The hourglass is mocking George again.
It had been mocking him for the last two years.
Sitting next to the hourglass is an enevelope that mocks him even more. An envelope stamped with the ministry's insignia on the front. Mocking. Life was continuing to mock him.
He violently turns his head, mouth pressed into a scowl like grimace. He looks at the muggles wandering innocently outside of St. Mungos, hoping that people watching will help lighten the concrete block of emotion that has taken root in his stomach. But it's no different than the hourglass. The people bellow, the people he can see through the glass, are simply grains of sand that flow to show the passage of time.
"Why did you drink, George?"
George lifts his hand to his left ear, rubbing the pad of his finger over the raised tissue there. It's hardly an ear anyhow. Just a mangled hole on the side of his head that muffled Connor O'Connor's words with incessant humming. That humming hadn't stopped in days. He hadn't seen Olive in days, touched her in what felt like a year. She was closed off to him now. He was scared she was closed off to the world. He did that. He did.
"I don't know."
The answer sounds hollow even to himself. It's the truth. He could come up with lame reasons, but when he didn't know what to do, he turned to alcohol. He regrets it. So much that his eyes burn. But when George finally works up the courage to look over at his healer, he doesn't see the cold disappointment he's expecting, not the nervousness or sadness he'd see from his parents or the frustration and confusion he'd seen in his siblings.
He sees understanding.
Conor O'Connor smiles faintly, reaches up to thumb his nose before adjusting his glasses. He sighs, scribbling something down. George waits to feel the rage he so often felt over those sodding notes, but it doesn't come. Instead, he wonders what a certain short witch is doing while he sits here and figures out why his mind is so fucked up.
George grabs one of the pillows, pulling it to his chest so he doesn't clench his fists. He waits for O'Connor to finish writing before saying, "I'm mad at myself. And I'm...I'm upset. With Angelina. With Ollie..."
With Fred. He's just so fucking upset.
The healer glances up, assessing George for a long moment before his eyes slide to the envelope that rests on his desk. He leans back in his chair, making no move to grab the note while asking, "You haven't read it?"
"No," George shakes his head quickly, "If Olive wanted me to know, she would tell me. It feels wrong to even think about it."
O'Connor's eyes narrow, silence passing between them. The truth was, George wanted to look. Wanted to see what Angelina meant when she said Olive was friends with death eaters. It hadn't seemed that way when he asked Olive. It hadn't seemed like she swapped holiday cards with snakes. But the note Angelina left with the envelope said that Olive was at least doing business with them. George was scared to know what that meant. Scared enough to almost open the envelope.
"That's a very respectful thing to do, George. If you know you don't want to look, then why are you upset with her?"
George twists the pillow in his hand so hard he feels a few of the stitches popping. He swallows, straining to not look at the sodding hour glass. He feels as if he's taken a million steps backwards
"Because she lied?"
Conor O'Connor quirks an amused brow, "Are you asking, or telling me?"
George sucks in a slow, shaky breath. It barely fills his chest, shallow and painful as it is to even try. Merlin, he couldn't do this. He just can't. But he looks at the fir tree painting and spies shades of green that fill him with longing. Enough to make him say quietly, "I'm upset...because I thought she trusted me. I'm upset that I've hurt her. And I guess I'm upset that it might be true."
The healer nods slowly, taking in George's words. He carefully sets aside his notes, steepling his fingers under his chin. He shrugs a little, wondering, "Do you really think Olive would knowingly be friends with someone that was malicious or evil?"
George's "No" is so vehement, so firm, that the healer smiles again. O'Connor tilts his head to the side slightly, "Do you think Olive would knowingly do business with someone that killed your brother?"
It hurts to hear, to listen to the healer say those words. Usually he would yell, he may tear the pillow in his lap into pieces. He may reach for the mocking hourglass and smash it against the fir tree painting made up of a world of green.
Something wet touches his cheek. George glances up at the ceiling, looking for a leak or a mangled hole in the ceiling that matches the one on the side of his head. His vision blurs, and he blinks away hot tears, wiping his face angrily with the back of his hand as he replies haughtily, "Of course not."
"Then what does it matter?"
What does it matter. George chews anxiously on the inside of his cheek, glancing around the office like a caged animal until Conor O'Connor murmurs, "Breathe, George. Talk to me."
"It feels like I can't get my feet under me," He growls through irritating tears. He swipes them away again, fighting the urge to pound his fists against his forehead to make them stop. He exhales slowly, tries to inhale and comes up short. He tries again, the humming growing and swelling in time with an orchestra of screams and laughter and broken sobs. Memories that made him envy Olive just for a moment.
Merlin, he misses her. He's just so fucking upset. So confused. He's so used to anger. He's used to being mad at the world. It was easier to be mad at her, upset with her, than it is to reconcile with the fact that his brother is gone and no amount of revenge or hatred will bring him back, "I feel like it should matter that she knows people that could be responsible for—"
He can't say it, he wants to be able to. But his teeth grit and his throat clamps up. Conor O'Connor nods slowly, asking gently, "Do you think Olive would care if you were the one that happened to know the person that hurt her?"
