She drew her knees slowly up to her chest and balanced lightly on the edge of the chair, facing away from the over cluttered desk. She grasped her toes and scrutinized them for a moment before focusing her gaze through the gloom to the still form in the bed. The dank covers completely obscured the person wrapped in them from her view, although she guessed he was awake. He was too afraid of his dreams to stay asleep for long.
“The smell in here is going to attract smaddypuffs, you know,” she said, the sound of her quiet voice finally breaking the silence. The lump under the covers neither moved nor spoke, so she continued.
“You really should at least bring your food back down to the kitchen if you aren’t going to eat it. Although maybe you like your food moldy. Do you like bleu cheese?”
The person in the bed shifted slightly. “Bugger off, Luna.”
“I can’t do that. Your mother said I had to get you out of your room, and I’m not allowed back downstairs until I do.”
The person in the bed didn’t speak again. Luna peered at the practically full dishes scattered all over the room. The plates next to the bed were beginning to look quite fuzzy covered in two weeks worth of mold. The plates balanced precariously on the boxes and unfinished products scattered about the room held the more recent plates, placed on top of the clutter when the floor space ran out. Luna set her feet back on the floor, turned to the plate on the desk behind her and contemplated it for a moment before picking it up and placing it on her lap. It held the meatloaf and mashed potatoes that Mrs. Weasley had made for lunch and sent upstairs with Luna. Picking up the fork, Luna took a bite of the mashed potatoes. Still warm. Yum. She chewed slowly before speaking again.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
Once again, there was no answer.
“What do you want to eat? Your mum will cook it for you. She’s quite worried. If you stay in here much longer, she’ll come up herself.”
This time there was a reply, but it was so soft that even in the silence of the room Luna couldn’t make it out.
“What was that?”
“I said, no, she won’t.”
“Of course she will. Or did you ward your door against her? I don’t think she’ll take it very well if you have.”
The form on the bed rolled over, and Luna looked into a broken face. It was far too thin, and paler than she had ever seen it. The eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, and the lack of an ear made the head appear oddly lopsided. But the worst part was that the ever present smile was nowhere to be found.
“She hasn’t been up to see me ever since we’ve come home. Last week at Fred’s funeral she wouldn’t even bloody look at me. How can I go downstairs? How am I supposed to deal with people who look like they’re about to start crying every time they see me? At least everyone else has come up and tried to talk to me. But Mum…” George hesitated, and when he continued his voice was nearly inaudible again. “She doesn’t want to think about it, and when she looks at me, she has to.”
George put his head on the pillow and stared defiantly at Luna. He hadn’t spoken that much to anyone in two weeks, and his speech was the first acknowledgment anyone in the house had made to the fact that they all walked on eggshells around him. He glared at Luna, waiting for her to tell him he was being unreasonable. She continued to eat his meatloaf.
“Would you stop eating my bloody lunch?”
Luna glanced at him before returning to her meal. “Stop swearing. It’s not as if you’re going to eat it.”
“Well maybe I was,” George said indignantly. “I can’t now, 'cause you’ve eaten it all.”
“I have not. Here, you can have the rest.” Luna scooped the plate up off her lap and stood. She maneuvered her way carefully through the debris, pausing only to poke a particularly moldy plate with her toe thoughtfully while George sat up and leaned against his pillows. She handed the plate to him and then settled herself at the foot of the bed. George scowled at her, irritated that she had entered his personal space, but Luna just picked at a loose string in the bedspread and ignored him. George continued glowering, and began shoveling mashed potatoes into his mouth in defiance. After four giant forkfuls, George made a choking noise. A flicker of humor appeared for a brief second on George’s face before his expression reset itself into its typical mask of pain and grief “and since Luna’s appearance- annoyance.
“You tricked me!”
Luna nodded without looking at him, concentrating on removing all of the loose strings within her reach and arranging them in a neat pile next to her left foot. George watched her work at clearing the covers, her brow furrowed and her mouth hanging slightly open. After a few minutes, George’s voice broke through her reverie.
“Well?”
Luna’s hands paused in their travels over the bedspread and she regarded George for a moment. “Well, what?”
“Well aren’t you going to ask me about my feelings, or tell me to go downstairs, or something?”
