Just so you know, I think the song 'Haunted' by Taylor Swift perfectly describes Angelina's emotions. I added that song to this chapter, so if you have the time, listen to it. It's awesome. :)
Hope you'll enjoy this chapter!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*A few hours earlier*
“I got a letter from Hugo the other day, by the way.” Hermione chatted happily as they walked towards her house. They had just been shopping in the nearby muggle town, they usually got their non-magical supplies there, such as foods and drinks. Apparating wasn't very useful right then, as it was only a fifteen minute walk and the sun was shining bright, leaving the world with a colorful and positive look.
“You did?” Angelina answered. “No problems, I hope?”
“Not at all!” Hermione replied. “But he keeps on talking about a boy named Scorpius Malfoy...”
Angelina raised an eyebrow. “I hope he isn't as nice a lad as his dad?”
“Quite the contrary, if I should believe Hugo.” She shrugged. “I think they're like best friends at Hogwarts right now.”
“You have got to be kidding me!” Angelina exclaimed. “You don't think Malfoy's playing some kind of trick on Hugo, right?”
Hermione shook her head. “No, of course not. That's not something Draco would do, is it? He's always been more of the straight-to-the-point kind of guy. And I bet his son is just like that.”
Angelina was unconvinced.
“And besides,” Hermione added, “It's been ages since I've seen Draco for the last time. We've all grown up, and I think most of Draco's problems were due to his father. He didn't want to be involved in any of...” She hesitated. “Well, anything that happened to him.”
“But he has been a complete jerk for as long as I know him.” Angelina grinned.
“Yeah, that's true.” Hermione laughed. “But people change. I don't know if he changed the right way, but as long as his son's being nice to mine, I'm okay with it.” She shrugged again and walked on, swinging her bag to and fro.
“Well, you must be in a great mood.” Angelina smirked. “You just gave Draco Malfoy a compliment – sort of.”
Hermione looked back at her. “Ah well, you know what they say, right? Time heals all wounds.”
Angelina forced a smile, though she knew better than that. Hermione might be smart and sensible and completely logical in her way of thinking, but Angelina knew that she was wrong on that point. Time doesn't heal wounds. Not all of them.
Hermione opened the blue front door of her home with a 'click' and they stepped inside.
“Would you like some tea?” She asked as she pulled out her coat and walked towards the kitchen.
“I'd love to.” Angelina answered, mimicking her actions. She wasn't feeling as happy and carefree as ten minutes ago. Something was tugging her mind and she knew exactly what it was. It had been bothering her for some time now and it drove her crazy. Hermione's comment had only made matters worse.
Together they sat at the kitchen table, facing each other. Hermione took out her wand and waved it over the two teacups, cooling the liquid down to a drinkable temperature. They both took a sip and then Hermione looked Angelina in the eye, a serious look on her face.
O-oh.
“Did I say something wrong? You seem down again, would you just please tell me what is going on?” It didn't sound as a plead or an accusation, it was just a statement, a straight-forward question. The typical Hermione-way of putting things.
Angelina remembered when she was at the Wheezes, when Hermione had asked her what was bugging her. She hadn't wanted to let it all out back then, but maybe it was good to talk to Hermione about this. Maybe her plain logic was just what Angelina needed.
She sighed as she was trying to find the words. “It's just that I don't know what to do or think anymore.”
Great start, Angelina, she thought. I bet Hermione knows exactly what you're talking about right now.
However, Hermione put one hand on top of hers and smiled encouragingly.
“George is acting so... weird, lately.” Angelina went on. “It's like he's being two different people at the same time. One moment he's all normal and he talks to me about random things and he laughs and he smiles and actually looks at me when I'm talking to him, and the other moment... it's just like he is gone. Absent, somehow.”
Hermione raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean exactly?”
“I don't know.” Angelina's gaze focused on the wall behind Hermione, which was filled with pictures of little Hugo and Rose. She had always had problems with looking people in the eye while talking to them, especially in serious conversations. Like this one. She felt Hermione looking at her though, which even made her more reluctant to look at her. “Sometimes he doesn't even notice me. When I talk to him, he just doesn't answer or respond in any way.”
“So do you think he's in a depression or something like that?”
“What? No! He's not sad. On the contrary, he's smiling the entire time. The problem is,” Angelina took another breath before finishing her sentence, “he doesn't smile at me. He's happy and cracks jokes, but it seems like I'm missing the point of his words. Like he is in some other world where I can't reach him. And that scares me, I don't want to lose him. It feels like I'm losing my grip on him. I thought I had him figured out, that we'd left the past behind us, that the worst part of this was over, but –“
“But it's like everything changed the minute he got out of that forest.” Hermione stated.
Angelina finally returned Hermione's gaze, surprised. “Yes. Yes, exactly.”
Hermione took another sip of her tea, seeming quite content with herself. Who would have thought she was the one to understand how Angelina was feeling. It was weird, since Angelina had never been very close to Hermione, yet she felt like they had been capable of understanding each other for years, they just never really realised it. Angelina now knew she had a friend in Hermione, they weren't just both part of the Weasley family. There was some kind of connection between them.
“Ron noticed it too, George's behaviour. But I wouldn't worry about it too much, to be honest.” Hermione concluded. “I bet he didn't take in the situation with little Fred and the map lightly, but he'll come around. This is just his way of dealing with it.” She smiled another reassuring smile, squeezing Angelina's hand a bit.
Angelina responded with a slight smile. She knew she was probably overreacting, but the feeling she had wouldn't go away. This might be just some kind of 'phase' George had to go through, especially after the incident with the map, as Hermione had said, but Angelina was still afraid of losing him in the process.
