Learn to Love Again | George Weasley

22. April Fools

Eloise shifted awkwardly in her seat as the topic had suddenly shifted to Fred's death. Part of her wanted to inquire more, but she also didn't want to overstep any boundaries. She never tried to pry further into what happened to Fred when George talked about it, she only listened to what he was willing to share. Same with Bill and Fleur, they had only told her so much.

"I'm sorry for bringing the mood down." Percy said as he saw Eloise's expression.

"No, Percy it's okay, I don't mind. If talking about it helps I'm more than willing to listen, but you don't have to."

His brows furrowed slightly as he suddenly realized that he never really talked to anyone about what happened during the battle. How had he been able to go this long bottling everything up?

"I supposed the thing I feel the worst about is that the last thing I did before the blast was quit my job." he said with a sad sort of laugh.

Eloise didn't fully understand what he meant by that, but she gave him her undivided attention as he continued.

"I worked for the Ministry when the Death Eaters took over. My dad did too for a while, until they found out Ron was helping Harry and they all had to go into hiding. But during the battle Fred and I were fighting together when we came across the Minister at the time."

Percy let out a sigh before continuing, "I basically resigned on the spot which seemed to please Freddie. We were about to have a good laugh about it and that's when the blast happened. Now here I am, still at the Ministry. Feels almost like I let him down."

"The Ministry is a lot different than it used to be." Eloise said as she attempted to reassure him.

"No I know, it's just that my job is what drove me away from my family for years, like George said. I just feel guilty that the last thing Fred heard me say turned out to be a lie in the end."

Eloise let the silence between them linger, it was a lot to take in.

"And maybe if I didn't make that big scene with the Minister we wouldn't have been distracted and maybe the blast wouldn't have killed him." he finally finished.

"Percy... I'm sorry. I-" Eloise stammered.

She wanted to tell him that it wasn't his fault, that there was no way he or Fred could have possibly predicted what would happen and he shouldn't blame himself for it, but the words got caught in her throat.

"Don't worry. It's nice to finally get all of that off my chest. Sorry if you feel like I overshared, I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable."

"It's alright, there's no such thing as oversharing in my book." she replied with a sympathetic smile.

The rest of their lunch break was shared in relative silence, but the two of them felt quite comfortable with each other. When they first met, Eloise thought that Percy seemed quite stern and serious compared to his siblings, and she was right in some respects. But the more she got to know him, the more she realized he may have the biggest heart of them all.

-

George couldn't explain why he had agreed to show up to the Burrow for his birthday, if he had it his way he would be laying in his bed either drinking or sleeping. Or maybe just drinking until he passed out. He was already in the process of doing so when Charlie started banging on his bedroom door.

George had done his best to ignore him, but Charlie was unrelenting. If George wasn't going to agree on his own accord then Charlie was going to apparate him by force, regardless of the risk of splinching. But maybe getting splinched would be less painful than Molly's wrath had he decided not to come to dinner.