Luna blinked at him. “Would you like me to?”
George huffed. “No.”
“Alright then.”
Luna returned to her previous task of cleaning up the blanket. Her hair fell out from behind her ears and hid her face from George’s incredulous gaze. Luna started humming softly to herself, and with a shake of his head George returned to his food.
They sat peacefully together for a quarter of an hour while Luna amused herself with her thoughts and the bedspread, and George ate his meal. When he finished, he set his empty plate on top of the moldy food on the floor and rearranged his pillows around him. It felt odd to be sitting upright. Except for the hiatus of Fred’s funeral, George had spent the last two weeks lying in bed trying not to think or fall asleep, and occasionally getting up to use the bathroom. He’d eaten once in a while, usually when Bill showed up and practically force fed him. But he hadn’t sat up in bed, or wanted to talk to anybody. The realization that he actually wanted to talk to Luna took him by surprise. He tried to figure out when this feeling came about. He wasn’t entirely positive, and now that he considered it, maybe he didn’t really want to talk after all. Maybe he should just ignore her until she left; that tactic had worked on everyone else so far. Yet he doubted it would work with Luna. Well, he figured, as long as he was slightly inclined to talk, he might as well give it a try.
“Luna?”
Luna tucked her blonde hair behind her ears, making her face visible to George once again. She propped her chin on the heel of her palm, her elbow leaning on her knee as she faced George. “Yes?” she responded.
“Why… How come my mother sent you to make me come downstairs?”
Luna took no offense at the question. George thought at first that she may have because she took such a long time to answer. But her tone of voice was pleasant when she finally began to speak.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time at your house while Daddy rebuilds ours. I think I was bothering Ron, because he told me if I insisted on being persistent and annoying I might as well put myself to good use and try to pester you out of bed. Your mother overheard and she thought it was a good idea, so I was sent up here with your supper and instructed not to return downstairs unless you are accompanying me.”
“What’s the matter with Ron?”
“Oh, he’s in a fight with Hermione, but he doesn’t know it yet. I was just trying to help, but we weren’t quite on the same page. He’ll figure it out soon enough though, once Hermione returns.”
George figured no one was ever really on the same page as Luna. He almost said this to her, tempted to make her as upset as he was. He bit his tongue at the last moment; it seemed his family was giving her a hard enough time as it was. Instead, he asked about Hermione.
“Where’d Hermione go, and why’s she mad at Ron?”
“She went shopping with Ginny, but that’s not why Ron’s upset. Ginny was just on the verge of a mental breakdown, being cooped up at home. Your mum is still nervous about letting Ginny leave the house by herself. But Hermione’s mad because Kingsley asked her, Harry, and Ron to join the Auror Office. Did you hear he’s the new minister? Anyway, Ron and Harry accepted, but Hermione turned him down, and now Ron won’t stop badgering her about it, trying to make her change her mind. She finally got fed up with it this morning and left with Ginny, but Ron will probably start in again as soon as she returns, and then we’ll be able to hear the yelling.”
George made a raspy chocking noise that startled both him and Luna. Luna just stared at him, wide-eyed. He’d just laughed! Granted, it was barely even a chuckle, short and hardly recognizable, but it was something never the less. George was surprised; he’d thought his ability to find anything entertaining had died with Fred. Leave it to Ron’s thick headedness to revive it. Luna was still gaping at him, and George found it mildly funny that he had just shocked Luna Lovegood of all people. He registered that that was the second thing to amuse him in a couple minutes. His sense of humor was on a roll. That reminded him of something he hadn’t thought of in two weeks.
“How’s the joke shop? Who’s been running it?”
Luna recovered quickly from her surprise, and her face settled back into its normal calm state as she answered George.
“Ron’s been taking care of it. He’s had quite a time of it too; there’s been a huge rush since You-Know-Who was killed. Ron even started a new party supply line, it’s been quite a seller.”
“Really? Ron? Guess he is good for something. Who’s going to run it now that he’s in the ministry?”
“Ron. He’s putting off joining the Aurors until you can pull yourself together and run the shop on your own.”
It was George’s turn to stare gaping at Luna.
“Ron? But what…why? He’s…what? He’s…but, the Auror Office…and Harry…what? He’s always…and we constantly picked on him…he’s…why?” George stammered.