Hermione apparently noticed her doubts. “He's happy, and you won't be left alone. You should know that.” She laughed. “I mean, let's be honest; George would rather eat a Blast-Ended Skrewt alive than leave you alone. He loves you.”
Angelina now focused her gaze on the floor. “Maybe you're right.” She agreed.
“Of course I'm right.”
Angelina let out a chuckle as they heard the front door open.
“We're home!” Ron's voice filled the house for a minute. Then they heard light footsteps and Rose appeared in the kitchen.
“Mum!” She yelled, running towards Hermione and hugging her tightly.
“Rose! How was school today?” Hermione quickly moved her teacup, preventing the little girl from knocking it over, and hugged her daughter back lovingly.
“It was fun!” Rose shrieked enthusiastically. “We got a map of Scotland and had to learn what all the places were called. But Hogwarts wasn't on the map, mum!”
Hermione laughed. “It wasn't? Now that's a bummer! You didn't tell your muggle teacher about that, did you?”
“No, you said it yourself, the muggle teacher wouldn't understand me anyway.”
“That's right!” Hermione padded her daughter's head.
“But I wanna go to Hogwarts, mum! And it's so unfair, Hugo is there already. I wanna go too!” The little girl pulled her mum's sleeve as she pouted.
“I know you want to, honey, but you'll get there soon enough! And the longer you wait, the more excited you'll get, the better it'll be when you finally get there!”
Rose did a little dance of joy and then went straight to the cookie-jar, completely content with her mother's wise words. Hermione just opened her mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by a loud noise coming from the second floor, the sound of iron and wood colliding, followed by a scream and the sound of... water?
Angelina and Hermione looked at each other, both confused. Little Rose giggled, a half-eaten cookie in her right hand.
“Ron? What in the name of Merlin are you doing?” Hermione yelled.
They heard a faint thump.
“I SWEAR I'M GOING TO KILL THE BLOODY GUY!”
All three of them jumped up and ran up the stairs, towards the shouting. The situation they walked into as they reached Ron and Hermione's bedroom was ridiculous. Ron stood in the doorway, his hair soaking wet and glued to his face. The rest of his body was drenched too, but that wasn't the only thing. Ron was covered in tiny white feathers from head to toe. It was a hilarious sight. Angelina couldn't help it and nearly choked of laughter. Two empty buckets lay unmoving on the ground. This was without a doubt another prank by George Weasley.
Hermione tried hard not to laugh, but failed miserably as Rose happily said: “Daddy! Daddy! You look like a chicken!”
He threw his daughter a semi-annoyed look. “Wait till I see George again, he's gonna pay for this.”
“What happened?” Hermione laughed, her hand covering her mouth.
“I just walked into our bedroom, the door was slightly ajar, so I pushed it open and then... BOOM. Those two bloody buckets fell on top of my head. And now I'm soaked.” He pointed at his clothes, stating the obvious.
The three girls were doubled up with laughter right now.
“You actually fell for a muggle prank!” Hermione managed to say.
“That's it, I'm gonna take a bloody shower.” He unsuccessfully tried to wipe away some of the feathers. “Let me tell you this, Rose, don't you ever trust uncle George with anything! Okay? Because uncle George can sometimes be a real pain in the –”
“DON'T SAY DIRTY WORDS, DADDY!”
Angelina still giggled to herself as she arrived back at her own home. Despite everything that was going on right now, George still managed to make her smile without even being with her. Maybe Hermione was right, maybe it wasn't all as bad as she thought. At least George smiled and pulled pranks again. Now it was her turn to tell him off for what he had done to his brother, though she strongly doubted whether she'd be able to do that without cracking a smile.
She stood in front of his office, just about to knock on the door, as something stopped her. George was talking to someone.
That's odd, he never let people inside his office.
Angelina got curious and wanted to open the door. Suddenly she heard George's voice loud and clear. It sounded sad, almost pleading.
““Please, Fred. Trust me, nobody can know about this, it would ruin everything. No one can know, not even Angelina.”
Her mouth fell open in shock, she moved slightly, which caused the door to open slowly. George was alone in his office, looking at her with an expression that probably matched her own.
The room was silent.
All the insecurities Angelina had had the past few weeks, all the questions came back at once, clouding her mind. Fred? Had he really said that? What was it she wasn't supposed to know? Why?
Ron's little chicken-issue was the last thing on her mind right now.
Now she knew she hadn't been overreacting. This was bad.
She was tired of running after George. She was tired of wondering what was going on. She was tired of fighting. She was just generally tired of being tired.
She needed to know what was going on. Now.
“No one can know what?” Her voice sounded hollow.
George opened his mouth and closed it again. He kept intertwining his fingers and didn't sit still for a second. Angelina looked at him firmly.
“It's – it's nothing. Angelina, just let it go.”
“I won't let it go! Don't you understand? I want to help you! Why did you say Fred's name? Who were you talking to? Please, George, just tell me.” Angelina's voice broke.
“Shut up!” George burst out suddenly.
Angelina was shocked. “What did you just say to me?” She was close to crying now. She felt George slipping away from her, keeping secrets – and there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening.
“No, no! Angelina! I wasn't talking to you!” George buried his face in his hands in frustration.
Angelina felt a tear stream down her cheek. This didn't make any sense at all. “Then who were you talking to?”
George kicked his chair and began pacing to and fro. He murmured to himself. “I told you so, I told you so. Now what?”
Angelina was unable to move, frozen into place she watched as George kept moving, thinking to himself, mumbling things under his breath.
Suddenly he turned around, looking her in the eye.
“If this goes wrong, I blame you.” He said. His voice was steady and passionless, though Angelina had that feeling again, that feeling that told her George wasn't talking to her. “Anyway,” he continued, “we've got something to admit.”