Forget Me Not || George Weasley

Chapter 23

"How long have you been friends with Ollie?"

George stiffens, eyes locked on the order form he's been staring at for over an hour. He'd left his office door open in an attempt to get Lee to intervene at some point, but he'd left a while ago, saying he needed to run an errand. He couldn't get mad. Lee had kept Angelina busy while George had stood outside of Florean's this morning, staring at the We're closed sign hanging crooked on the pink wood.

Panic. It hadn't gone away since Angelina had found him waiting to try the orange ice cream Olive seemed so excited by. It only increased when he realized that Olive had evidently changed her hours of operation. Fucking change. He'd be content to live without it. But then again, he was beginning to thing sometimes things needed to change. Or else they would break.

Ollie. Possessiveness curls around his heart, but he bites his tongue.

He glances up, meeting coffee colored eyes shining with something he didn't like. Something like distaste. He clears his throat, turning back to his work and muttering, "Olive. I've known her for a month or so."

"I asked how long you've been friends."

George sighs at the biting nature of her words. Angelina had always had a strong edge, even at Hogwarts. They'd bumped heads a few times as students, but when things changed, when people died...They'd somehow fallen into a tangle of emotions disguised as comfort. George had a catastrophic meltdown when Conor O'Connor tried to tell him that he and Angelina were not helping each other. He'd bloodied himself, split his own mouth open with his knuckles and torn up the healer's office before he and his wife Connie had gotten him to settle down. George never swung at them.

Not when the person he wanted to hurt was himself.

Those first few months A.F.D. Angelina was the only person that understood. The only person that would drink with him until they both were sick. And when she had climbed on top of him after a barrel of firewhiskey split between them, George had been too lonely to say no. It was an endless cycle of booze and sex and fights that made his throat raw from screaming. And yet, they couldn't cut the cord that bound them. It was the last they had of Fred, each other.

Neither just wanted to admit it.

"Ginny's birthday."

George's voice sounds hollow, and he tries to force a smile. It doesn't work. Ginny's birthday was the date that Olive had circled and written next to, establishing that he had made another friend. Against all odds, he--George Weasley--had made a friend. By himself. The sting of guilt and grief never came. Only something that felt good, like soft purple fabric or warm skin.

Angelina scoffs, and when George chances a look at her, her arms are crossed over her chest and a cruel smirk is twisting her mouth. He waits, his ears humming so loudly that when he sees her mouth move, he asks, "Can you repeat--"

"Bloody hell, you never fucking listen!"

George rears back, the sting of hearing those words burning his right ear like the sodding curse that had blown it off. He rakes his hands through his hair, jaw clenching shut and opening a few times before he finally asks angrily, "What is your problem?"

Angelina laughs, and it sounds about as hollow as he feels. It hadn't always felt this bad, at least he hadn't thought it had. For a while, sneaking around and getting drunk with Fred's girlfriend felt good. It felt righteous, like a middle finger to the universe, like one sodding scrap of his brother had refused to leave George and he would take it in any form he could. He started seeing Conor O'Connor the same week Ron saw him and Angelina hooking up in the store room. George had been sick alright, but not from the alcohol.