and have taken what bits I liked and have ignored the rest. (c) The title of this story comes from the song “All That’s Left” by Spock’s Beard.
Beta: LL, who is not on LiveJournal, but to whom I owe my undying gratitude. You are invaluable, m’dear. This was edited slightly after being beta’ed, so any remaining mistakes are my own.
“Hullo, do I know you?” His voice is the same as it’s always been, but his tone is off and Angelina feels her heart start to break and she’s only been in the room for less than a minute. The old George, the one she’d grown up with, drank with, fought with, survived with, would have imbued the question with all sorts of flirtation; he might even have gone so far as to waggle his eyebrows. This new George, though, does none of that. He asks the question like he honestly has no idea of the answer.
Truth of the matter is he doesn’t know the answer, and Angelina hates him for it as much as she’s heartbroken for him.
* * *
Fred is buried on a warm and sunny Tuesday morning. There’d been a bit of fog earlier, but it’s all burned away by the time the family reaches the cemetery. George wishes the weather hadn’t cleared up. It’s too much the perfect spring day for a funeral.
The casket is already waiting for them and George doesn’t say anything about how much Fred would have hated the deep mahogany color of it as he takes his seat in the front row of chairs set before the covered hole in the ground that will soon hold his brother’s body. He wants to say something, anything, about how everything is all wrong, but he hasn’t spoken in almost a week and he’s not sure if his voice even works anymore.
Ginny’s already crying and Mum hasn’t stopped crying since the battle ended and now Fleur and Hermione are sniffling, too, and there goes Dad and soon enough everyone else is crying, but George can’t.
Fred had cried when George lost his ear and George can’t even cry when Fred dies. What kind of person, what kind of brother, does that make him?
* * *
It takes her a minute to be certain her voice won’t wobble when she speaks. “We went to school together,” she eventually forces herself to say. It’s harder than she expected to reintroduce herself to someone she’s known since she was eleven years old. “My name’s Angelina.”
“I’m George, but I expect you already knew that,” he says, extending a hand, a shadow of a grin on his face. Angelina almost expects him to pull her into a hug and put frog spawn in her hair like he did on her thirteenth birthday, but he only offers her a rather perfunctory handshake. “Pleasure to meet you. Or re-meet you, I suppose.”
Angelina doesn’t know what to say to that, so she doesn’t say anything at all.
* * *
Afterwards, everyone gathers at the Burrow. George knows that being surrounded by his family and friends should be comforting, but it’s only emphasizing that too many people are gone forever, that Fred is gone forever, and he can’t take it anymore.
So he leaves. He just grabs his jacket from the stand by the door and walks out without a word or a backwards glance and Apparates away as soon as he reaches the edge of the property and the multitude of wards that surround it.
He Apparates without giving it much thought, which is all kinds of stupid and dangerous, but he can’t bring himself to care right now, and he ends up in the kitchen of the little flat he and Fred had shared above the shop until they’d been forced into hiding. The place is wrecked. Glass crunches underneath his heels as he takes even, measured steps towards the staircase leading down into the backroom of the shop.
It’ll be a shock if there’s anything salvageable out of the disaster that is the sales floor. Shelves have been tipped and boxes torn open and displays blown apart. The till’s on its side on the floor behind the counter. It’s a certifiable mess.
George peels off his jacket and drops it on the counter before grabbing the shelf that used to hold little bottles of Patented Daydream Charm. All that’s left of the potion is a dried crust on the floor beneath the shelf that should be simple to charm away, but isn’t. George’ll have to break out the Mrs. Skower’s later, but that’s okay. It’ll keep him occupied, at least for a little while.
* * *
“We were friends?”
He sounds unsure of himself, something Angelina can’t ever remember him being, even when they were all scrawny little first years and Fred and George got into weekly pissing matches with Marcus Flint, who’s always been bigger and meaner than them. This hesitance is unnatural and it makes her sad to see it.
“Yeah,” she answers, her heart in her throat. “We can still be friends, if you want.”
“I think I’d like that,” he says. His smile is less blinding than she’s used to, but somehow more genuine at the same time. “Besides you, the only people the healers have let me see are my parents. They say I have four brothers and a sister. I suppose you know them, too?”
Angelina nods, but can’t say anything to that because if she opens her mouth right now, she’ll tell him that he has five brothers, that Fred died in a fight that was about the right to live, that George is missing half of his soul because his twin is dead and that Angelina will forever regret turning down Fred when he came to her with his heart on his sleeve.
But she can’t tell George any of that. The Healers and Mrs. Weasley had made her swear not to agitate George before they gave their permission for her to visit him.
No one wants a repeat of last time.
