Pure-Black // George Weasley

38: ghost of the past

Kate lay in bed, holding her hand out in front of her and admiring the ring that glinted magnificently as she turned to her side to find her soundly asleep boyfriend. His hair stuck to his forehead and she reached out to push it away making him shift slightly and close his mouth, she chuckled softly to herself before pressing a kiss on the corner of his mouth sighing to herself contentedly and turned to the other side so that her back was now facing George. She hadn't told him yet, she had been spending sleepless night after sleepless night, her dreams or nightmares whatever she thought they were, were recurring and nothing was stopping them, the lack of sleep would soon start becoming evident on her face and she wanted to try to keep all attention away from herself. Once it was too hard for her to lie still, she had decided on getting up and going out of the room to make herself a cup of coffee; while most people drank coffee to stay awake, Kate drank coffee for comfort.
Not shortly after she had left the room and was sipping onto her coffee did the ginger appear in front of her but it wasn't George, it was Fred.

"Can't sleep either?" Kate asked him as he leaned against the table across her, his posture slightly slumping and she could see that even Fred Weasley, the mastermind prankster, now looked tired but not in a way of sleep deprivation.
"I guess so" he shrugged, "what does sleep matter anyway now, eh?"
Kate inclined her head in agreement to the statement that her best friend made as they both enjoyed the comfort of the silence.

"Coffee?"
"-thought you'd never ask"
"Shut up, you could've just said it"

The two sat down side by side, sipping onto their mugs, the sound of soft snores issuing from different rooms was all that was heard.
"Are you all right?" Fred asked softly, not looking at Kate but just ahead at the wall making her turn her head to face him and sighed to herself.
"I guess, I don't know. Are you?" she said making him turn his head to face her.

"Same as you" Fred told her but he could see that she was troubled and more preoccupied than she had ever been before, "what's wrong, Kate?"
"Freddie, George thinks I'm- you know - pregnant?" Kate said as though she had been waiting for Fred to ask the question and for her to burst out, this made Fred's eyes widen and he shook his head slightly, chuckling to himself.
"Hey, it's not funny" she said airily, nudging him with her shoulder.
"You mean to tell me my brother knocked you up?" Fred added with a laugh, "well, what do you think?"
"I don't know. We're young and in the middle of a war. Oh, how stupid!" Kate sighed burying her head in her hands.
"Hey, it's going to be all right. You have us, you have me and George" Fred said comfortingly while wrapping an arm around her shoulders as she leaned onto his shoulder.

Winter was slowly beginning to ease as December melted into January; the few people that were left at the den were all busy with their own activities. Tom always stayed on alert; he would occasionally leave and then return with Lionel Anthony as they were laden with intelligence reports and much more from the Order, most indicating Voldemort's whereabouts, the disappearances and current Ministry activity. They were all beginning to look even more disgruntled and most of all, Kate. George was worried for her but there were still other things that were keeping him occupied but Kate's thoughts were getting too loud for her to contain and on days she even felt like she would explode.

She had decided to walk outside the barn to spend a few minutes in the company of her snowy owl, breathing in deeply as she swept towards the tree where Archimedes was usually perched. The ground was still covered in snow as she walked making her trudge a bit in her step.
"Archimedes!" Kate called out when she had reached the bottom of the tree, craning her neck to look up.
"Archimedes!" she called out again but there was no fluttering of wings or hooting which made fear slowly rise in the pit of her stomach. "ARCHIMEDES!", she called out again as loud as she could, her voice echoed across the silent woods but there was still no owl in sight, panic was engulfing fear as she inhaled shaky breaths.
"A-Archimedes! Archi-"
She stopped abruptly when she heard a piece of parchment crinkle under her shoe and she picked it up, her eyes widening in horror as she called out for her owl again to hear or see no sign of him before rushing back inside.