George stares at the healer, the humming in his ear almost painful. He knows what's coming. Usually O'Connor wouldn't push him so hard. But today, the healer is determined, "Do you think Fred would—"
"Stop," George blurts out, twisting the pillow in his hands tighter. Tighter. His chest feels so tight. He shakes his head, and that's the only answer the owl-like wizard will get from him. He can't say it. He won't.
Silence grips the office in cold hands, hands that squeeze tighter and tighter around George. He looks at the door. He could run. He could escape before he does something brash, like smashing the hourglass he's replaced time and time again.
Conor O'Connor sizes him up. George fears for a moment that the old wizard will push too hard again. But he doesn't. He seems to have become fluent in George's silent language. He leans back, adjusts his glasses again while smoothly reverting back to something George had already said, "You're upset because you thought she trusted you."
George exhales slowly, relieved to feel that cold hand gripping him loosen enough for him to rasp out, "Yes. I don't think she'll ever trust me now."
O'Connor quirks a brow, waving for him to continue. It takes a moment for him to be able to say quietly, "I think it will be a lot easier for her to remember me drunk and the shit things I said, than to remember the things that might have made me trust worthy."
"George," O'Connor chides, and George cant stop himself from rolling his eyes. He knows what the lecture will be, or at least he thinks he does. He doesn't even care. He is exhausted. Exhausted from carrying anger, from being upset. Exhausted from not sleeping since the last time he'd had a sunbeam spooning his back. Warming him from the inside out. Olive splashed color across the black and white life he'd been living in. Pinks he used to grimace at, yellows that made him roll his eyes, purple and orange that seemed childish. Green that used to hold so much pain, green that used to warn him of change instead of encouraging it.
"I think it's time for a new challenge."
His head whips up, eyes narrowing slightly. His healer smiles knowingly, smothering it with a closed fist before clearing his throat. George hesitates for a moment. He doubted this challenge would have to do with his brother. Not this time. But somewhere along the line, the fear of losing or hurting Olive had sidled right up alongside any thoughts of his brother.
"You think she might not remember how to trust you?"
George slowly nods, a sharp pang resonating deep in his soul. He didn't care if Olive didn't remember his birthday, if she didn't remember their first kiss or their first date. He didn't care, so long as she knew him. That she knew who he was, that she could tell him anything. He was the one that had forgotten that Olive was kind to a fault. That she had been kind to Angelina when it wasn't deserved. Olive had been kind to him when she should have been the opposite. She was sweet, so sweet that breakfast in bed and kisses from Franklin made her cry. He'd forgotten, he'd been the one that hadn't trusted that she wouldn't disappear.
Slow. Conor O'Connor had told him to take it slow, and when George had picked up the pace, he hadn't trusted that he wasn't a lone magpie that represented incessant bad luck.
What he and Ollie had....
Worth every sleepless night, every dreamless sleep, every drawn out mocking hour. It was worth it to be afraid. It was worth it to be terrified of losing her.
It meant he had something worth losing.
Conor O'Connor grins when George meets his eyes with a determined look. The healer even laughs when George scoffs, "Are you going to give me the sodding challenge? Or am I meant to make one up?"
"Fine," George's fingers slowly unfurl from where he's death gripping the pillow. O'Connor leans forward, "Remind her."
George blinks, throwing his hands in the air, "That's it? That's the fucking challenge, Doc? You don't have some fucking wisdom to impart?!"
Another laugh. George splutters exasperatedly. He needed wisdom. He needed help. He wasn't even sure how he'd gotten so close to Olive in the first place. It wasn't like he had Fred to bounce ideas off of anymore.
The healer finally sighs, wipes a tear away with his thumb. He slowly shakes his head with mirth, offering, "What drew you to Olive in the first place, George?"
"I...she knows me."
The healer nods, "She knows you. I'm assuming you don't mean your favorite color?"
George groans, swiping a hand over his flushed face. This was toeing the line of intimacy. Olive knew him intimately, mentally. She knew him, and he knew her.
"She went through a loss too. Maybe not a loved one, but maybe something equally as hard."
George nods at the healer's words. He can still vividly remember the first time she used B.F.D. He can remember. He wonders if she can, if she knows that it means the world that she doesn't push him. Another wave of guilt threatens to drown him. He had pushed her, had forced her to confront something she wasn't ready for.
Conor O'Connor's smile softens, "Remind her that sometimes you feel just as broken as she does. Maybe not in the same way, but you still feel it too. You remember how painful it was to even get to our acronym?"
He could remember that as vividly as he could remember Olive saying it. The healer had tried so hard to get George used to hearing Fred's name. But after the funeral it had been too painful, had stoked flames of rage that he thought would burn infinitely.
"Remind her that you can be a safe place for her when she's ready. Take it slow. Be mindful. You love her, George. Show her."
George slowly looks at the hourglass, waiting for the humming in his ear to grow. It doesn't. The rage doesn't come, the fear doesn't come. A challenge. One that was one of the most terrifying yet. George Weasley feels his lips twitch into a faint smile.
He and Fred had always taken pride in their outrageous gestures.
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