Luna smiled understandingly at George, while he continued to blink, completely perplexed. She waited patiently until he appeared ready to listen to what she had to say.
“You aren’t giving Ron enough credit, George,” Luna stated, shaking her head lightly at him. “You aren’t giving anyone in your family enough credit, but you’ve been underestimating Ron all his life. You and Fred,” Luna paused as George seemed to shrink away from her when his brother’s name entered her accusation. But when he made no further protests, she continued.
“The two of you always picked on Ron, but he still looked up to you. He’s always wanted to be just like the two of you, but you never wanted to include him. He’s just trying to help you out now in a way he thinks you and Fred would want.”
George looked down at his hands in his lap rather than meeting Luna’s eye. “But, but why would he want to help? We were never particularly nice to him before…well, you know…and now whenever he comes up here I just ignore him or tell him to leave.”
“He’s worried about you, your whole family is. They understood at first, but now you’re just scaring them.”
Luna’s voice had been soft, but the intensity of it had caused George to look up.
“Scaring them?” he asked quietly.
Luna nodded. “They think you’ve given up. They’re afraid you won’t even try to keep going without Fred. They’re scared they’re going to lose you, too.
George dropped his gaze back down to his hands, which had begun to wring the blanket. “It’s not, it’s not like that. I mean, I guess it was at first, and right after the funeral, but it’s just, I just, I dunno. I couldn’t do that. And…” his voice trailed off.
“Fred would be disappointed in you,” Luna finished for him.
George gave the tiniest of nods to his blanket. That was really what had been keeping him alive these past two weeks. Fred would want him to keep going, just as he would have wanted Fred to keep going if he had died. But it was so difficult. They’d only ever talked about continuing on alone once, when they’d written their wills, but that hadn’t really been a conversation, and neither of them had wanted to dwell on that possibility. Whenever they discussed death it was always when we die. They’d never thought about being separated. So for the last two weeks, George had just felt…lost.
“When is Hermione coming home?”
Luna glanced over at the shades on the windows. She started at them for a while before shrugging one shoulder. “In about an hour or two, I guess.”
George nodded. “I’ll go downstairs when she gets back.”
“You might want to wait for the yelling to actually start, otherwise they’ll notice you’re out of bed.”
George stared at her, amazed that she had read his mind once again. Unfazed, Luna yawned and stretched her arms above her head. She gave a full body shiver, and then crawled from the foot of the bed to lie next to George. She wiggled into the mattress and closed her eyes. George frowned and poked her in the side.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?”
“I’m taking a nap,” replied Luna, without opening her eyes.
“No you’re not. You’re going downstairs.”
Luna opened one eye. George was astonished at how incredibly blue it was, and he wondered how he had never noticed before. The eye blinked, and George realized Luna was talking. “…don’t listen very well. I can’t leave the room unless you do, or until Hermione comes home, so I’m taking a nap. You can do whatever it is you do up here by yourself, and then wake me up when the yelling starts.”
>The eye closed again, and Luna rolled to face the wall. George scowled at her, and then lay down with his back to her. He couldn’t sleep and she knew it. The nightmares would be back: Fred in the Great Hall with the other victims, Fred in the casket, Fred not being in the bed on the other side of the room. George closed his eyes. He wouldn’t think about that. He’d think about something else. But it was all he’d been thinking about for the past few weeks. What else was there? Quidditch. He thought about Quidditch, desperately trying to remember what it was like to fly. He remembered hitting the bludger, listening to the announcer so he’d know whether or not Gryffindor was ahead. Lee had always been the announcer. George wondered who had announced once he’d graduated. He remembered Harry mentioning that Luna had done it once. Luna must have made for a very strange commentator. He wondered how much Luna even knew about Quidditch…
George sat up abruptly. Yelling had awakened him. He must have had a nightmare again, and woken himself up screaming. But that wasn’t right; the yelling was still going on. George frowned before realizing it hadn’t been him after all. The voice was coming from downstairs, and was female. Hermione must be home.
George turned and faced Luna, surprised to see that she was awake. She blinked a couple times to clear the sleep from her eyes, and George noticed again what a magnificent blue they were. Luna smiled up at him.
“Are you ready to go downstairs?”
George smiled back. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”