* * *
George lights the lamps with a flick of his wand when he can no longer see what he’s doing for the darkness that comes with dusk. His wand goes back into his pocket and he goes back to cleaning and straightening by hand.
It’s full dark by the time he finishes and he has no idea what time it is, though he’d hazard a guess to say it’s probably closer to ‘early’ than ‘late’ based on how gritty his eyes feel and how long it takes to drag his eyes back open after each blink.
He locks up the front door and extinguishes the lamps and steps through the backroom and up the stairs to the flat, not faltering even once in the dark. He’s exhausted, but the flat is still a wreck. There’ll be time to sleep later, he thinks, as he starts to sweep up the shards of dishware on the kitchen floor.
* * *
George scratches at the side of his head where his ear used to be and frowns a little bit. “No one will tell me what happened,” he says and Angelina has known George long enough to hear the questions he’s not asking: What happened? Why can’t I remember?
“There was an accident,” she tells him, a little knot of guilt forming in the pit of her stomach at the lie. “They healers are doing everything they can, but it’s tricky.”
“They say I’ll never remember anything that happened before I woke up in that flat,” George tells her. “I’m trying so hard to remember, but there’s just nothing there. It’s like I didn’t even exist before three weeks ago.” He takes a deep breath, holds it, lets it out. “I want to remember.”
Angelina wants him to remember, too.
* * *
George is sitting on the repaired couch when the sun rises, elbows on knees, his wand held loosely in his right hand. In his left hand is a photograph of him and Fred at the grand opening of the shop, except Fred’s disappeared past the edge of the photo, leaving George alone, grinning feebly without his partner in not only crime, but in life.
He still hasn’t slept. He’s not sure he could sleep anymore.
He doesn’t think about it before he raises his wand, the point against his temple. His voice is a hoarse croak, but his intent is clear and Professor Flitwick always said that intent is nine tenths of spell-casting.
“Obliviate.”
The photo falls to the floor.
Author: tocourtdisaster
Recipient: nundu_art
Character(s): George Weasley, Angelina Johnson, mentions of various Weasleys
Rating: PG-13
Warnings (highlight to view): Angsty, like whoa. Possibly AU (see below). Um, present tense? (I know that turns some people off.)
Wordcount: ~1,375 words
Summary: The Healers and Mrs. Weasley had made her swear not to agitate George before they gave their permission for her to visit him. No one wants a repeat of last time. Post-DH, pre-epilogue.
Author's Notes: (a) I received both the best and hardest prompt ever of “Surprise me!” in conjunction with “any Weasley.” I hope this fits the bill. (b) Depending on whether you view JKR’s post-DH interviews as canon or not, this could be seen as AU. I do not personally think of them that way and have taken what bits I liked and have ignored the rest. (c) The title of this story comes from the song “All That’s Left” by Spock’s Beard.
Beta: LL, who is not on LiveJournal, but to whom I owe my undying gratitude. You are invaluable, m’dear. This was edited slightly after being beta’ed, so any remaining mistakes are my own.
“Hullo, do I know you?” His voice is the same as it’s always been, but his tone is off and Angelina feels her heart start to break and she’s only been in the room for less than a minute. The old George, the one she’d grown up with, drank with, fought with, survived with, would have imbued the question with all sorts of flirtation; he might even have gone so far as to waggle his eyebrows. This new George, though, does none of that. He asks the question like he honestly has no idea of the answer.
Truth of the matter is he doesn’t know the answer, and Angelina hates him for it as much as she’s heartbroken for him.
* * *
Fred is buried on a warm and sunny Tuesday morning. There’d been a bit of fog earlier, but it’s all burned away by the time the family reaches the cemetery. George wishes the weather hadn’t cleared up. It’s too much the perfect spring day for a funeral.
The casket is already waiting for them and George doesn’t say anything about how much Fred would have hated the deep mahogany color of it as he takes his seat in the front row of chairs set before the covered hole in the ground that will soon hold his brother’s body. He wants to say something, anything, about how everything is all wrong, but he hasn’t spoken in almost a week and he’s not sure if his voice even works anymore.
Ginny’s already crying and Mum hasn’t stopped crying since the battle ended and now Fleur and Hermione are sniffling, too, and there goes Dad and soon enough everyone else is crying, but George can’t.
Fred had cried when George lost his ear and George can’t even cry when Fred dies. What kind of person, what kind of brother, does that make him?
* * *
It takes her a minute to be certain her voice won’t wobble when she speaks. “We went to school together,” she eventually forces herself to say. It’s harder than she expected to reintroduce herself to someone she’s known since she was eleven years old. “My name’s Angelina.”
