Song: Dark Red by Steve Lacy
*** Also, it may help to go back and read chapter 33.
Please let me know what you think of this. I'm not sure if this is the route I want to go in. Maybe this can be a BETA chapter and if it sucks, I'll delete it and we can act like it didn't happen.
thanks, author
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Charlie pulled out another photo from the trunk. He looked at the trio who smiled wide with their arms wrapped around one another. Fred and Olivia looked to be mid-laugh. George however, he was staring at Olivia, with a soft grin and a spark in his eyes.
Charlie tilted his head looking at it again, and the moving picture. George sighed and smiled at Olivia as she tilted her head back laughing.
Charlie rarely got gut feelings, but when he did, he was never wrong. So when his stomach dropped, he knew it wasn't good.
Everyone started leaving the room and talking or going outside. He began pulling out more and more photos of the best friends. He flipped through album after album.
Olivia went to help clean up with his mum. The teenagers went outside for a game of quidditch. The others went to watch. Charlie sat alone in the living room surrounded by the photos.
When he found the last album that he looked at, he sat there dazed. Chest rising and falling. His stomach flipped again, and again. His mouth was dry, his tongue tasted bitter. Fear. He felt fear.
•••••
Olivia was wiping down wet dishes in the kitchen when Charlie came, kissed her on the temple and said he was heading out for an errand for work. He would see her later at the Flat. He was gone before she could ask anything.
But when she went home, Charlie wasn't there.
•••••
"It's been 3 days! I haven't heard a word from him." Olivia said sitting stretched out on the couch at the Den, with Reid.
"And he didn't say where he was going?" He asked, he had a leg crossed over a knee, sipping on a glass of lemonade.
"No, he didn't tell anyone. At least no one has said anything to me." she answered rubbing her hands over her freckled face.
Reid rubbed his chin, "I don't know Red, have the twins got an idea where he'd go?"
"No," she said defeated.
"I'm sure he's safe, you'd know if he wasn't." He said patting her shin next to him.
"I just can't help but wonder if I-"
"Don't finish that sentence, you know this is not your fault. He's probably just stressed out and needed some time. Be patient, he'll come back." Reid reassured her.
She yawned pulling the blanket up around her neck.
"It's late, just stay here tonight. Remus should be home soon, he'd like to see you anyway." Reid said but Olivia was already half way to being asleep. She mumbled an agreement and nodded her head, closing her eyes.
Reid tucked the blanket in around her feet, and picked up the book off the coffee table, and began to read while he listened to the soft snoozes of the ginger.
•••••
Charlie sat on the couch of the flat, the only light was the soft glow of the fireplace. He heard the footsteps coming up the stairs from the shop below, before he saw George come through the door.
"Charlie? Is that you?" His brother said in the darkest as he took off his tie. "Where have you been? Ollie has be sick with worry!"
"Where's Fred?" He said in a hoarse voice, that he hadn't used for the three days he stayed away. Three days that he drove himself to madness over what he discovered.
"Out with Ang, it's Tuesday. They always go out on tuesdays." George answered, as he came around the corner of the couch to look at Charlie. Before his brother on the coffee table was stacks and stacks of old photos.
Charlie nodded his head, looking at the photos. George stepped to look closer at what the photos was of. They were all photos of him, Fred, and Ollie. Or of just him and Ollie. He angled his head to look again. They all had at least him and Ollie in them or groups with them.
"Why do you have all these?" George asked, still looking at the images.
Charlie stared blankly at the burning fire. "How long?" He asked his brother.
George furrowed his brow. "How long what? Do you really not know that you've been gone for three days?" He said confused.
"How long. George, how long have you been in love with Olivia?" Charlie asked, his voice cracked as if he had been crying for days.
George stubbed back, dropping the photo he had picked up. "Charlie, You know I love Ollie, she's my best friend."
Charlie looked at his brother, he picked up an album off the table and flipped it open to a page. "The other day, at the Burrow when mum got out the trunk of all the photos Olivia sent her over the years, I started looking. Then I noticed a pattern. I thought at first it was just harmless." He threw down the album on the table in front of George. "But for some reason I got the gut feeling to keep looking. So I did."
"I'll ask one more time George, how long have you been in love with Olivia Evans?" Charlie said bitterly.
George looked down at what Charlie threw down, and swallowed.
"I kept hoping I was wrong, then I found this album from the Yule Ball. The one that you went with Olivia to. So tell me George how long." Charlie said again coldly.
George closed his eyes, and took a breath. "I've been in love with Olivia since the first day I met her on that platform."
Charlie's eyesight went black, and he felt the contact his fist made with George's cheek before he saw it.
•••••
George woke up on the rug of the living room in the Flat, Charlie paced near him. His jaw hurt and he knew that he deserved the pain.
"Nice right hook," he groaned sitting up. Charlie stood still, shaking his head. George got to his feet rubbing his jaw. "Thats going to be sore in the morning."
Charlie sat back down on the couch. "Tell me why. Why would you keep this from us?"
George leaned against the mantle of the fireplace. "I want to." He sighed. "For so long I wanted to tell her how I felt, but I was scared."
