Looking through some old photographs,
faces of friends we’ll always remember.
Watching busy shoppers rushing about
in the cool breeze of December…
“I swear, Mr Weasley, nearly every customer who came to the till told me how delighted they are that the shop’s open.”
George smiled and nodded at Verity. Even now, some months later, people were still surprised, he could sense it, that he kept the shop open after only a month of being ‘on holiday’ after, well ” after the war.
But what did they expect, that he’d mope and brood?
Well, he did, but in private. His mother had enough on her plate. His pain must be only a fraction compared to hers, and besides, Fred would absolutely thump him or slip him some nasty nougat of their own invention if he moped and brooded in the open.
Like now. But he couldn’t help it. He glared at Fred, daring him to open his mouth and say anything. Fred only waggled his eyebrows though, and proceeded to prod Oliver on the back, causing Oliver to jump a foot in the air.
“What have you got there, Mr Weasley?” Verity said, in a tone just a touch nauseating in its dripping kindness and warmth. She’d been like this ever since ” since the shop reopened. During the funeral, she’d been speechless, except for loud heaving sobs.
Returning the dripping kindness and warmth through his smile, George tilted what he was holding for her to see.
“One of the kids asked awhile ago about a photo album. I remembered this. It’s just here in the cupboard for Merlin knows how long. Angelina dropped it off one day ””
“Oh! Look at you!” Verity trilled, laughing. “But what did Mr Weasley do to your captain?”
George shrugged. He still didn’t know what Fred did to Oliver in that photo of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He hadn’t asked Fred; George hadn’t looked at these photographs in so long. Oliver nearly always dropped by whenever he could spare time off training, anyway, the girls wrote, Harry was almost family and Fred ” Fred had always been a constant. George had never dreamed”
Head bowed, he raised a hand to tell Verity he was going up. Without looking if Verity saw the signal and without waiting for her response, George elbowed his way through the crowded shop to the stairs. In the privacy of the bedroom, he let his growl loose and flung the album to one of the beds, Fred’s bed.
George sank onto his, head in his hands. He allowed one, two, three sobs out before he swallowed the rest and drowned them with a deep breath. It was pathetic. Fred would think George should have had enough crying, or let Mum do the crying. George grinned to himself, looked up and around. He’d taken pains to keep their room just as they had left it before going to Hogwarts. Oh, he cleaned the room, but thanks to magic, not a thing was moved.
One of Fred’s socks, a white one, still peered from under the bed like a “ George had to grin again at his own thoughts ” like a ghost. If only...
But that was ridiculous, and somehow too good to be true. That would have been too spectacular. Things too spectacular cost dearly. And what was he doing, wishing Fred was a ghost? You couldn’t test products on a ghost.
After a strangled sort of half-sob, half-snigger, George cleared his throat and sighed, gingerly picking up the album again so as not to disturb the wrinkles of Fred’s sheets.
Outside the window, snow was falling again, great fat flakes rendered many-coloured by the fairy lights all the shops had strung on their facades. Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes was brightest of all, what with their prototype Christmas Carolling and Twinkling Lights, a version of Wildfire Whizbangs, except that they sang instead of banged, were snowmen and stars instead of dragons and wheels, and lasted for the twelve days of Yule.
But trust Fred to perfect the prototype and then forget to tell George how.
Fred probably wanted to wait until after the war mayhem to tell him.
On either side of their broad window, the narrow mirrors were covered. The same was done to the mirror in the bath. Verity had asked about this. George had answered with candour. And the poor girl had burst into tears and nodded and vowed she would never touch the mirrors unless he was ready.
Even in the Burrow and in the streets, George avoided mirrors, polished windows, even the ponds, now glassy for the winter.
It was just too painful, seeing his reflection. Missing ear aside, he only needed to flick his hair out of his face a certain way to be convinced he was looking at Fred, not himself. And yet, instead of being comforting, it was the exact opposite. He was alone now. He’d tried looking cross-eyed at his reflection, but it only made his head ache in addition to the dull throb in his middle. It was difficult, the fact that now only in photographs could he see that there used to be two of them.
With a sigh, he sat back down on his bed and opened the album again.
As he turned the pages though, he discovered with some alarm that Fred seemed to have been adding to this album. Sure enough, another page and George was looking at himself and Fred smugly polishing their till counter. In the next page, he and Fred were caught on camera with their backsides in the air, cursing and laughing at each other by turns, trying to coax out runaway pygmy puffs from under Fred’s bed.
Something large lodged itself in George’s throat. Without sparing another glance to the photo and to their room, he went out the door hastily. Only after several deep breaths did the urge to run down and strangle Verity for her uncanny knack for candid photographs pass.
Wearily, he went back down, hoping there would be some slack in the tide of customers so he could escape to The Leaky Cauldron for a cuppa laced with something stronger. The tall clock in the hall said it was going on four, people would be going to tea at least or to prepare dinner.
Sure enough, when he went down, there were only a handful of people in the shop. A woman and three blokes about his age. They were on the counter; Verity was smiling as she put their shopping in bags.
George approached cautiously, not wanting to be noticed. He could recognise one of the boys, and all regular customers were more or less on speaking terms with Fred and George.
But the boy only nodded to him and smiled slightly. It was his mother who spoke.
