George stares up at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
His ears are humming so loudly he's momentarily scared he has gone mental. Maybe Percy was right. He goes to swallow and nearly gags, spiting the blood from his mouth and ignoring the grunt of disgust that sounds from Bill on his right. Charlie is holding his left in a fucking vice grip, so if he made any sound there wasn't any real chance of George hearing it. Not that he'd really care. Charlie was more of the silent disapproving type.
He can hear crying though. He can hear Teddy and baby Victoire wailing. He can hear his dad trying to comfort his hysterical mother and Harry reassuring his sister that everything is fine. He can hear Percy's faint shouting, and the rage in Ron's voice as he screams back.
And fuck, he can hear humming. Loud, unforgivable. That humming burns like the curse that fucked up the hearing in his left ear. It burns up the words that George wants to say, completely suffocates any coherent thread of consciousness. Until a sudden thought rolls through his mind and the noise in his ears ceases almost immediately,
"Ollie."
He blinks at the ceiling, like he's surprised he's said it. But he had. Ollie. Merlin, he couldn't hear her. Had she left? He wouldn't blame—
"Hi, George. How's the weather up there?"
He smells raspberry and feels a gentle nudge against his foot. She's standing in front of him, leaning to his right so that he can hear her. Loud and clear. He can hear Ollie. Blood is pooling in his mouth, but he doesn't want to spit again. Relief cools his sweating palms, but he pauses when he realizes what she'd said. His brows furrow slightly, "Did you just make a joke?"
He's asking, because he wants to make sure he understands. He wants to understand. He wants her to understand. This is him now, but it didn't used to be. And he can't explain the newfound embarrassment over it, over the fact that he used to be liked by his family. He can practically see her sheepish grin when she replies nervously, "Sorry. I'm horrible in a crisis. Can I offer you a riddle or a limerick instead?"
George feels his lips move, feels them twist and lift and feels his cheeks raise slightly. Smiling. Up at the ceiling. He's smiling, and even though his mouth hurts, the act of smiling doesn't. He chuckles slightly, the noise like the rusty engine of the car that Ron and Harry had crashed into the whomping willow so long ago.
"Sure," He's smiling, and Charlie and Bill's grips on his arms are loosening. "A limerick might be nice."
"Oh. I didn't really think you'd say yes. I...I don't reckon I remember one off the top of my head, George."
He grins at the ceiling, ignoring how the expression feels like it's hanging off a cliff over sharp and deadly rocks, and he slowly shakes his head. He clears his throat in the hopes that she can't tell he's smiling, that he's close to actually laughing, "That's alright. Next time maybe."
"Hey, George?"
"Yeah, Ollie."
A beat of silence, and then, "Could you look at me?"
No.
His smile slips from his face and his eyes begin to water. The image of the ceiling begins to blur and his limbs tremble in the thin line he has them pressed in. No. He couldn't look at her. He screws up his face, clenches his eyes shut. No. She couldn't see him like this. He wasn't sure why, but now he wants to tell her to leave. To tell her to fuck off and that she should never look at him again, even when he someday manages to look at her.
But then he's tipping his head down anyway, his eyes reluctantly opening and meeting sage green. Olive smiles, and George's knees nearly buckle. He blinks at her, his spine threatening to snap under the tension of his body.
He watches silently as she raises her wand and points it at his chin, her voice soft, "Episkey."
George's lip feels hot, tingling slightly until it turns a very sudden and sharp cold. He presses his lips together harder, finding that they are no longer split from his brother's knuckles. Olive glances at Charlie and Bill before asking George, like she doesn't care that they can hear her, "Why are they still holding you like that?"
George blinks quickly, stomach twisting into a knot, "They're scared."
Olive nods slowly, her smile softening slightly. George fists his hands awkwardly, feeling Charlie grip him tighter for a moment. But George doesn't pay him any mind. He's looking at Olive and his chest is aching for air when she asks, "Are you?"
No. He wasn't scared.
He was fucking terrified.
George looks away, peers over the top of her head at the broken dishes and mess left behind on the table. Food decorated his clothes the way blood decorated his chin and knuckles. He sucks in a breath, and gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
He was ready to go, to get the hell out of The Burrow and back to the safety of the shop. But Olive is just standing there, waiting like she has all the time in the world. Charlie and Bill let go of his arms. He's not fighting, he doesn't have it in him.
The rage he'd been feeling has turned to a chilling sadness that feels like he's trapped under ice, gasping for one last sweet breath. He felt like a suit of armor, bones and joints rattling in a hollow shell because nothing was there any more. Nothing. He's nothing.
It should have been him.
"Let me just tell your mum and Ginny goodbye. Do you want to wait outside?"
He blinks at her again. He feels something taking root in his chest, something that doesn't hurt. Something that feels a little weird, like if he nurtures that feeling it wont wither away and die. Olive knows that he wants to leave. She knows, and she doesn't look upset. And he doesn't have to say it. Instead he just lowers his chin in a half nod, keeping his eyes locked on her trainers until they start to walk away. George makes a break for the door, slamming it behind him in a familiar way that makes the house shake and the windows creak.