“I’m George, but I expect you already knew that,” he says, extending a hand, a shadow of a grin on his face. Angelina almost expects him to pull her into a hug and put frog spawn in her hair like he did on her thirteenth birthday, but he only offers her a rather perfunctory handshake. “Pleasure to meet you. Or re-meet you, I suppose.”
Angelina doesn’t know what to say to that, so she doesn’t say anything at all.
* * *
Afterwards, everyone gathers at the Burrow. George knows that being surrounded by his family and friends should be comforting, but it’s only emphasizing that too many people are gone forever, that Fred is gone forever, and he can’t take it anymore.
So he leaves. He just grabs his jacket from the stand by the door and walks out without a word or a backwards glance and Apparates away as soon as he reaches the edge of the property and the multitude of wards that surround it.
He Apparates without giving it much thought, which is all kinds of stupid and dangerous, but he can’t bring himself to care right now, and he ends up in the kitchen of the little flat he and Fred had shared above the shop until they’d been forced into hiding. The place is wrecked. Glass crunches underneath his heels as he takes even, measured steps towards the staircase leading down into the backroom of the shop.
It’ll be a shock if there’s anything salvageable out of the disaster that is the sales floor. Shelves have been tipped and boxes torn open and displays blown apart. The till’s on its side on the floor behind the counter. It’s a certifiable mess.
George peels off his jacket and drops it on the counter before grabbing the shelf that used to hold little bottles of Patented Daydream Charm. All that’s left of the potion is a dried crust on the floor beneath the shelf that should be simple to charm away, but isn’t. George’ll have to break out the Mrs. Skower’s later, but that’s okay. It’ll keep him occupied, at least for a little while.
* * *
“We were friends?”
He sounds unsure of himself, something Angelina can’t ever remember him being, even when they were all scrawny little first years and Fred and George got into weekly pissing matches with Marcus Flint, who’s always been bigger and meaner than them. This hesitance is unnatural and it makes her sad to see it.
“Yeah,” she answers, her heart in her throat. “We can still be friends, if you want.”
“I think I’d like that,” he says. His smile is less blinding than she’s used to, but somehow more genuine at the same time. “Besides you, the only people the healers have let me see are my parents. They say I have four brothers and a sister. I suppose you know them, too?”
Angelina nods, but can’t say anything to that because if she opens her mouth right now, she’ll tell him that he has five brothers, that Fred died in a fight that was about the right to live, that George is missing half of his soul because his twin is dead and that Angelina will forever regret turning down Fred when he came to her with his heart on his sleeve.
But she can’t tell George any of that. The Healers and Mrs. Weasley had made her swear not to agitate George before they gave their permission for her to visit him.
No one wants a repeat of last time.
* * *
George lights the lamps with a flick of his wand when he can no longer see what he’s doing for the darkness that comes with dusk. His wand goes back into his pocket and he goes back to cleaning and straightening by hand.
It’s full dark by the time he finishes and he has no idea what time it is, though he’d hazard a guess to say it’s probably closer to ‘early’ than ‘late’ based on how gritty his eyes feel and how long it takes to drag his eyes back open after each blink.
He locks up the front door and extinguishes the lamps and steps through the backroom and up the stairs to the flat, not faltering even once in the dark. He’s exhausted, but the flat is still a wreck. There’ll be time to sleep later, he thinks, as he starts to sweep up the shards of dishware on the kitchen floor.
* * *
George scratches at the side of his head where his ear used to be and frowns a little bit. “No one will tell me what happened,” he says and Angelina has known George long enough to hear the questions he’s not asking: What happened? Why can’t I remember?
“There was an accident,” she tells him, a little knot of guilt forming in the pit of her stomach at the lie. “They healers are doing everything they can, but it’s tricky.”
“They say I’ll never remember anything that happened before I woke up in that flat,” George tells her. “I’m trying so hard to remember, but there’s just nothing there. It’s like I didn’t even exist before three weeks ago.” He takes a deep breath, holds it, lets it out. “I want to remember.”
Angelina wants him to remember, too.
* * *
George is sitting on the repaired couch when the sun rises, elbows on knees, his wand held loosely in his right hand. In his left hand is a photograph of him and Fred at the grand opening of the shop, except Fred’s disappeared past the edge of the photo, leaving George alone, grinning feebly without his partner in not only crime, but in life.
He still hasn’t slept. He’s not sure he could sleep anymore.
He doesn’t think about it before he raises his wand, the point against his temple. His voice is a hoarse croak, but his intent is clear and Professor Flitwick always said that intent is nine tenths of spell-casting.
“Obliviate.”
The photo falls to the floor.