“Hello, son, you must be Mr George Weasley. I’m Criselda Creswell. We’ve just about left and had already finished tea at the Cauldron, we even met Mr Potter and your sister, are they coming or going? But Owen here finally admitted he wanted to drop by here, only he thought it would be improper to take me here, you know, so soon after their father died.”
George nodded absently, smiled absently... and then it all clicked. This was the family of Dirk Creswell’s. He blinked out of his stupor and shook hands with Mrs Creswell and her sons. He and Owen exchanged eloquent looks. Words were not necessary to portray their sympathy and understanding.
George looked at Mrs Creswell. There was a broad silk crape looped with her teal scarf. But she was beaming, taking their bags from Verity and depositing several handles to each of her son’s hands. George suddenly wanted to be home that moment, with his own mum, dear old poor Mum.
“Well, dears, happy Yule to you and your family and friends. And dear,” she clasped a hand around George’s forearm. “You will extend our gratitude to the Order, won’t you? They were the ones who informed us, you know, when Dirk was found. And of course, Potterwatch has been very helpful, too.” She took a deep breath, and squeezed his arm with a smile. George found his own hand covering hers and squeezing back.
“My sons didn’t dare try to steer me here, no doubt they think it would be too frivolous, bless them. This Christmas shopping nearly shocked them out of their skins already. But I told them, your father would be disgusted with me if I don’t keep our Yule traditions just because he left us, and through no fault of his own, too! So I hauled them over here.”
“That’s nice, Mrs Creswell,” Verity said tremulously. George nodded, grinning at Owen’s and his brothers’ mock winces.
“And when I saw this shop as bright as ever, you know what I thought? I said to myself, ‘See, Criselda, you’re not alone in battling your grief with a happy face!”
George still didn’t say anything. If he tried to make a sound, he was sure only some sort of gurgle would come out. The giant lump in his throat was throbbing now.
And then as though she could see the lump through his skin, Mrs Creswell squeezed his arm again. “Let it out, dear. It will be over before you know it.”
Mrs Creswell waved goodbye quite seemingly blithely. George only envisioned her doing so, however, because he was already running upstairs.
His forehead against the cool glass of the window, and looking out at the colourful covered heads of the people below, he let the tears out. It was the first time he’d let himself really cry. During the funeral, he’d cried a little, but only a little; he’d tried to be strong for their Mum, to not add to her suffering by being miserable. But Merlin’s pants, he was miserable.
He missed Fred. There were many things they still had planned, had not finished, had to do together.
When he’d lain bleeding in the couch at the Burrow, he remembered his immense relief that it was him who was injured, and remembered that he vowed he could endure anything as long as none of his family were hurt. And even then, he’d thought about his mother and Ginny and Ron, not Fred. He’d never really imagined that Fred would die on him. He was the tough one, the smarter one.
George didn’t know how long he wept for his twin there. But it felt like forever, because his chest felt light all of a sudden when the sobs ran out, as if he’d downed a bottle of butterbeer or been bespelled with a Cheering Charm.
He began to notice how the shoppers below were dodging a snowball fight four kids had started. Two or three even propped their shopping against a store wall, stooped to pack some snow and threw back, amid laughter and hoots. One missile went off course and sailed right over a red head. It was Ginny. Holding her hand was Harry.
George drew back from the window and hastily wiped his face.
And then, hit with inspiration, he wrestled the window open and directed his wand at a couple of snowballs.
Ginny and Harry sputtered and spit out snow, rubbed their eyes and looked around, but all the snowball participants below looked as bewildered as they did.
One mousy boy, who was nearest Ginny, cried plaintively, “’Twarn’t me, miss!”
George sank to his knees by his window and laughed until he couldn’t breathe anymore. Verity must have heard him, because when he went down to the shop to face his sister and Harry with the most innocent look on his face, she smirked and mimed zipping her lips, her eyes sparkling with tears.
Before he could comment, though, the door opened. Ginny and Harry came in, still shaking snow off their heads. Out of the corner of his eye, George saw Verity subtly wiping her eyes with her fingertips.
“Hi, Verity. We’re here to drag you to dinner. Won’t take no for an answer.” Ginny gave him a steely gaze.
“No dragging will be necessary,” George said airily. “I’ll follow you out, Verity, I’ll lock up.”
Ginny herself lifted the counter flap and looped arms with Verity. The two girls went out.
“Alright, George?” Harry asked, smiling tentatively.
“Alright, Harry,” George said as he waved his wand to lock glass cases and put shelves in order. And then they trooped out onto the snowfall, George secured the shop door and they walked down the street together.
“Mum and Dad agreed to go with Charlie then?” George asked, keeping his eyes ahead.
“Yes. I think Ron and Hermione are Portkeying over for the dinner, too.”
After speaking, Ginny chose that moment to duck to lace her boots. George was caught unawares. Quality Quidditch Supplies was brightly lit; opposite it, the Apothecary’s dark glass door was rendered mirror-like.
George’s reflection was framed in it perfectly.
He was just about to wince and turn away when a large snowball came down on his head. He shook off the impact and couldn’t help grinning at how his reflection looked. Fred had always been very evasive when it came to snowball fights. It was nice to see him walloped.
“Expect more later, you git,” Ginny said, now looping her arm through his. “We know it was you.”
She began to drag him forward, but he looked back at his reflection another time and smiled.