Hermione made her way across the pub, nodding at Hannah Abbott for the usual.
“Hi, Hermione,” Ginny smiled and shuffled over to make room for her. George looked up from his Firewhisky and smiled too.
“George, Ginny,” Hermione said before turning to Harry. “So, how are things at the Ministry? I read about that warlock from Quebec you caught up with yesterday.”
“Hm, yeah,” replied Harry. “He was hiding out in a barn on Ilkley Moor. He had been waiting to ambush next weeks game between the Wimbourne Wasps and the Chudley Cannons-” Harry broke off. Beside her, she could feel Ginny reaching beneath the table to grip his hand.
Hermione looked away.
“So, when are you starting work with George?” Ginny asked with false light-heartedness. Her voice was strained, barely able to keep it from shattering across the table. Hermione could feel the usual tension pressing down on her stomach, Ron’s favourite Quidditch team the catalyst this time. Last week it had been a box of Cauldron Cakes and the week before that, a Chocolate Frog card he had never managed to collect. The moment passed. Harry took a sip of ale, his eyes firmly on Hermione.
“Next week. Isn’t that right, George?” Hermione leant over Ginny to look at George and raised an eyebrow in question. He’s being very quiet, she thought. Perhaps he is already regretting the deal.
“What?” George grunted looking up from his Firewhisky. Has he paid any attention to the conversation at all, thought Hermione as she gave Harry a questioning look. He shrugged.
“Look, Hermione, we were just talking about how it might be a good idea if you go to live above the shop with George. Sharing the rent will be cheaper than living in separate flats,” he said.
Hermione blushed. The idea had occurred to her but after Christmas at the Burrow…
“I…I…er…” she stammered looking across at George. He had gone back to his quiet contemplation of the Firewhisky. Why doesn’t he just drink it? “Um, I guess that makes sense, Harry. George, what do you think?” she asked, averting her embarrassed gaze.
She heard him lift his glass, swallow and put it back down upon the table again. Hermione flinched. The clunk of the glass on the wooden surface seemed to ring with deprecation.
George gave an awkward laugh and Hermione looked up.
“I-Well, I think…er…” Hermione turned to Harry, horrified. So, he doesn’t want me to move in with him, she thought. “So, you don’t-”
“-well, I’m not…” interrupted George and then paused. Hermione could feel the blood rising on her face. Something hot prickled in her chest.
“Um, so what you’re saying-”
“I guess I-”
“Oh for heavens sake!” exclaimed Ginny. “How are you two supposed to work together and save each other from financial ruin if you cannot even agree on a simple decision such as living arrangements? You’re both acting like self-conscious teenagers.”
Hermione and George gaped at Ginny.
Does she not see the irony of the situation, thought Hermione. Does she not think it strange to suggest that George and I live together?
Ginny pursed her lips.
“Hermione, you are going to live in the flat above the shop with George. It will be a lot cheaper and easier. Agreed?”
George gave a small bark of a laugh. Hermione giggled nervously while Harry tried to stifle a snort. And then suddenly all four of them were pounding the table with tears streaming down their cheeks at the silliness of it all.
George had not looked up when Harry and Ginny arrived. It was not until Ginny gave him a playful and rather painful poke in the ribs with her wand that he acknowledged their presence. The wooden surface of the table shone in the smoky light of the Leaky Cauldron. His Firewhisky glared at him, liquid amber, full of fire and lost memory. No, not lost, not forgotten. Repressed.
“Hi,” he said, with false humour. “My round?”
“No, George, I’ve got this,” replied Ginny, who stood, giving Harry a long, searching look. George did not like it.
“What is she making you do?” he asked Harry with suspicion as his sister walked toward the bar.
“Nothing,” Harry answered far too quickly. “She isn’t making me do anything. It was my idea in the first place.”
George’s gaze returned to the Firewhisky. He tilted the glass with his hand. It shook lightly before he let it go, seeming to linger off balance for longer than possible before Harry’s wand appeared in his peripheral vision. The glass shot upright with a light clunk. George smiled ruefully.
“Can’t I have a little fun every once and while?” His voice was bitter. Harry looked away, eyes clouded. Is it embarrassment? Pity? Guilt? George thought. He did not know. All he knew was that the whispers were louder now, in the evening, than at any other time of the day. Painfully loud, painfully there.