"Who knows? Besides Fred-" Charlie asked.
"Fred doesn't know. No one knows, well except you now. Its been my deepest secret since I can remember. At first I thought its just a school yard crush but as time went on, I realized I was a fool to think it was ever just a crush." George explained. "Its Ollie, how could it ever just be a crush?"
"Fred doesn't know?" Charlie asked, shocked.
"Its the only secret I've ever kept from him, and its ate me alive every day since. Its also the only secret I've ever kept from Ollie, too." George sighed.
"I just don't understand, George, I don't get why you never said anything. Didn't you ever want to tell her." Charlie said.
"I did want to tell her. Everything in me wanted to tell her, I was going too." George huffed. "That bloody picture you showed me, the night of the Yule Ball. I had planned to tell her that night."
When the first song of the night began to play, George didn't hesitate to pull Olivia into his arms. He held her tight as they spun around and around, she giggled the entire time and he thought it was the sweetest sound he ever heard. The smile on her face lit up the room when he dipped her backwards. Even when the song and the tempo changed they danced and danced until his feet was numb.
Until she jerked him off the floor to hunt down Ludo Bagman with Fred while her and Ang went to get drinks. He could remember the smile that etched on his face when he would look around to check to see if she was okay and found her spiking their drinks at the punch bowl. He shook his head laughing. He could even remember the way his throat burned when he down his own drink that she got for him.
He needed the liquid courage. Tonight was the night he planned to confess everything. That from the moment he spotted her curly red hair on the platform, he was a goner.
So, George pulled her back on the dance floor and when the slow song came on he held her closer than any friend should have. He nuzzled into her neck and cherished the second he had with her on the dance floor.
And that photo Charlie showed him. It was taken of that moment of them dancing and how George looked down at the beautiful ginger that was his best friend. He knew why Charlie picked that photo because it was clear to anyone who looked at it, you could see it plainly how obvious George felt for Olivia.
He had decided to wait until they left the ball. He wanted to give her the night of her life in case things didn't go well.
She had got a little tipsy, and he was buzzed and maybe that was the reason why when she asked for him to take her heels off he took a little longer than normal, because those delicate little feet. He knelt before her and slipped off her shoes and he realized he would kneel down and worship her if that's what she asked of him. But she didn't, Olivia asked her to go dance with Ginny to save her toes from Neville.
It killed him to leave her alone, especially since when he was dancing with Ginny he looked over to see Draco talking to her. But when he seen her leave Draco standing there like a big idiot and come to him, he could have melted on the spot.
The night was winding down and soon they all would go to the common room to hang out. So he took a large swig from the flask as she snapped photos of everyone dancing. And maybe it was the firewishkey, but he grabbed Olivia and said, "Take a picture of this!" and kissed her cheek, as she snapped the photo while laughing.
Later he framed that photo and set it on his nightstand, and if Charlie would have seen it he would figured out a lot sooner about his feelings for Olivia.
While George and Fred went and got snacks and drinks from the kitchens, Olivia changed into his pajamas and he loved the way she looked In them. He pulled her into his lap and happily cuddled her while she ate a cauldron cake.
"I was going to tell her when we went up for bed. I had practiced over and over what I was going to say. Then Ang had to ask about potions class. Thats what stopped me from telling her." George explained. "They had to identity potions in their class and Ang asked what Olivia had guessed what the potions were. One of them was Amortentia. You know the Love Potion that is the scents of what you find most attractive. Of course, Ang asked Olivia what she smelled in the cauldron."
"Well you know what she said?" George said to Charlie. He shook his head no. "Leather, Campfire, and freshly cleaned laundry."
Charlie looked to George who was shaking his head. "She had no clue who she smelled. I felt like the thickest bloke, that I never noticed. The worst part is that she didn't even notice either. Olivia smelled you, Charlie. Not me, not Oliver Wood, but You. So I bottled up ever feeling I had for her and decided I couldn't tell her."
"Why? Its not like we were together then." Charlie asked.
"Because I almost lost her. She about died in that tournament. I decided I couldn't lose her, not ever. And if I told her how I felt there was a chance I would, and then the summer of Charlie and Ollie happened. You two were sickening how oblivious you felt for the other. Everyone could see it, Hell we took bets." George huffed. "I couldn't take that away from her, to see Olivia that happy after everything she had been through. I couldn't risk her happiness. I watched her waste away to nothing, I couldn't take away her joy and mess up how things had always been."
"George, you have to tell her. She should know." Charlie said quietly.
"No, she can never know. Charlie promise me you won't tell her." George demanded.
"I can't promise that. You are in love with her!" Charlie said.
"You have to promise me. Please." George begged. "Because I know even though I look at her like that, she would only ever look at you the same way." He gestured to the photo on the coffee table were it still laid. "I'll move on, I'll find me a girl that looks at me like that and fall in love. You'll propose, you'll marry Olivia, and have lots of babies. Come on, Charlie."
Charlie was quiet. "Olivia can never know," George said one more time.
"Olivia can never know what, George?" Olivia said from the door way where she stood with Reid.