He stares out at the dark green the grass has turned, his head pounding. He brings his palms up to his forehead, resting them there instead of pummeling himself with his own knuckles until his skin is the right amount of bruised. Until he looks like the twin that Percy so badly wishes was him. Until his ears stop humming and the green stops haunting him and his body wont feel like cinderblocks are strapped to his back.
George stiffens when the door creaks open behind him, and it's then that he realizes he's traveled a few yards from his childhood home. Green grass flirts with his ankles, and he nearly caves to the temptation to rip it out of the ground in clumps while screaming his bloody head off.
"George--"
"Why do you keep saying my name?!"
It comes out angry, sharp like the knife twisting in his gut. He whips his head around, glaring at the short witch standing a few feet behind him with her hands clasped behind her back. She looks taken aback, and the reaction feels deliciously appropriate. Thats better. Let the new feelings die, and pull up the old ones that cover him like a blanket in a bed of misery. Merlin, how much more of this could he take? The tug of war was killing him, slowly. Maybe that was Percy's goal. Draw this out so that George didn't wish for Fred, make it that he just wished for death instead.
"It's habit. I don't want to forget you."
Crickets chirp in the cooling summer air, and George stares at the witch as the distance shrinks between them. Olive eyes him uncertainly as he strides towards her, her scar stretching and her lips shifting to one side. He nearly judges the expression as fear, but she isn't flinching. She just stands and waits and when he steps up to her pink trainers, toe to toe, she has to crane her neck to look at him.
George wants her to be scared. He nearly begs her for it. It would crush up the last bit of that weird emotion in his chest, it would pulverize his heart and leave it a powder that can be blown away by his voiceless screams. Be scared. Hate him, tell him what an awful person he is.
But her hands don't shake when she removes them from behind her back and brandishes a slice of white cake covered in light pink frosting like a weapon.
And instead of begging her to hate him, he asks quietly, "Why would you want to remember me?"
Olive smiles, and George stares at the fleck of despondent forest in her eyes, noting the tremble of her lips. What was he doing. What in the name of Godric was he doing. She shrugs a little, and he tries to not ask more questions. Conor O'Connor would have his head if he asked what her scar was from, why her memory needed to be dusted off the same way his smile did. Instead he looks down, grabs the fork from her plate, and takes a small bite. Olive quirks her brow slightly, as if she's prepared for any sort of reaction.
He's not sure what makes him say it. Maybe it's her yellow shorts, or the weird balloon shirt she's wearing, or the way her eyes don't make him feel sick to his stomach.
"I like ice cream better than cake."
The sadness of her smile fades, and George peers down at her silently as that smile blooms into a brilliant grin. She laughs. Olive laughs, and George wonders for a brief moment if she thinks he's joking. He didn't do that so much anymore. Or at least he hadn't before he'd smacked his head on the tile of Florean Fortescue's.
"I do too," She replies, mirth coating her words like warm honey. He hands her the cake, watching silently as she crouches and simply sets it on the ground. If he were a better son, he'd take the plate into his mother and hug her goodbye. But instead, he manages a small smile when Olive shrugs a little and says pointedly, "I'll just tell them that Ron left it out here."
If he weren't so tired, he would laugh and say that was a rather good explanation. Instead he stretches out his hand, ghosting the skin of her elbow, "Is this okay?"
He didn't know why he asked. She asked, before she helped him in Florean's. She asked before she touched him, and something deep within his chest tells him that she might appreciate the same. Her smile tells him that she does, and something warm envelops his chest when he realizes he doesn't doubt it. Olive takes his hand, and he lets her, closing his eyes and picturing Florean's with a pink door and soft music, and the apparation doesn't ache in his bones as much as it had when they'd apparated to the burrow.
His eyes stay closed until he hears gently,
"George?"
"Yeah, Ollie?"
When he looks down, he finds that she's let go of his hand and is staring up at him in a way that makes him nervous. Like she knows him. Like somehow he's fallen into the trap of ice cream and pink trainers and the smell of raspberry and now he's actually forged a connection with someone.
But maybe he knows her too.
She smiles slightly, a tiny tilt of her lips. Her cheeks are as pink as her trainers. He's torn between sprinting for the safety of his shop and sticking around to hear what the oddball has cooked up in her mind. He shoves his hands into his pockets, his body stilling as she says, "I want to remember when we became friends. Can it be today? I have to write it in my planner."
Merlin. A trap indeed.
Something in the back of his mind--something he refuses to listen to right now because it will leave him a mess of the very little frame of self he has left--tells him that Olive Murphy is a change worth tolerating.
"Yeah," His voice sounds like the broken cobblestones of Diagon Alley. He clears his throat and tries to manage a smile. Today wasn't so bad. Right now, standing in front of her, he doesn't hear crying or humming or whispered emotions. He just hears Olive, even when she isn't saying anything.
"It can be today."