Unlikely || George Weasley

Chapter 3 - Reflection

The Burrow, May 4 1998

Hermione had always loved early mornings.

Today was no exception, as she woke long before Ginny stirred - snoring lightly- beneath her bundle of quilts. Faint streaks of golden light streamed through the roughly pulled blinds, scattered across the small bedroom's floor. One fell across Hermione's eyes. She slipped out of the camp bed and pulled herself up on the windowsill, perching right up against the glass with a knee pulled up to her chin. She traced the view of the valley with her index finger, the outline of trees and sleepy hills dipping and falling across the pane.

Hermione didn't see the figure slowly circling the house at first.

At a quick glance she saw that he had already breached the wards and was approaching the front door. Her blood ran cold and instinct sent her scrambling for her wand across the room. But she fought her gut reaction, and with her nerves screaming at her to run, Hermione waited. Watched.

The cloaked figure moved into the path of the sun and his hair caught the light. The familiar scarlet of a Weasley.

She let out a shaky breath, and unclenched her hands. The war still felt so fresh in her mind after just a few days. It's natural to still be on edge, she told herself.

The 'cloak' that caused her stomach to drop at the sight of it was, in fact, the frayed patchwork quilt from the living room. She knew that silhouette.

He found the blankets, then.

Smiling to herself, she pulled on a thin blue jumper over her pyjama top and tiptoed out of the room. Unsurprisingly, Ginny didn't wake.

The Burrow's staircase was notoriously creaky, but she'd long since learned the trick steps and treacherously loud floorboards. She made it to the kitchen without making a sound. After all, she'd spent most of her summers here since she was a child. She couldn't imagine spending them anywhere else, come to think of it.

Pulling her wand from the pocket of her pyjama shorts, she cast a muffliato charm around her as she poured water into the kettle and placed it on the old stove. Hermione ducked her head around the corner to make sure Fred was still asleep, and sure enough, the loud snoring continued. He'd been carried in and placed on the sofa sometime mid-morning yesterday. He was so weak that he hadn't moved from it yet. She frowned, curiosity brewing as she studied his worn face. She would come back to that later. Turning, she checked the time on the Weasley family clock. Apparently it was just before seven, with all of the hands on the 'home' position for the first time in a very long time.

Hermione yawned, now on the hunt for teabags. It took a few minutes to track them down – stuffed in the back of a tall cupboard by the sink, next to a faded bottle of Mr Fondem's Miracle Mould Mover. Rescuing the teabags, she rehomed them in an empty jar, found a clean mug and finally cast silencio on the kettle when it began to steam and whistle shrilly. It was far too early for that.

Once brewed, Hermione sipped her tea and thought back over the past couple of days.

The kitchen was in an odd state. Since the Weasley family had been run into hiding just before Easter, the Burrow had been hastily abandoned and left to gather dust. Plates and pans were stacked haphazardly, cutlery poking out from obscure drawers. The teabags were another example.

Mr Weasley, Percy and Bill had 'cleaned' the house several hours after the battle. It had been chaos, debriefing the press that had swarmed Hogwarts by mid-morning and helping move the bodies from the building and the severely injured to St Mungos. Much later in the afternoon, Mr Weasley took Bill and Percy back to the abandoned Burrow to secure the wards and check what nasty surprises had been left for them – the words BLOOD TRAITORS and MUDBLOOD LOVERS apparently carved on one side of the house. The garden was still wildly overgrown and untouched. They hadn't said much about the state of the house, but all three men apparated back to Hogwarts in the evening, grim faced. Hermione shuddered involuntarily.