Because Fred and Ron should be here, too, thought George. They should be here, sharing a drink with their brother and sister and friends. He wanted to scream, to jump on the table and shout. He wanted to let them know that he understood. But he could not. Not unless he wanted to end up sharing a ward with Lockhart at St. Mungo’s, anyway.
“Ginny and I were thinking about Hermione’s liv-” Harry began, interrupted by the bitter wind as the door opened. Ginny sat down beside George with a sigh. She pushed a pint of lager across to Harry who eyed it suspiciously before giving it a sip.
“What’s wrong with Butter-”
“Oh, look! Here’s Hermione, right now,” exclaimed Ginny, interrupting Harry. He turned to look over his shoulder.
“Hermione, over here!” George glanced up as Harry called her over. Her hair was wild from the wind outside and her shoulders were speckled with rain. He was surprised that a witch of her calibre could not perform a Weather-barrier charm. But perhaps she could not be bothered. This was a difference George could sympathise with only too well. He glanced down at his own shabby robes.
“Hi, Hermione,” greeted Ginny. George could feel his sister move over, making room for Hermione. He looked up, smiling at her before returning his gaze to the glass of Firewhisky before him.
“George, Ginny,” replied Hermione before turning to Harry. Her voice seemed to drift away on a tide of clinking glasses and smoke and inane chatter. He could hear the three others talking but it was as if there was some kind of barrier he could not climb over. It was the voices, the whispers, the sounds of the dead. It was the grief. It was the guilt. Guilt.
He heard his name but it was far away where recognition could not reach him. George, George… George frowned, a dead weight seemed to be pressing down on his stomach. It was all too familiar but not at this time of the day. This leaden feeling belonged to the too-bright morning when he awoke fresh and free from memory until they came back, the whispers.
George.
It was a lot louder now. A voice had broken through that barrier. He looked up confused to see a pair of eyes surrounded by an aura of brown frizz looking at him with slight annoyance.
“What?”
“Look, Hermione,” Harry began. “We were just talking about how it might be a good idea if you go to live above the shop with George. Sharing the rent will be cheaper than living in separate flats.”
We were? thought George. He let out a loud breath. It was not as if the thought had never occurred to him. He just was not sure it would be a good idea. He felt awkward enough after what happened at Christmas in Ron’s bedroom. Hermione stuttered a reply George could barely understand. Suddenly, all eyes were on him.
He grabbed the glass of Firewhisky and gulped it down, placing it back on the table a little too hard. Ginny pursed her lips. She looked like his mother.
George gave an awkward laugh, more of a giggle and stammered, “I-Well, I think…er…” before reverting back to quiet contemplation of the table.
“So, you don’t-” Hermione began, breathless.
“-well, I’m not…” interrupted George, pausing. What wasn’t he? He knew he wanted Hermione to work for him, in fact, if he was to be truly honest, he was looking forward to it. If she was able to pull the shop out from the gutter and into the prosperity he once knew then...
And Harry’s suggestion was certainly logical. Hermione was in as much of a financial mess as he was. Surely, helping her out with cheaper living arrangements was the thing to do just as a friend. And the company would be welcome. George was sick of sitting in that flat alone with the whispers, with the voices, with the memories and faint laughter. Hermione understood. She understood.
She is also a young woman who felt good pressed up against my side, he thought
“Um, so what you’re saying-”
“I guess I-”
“Oh for heavens sake!” exclaimed Ginny. “How are you two supposed to work together and save each other from financial ruin if you cannot even agree on a simple decision such as living arrangements? You’re both acting like self-conscious teenagers.”
George’s mouth dropped open in a comical ‘o’ as he gaped at Ginny. Could she read his mind? Talk about making the situation that much more embarrassing…
“Hermione, you are going to live in the flat above the shop with George. It will be a lot cheaper and easier. Agreed?”
George laughed - anything to break that awful, awkward moment. Hermione seemed to giggle and Harry tried to stifle a snort rather unsuccessfully. And then they broke. Their laughter burst out across the table and through the bar - a frivolous moment when the whispers seemed to disappear.